"The stage is set for potential pastoral tyranny"

At Ref 21, Dr. Trueman has a series on the importance of confessions for churches. In part 2 he considers "the way in which [confessions] bind elders and people together by setting the terms of their relationship and provide the necessary foundation of a relationship built on transparency and accountability." He explains, "If a church has no confession, or has a confession that is so minimal that it does not touch in significant ways on a relatively comprehensive set of topics covering Christian doctrine and life, [or, I might add, if a church has a solid, biblical confession and the elders choose to ignore it], the stage is set for potential pastoral tyranny. What Trueman writes is always worth reading, and both parts of this series ("I Confess") are valuable.

The Souls of Women

I'm currently editing a book of historic Reformed confessions, and this comes from an eastern Hungarian confession from 1567:

First, women have souls, for these reasons: First, because they originated from an intelligent human being, they are people; therefore, they have souls (Gen. 2; 1 Cor. 6–7).

            Second, the elect and justified believe, are converted, and will be raised; whoever has a soul like the wise virgins believes, is converted and justified, will be raised and go into eternal life. Therefore, women have souls.

            Third, a woman gave birth to Christ, and women give birth to sensate humans with souls and bodies. Of whatever kind of being the son, race, or seed, such is its son or fruit. If the sons are sensate beings, so too is the mother who bore them (1 Cor. 6; 15; Luke 1; Phil. 3; Gal. 4–5; 1 Tim. 2).

            Fourth, Mary the mother of Jesus and other holy women sing: “My sensate spirit exalts the Lord: and my new and life-giving spirit rejoices in my redeeming God” (cf. Luke 1:46; Ex. 15). Therefore, they have sensate and new souls.

            Fifth, Christ restored to life the daughter of the chief priest and master of the Jews’ assembly and said that the girl’s soul had returned when He did so (Luke 8:55).

While I'm not a feminist by any means, I do have to say that we've come a long way, ladies. Phew!