Peace to you, brothers and sisters kept by the Holy Spirit and delivered from the evil one.

Not long ago, I shared with you about the “conservatism of the gospel” and encouraged you to consider the values you long to conserve in this church. I asked you to create a blueprint for a conservative church based on our church’s statement of faith, teaching, vision, history, and denominational distinctives.I thank the Lord that several brothers have sent me their carefully compiled lists of conservative values. Today, I want to share my list with you. However, before I proceed, I’d like to share two things.

First, last week at the airport customs, “border security” stopped me from leaving the country. They took me to a police station, and in that hour and a half, I sang nearly ten psalms, some long and some short. However, I realized that I couldn’t fully recall the lyrics to several of them. Panic gripped my heart because I recalled Psalm 119: “I have stored up your word in my heart.” I knew I was woefully ill-prepared. If one day I were to be imprisoned without a Bible or hymnal, how could I pour forth beautiful words from my heart and be nourished by the Lord’s grace through praise? So, I have resolved that before the winter sets in, I will memorize at least 100 psalms and hymns. This experience also made me keenly aware that all conservative Christian culture is built on one fundamental principle: trust in, reverence toward, familiarity with, and love for the Word of God. In other words, no matter what kind of conservative church we envision, if in our daily lives the Word of God is scarce, vague, and uncertain, then we are not truly conservative Christians—we are modernist ones.

Second, this past week, my colleagues and I finished editing two small hymnals. The first is the Hymns of the Cross, a selection of 123 hymns focusing on the cross of Christ and drawn from the history of the global church and of the Chinese house church. Again, no matter what kind of conservative church we envision, if its culture is not intensely focused on the cross of Christ, as Paul says, “But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world,” (Gal. 6:14) then we are not truly conservative Christians—we are modernist ones.

We prepared this small hymnal not only for next Friday evening’s “Praise Revival” and the October 1^st “Theology of the Cross Retreat” but also for regular use in church and at home. The cross is the cornerstone of all conservative church culture. Through the cross, conservatism and modernity, the timeworn and the trendy, the old self and the new birth, are all upended and, through a kind of double negation, affirmed anew. Without the cross, who would willingly allow the alluring splendors of this world to be crucified to him? And who would willingly be crucified by its overwhelming power?

The other hymnal is a selection of 265 short hymns based on Scripture. This single-volume hymnal has been in the works for a long time and was originally prepared by our church school to promote family worship. Through my experience last week at the police station, the Lord compelled me to quickly finish the project and to encourage every believer, family, and small group to diligently learn and sing these Scriptures. For to be conservative means to conserve the Word of the Lord—or rather, to be conserved by it.

Before outlining the values of a conservative church, I would like to propose two principles to help us distinguish between what I have previously called “cultural conservatism” and “gospel conservatism.”

The first principle is to distinguish between the “gospel” and “gospel application.” The gospel inevitably shapes the culture of the church and even influences the broader society. However, once a particular church culture takes shape, it is in danger of becoming an enemy of the gospel. For example, the gospel played a significant role in shaping modern Western civilization. Yet many missionaries to China—especially those who came in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—largely equated the “gospel” with “Western civilization.” As a result, they became missionaries not only of the gospel but of Western civilization. There is a similar misconception among American evangelicals today, who equate the gospel with Western free-market systems. They confuse their commitment to cultural conservatism with fidelity to the gospel itself.

This tendency also exists within Reformed churches. For example, we prefer traditional hymns because, on the whole, they have been filtered and tested over time and are more imbued with the gospel and biblical language than modern hymns. Strictly speaking, we love traditional hymns because we love the Bible and the gospel, not because our musical preferences, styles, or so-called “tastes” have been shaped and fixed into a particular cultural form. (This is a touchy subject—people become defensive as soon as you question their “tastes.”) I once attended a rural church in which people sang the Scriptures to a distinctly traditional Chinese melody, perhaps a folk tune from Henan or Shandong. According to my personal “tastes,” I did not love the tune. But I love the Word of God, and I love those who love the Word of God. So the Lord moved me, and through that experience, he shattered my musical tastes. I was thrilled to hear the Word of God being sung, and I relinquished my attachment to a particular cultural form.

Therefore, the most important skill for conservatives is to distinguish between the “gospel” and “gospel application.” Otherwise, we will fall into cultural conservatism, focusing our attention, passions, and prejudices too much on those external, relative, transient forms that lack eternal value, becoming cultural legalists in the process.

