One of the great ironies of contemporary Reformed Church history is how ecclesiastical scammers and self-peddling sectarian bishops somehow tricked the entire Reformed establishment into believing they represent the last vestiges of authentic Calvinism, and are the philosophical children of Mercersburg. Nothing could be further from the truth, as will be shown.

The distinctions “high-church” and “low-church” originated in the Church of England, where those Churchmen with sympathies to ceremony, vestments, statuary, and things “Catholic” were dubbed “high-church”, and those with sympathies toward things such as tables in place of altars, Augustinian-predestination, and things “Calvinist” were dubbed “low-church”. Anglicanism unfortunately gets a bad reputation in Protestantism precisely because of the triumph of High-Churchmen, notably Archbishop William Laud and King “Charles the Martyr” of the 17th Century English Civil-War.

Today, the terms are frequently employed in reference to Calvinism. One such example is in regard to what one gentleman calls, “High-Church Puritanism”. This is, of course, in reference to Federal Vision theology. Federal Vision theology, or as some affectionately dub it -Wilsonianism- is passed off as “high-church” in Calvinist circles all across the United States, and to my knowledge, people have treated the subject by granting the claims of its proponents, and arguing to the contrary. However, no one should even grant them their claims of being “medieval” or “high-church” to begin with. That’s only playing into their hands.

What could be more low-church than:

1. Considering ordained a defrocked Presbyterian minister -as in the case of Robert Craig Sproul and Saint Peter Presbyterian Church.

2. Dishonoring the decision of ordained ministers (bishops/elders) in the RPCGA. And specifically with R.C. Jr., the bishops over you (so that “grow where planted” fallacy works against him in this case).

3. Accepting baptists into your communion (as the CREC does).

4. Tossing out your session, including Dr. Bob Calihan (an elder of Christ Church for a considerable amount of time -before Wilson changed his mind on baptism), and then appointing yourself and your town both the Calvin and Geneva of Reformed Christendom.

5. Start a sectarian “confederation”, which causes division and confusion in the body of Christ, almost solely for the purpose of promoting a more high-church Calvinism, a Calvinism that calls for submission to the bishop (schism to promote unity, resistance to promote submission -see a pattern here?)

6. Plagiarize Reformed Episcopal liturgies and try to pass off the doctrine of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion as a synonym for the Westminster Confession. Whereas Ray Sutton did the honorable thing and became an ordained bishop in the Reformed Episcopal Church, these men try and import the Book of Common Prayer into Presbyterian liturgy and doctrine -The Lord’s Service by Jeff Meyers is case-in-point (calls for the Church Calender, centrality of the Eucharist, etc.).

7. Almost all of them profess to submit the WCF, but not without taking exceptions at various points. That’s no sin....but, when you have an entire entourage of ministers taking exception to various articles of doctrine, it becomes almost irrelevant and is subject to all manner of theological and historical revisionism.

Steve Schlissel pastored a multicultural “Messiah Covenant Community Church” in New York -sounds positively medieval, don’t you think? Andrew Sandlin’s “church” practices “contemporary Christian worship”, and he has publically praised Bono’s “U2 Eucharists” (I’m pretty sure the CoTK in Santa Cruz is now independent, not even confederated anymore). Sproul Senior pastors an independent church. Both his son and Pope Wilson are renegade bishops, at best -defrocked rebels, at worst.

It is ironic that the man who wrote, “Mother Kirk”, went against his fellow elders at Christ Church, and while clinging to one doctrine he became convicted about, swept the rug out from under them and appointed himself pope of the newly-established Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches. “High-Church”, in Moscow terminology, doesn’t have to mean consistency, nor does it have to apply to church polity. In the minds of the leading contemporary proponents of “High-Church Puritanism” (i.e. Wilsonianism), one can be a congregationalist, independent, credobaptist, paedobaptist -take your pick. Anyone can be a “High-Church Puritan” -just throw yourself before the throne of Pope Wilson, and anything goes!