The Theological Errors of the Federal Vision: A Summary List

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

 By Pastor Shane Lems - Posted at The Reformed Reader:

Published January 15, 2025

Much has been written about the Federal Vision movement in America. It goes way back to the early 2000s when men like John Barach, Douglas Wilson, Steve Wilkins, Rich Lusk, Peter Leithart, and others put on conferences, attended meetings, and wrote articles and books about what they called “The Federal Vision.” This movement was stiffly resisted by various leaders in confessionally Reformed churches.

Fast forward quite a few years. The advocates of “The Federal Vision” have not renounced it or turned from it. Not surprisingly, the Federal Vision movement also includes certain views about culture and society. For example, it is largely post-millennial, theonomic, patriarchal, and nationalistic. It also has a strong emphasis on masculinity. The Federal Vision today has a distinctive theological and cultural ethos that go hand-in-hand. Both of these, in my view, are extremely troublesome, out of step with historic Reformed theology, and the source of many church problems and heartaches.

Concerning the theology of the Federal Vision (the FV), the OPC (Orthodox Presbyterian Church) has a very helpful statement outlining the theological errors. After a lengthy discussion of the various nuances of Federal Vision teachers and writings, the “Report of the Committee to Study the Doctrine of Justification” came up with these summary points. Here’s a quote from the last part of the document...

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• For more articles on the Federal Vision, please click here. Thank you, ed.