Now as to why leaving such a schismatic “church” would be necessary due to its embrace of egalitarianism we would note that egalitarianism denies God ordained distinctions and in the denial of God ordained distinctions one discovers the denial of God. Egalitarianism is practical Atheism. One cannot deny God’s distinction and then say they worship the God of the Bible.
The fact that a OPC minister can ask this question with a straight face and a sincere heart indicates that there is something magnificently wrong with how we are training clergy. This thought that a church can be both egalitarian and Christian is why the Reformers would often use language in the confessions like…. “Therefore we detest the errors of the Anabaptists.” Very few churchmen seem anymore to detest the leveling errors of the Anabaptists. My friends, the Anabaptist chief sin, like the chief sin of the cultural Marxists today was egalitarianism. The Anabaptists were so loathed by the Reformers because they denied the creator creature distinction.
I am left incredulous. For a OPC minister to sincerely ask this question is just as bad as if he sincerely asked if it was OK, for him as Minister, to sleep with his Elder’s daughters and wives. It may indeed be a “heartfelt question” but it is hardly legitimate.
“Therefore we detest the errors of the Anabaptists.” Very few churchmen seem anymore to detest the leveling errors of the Anabaptists. My friends, the Anabaptist chief sin, like the chief sin of the cultural Marxists today was egalitarianism.”
Could you maybe do a feature piece on this providing a little more detail with examples? I’m A Credo-Baptist, and Reformed in my theology, BUT (as you probably know) am certainly in no way egalitarian or a leveler in my thinking.
Ron,
Why did I think you were Lutheran?
Not sure, but I wouldn’t be insulted. Luther’s probably my favorite reformer.
This from the Belgic Confession of Faith.
Article 36 – Magistracy (Civil Government)
Wherefore we detest the Anabaptists and other seditious people, and
in general all those who reject the higher powers and magistrates and
would subvert justice, introduce community of goods, and confound
that decency and good order which God has established among men.
The Anabaptists sound like a bunch of commie unitarians. I’ve seen this among the Mennonites (though I think they’d balk at ‘community of goods’ … avarice is their besetting sin), but certainly NOT among the Reformed or Sovereign Grace Baptists I’ve known.
I believe that baptism is the sign of the covenant of God with the seed of Abraham, ought to be given to those who belong to the covenant of grace, and, as a consequence, to the infants of believers. Thus I reject the error of the Anabaptists who detest the baptism of small infants (Rom. 4:11ff; Col. 2:11; Gal. 3:27; Matt. 9:14; Gen. 17:2, 3; Acts 3:25).
Antwerp Confession (1566)
“My friends, the Anabaptist chief sin, like the chief sin of the cultural Marxists today was egalitarianism.”
But ironically, today in separatist Anabaptist communities you can see some of the most undiluted PATRIARCHY left in Christendom today:
https://english.elpais.com/international/2026-05-03/beaten-and-persecuted-the-hell-of-three-women-who-broke-with-the-mennonites-in-argentina.html
“In the stories told by Elizabet, Katherina and María, certain elements (like their names) are repeated: violent childhoods marked by hard physical labor, men who drink heavily, abusive husbands, as well as the hostility of a community that closes ranks to punish anyone who shows signs of discomfort. All of these women have repeatedly endured the humiliation of having to stand in front of the men in church after Mass to ask forgiveness for their sins. These offenses include not wearing the headscarf properly, putting on a dress that has an “inappropriate” color, listening to music, or possessing a cell phone.
Sometimes, this seeking of forgiveness was deemed insufficient. And so, the men — all of them far more sinful than they are, the three women assert — would force them to remain silent for a week, without exchanging a single word with anyone.
…
While the Mennonite men speak Spanish due to their work-related interactions with the outside world, it’s frowned upon for the women in the colony to show interest in the language or to interact with outsiders. “Whenever one of us opens up a little more, they’re already a bad person in the eyes [of the men]. A slut, a whore,” María summarizes.”
“I am left incredulous.”
Some errors can be very deeply rooted, especially if they can rely on crafty half-truths or partial truths. Like for example, it can be a depressing experience for a Protestant to read the Christian writers of the first few centuries (the “church fathers”), and see how uncritically, and even enthusiastically, they adopted the un-Biblical, or downright anti-Biblical doctrine of THE CELIBACY OF THE CLERGY.
Celibacy-mania was, in its deepest roots, based on the same logic as Christian anti-racism, or thinking that it is beneath a truly spiritual person to give regard for matters of the flesh. From this point of view, to confess that you would actually like to have a family, or to protect the interests of your own race, would be like a confession of failure or inferiority in spiritual strivings.
Charles Hodge noted how even the Reformers were not entirely free of this semi-Gnostic prejudice which despises “carnal relations,” and thinks that “men of God” should not sully themselves with family matters:
https://ccel.org/ccel/hodge/theology3/theology3.iii.v.xi.html
“It is a matter of astonishment, in view of all these facts, that marriage has so extensively and persistently been regarded as something degrading, and celibacy or perpetual virginity as a special and peculiar virtue. No more striking evidence of the influence of a false philosophy in perverting the minds of even good men, is afforded in the whole history of the Church.
Even the Reformers did not escape altogether from its influence. They often speak of marriage as the less of two evils; not as in itself a good; and not as the normal and appropriate state in which men and women should live, as designed 371by God in the very constitution of their nature, and as the best adapted to the exercise and development of all social and Christian virtues.
Thus Calvin says: “Unde constat et aliam quamlibet, extra conjugium, societatem coram ipso [Deo] maledictam esse; et illam ipsam conjugalem in necessitatis remedium esse ordinatam, ne in effrenem libidinem proruamus. . . . . Jam quum per naturæ conditionem et accensa post lapsum libidine, mulieris consortio bis obnoxii simus, nisi quos singulari gratia Deus inde exemit; videant singuli quid sibi datum sit. Virginitas, fateor, virtus est non contemnenda: sed quoniam aliis negata est, allis nonnisi ad tempus concessa, qui ab incontinentia vexantur, et superiores in certamine esse nequeunt ad matrimonii subsidium se conferant, ut ita in suæ vocationis gradu castitatem colant.”329 That is, virginity is a virtue. Celibacy is a higher state than marriage. Those who cannot live in that state, should descend to the lower platform of married life.
With such dregs of Manichean philosophy was the pure truth of the Bible contaminated, even as held by the most illustrious Reformers.”