At a recent Presbytery meeting, a bitter debate ensued around the nature of children in the church. The question that caused such consternation was, “Are children Christians?” The examinee answered, “Yes” and an audible gasp went up from one side of the room.
Interestingly, this is the same debate that has been going on since prior to the US Civil War when southern theologians, Dabney and Thornwell, lined up on one side and Charles Hodge on the other. Thornwell, influenced by the revivals of the earlier part of the 19th Century, said children of the covenant are to be dealt with as “enemies of God.” (J.H. Thornwell, “The Collected Works of J.H. Thornwell”, IV, 1881, P. 13). Is this historic Presbyterianism or, for that matter, the historic Reformed view? The answer is a resounding, “No!”
Let us take a step back and look at a very historic document, which was written by the Westminster Divines at the Westminster Assembly and which was ratified upon completion by the Scottish Parliament and taken up for use by the Scottish Church...the original Presbyterian Church. The section on Baptism reads in part:
That children, by baptism, are solemnly received into the bosom of the visible church, distinguished from the world, and them that are without, and united with believers; and that all who are baptized in the name of Christ, do renounce, and by their baptism are bound to fight against the devil, the world, and the flesh: That they are Christians, and federally holy before baptism, and therefore are they baptized.
Did you catch that? The divines say, “they are Christians.” This is no surprise to anyone who has spent any time looking into the milieu that brought forth the Westminster Confession. It was a document that brought much approval from the continental Reformed churches of the day. But how about a couple more quotes?
JW Alexander:
O how we neglect that ordinance! treating children in the Church, just as if they were out of it. Ought we not daily to say (in its spirit) to our children, 'You are Christian children, you are Christ's, you ought to think and feel and act as such! (J.W. Alexander, “Forty Years of Letters”, II, NY: Scribners, P. 25)
Charles Hodge:
The status, therefore of baptized children is not a vague or uncertain one, according to the doctrine of the Reformed Churches. They are members of the Church; they are professing Christians; they belong presumptively to the number of the elect. These propositions are true of adult professing Christians. --Both are included in the general class of persons whom God requires his Church to regard and treat as within her pale, and under her watch and care. (Charles Hodge, “The Church Membership of Infants.” Biblical Repository and Princeton Review, Vol. XXX, No. II, Art. VII, Apr., 1858, pp. 347-389)
A note of clarification is in order at this point. The historic Presbyterian position is not that all covenant children are certainly among the elect but that they are assumed to be by the Church. If we create criteria for assessing the elect beyond the sign and seal given, who could stand under the examination? Can we know for sure with anyone, adult or infant? I think the parable of the wheat and tares has something to say to us on this matter.
So what happened to such a rich and robust tradition in American Presbyterianism? The issue was deadlocked at the synod level but the Civil War intervened. As the Presbyterian Church split along north-south lines the issue came up again in the respective national synods. Of course this time, the south approved changes in their documents that changed the status of covenant children to comport with Thornwell's views and the north continued on a more historic trajectory.
So when you wonder why we do things the way we do them in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) remember the denomination has roots in the southern Presbyterian tradition. But we certainly cannot say that the current popular position is the historic one.