The second principle is to focus on the distinction between the “church” and the “world,” rather than on denominational differences within the church. The conservatism of Reformed churches ought to stand in direct opposition to the world, not to Baptists or other denominations. In other words, a properly conservative ecclesiology is one that, for the sake of our gospel mission, emphasizes our identity as belonging to Christ in this fallen world, rather than emphasizing our unique theological or cultural identity within the church. We certainly have our own unique identity within the church. For example, as Presbyterians, we hold that infant baptism is precious and important. However, this does not constitute the core of our conservative ecclesiology because it is not what sets us apart from the world—it is merely a distinction between us and other brothers who are different from us. A conservative ecclesiology must be directed outward toward the world, not inward toward our brothers. In other words, the kind of ecclesial conservatism I am advocating for is a first-order conservatism, one which is manifest in the spiritual warfare between the church and the world, not a second-order conservatism that insists on the correctness of a particular theological or ecclesiastical tradition within the church.

Within first-order conservatism, we must be warriors; within second-order conservatism, we must be gentlemen. The one who is able to distinguish between these two orders is, in the words of C.S. Lewis, a Christian knight, both courageous and meek. We will certainly have our own second-order theological and ecclesiastical positions, but these should not be our most prominent identifying markers. Rather, it is our first-order commitments that should be most prominent.

I can now briefly list some values of a conservative church. These are based on the Bible and centered on the cross. They focus on the gospel itself rather than on its effects. And they emphasize the distinction between the church and the world. I will only list them without elaborating—I hope to have an opportunity in the future to share with you in more detail how I believe these values align with the four characteristics and principles of gospel conservatism mentioned above.

A conservative church believes that:

1. The inerrancy of Scripture ought to be affirmed, preserved, and loved. The Bible is the power of God and the foundation and standard of all earthly knowledge.
2. God justly and lovingly governs all the affairs of the world.
3. Christ’s blood is sufficient to atone for all the sins of believers. Salvation is entirely by God’s grace and only through the cross of Christ.
4. Human nature is totally depraved. The world and its cultures are in a state of enmity with God and are continually moving toward ultimate destruction.
5. The eschaton and the final judgment await all men. Although believers have the duty and the privilege to renew culture through the gospel, the ultimate renewal of the world will only come through a transformative act of supernatural power at the Lord’s second coming.
6. Christian education is necessary. The covenant community has the duty and the privilege to provide God’s people with a Bible-based, gospel-centered education that allows them to know God, themselves, and the world.
7. All men have a duty to trust in Christ and to repent before God, and every believer has the duty and the privilege to testify to Christ and to spread the gospel through their work and lives.
8. Eternal life is of greater importance than this present life and the freedom of the soul than the needs of the flesh.
9. The church is at the center of God’s will and of world history. The community takes precedence over the individual, duty over rights, submission to authority over personal ambition.
10. Suffering and persecution are inherent to following Christ in this life. The mark of the cross is the means by which believers manifest and testify to the power of Christ’s resurrection in this life, and it is through forgiveness and longsuffering that we love God and our neighbor.
11. The Bible prescribes the manner in which we worship God. The church has the duty and the privilege to conduct public worship that is solemn, reverent, and vibrant.
12. We should set apart the Lord’s Day, the first day of the week, ceasing all work and entertainment and devoting ourselves to rest and to the worship of God.
13. Marriage is a lifelong covenant between one man and one woman. We oppose all extramarital sexual relations and the unequal yoking of believers with unbelievers in marriage.
14. Men and women have equal dignity and worth, but, according to the creational and redemptive order of God, men and women have different roles and functions. In both marriage and in the church, God has chosen men to be the spiritual leaders of human communities.
15. All sexual relations outside of marriage are immoral and abhorred by God. Everyone has a duty to maintain purity before marriage and fidelity within it.

The two greatest crises facing the global church today are ultimately a crisis of the gospel and a crisis of the way. In other words, what kind of Lord do we believe in, and what kind of path should we take? Our answer to the first question is, “Christ is Lord. Grace is king.” Our answer to the second question is, “Bear the cross. Advance the Gospel.” The conservative church values listed above are a concrete manifestation of our belief in the gospel and our commitment to the way. These values are Christ’s gift and promise to the world, as well as his mission and task to us.

The kind of gospel we believe determines the kind of path we walk, and the kind of path we walk shapes the kind of culture we cultivate. I hope that the culture of this church will first and foremost be shaped by the core values of the gospel. I hope that you will learn to distinguish these core values from other derivative values, from second-order or third-order doctrines, and from external, cultural forms, so that in our living and moving and being we may remain focused on Christ Jesus and him crucified.

Your servant in Christ, who strives with you to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,”

Wang Yi, September 23, 2017