Hello and welcome to Polity Matters. My name is Ben Ratliff, and I'm joined by my friends and yours, Mr. Scott Edberg and Jared Nelson. And we are here to dive into BCO chapter 62. I want to check in with you guys and see how things are going. Uh the people want to know. However, I'm I'm more curious. We are like super post-General Assembly as this posts. Not in real time. In real time, it is still the bane of our existence. However, we're sort of at the end of things. I mean, how are you feeling? We've getting so close to the end of the book. It's weird to only have a couple pages left.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

I don't know what we'll do next week. We are done. We're driving.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Well, next next week we're gonna do chapter 63. So come back for that. I forgot.

SPEAKER_02 0:50

I forgot how these things work.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

After that, though. It's not like there's a potential for us having an entirely new directory for worship or there's other things in the back of the book that we could look at. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

If you want more polity content, you should vote in favor of the Directory of Worship Study Committee's report, so then we have more content.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

We will take it personally if you vote against it. It means that you want Polity Matters to end.

SPEAKER_02 1:18

Yes. You will kill Polity Matters if you vote against the DPW study committee.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

You know, I don't listener of the show sent us a clip. I probably it's this will be way too dated by the time we get it. I need to try to get it in sooner, but uh sent us a uh a sermon he found on sermon audio preached by a Scottish Baptist out somewhere in the United States who named a sermon Polity Matters, and he was preaching on Deuteronomy 1. And I pulled the quote, I pulled him saying Polity Matters, and it's like the best uh out loud saying of our podcast name I've ever heard. Uh so maybe maybe if I'm doing well in post, you'll hear it somewhere around now in the recording. Polity Matters. I forgot who sent that to us, Jared. I forget who that was. Uh somebody texted us. Oh man, how can we not remember? Oh, it was Franklin. Yes. Yeah. Thanks again, buddy. Alright.

BCO 62-1

SPEAKER_01 2:10

We rambled and rambled. Let's get into BCO 62. Days of Fasting and Thanksgiving. How surprised are we that these this chapter's in here? It was probably in the one of the original things, right, Jared?

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yes, it was in the original 1645 directory for public worship, but is not in the OPC. So the OPC apparently does not believe in Thanksgiving and fasting. I'm gonna put that out there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:36

Put that out there. I you couldn't have two more contrasting words in the sentence to start this chapter, though, right? Fasting and Thanksgiving. I mean, like it's just very opposites. Uh nevertheless. 62.1. The observance of days of fasting and of Thanksgiving as the dispensations of divine providence may direct is both scriptural and rational. There you go. Presbyterians or dispensationals. We've got the proof here.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yeah, the the original 1645 actually has a introduction to this that contrasts the idea of festival days or holy days versus days of Thanksgiving and fasting. So this is this is as close as you get to a Presbyterian holiday. I always say that around Thanksgiving time, too. This is the closest thing you get to a uh Presbyterian uh holiday other than the Lord's Day.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

Yeah. You can tell we're really into it this this week. Some real deep, invigorating discussion. Come on.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

I think part of the difficulty here is when is the last time that you have had your session, your presbytery, a general assembly call for a day either of fasting or Thanksgiving.

SPEAKER_01 3:46

Well, the GA is hopefully gonna call for one this year.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Or July 4th.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Is it 50? No overture 50. Hopefully we have already called for it as as this is airing.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

There might there are, I think there are two overtures actually this year that call for pra uh prayer and thanksgiving. Podcast time travel is very difficult, I admit. You'd think we could have them up. There's so many, too many overtures.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

Yeah, there was a call from I think Nay Park to have a day of prayer, fasting, and days of humiliation for it was like April 22nd of this year, but it didn't come from any court that I could find. Also, I don't know, it was kind of like snuck up on me when people were saying that that that was the case. So here we actually have others that are authorized by the the BCO, uh at least implicitly here in this non-constitutional authorization, but that you can call for days of fasting and and thanksgiving from the church. They say it's both scriptural and rational to do so.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Days of humiliation, you said there from Night Park. We already I mean, if you celebrate festivists already, you've got that nailed, right? Feats of strength and airing of grievances, it's all it's all going down. Well,

BCO 62-2

SPEAKER_01 4:55

622 gives a little more particular motion to it. Fasting and thanksgiving maybe observed by individual Christians, by families, by particular congregations, by a number of congregations contiguous to each other, by the congregations under the care of a presbytery, or by all the congregations of our church. We are equal opportunists when it comes to fasting and thanksgiving observance. From the very bottom to the very top, and everybody in between. Do you guys have any contiguous congregations to you? That's mostly my interest in this paragraph.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

I wonder if that would be like in a community, you know, like say after September of 2001, if you had the Presbyterian and the Baptist and the Congregationalist church get together and and call for fasting. So it's their session, but in conjunction with some other ones, that's where I would see that would probably come into play.

