Irony Alert!

R. Scott Clark over at the Heidelblog has a new post on exclusive psalmody (i.e. that the only songs we should sing in church are psalms). The title is Reformed Churches are Scripture-Singing Churches and he has it tagged with "regulative principle". It isn't much of a post, just a brief statement and then some sections of the Canons of Dort.

If your congregation is in a confessional Reformed denomination/federation but it isn’t a Scripture-singing congregation, there’s a problem.

What really caught my attention was the "regulative principle" tag. What is the regulative principle?

The Regulative principle of worship in Christian theology teaches that the public worship of God should include those and only those elements that are instituted, commanded, or appointed by command or example in the Bible. In other words, it is the belief that God institutes in Scripture whatever he requires for worship in the Church, and everything else should be avoided.

The "regulative principle" is often contrasted with the normative principle of worship, which teaches that whatever is not prohibited in Scripture is permitted in worship, so long as it is agreeable to the peace and unity of the Church. In other words, there must be agreement with the general practice of the Church and no prohibition in Scripture for whatever is done in worship.

The regulative principle of worship is generally practiced by the conservative Reformed churches and in other conservative Protestant denominations, and it finds expression in confessional documents such as the Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confession of Faith. The normative principle of worship is the generally accepted approach to worship outside of Reformed circles as practiced by Anglicans, Methodists, Baptists, and independent Bible Churches.

I don't have a huge issue with exclusive psalmody, except where it is used (like in many of Clark's posts) as a club to beat down those who aren't in the "Truly Reformed Club". Now where the irony comes in is when you look at the regulative principle, and then look at infant baptism which Clark insists is an absolute essential to be in the "TR" club. You can try to make a case for infant baptism from covenantal theology but there is absolutely no example or command to baptize infants anywhere in the Bible. Where is the regulatory principle?

So apparently we can't sing How Great Thou Art in church because it isn't a psalm, but yet we can baptize infants without example or command. Which issue do you think is more important to God, giving the sign of the New Covenant to the proper recipient or singing just out of the Pslater Hymnal? Dr. Clark is a brilliant thinker and writer, but he has self-defined "Reformed" so narrowly that it borders on the ridiculous. He put out a full response to a question I asked, can someone not hold to infant baptism and be considered Reformed, to which his response was "no" and that discussion garnered over 100 comments and still going. That only makes sense if we use "Reformed" in the narrowest possible sense and define Reformed theology by the confessions, instead of Reformed Theology being the source of the confessions. Men were Reformed in theology before the Reformed confessions were written. This post demonstrates the danger of letting our confessions rule over the church instead of being an aid to the church. Confessions are vital to effective church governance, which Reformed Baptists agree with. But when every issue is viewed by the confessions to get the "TR" stamp of approval, it has gone too far.

Still looking for the command or example to baptize infants so paedobaptism can fit it in with the regulative principle...