BOOK REVIEW:
Presbyterian Beliefs: A Brief Introduction. By Donald K. McKim. Louisville, Kentucky: Geneva Press, 2003. xvi + 126 pp. (paperback). ISBN 978-0664502539. 

Donald K. McKim is Academic and Reference Editor for Westminster John Knox Press and has authored and edited a number of books on Presbyterianism and the Reformed faith. Presbyterian Beliefs: A Brief Introduction presents itself as a study book such as for an adult Sunday school class. Its thirteen chapters, with “Questions for Discussion” at the end of each, are on revelation, Trinity, creation, providence, humanity, sin, Christology, Holy Spirit, election and predestination, salvation by grace, church, Christian life, and the future life. The book includes ample quotations from the Bible (NRSV), Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion, and The Book of Confessions.

Despite the stated purpose of clarity (p. ix), Presbyterian Beliefs deals in an ambiguity. No sooner has McKim written, “My desire is to communicate the major elements of Presbyterian beliefs,” than he also writes, “My goal is to unpack these words and to say as plainly as possible what Presbyterians believe” (p. ix). But there is, of course, a difference between Presbyterian beliefs and what Presbyterians believe. The first is objective, the second is subjective. The first is official, the second is actual. The first is written, the second often is not. The first is normative, the second experiential. The first is finite, the second is indeterminately large. One can hope that the two are related. But in order to understand that relationship, one must be clear about their distinctiveness as well as their relatedness.

Instead, McKim writes about Presbyterian beliefs and what Presbyterians believe so as to equate them. “This is a book for those interested in Presbyterian beliefs. . . . Perhaps you . . . have wondered what views these people hold” (p. xi). “This book is to introduce Presbyterian beliefs in a simple and straightforward way . . . a concise statement of the major theological viewpoints that Presbyterians hold” (p. xi). It would be helpful to sort this out. Thankfully, the book proceeds by quoting the confessions, not by polling Presbyterians. But once the distinction is blurred, the normative character of the confessions is undercut. They are reduced to the merely descriptive.

Moreover, once McKim has reduced the confessions to being descriptive, it is not difficult for him to regard the Scriptures as merely descriptive and perhaps deficiently so. “Humans are complex persons. We know this now, in our own experience, in ways far different from and beyond what biblical writers envisioned” (p. 38). That is to say, experience trumps revelation, and we now know better than the authors of the Bible.

Given this reductionism, it should not be surprising that the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the Lord’s Prayer, though they are dealt with extensively in the confessions and catechisms, are much neglected in this book. The Apostles’ Creed is mentioned once in the chapter on the Trinity (p. 16). The chapter on Christology quotes question and answer 45 from the Heidelberg Catechism, and the chapter on the future life quotes question and answer 52, which are explications of phrases from the Apostles’ Creed, though this latter is not indicated (pp. 60, 121). The chapter on Christian life mentions, but does not expound upon, the Ten Commandments (pp. 106-107). There is no mention of the Lord’s Prayer in the chapter on worship, because there is no chapter on worship. Preaching and the sacraments are mentioned (pp. 95-102) in the chapter on church, but prayer is not. Worship and prayer are included as aspects of Christian life (pp. 104-106), but the Lord’s Prayer is not. These three documents go far beyond Presbyterianism, but Presbyterian beliefs can hardly be understood apart from them.

One practical consequence of reducing the confessions and the Scriptures to being descriptive instead of normative and of avoiding the three summary documents of the Christian faith is that while the chapter on Christian life purports to be about sanctification, obedience is mentioned only in general terms. Thus the book avoids dealing with the particular questions vexing the church today.

It is telling that the suggestions “For Further Study” include two books by Shirley C. Guthrie, two by Jack Rogers, and two by Louis B. Weeks, but only one by John Calvin and only one by John H. Leith. 

James C. Goodloe IV
Pastor
Grace Covenant Presbyterian Church, Richmond, VA

PUBLISHED IN THE BULLETIN OF THE INSTITUTE FOR REFORMED THEOLOGY, SPRING 2008, VOL. 8, #1.