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# The Triumph of Confessionalism in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/the-triumph-of-confessionalism-in-the-evangelical-presbyterian-church/
- Published: 2026-10-07T11:00:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-07T11:00:56.000Z
- Description: It actually is possible to meld a spirit of charity and irenicism with deep confessionalism.
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Cameron Shaffer, Church, Theology

My home denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), had an interesting summer. The EPC is a denomination of roughly 125,000 people that has gone through an uncharacteristically contentious season as we debated the issue of same-sex attraction and ordination. We’re small potatoes in the landscape of American Protestantism, even compared to our sister Presbyterian and Reformed churches, so why should anyone outside our small denominational enclave care about our internal debates? Because the EPC has historically prized being a broad, relaxed evangelical denomination that happens to be Reformed, yet brought resolution to this debate by privileging our historic confessional standards.

2026 marks the triumph of confessionalism in the EPC. That shift provides a case study showing that an evangelical spirit of charity, for which the EPC is well known, can be held together with a commitment to a robust theological witness, which in turn allows the church to navigate an increasingly morally complex world with biblical faithfulness.

First, what is confessionalism? C. S. Lewis famously introduced *Mere Christianity* metaphorically, comparing the Christian faith to a house. Each room in the house represents different Christian traditions, furnished with all their distinctive beliefs and practices. The hallways connecting the rooms in the house, on the other hand, represent the basics of the Christian faith common to all true believers and churches. Lewis points out that people aren’t supposed to live in hallways, but in their rooms, although the hallways serve the all-important purpose of connecting the rooms so that they share the one house.

American evangelicalism is generally content to live in the hallway, usually with minimal doctrinal statements only touching the core elements of the Christian faith, or perhaps including a distinctive practice or view for their congregation (e.g. believer’s baptism, the return of Christ). The benefit to this prioritizing of the core is that it allows evangelical churches to cast as broad a net as possible for inclusion, avoids staking out sectarian positions, and grants pastors greater flexibility in articulating their own views (of course, this version of evangelicalism is itself a room, just sparsely furnished, its minimalism a form of position-staking that it is only “non-sectarian” in comparison to other evangelicals and Protestants). Evangelicalism asks what the center of the Christian faith is, and then makes that center its home.

Confessionalism, by contrast, asks “How does scripture direct us to furnish the *whole* room?” Confessionalism is an approach to faith and practice that strives to provide a holistic witness to scripture’s teaching, not just on the core topics, but by professing how those topics are interconnected within the larger scope of the Bible’s own message. Confessional churches codify this belief in written confessions of faith. Whereas the doctrinal statements of evangelical churches aim at what is *central*, confessional churches aim at what the Bible presents as the *whole*. That’s not to say that confessional churches presume to address every iota of what the Bible covers or that every subject is equally important, but that their confessions of faith accurately capture, as in the traditional words of American Presbyterian ordination vows, the *system* of doctrine taught in the scriptures.

Historically churches in the Reformed (Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dordt), Presbyterian (Westminster Confession and Catechisms), and Lutheran (Augsburg Confession and the larger Book of Concord) traditions have been confessional in their orientation, with some Anglican churches emphasizing their confession (39 Articles of Religion) and some Baptist congregations subscribing to a confession (e.g. Second London Baptist Confession). A quick perusal of these confessions reveals that they are longer, far more detailed, and more systematic in articulation of biblical teaching than evangelical statements of faith. 

There are limits to confessionalism, of course. All of these documents are several centuries old and emerge from Europe, reflect some now-irrelevant historical and cultural peculiarities, neglect some pressing subjects (e.g. slavery), miss some of the insights the church has gleaned from scripture in the intervening years, are silent on new developments (e.g. AI), and risk functionally subordinating scripture to the church’s confession of faith instead of expressing what the church believes scripture teaches on its own terms. 

Yet, for all that, confessionalism expresses that the church is reformed by God through his word, and that reformation touches not just the core elements of the faith, but all that God has revealed by his word for faith and practice. And the confessional tradition is the church — not just individual people, pastors, or parishes — *confessing* what the word of God says to the family of God. Confessionalism is the church committing to radically and faithfully follow the whole of scripture in the whole of its life and witness: a confession of faith is a normative standard of belief itself normed by God’s word. And while incomplete in their content, the confessions’ systematic structure allows the church to extrapolate their principles by good and necessary consequence for faithful application to subjects not expressly addressed in a way that is scripturally coherent. The church is a living organism in a changing world, and while confessions of faith are themselves unchanging, they allow the church to consistently speak into the gaps.

And there are gaps, and these gaps need to be addressed by churches. 

