Challenges Of Using Westminster Confession Practically
Challenges of Using the Westminster Confession Practically
The Westminster Confession of Faith, completed in 1646, stands as one of the most comprehensive Reformed doctrinal statements ever produced. Yet its very comprehensiveness and historical particularity create distinct challenges for contemporary application. These difficulties emerge not from defects in the Confession's theology but from the gap between seventeenth-century ecclesiastical contexts and modern church life.
Length and Systematic Scope
The Confession spans thirty-three chapters covering everything from Scripture's authority to civil magistrates' duties. This exhaustive treatment, while theologically valuable, presents immediate practical obstacles. A congregation seeking to adopt the Confession as a subordinate standard must grapple with detailed positions on topics ranging from effectual calling—where "God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call" [5]—to the specifics of marriage and divorce [6]. The sheer volume of doctrinal content requires sustained catechetical effort that many churches lack resources to provide.
This breadth also means that full subscription demands agreement on matters of varying theological weight. The Confession's treatment of transubstantiation as "repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense, and reason" [8] carries different pastoral urgency than its articulation of Christian liberty [4]. Churches must decide whether to require full subscription, subscription with exceptions, or some form of "system of doctrine" subscription—each approach creating its own interpretive challenges.
Historical and Cultural Distance
The Confession emerged from the Westminster Assembly's deliberations during the English Civil War, addressing controversies and ecclesiastical structures specific to that era. Chapter 31's provisions for "synods and councils" [1] presume a Presbyterian polity that may not map cleanly onto contemporary denominational structures. The Confession's framers wrote for a Christendom context where church and civil authority intersected in ways foreign to modern pluralistic societies.
This distance becomes acute in chapters addressing church-state relations and religious liberty. The original Confession granted civil magistrates authority over ecclesiastical matters that most contemporary Reformed churches reject. Even revised versions adopted by American Presbyterian bodies reflect assumptions about Christian cultural dominance that no longer obtain. Applying these sections requires either extensive qualification or frank acknowledgment that portions of the Confession address a vanished world.
Linguistic and Conceptual Barriers
Seventeenth-century theological vocabulary creates accessibility problems. The Confession's description of Scripture—noting "the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts" [2]—employs rhetorical conventions unfamiliar to modern readers. Terms like "effectual calling," "federal headship," and "imputation" require explanation even for educated church members. This linguistic gap means the Confession cannot function as a straightforward teaching document without substantial interpretive mediation.
The conceptual framework itself reflects scholastic Reformed theology's technical precision. While this precision serves theological clarity, it also demands philosophical literacy that contemporary congregations rarely possess. Understanding the Confession's treatment of good works—that they "are only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men" [10]—requires grasping the regulative principle's logic and its polemical context.
Interpretive Disputes Within Reformed Tradition
Even among those committed to confessional Reformed theology, the Westminster Confession generates ongoing interpretive debates. Charles Hodge noted controversies over whether the Confession teaches that only some infants dying in infancy are saved, observing that "Dr. Krauth labours to prove that the Westminster Confession teaches that only a certain part, or some of those who die in infancy, are saved" [9]. Such disputes demonstrate that the Confession's language, despite its careful formulation, remains subject to competing readings on pastorally significant questions.
These interpretive challenges multiply when churches attempt to apply confessional standards to contemporary ethical questions the framers never envisioned. The Confession provides a theological framework but not ready-made answers to issues involving medical technology, digital communication, or modern economic structures. Determining how confessional principles apply requires ongoing theological work that the document itself cannot perform.
Pastoral and Pedagogical Tensions
Using the Confession in congregational life creates practical tensions between doctrinal precision and pastoral accessibility. The document's technical language and systematic comprehensiveness serve theological students and church courts well but often overwhelm ordinary believers. Churches must balance the Confession's role as a doctrinal standard with the need for accessible catechesis, frequently producing simplified versions that sacrifice the original's precision.
The Confession's treatment of sacraments illustrates this tension. Its detailed exposition of the Lord's Supper [7, 8] provides theological depth but requires substantial teaching to make meaningful for congregants accustomed to less formal communion practices. Similarly, its chapter on Christian liberty [4] articulates important principles about freedom from "the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law," yet applying these principles to specific cases of conscience demands wisdom the Confession cannot directly supply.
Ecumenical and Denominational Complications
The Confession's specificity on controverted points creates challenges for ecumenical engagement and even intra-Reformed cooperation. Its explicit rejection of Roman Catholic eucharistic theology [8] and detailed positions on church government [1] can function as barriers to fellowship with Christians who share core Reformation commitments but differ on these matters. Churches must navigate between confessional integrity and the practical realities of cooperative ministry.
