Episode 123: Conversation with Michael Saville (Part 1)

“If unchastity doesn’t include the things we mentioned under that word, then words have no meaning. You can’t even really have a confession…It’s always been understood to include certain things, certain sexual behaviors—basically any sexual behavior outside of the marriage covenant—as being forbidden. It’s no accident that given the way our culture has gone—the sexual revolution over the last 50, 60 years…that we’re dealing with these issues in the church today.” -Michael Saville

Summary of this Episode

On this episode of the Messy Reformation, Jason and Willy are joined by Rev. Michael Saville, pastor of East Palmyra CRC in Palmyra, New York, where he also teaches at a classical Christian high school. Michael has a unique route to becoming a pastor in the CRC. He came to faith in his teenage years, was impacted by the ministries of Martin Lloyd-Jones and R.C. Sproul, went to Covenant Theological Seminary (St. Louis), and was first ordained in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). After serving as an assistant pastor, he eventually took a call in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), and then the CRC. All along he’s been able to “preach and teach and believe basically the same Reformed theology.”   

While we do share some things with those in the PCA and RCA, Michael helps show the differences. Most notably, the PCA uses the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Westminster Confession, and presbyterian polity. The RCA has a polity that is closer to presbyterian while the CRC more closely identifies with what came out of Dort. But the RCA and the CRC have closer ties to the Three Forms of Unity, and the CRC’s commitment to them through the Covenant for Officebearers does distinguish it from the RCA. 

Michael and Jason both share a love for the Reformed confessions claimed by the CRC. Michael notes how they are teachable, have a beautiful simplicity, are shorter and very pastoral in nature. When he came in, he had no problems signing the Covenant, “I could subscribe to every point of doctrine in the Three Forms of Unity and not have to quibble about exceptions.” Jason shares how he’s been able to incorporate the Heidelberg Catechism’s teaching into his prayer life and helping his congregation to see some of the power in the wording. These are applicable documents. Willy brought up a quote from R.C. Sproul, who appreciated the Westminster standards as some of the most beautifully printed theological material he had ever seen, but they had the weakness of perhaps confessing too much. Michael sees the need for the CRC to continue “to have doctrinal preaching and teaching in our churches. That’s a weakness generally in evangelicalism, and it is increasingly a weakness in our churches…People need to have that foundation in doctrine.” 

Addressing the differences in polity, Michael prefers and appreciates the delegate model of the CRC. For classis and synod, “It’s all delegates from churches…from a local church. Whereas, with Presbyterianism, because of the more hierarchical approach, any minister in that region is automatically a member of the presbytery, a voting member, regardless of whether he is a pastor of a local church or not…[In the CRC] the only church is the local church. Whereas, in Presbyterianism…the presbytery is the church, General Assembly is the church.” Rather than a specific number of delegates, Presbyterian polity allows any who fit the office to come. Jason recognizes one of the problems is that you literally can “pack the assembly with your delegates, [whereas] with ours, there’s really not a good, solid way to rig a synod…You can’t do the political power plays really.” Michael points out how being delegated is so important because you’re going to hear from the churches and classes farther away from where meetings are held.

Looking back on Synod 2022, Michael was pleased with the decisions made and admits it was a crossroads experience for him. “A lot of us [were wondering] are we going to uphold Scripture? Are we going to uphold the Word of God on these issues that are coming before us? Are we going to maintain the biblical and confessional positions of our church?...I was very grateful with the actions that were taken by Synod…Anyone looking at that word, ‘unchastity,’ and the things that we included under ‘unchastity,’ definitely were what should be included.” Jason and Michael agree we didn’t raise anything to confessional status. Michael describes it as “I just was looking at what that word means and how it would—anybody in our tradition…for hundreds of years, would have understood that certainly these issues we’re dealing with in the present and so forth. These sexual issues fall under the issue of unchastity…If you go to other Dutch-Reformed denominations (the URC, the Free-Reformed), none of them are thinking, ‘Oh, we need to change our confession or add to our confession because it doesn’t address these issues’…Our confession really speaks to these matters.” 

Jason pointed out one of the reasons he’s repeatedly talked about bringing clarity or clarifying is to emphasize we simply said what we’ve always said. Michael makes a great point, “If unchastity doesn’t include the things we mentioned under that word, then words have no meaning. You can’t even really have a confession…It’s always been understood to include certain things, certain sexual behaviors—basically any sexual behavior outside of the marriage covenant—as being forbidden. It’s no accident that given the way our culture has gone—the sexual revolution over the last 50, 60 years…that we’re dealing with these issues in the church today.”

This leads into a question Jason raises, “Do we need new confessions…to talk about some of these issues that are happening today?” He shares about another CRC pastor who he recently heard talking about the need to be aware of and understanding the new ideas of sexuality in culture and the cultural-religious worldview that’s developed. “We need to learn how to speak to it and speak to it effectively and answer in ways that are responding to that.” Michael acknowledges that it’s difficult to write documents that can stand the test of time like the Westminster standards or Three Forms of Unity have, but perhaps it is something for our scholars to look at. The current ones are not insufficient, it’s not necessary to get rid of them, but they could be built upon. The idea is floated, maybe this isn’t just a CRC-thing, but get together with the PCA and other orthodox denominations and write a statement or confession that speaks biblically and missionally.