Denominations and networks pursue unity around belief to some degree, regardless of whether they hold to a confession or simple statement of faith. Confessional churches have the advantage in that there is a pre-existing, shared biblical framework by which they are equipped to speak into the gaps. In these cases, the way that different, additional subjects are addressed is understood to be either an extension of confessional logic, or something subordinate to the confession and therefore not as critical. For instance, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms are silent on the issues of domestic abuse. Yet, the pre-existing, shared confessional logic on marriage and the protection of life (among other salient points) allows the EPC to articulate a position on domestic abuse that flows from our confessional standards. On issues of polity, every church or denomination needs to have some kind of organization. The Westminster Confession and Catechisms are silent on the nature of the office of deacon, and so while the EPC needs to address that confessional gap in our polity, the way we handle our organization is culturally subordinate because of our confessional center of gravity.

Whenever a church or denomination with a minimal statement of faith is confronted by an issue that goes beyond their statement of faith, that gap is still going to get filled. Sometimes that may look like adding another bullet point to the statement, but oftentimes it looks like either adopting a position *alongside* their statement of faith, or the leader’s personal beliefs directing the church, or letting the church settle into a position by cultural default. When this occurs, the identity of the church becomes the center of the faith-plus … whatever the issue is, and the addition tends to become the identity marker that distinguishes the church. 

For instance, during the temperance movement, abstinence from alcohol became something added to the statements of faith, or became the cultural default, and then later became a distinguishing, driving feature of congregations ([an issue that confessional churches were able to effectively address](https://www.modernreformation.org/resources/articles/christianity-and-politics?ref=mereorthodoxy.com)). Today, immigration can function like this, where churches or their pastors or members may emphasize the importance of law and order and borders on the one hand, or the generous welcome of the immigrant on the other. This political or cultural posture of the church then becomes its defining feature. Sometimes the gaps are filled by prioritizing less important subjects compared to the core of the faith or by adding them alongside the statement of belief. Sometimes they are filled by theology and church life essentially being reduced to a certain sort of vibe. Of course, these sorts of shared cultural instincts arise in confessional churches as well, but they have a built-in immune system from their confessional structure to keep these instincts properly ordered (even if that does not always occur perfectly in practice).

And this is why the EPC matters. We are a denomination committed to being Reformed, evangelical, presbyterian, and missional, and since our founding have held these streams together by our confessional and doctrinal statements. Like other presbyterian churches, we subscribe to the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms because we believe they faithfully adhere to scripture’s overall teaching — confessionalism! Yet, since our beginning we have also had a much shorter document called “The Essentials of Our Faith” based on Campus Crusade’s evangelical statement of faith ([itself an evangelicized derivative of the Westminster Confession of Faith](https://www.google.com/books/edition/Bill%5FBright%5Fand%5FCampus%5FCrusade%5Ffor%5FChris/4Y57AYuZ6rEC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=westminster&pg=PA78&printsec=frontcover&ref=mereorthodoxy.com)). The intent was to have both a robust confession and an evangelical statement that summarizes the essential, core elements of the Christian faith in order to maintain both high doctrinal standard and a relaxed atmosphere. That really captures well the ethos of the EPC, sometimes called the “Enjoyable” Presbyterian Church: relaxed, kind, and committed.

However, having two doctrinal statements inevitably invites tensions between whether we privilege a more typically Reformed robust, full-scope confession of scripture’s teaching or a simpler, standardized core of evangelical belief. For most of the EPC’s history these two standards worked as parallels, tending towards a privileging of the “Essentials.” This minimalism became an identifying feature of the EPC: Unity in the Essentials, Liberty in the Non-Essentials — with “non-essential” functionally being any doctrine affirmed in the Westminster Standards not covered in the “Essentials” statement. The core of the EPC’s culture matched the core “Essentials”, but of course that leaves gaps. Those gaps were often filled by an emphasis on devout piety, so that essential evangelical belief and godly character became our defining features. Oftentimes, the fear in the EPC was that prioritizing our confessional standards would kill the friendly, relaxed culture of the church. 

Then came the debate over same-sex attraction and ordination. The presenting issue was whether someone who was committed to the historic, orthodox, biblical practice and view that sex is reserved for marriage between a man and woman, yet who still struggles with same-sex attraction, could be ordained. 

A minimal statement of faith and sincere piety is insufficient to answer this.

This is a gap, and minimalism can’t cut it: either a new doctrinal point will be added alongside the essential core, or the culture will de facto make a new position normative. Either way it will become a defining feature. In this particular case, filling the gap could happen from multiple, knee-jerk directions, either by responding in legalistic fear or with a misplaced charity which accommodates licentiousness.

Instead, the EPC elected to pursue the issue on confessional grounds. This went beyond the paperwork (the final documents included as many quotes and references to the Westminster Standards as all the EPC’s previous Position Papers and Pastoral Letters combined), but an aggressive commitment to handle the debate by following-through on confessional logic.