Within Reformed denominations, differing approaches to confessional subscription create institutional complexity. Some bodies require officers to affirm the Confession in its entirety; others permit stated exceptions; still others adopt only its "system of doctrine." These varying standards affect ministerial mobility, denominational identity, and theological education. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church's use of the Confession [3] differs in practical application from other Presbyterian bodies, even when the confessional text remains identical.
The Westminster Confession's enduring theological value coexists with real practical difficulties in contemporary application. Its comprehensive scope, historical particularity, and technical precision—the very features that make it a significant doctrinal achievement—also create obstacles for churches seeking to use it as a living standard. These challenges require ongoing interpretive work, careful catechesis, and honest acknowledgment of the distance between the Confession's original context and present realities.
Sources
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 31: CHAPTER 31 Of Synods and Councils 1. For the better government, and further edification of the church, there ought to be such assemblies as are commonly called synods or councils: and it belongeth to the overseers and other rulers of the particular churches, by virtue of their office, and the power which Christ hath given them for edification and not for destruction, to appoint such assemblies; and to convene together in them, as often as they shall judge it expedient for the good of the church. 2. It belongeth to synods and council”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 1 (part 2): and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God. 5. We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the church to an high and reverent esteem of the Holy Scripture. And the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is, to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby i”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), Confession of Faith: The Orthodox Presbyterian Church: Confession of Faith: The Orthodox Presbyterian Church The Orthodox Presbyterian Church What We Believe About the OPC Gospel Tracts Worldwide Outreach Worldwide Outreach Christian Education Foreign Missions Home Missions Ministries Chaplains and Military Personnel Ministerial Care Diaconal Ministries Planned Giving Historian Short-Term Missions Disaster Response Inter-Church Relations Standards Searchable Bible Confessions and Catechisms Book of Church Order Resources Church Directory Daily ”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 20 (part 1): CHAPTER 20 Of Christian Liberty, and Liberty of Conscience 1. The liberty which Christ hath purchased for believers under the gospel consists in their freedom from the guilt of sin, the condemning wrath of God, the curse of the moral law; and, in their being delivered from this present evil world, bondage to Satan, and dominion of sin; from the evil of afflictions, the sting of death, the victory of the grave, and everlasting damnation; as also, in their free access to God, and their yielding obedience unto him, not out of ”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 10: CHAPTER 10 Of Effectual Calling 1. All those whom God hath predestinated unto life, and those only, he is pleased, in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call, by his Word and Spirit, out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation, by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God, taking away their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 24: CHAPTER 24 Of Marriage and Divorce 1. Marriage is to be between one man and one woman: neither is it lawful for any man to have more than one wife, nor for any woman to have more than one husband, at the same time. 2. Marriage was ordained for the mutual help of husband and wife, for the increase of mankind with legitimate issue, and of the church with an holy seed; and for preventing of uncleanness. 3. It is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with judgment to give their consent. Yet it is the duty of Christians t”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 29 (part 1): CHAPTER 29 Of the Lord’s Supper 1. Our Lord Jesus, in the night wherein he was betrayed, instituted the sacrament of his body and blood, called the Lord’s Supper, to be observed in his church, unto the end of the world, for the perpetual remembrance of the sacrifice of himself in his death; the sealing all benefits thereof unto true believers, their spiritual nourishment and growth in him, their further engagement in and to all duties which they owe unto him; and, to be a bond and pledge of their communion with him, and wit”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 29 (part 2): which maintains a change of the substance of bread and wine, into the substance of Christ’s body and blood (commonly called transubstantiation) by consecration of a priest, or by any other way, is repugnant, not to Scripture alone, but even to common sense, and reason; overthroweth the nature of the sacrament, and hath been, and is, the cause of manifold superstitions; yea, of gross idolatries. 7. Worthy receivers, outwardly partaking of the visible elements, in this sacrament, do then also, inwardly by faith, really and in”
- CCEL (Reformed (Old Princeton)) “Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, Vol. 3, section 66: its Theology, as represented in the Augsburg Confession, and in the History and Literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. By Charles P. Krauth, D. D., Norton Professor of Theology in the Evangelical Lutheran Seminary, and Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy in the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. 1871 , pp. 431. We are sorry to see that Dr. Krauth labours to prove that the Westminster Confession teaches that only a certain part, or some of those who die in infancy, are saved; this he does by”
- Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed) “Westminster Confession of Faith (Reformed, 1646), CHAPTER 16 (part 1): CHAPTER 16 Of Good Works 1. Good works are only such as God hath commanded in his holy Word, and not such as, without the warrant thereof, are devised by men, out of blind zeal, or upon any pretense of good intention. 2. These good works, done in obedience to God’s commandments, are the fruits and evidences of a true and lively faith: and by them believers manifest their thankfulness, strengthen their assurance, edify their brethren, adorn the profession of the gospel, stop the mouths of the adversaries, and glorify God, wh”