Last Friday (Jan. 5th) a friend and fellow minister in our Presbytery called to tell me that he had received an email about me from two other OPC ministers who alleged that I am “trending in an FV [Federal Vision] direction.” Several days later our Session received copies of the two email threads in question. The emails were originally sent on January 1st. As of this date (Jan. 10th), neither of the original authors have contacted me or any of our ruling elders to share their concerns or inform us that they were forwarding them to members of the Presbytery.
The emails take issue with some of my sermons that the authors deemed unclear. For example, a concern was raised about one sermon which “has an unguarded expression ‘Your children are Christians, God's saints.’” The minister communicating the concern commented: “[Joel] is a little more sanguine about children than I am, though again, here his position is not all that different from Kuyper.” The same man comments at several places that my expressions are “not the usual way FV writers speak.” He concedes that he “might quibble here a bit… but [Joel’s] position on this point is hardly heretical.” He also notes a couple of places in which statements in sermons were “a little unclear.” At no point is a clear transgression of the Westminster Standards or chargeable offense identified.
The claim that I am “trending in an FV direction” arose from communication by an ROPC member who noted our use of covenant renewal worship, allowing young children to profess faith, my writing for Kuyperian Commentary, and my views on paedocommunion. One of the ministers who sent the emails said he knew me “when sounder” and had “come to have my concerns over him in recent years.” He says he knew I “was becoming ‘Moscow friendly’” and was not surprised I was moving further in that direction. He did not mention those concerns to me when we spoke in person in the last year.
The two men who compiled and sent these emails are well-known and highly respected OPC ministers in other Presbyteries. They are also moderators on a popular Reformed social media platform. Both of them are personally known to me. I have known one of them since 2017 and the other for about three years. Though neither have contacted me, their concerns have been formally communicated as indicated by the sender’s affirmation: “I hand this over to you as members of our brother’s presbytery.”
Am I becoming “Federal Vision”? I suppose that depends on what that allegation means. Some people say this or that is Federal Vision and expect Reformed Christians simply to accept that it is a compromise of the gospel, even if many of them cannot explain what “Federal Vision” theology is or why and how it departs from the biblical gospel and historic Reformed orthodoxy.
If this were 2003-2007, then I probably would be classified with the infamous “Federal Vision” camp. I share many of the emphases and concerns discussed by the men who were originally associated with the conferences and essays from which the name was taken. I affirm the content of the “Joint Statement on Federal Vision” put together in 2007. I believe many of the concerns those men raised are consistent with Scripture and with earlier forms of Reformed theology. I think what is often called “Federal Vision” is not a departure from but, in most cases, a faithful exposition of or at least consistent with the historic Reformed confessions. But “Federal Vision” has never been monolithic. I do not agree with everything or everyone associated with the Federal Vision, and the men originally associated with it do not agree on everything either. I do not believe men like James Jordan, Peter Leithart, Doug Wilson, Rich Lusk, and Steve Wilkens are heretics, and I do not believe denouncing them is required to prove one’s orthodoxy, but that is considered suspicious or objectionable by many critics of the “Federal Vision.”
There are some issues on which I have changed my mind in the last few years. There are other issues concerning which, although my convictions have not changed, my teaching and explanations have become clearer. There is a third category of issues regarding which my convictions have always been what some people call “Federal Vision.” I simply did not know it. I thought those positions were simply biblical and reformed orthodoxy. I still do. I have not always been consistent. For the first few years after I joined the OPC in 2016, I affirmed that Federal Vision theology was wrong, involving a hyper-objective view of the Covenant of Grace and sacraments. I did not understand what that meant—I thought I did—but I was sincere in repeating what I had heard men whom I respected say.
My teaching is public. ROPC has a large following online. It is not hard to find out what I believe or teach, and I am not hard to find. I hear regularly from men and women I have never met from all over the world who have listened to my sermons, read my articles, and have questions to ask or appreciation to share. I am disappointed that the OPC ministers who have decided I am “an FV problem in the OPC” did not reach out to me to share their concerns before informing men in my Presbytery. If and when they or others have questions and concerns they want to discuss, I will be happy to listen to and answer them.
–Joel Ellis on behalf of the ROPC Session (January 10, 2024)
RE Bruce Blair, TE Joel Ellis, RE Rich Pudleiner,
RE John Shih, RE Michael Southard, RE Michael Williams
