In December 1973, Dr. Morton H. Smith was elected the first Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America. This new denomination of conservative Southern Presbyterians had been formed as the result of a break from the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). The movement towards a split from the PCUS had been many years in the making, and a plan of union that was struck between the liberal PCUSA and the PCUS hastened the secession from the PCUS by its conservative members.
In his book, How is the Gold Become Dim, Dr. Smith seeks to lay out his argument for the postulation that the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. has deteriorated with regard to her faithfulness to the truth. The book perhaps serves as a final defense of the impending secession of many southern Presbyterian Churches from the PCUS, and for the resultant formation of the PCA, of which Dr. Smith would serve as first stated clerk. In fact, it could be concluded that the claim of the PCUS to the title Church is in dispute at the point of the writing of Dr. Smith’s book.
The book is laid out as a series of arguments, or illustrations, which seek to prove the postulation. Although the chronological succession of events is not disregarded, the historical progression is not the method of chronicling the fall of the PCUS. Instead, Dr. Smith lays out his arguments categorically. Interestingly, this book begins its account with the development of the PCUS which was the result of the dissolution of union within the PCUSA in 1837, and is written in the midst of consideration of a split within the PCUS itself (1973). Also noteworthy is the presence of numerous grammatical and spelling errors in the first edition of the book. These are not indicative of the author’s sloth or lack of concern, but of the haste with which the work was produced due to the environment of impending schism.
The first chapter of the Westminster Standards addresses the church’s view of Holy Scripture. This is so because all that follows is derived from the doctrines revealed in God’. The fall of the PCUS is documented by Dr. Smith then, as a departure, first and foremost, from Scripture and from the Constitution of the Church, the Westminster Standards. As he states, “Since the view of Scripture held by the Church is basic to all of its actions, we shall consider this matter first” (25). Further, he writes, “All those actions that cause the Bible believing Presbyterian grief and sorrow in the PCUS today are rooted in a low view of the Bible itself” (26).
The departure from Scripture by the PCUS is seen in the actions of, and statements made by, the General Assembly as well as by many of the working groups of the denomination. Early in its history, the PCUS affirmed the plenary, verbal inspiration and infallibility of Scripture. “By the 1930s, however, a new spirit was found in the Church,” notes Dr. Smith (26). As proof of this low view of the authority of Scripture, Dr. Smith points to a paper recorded in the minutes of the 1972 Assembly which was titled, “The Meaning of Doctrinal Loyalty in the Ordination Vows.” In its opening section, the paper treats what loyalty to the authority of Scripture as the only rule of faith and life means. “The position of the paper is that ‘Neither by the Reformers nor in the Westminster Standards was it used in the strict literal sense of affirming the Bible as the only authority to govern Christian belief’” (27). “The Committee concludes, ‘The authority is thus a complex including the Bible, the Church, human reason and experience, all subject to God Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit” (27). Whereas the 1972 Assembly seems to accept each of these sources as of equal authority, Dr. Smith seeks to defend the view of the Westminster Standards as “not making each of these a separate authority, but pointing out how a man comes to accept the Bible as authoritative” (27). Going on in his criticism of the paper’s conclusion, Dr. Smith notes, “[The] inner witness of the Spirit to the person does not add any content to the revelation that the Spirit has given to the Bible. Rather, it opens the eyes of the individual so that he can see that the Bible is the very Word of God” (28).
Perhaps the best section of this chapter begins on page thirty-two wherein Dr. Smith defends orthodox Christianity’s high view of the authority of Scripture from the straw man set up in the paper that “Scripture is without any error of any kind on any subject, however minor or peripheral, is neither supported by convincing evidence nor required in Reformed doctrine” (32). In three points, Dr. Smith deftly handles this argument by restating that: first, “Orthodox Christianity maintains the infallibility only for the original autographs” (32), second, “It is the position of the Westminster Confession that the originals were all inspired by God and therefore, the infallible rule of faith and practice” (33), and third, “The Scripture itself teaches that it is an infallible Scripture” (33).
With this departure from an orthodox understanding of the authority of Scripture, it should come as no surprise that the denomination also struggled to maintain a consistent view of the Constitution of the Church. As is assessed in the book, “The question before us is not the matter of what is necessary for Christian belief, but what is necessary for one to hold, if he is to become an officer in the PCUS” (42). The question of subscription to the Westminster Standards has been a challenge for American Presbyterianism almost since its formal beginning in the early seventeen-hundreds. What is surprising is the acute lack of rationality of such a view. On the one hand, American Presbyterianism has made a number of efforts to develop ecumenical partnerships, quite a number of them unwisely. On the other hand, however illogically, it has sought a broad unity within the Church while re-interpreting, or ignoring altogether, that document which forms the cohesive bond between brothers. In other words, it is to say, “In the interest of unity, I am willing to disrupt the peace.” Dr. Smith summarizes this well when discussing the move of the 1961 General Assembly to rule that capital punishment was out of accord with the Constitution of the Church, saying, “If the highest Court itself will not abide by its own Constitution, then the rule in the Church becomes that of the majority, and not that of the objective constitutional standards to which all agree, when they enter into membership, and to office in the church…such action nullifies the whole constitution of the body politic” (63). He further notes, “One wonders how long a body politic can remain together, when its bond of union, namely, its Constitution is so blatantly set aside in such an unconstitutional way” (126).
This “updated” view of the Constitution of the Church had become the majority position of the PCUS by the second and third decades of the twentieth-century. The denomination therefore went about revising the Westminster Confession in order to improve its sensibility to issues of that day. Some of the more egregious updates were intended to soften the Calvinism of the denomination, particularly with regard to the doctrine of limited atonement, and to become more inclusive of extra-biblical revelation in light of the emerging charismatic movement.
The view of the Assembly moved toward what it felt were biblical principles, such as the principle of forgiveness as held out in the 1950’s attempt to broaden standards for divorce and marriage, than on the explicit texts of Scripture and the historic position of the church Fathers. Dr. Smith writes that “they have substituted something they speak of as the ‘Spirit and total teachings of our Lord’ as their standard. These are their subjective ideas as to what those teaching should be. This shows a definite departure from the Bible as the objective standard for faith and practice” (55).
By the early 1970s, the PCUS was a sick denomination. This sickness was not sudden, but was almost 40 years in development. The final straw for the conservative members of the denomination was the plan of union between the PCUS and the liberal PCUSA. Therefore these members, after the publication of the first edition of this book, chose to withdraw and formed the PCA. He offers two principles from this experience that all ministers and members should heed: (1) “All who believe in the Bible, and are committed to the Reformed Faith, must weep over such a defection from the faith” (199), and (2) “[One] dare not remain in any body that causes [him] to sin” (201). “Separation from the Church visible is not a thing to be done lightly” (202). After over forty-years of patience with increasing defection from the revealed will of God, one can sincerely conclude that the conservative members of the PCUS demonstrated their belief in this principle. In the end, however, one must acknowledge the separation that has already occurred, for those who went out from us, are not of us.
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