In 1929, the church thoroughly revised Testimony chapter 29, “Of Civil Government,” and chapter 30, “Of the Right of Dissent from a Constitution of Civil Government.”[Footnote 1 see below]
William J. Edgar, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America 1871-1920, 56.
1 The NRA lecturer J. M. Coleman spoke for many years on college campuses, promoting a Christian Amendment to the Constitution. The objection he repeatedly encountered was that such an amendment would lead to “a union of church and state.” If someone had quoted to him the 1806 Testimony, he stated, he would have had to say, “Yes, but we don’t believe that now.” Like the Westminster Confession of Faith, it taught, “It is the duty of the Christian magistrate to take order, that open blasphemy and idolatry, licentiousness and immorality, be suppressed, and that the Church of Christ be supported throughout the commonwealth; and for the better discharge of those important duties, it is lawful for him to call synods, in order to consult with them; to be present at them, not interfering with their proceedings (unless they become manifestly seditious and dangerous to the peace), but supporting the independency of the Church. . . .” (Testimony 29.8). Coleman, therefore, in 1922 proposed a revision of that chapter and of the following one (Christian Nation, May 9, 1928, p. 5). The revised chapters of 1928 altered fundamentally the teaching of the 1806 Testimony that civil rulers should support the true religion and suppress false ones. The new chapters also did something else. They discarded the English philosopher John Locke’s “state of nature” and “social contract” theory of government that McLeod and the 1871 Covenant used in favor of an “organic” view of the nature of civil government. Although this second change is clearly evident when one compares the 1806 chapters 29 and 30 with the 1928 ones, it seems not to have been discussed in Synod in 1928. It did come upon in a 1941 Synod discussion about renewing the Covenant of 1871. John Coleman, the political science professor at Geneva, noted that the 1871 Covenant’s words, “we shall not incorporate in any way with our government,” was written under the idea that government is a social contract. . . .” Using “organic” political theory language, John Coleman observed, “We may not withdraw from our citizenship by a mere declaration” (Covenanter Witness, June 18, 1941, p. 472). In other words, the 1928 Testimony chapters 29 and 30 undercut the Covenant of 1871 commitment “not to incorporate.” After years of debate about th enature of loyalty oaths to the Constitution, chapters 29 and 30 were again revised in a wordy and convoluted fashion and incorporated into the 1980 Testimony without change. A full analysis of these chapters crucial to Covenanter history will have to wait for an intended history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, 1920-1980.
William J. Edgar, History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America 1871-1920, 209-210.