Specifically, it was shaped by the biblical, Westminsterian treatment of these issues: 

- the fall in Eden brought about the conditions of sin (individual moral corruption and guilt) and misery (we are broken, and suffering, including in our bodies and relationships, and this continues in this life even after salvation);
- concupiscence (sin’s impulses in human hearts are themselves sin, as are sinful desires);
- remaining sin (sin and its impulses remain in the Christian the rest of their life and is the source of all our sinful desires and actions);
- sanctification (the Christian is holy in Christ, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and therefore there is a lifelong war in them between remaining sin and holiness, a conflict which graciously progresses towards Spirit-empowered victory over remaining sin);
- repentance (all of the Christian life is one of repentance, and that includes repenting of remaining sin, its impulses, and desires);
- mortification (we are alive in Christ and dead to sin and therefore must fervently be killing sin, even as it remains with us all our lifelong);
- and temptation (temptations come upon us due to our remaining sin, broken world, and Satan; the experience of temptation is not itself a sign of unrepentance, and all temptations must be fled).

A key summary came from Westminster Larger Catechism Q&A 78:

> Q. Whence ariseth the imperfection of sanctification in believers? A. The imperfection of sanctification in believers ariseth from the remnants of sin abiding in every part of them, and the perpetual (*lifelong*) lustings (*desires*) of the flesh against the spirit; whereby they are often foiled with temptations, and fall into many sins, are hindered in all their spiritual services, and their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.

Christ by his Spirit *may* remove any thorns in the flesh, sources of temptation, or particular desires and impulses that arise from remaining sin, but this is neither promised nor guaranteed in this life. The expectations for progress in holiness is not that remaining sin and its impulses are *extinguished* in this life, but that their power over the Christian is *subdued* as the Christian denies, kills, and flees from them in repentance and mortification by the grace and power of Christ by his Spirit. Nor are there are separate biblical rules of sanctification for same-sex attraction. So, homosexual desires are sinful and need to be denied, repented of, mortified/killed, and the temptation to them fled. Growth in sanctification does not mean that the underlying remaining sin that gives rise to sinful same-sex desires will disappear, or that temptations to same-sex attraction will cease. The EPC’s application of this is that the mere existence of a struggle with same-sex attraction does not by itself rule out someone from ordination. The standard for ordination in the EPC is that officers are above reproach: conforming to Christ’s character and his word as expressed in our biblical, Reformed, confessional standards, in character, conduct, and self-description as godly examples to the church of this growth in repentance, righteousness, and holiness.

Now, critically, the debate in the EPC occurred on the terrain of our confessional standards, not the “Essentials” or appeals to generalized evangelical pietism. Even those who dissented from the EPC’s conclusions made their arguments on confessional grounds. Whether or not the above interpretation of scripture and our confessions is accurate, a minimalized statement of core belief is clearly inadequate to assist a church reasoning through the biblical witness pertinent to this subject.

However, roughly 35 churches (\~5% of the EPC’s total congregations) are planning to depart, with some going to one of two newly formed denominations/networks of churches. Notably, both these two new groups place the Westminster Confession and Catechisms on a level alongside an assortment of other topics as their defining characteristic: whenever the gap is not filled from confessional logic, whatever does fill the gaps by default becomes central to their identity. The center of the faith, plus. And so now the prohibition against ordaining anyone with ongoing struggle against same-sex attraction — regardless of their character, holiness, repentance, conduct, and self-description —is a core identity marker of these churches. 

Yet with the EPC, this summer represents a key shift in our life, with the Westminster Confession and Catechisms properly privileged in practice as *the* confession of the church’s faith. The “Essentials” no longer function as a parallel standard, but a subordinate statement of belief that needs to be understood in light of our true confession of faith. The future of the EPC is confessional.

So again, why should the larger church care about the EPC’s debate? [Evangelist Glen Scrivener recently noted](https://youtu.be/RiveTBEqb1c?si=p26JPpFgxJPaMvYo&ref=mereorthodoxy.com) that mere Christianity is over. Previously, focusing a church’s message and distinctive features exclusively on the core elements of the faith was perceived as advantageous so as to minimize barriers. But now the world is craving something more comprehensive and robust. The confessional tradition has a ready-made answer for that need since we are seeking to confess what God is saying in the whole of his word, for the whole of life, for the whole of the world. 

And despite fears that prioritizing confessionalism would kill the EPC’s ethos, even our recent debates were conducted in a respectful and charitable manner. We are still the Enjoyable Presbyterian Church. Being confessionalist does not have to mean being angry or pedantic. The EPC has provided the larger church a picture of a robust and relaxed witness of God’s grace to the world.