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Just means the churches that are not separated from you by a sea of some kind, right? Isn't that what contiguous means?

SPEAKER_00 5:49

Contiguous. Alaska and Hawaii cannot call for this. They are on their own. They make their own. Sorry. Jared Krullish, you cannot call for a day of fasting or Thanksgiving. Yeah, but this has three different layers. Like it basically says your session, your presbytery, or your general assembly. So it could come from any layer of that, which has been something I've been thinking about too. Is in the dozen years that I've been at the church, we have not called for a day of fasting or Thanksgiving. And so what would prompt us to do that? And maybe thinking about is this underutilized and something that we should call for more often? We thought about doing it right after COVID. We thought uh if there's a day in which like they declare you know COVID done, let's have a day of Thanksgiving, but it was just kind of a slow, slow burn on that.

SPEAKER_02 6:34

You're hoping for a declarative statement. Well, I think what's interesting about fasting and Thanksgiving is that while certain individuals, like if you get to the really granular part of it, may fast, but I don't think they have the liberty to force others to. I think the the plea of the court itself is how a day of fasting or thanksgiving comes. Individuals can Hey, why don't you fast with me and that's fine, but we can't implement or have more strongly worded encouragements unless it's from a court of the church. And so even a pastor can't severally impose a day of fasting or thanksgiving upon the congregation. That's something that the court of the church is called to oversee.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Yeah, so during announcement time, if somebody says there's a day of fasting, like, oh, put that before the session first.

SPEAKER_01 7:21

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

In Tuscumbia, we had a day of prayer and fasting all every year scheduled, I think, for the national day of uh prayer. And so every year the session would take up the issue and schedule the day and would open the church doors for that day, and people would come in, pray with each other, fast along with each other during their lunch breaks and things of that nature. That's probably the most common way I've seen it in churches is National Day of Prayer kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

Yeah.

BCO 62-3

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Well, here we're getting into it a little bit already. Let's do 62 3. It should be left to the judgment and discretion of every Christian and family to determine when it is proper to observe a private fast for Thanksgiving, and to the church sessions to determine for particular congregations, and to the presbyteries to determine for larger districts. When it is deemed expedient that a fast or thanksgiving should be general, the call for it should be issued by the General Assembly. If at any time the civil power should appoint a fast for Thanksgiving in keeping with the Christian faith, it is the duty of the ministers and people of our communion to pay all due respect to it. We kind of dealt with the first half of that already. Our session clerk sent us an email the other day. I think that the President has called for a day of fasting and Thanksgiving, or a day of prayer at least, for um there's something to do with the 250th celebrations this year. Uh and I f I forget what day in particular it is, but it's someday later on in the fall, and our our clerk was saying we should we should do the same thing. It might be on the official day. Scott, you'd know that better than I would if you guys have observed it before. But anyway, sometimes the civil powers will say, Hey, we're gonna do this. Uh, we we think it would be good to do it, and our BCO's at least saying it's good for us to consider that and uh and try to do it along with them.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Yeah, if you uh search for uh different holidays within the BCO, uh do a search for the word Christmas or Easter, you're not gonna find any hits. Uh you will for Thanksgiving. And there are churches that I I know there are several churches that will do some sort of Thanksgiving day service on the day the day before or the week before after to recognize the day of Thanksgiving. So there's there's at least some standing for that for a regular day. But also, I think of in history, Abraham Lincoln called for a day of fasting. There was a day of fasting too for during uh World War II. So it's it's happened before too. If there's big national conflict and you know that there may be lives lost, it's it's nice to I mean in the past the government realized that there were sacrifices that the country needed to make and needed to be on the same page on. But now it seems like after the fact they're like, oh yeah, we had this war, we thought we'd tell you about it, rather than you know, preparing a people uh for that. I I would hope that there would be more of a call for fasting and prayer and sobriety before entering into conflict than there has been in the past few decades. There's my little political uh speech.

BCO 62-4

SPEAKER_01 10:09

624. Public notice should be given a sufficient time before the appointed day of fasting or thanksgiving that persons may so order their affairs as to allow them to attend properly to the duties of the day. Scott already talked about this a little. You plan it ahead of time and you let people know. I I think opening the church doors is good, have that available. Can you say anything more to that about people planning time and things like that?

SPEAKER_02 10:33

It was actually rather simple. I think there is a part of this when you're considering having a day of fasting or Thanksgiving that the pastor should be involved in leading it. And so the it doesn't need to be overly structured. I'm a guy that likes to structure my minutes. Most guys aren't like that, and you need not do that for this, but just being available for the people and with the people at certain times, there would be a bulletin and announcement that would go out weeks in advance, I think two, just two weeks in advance, in order to inform the congregation that, hey, on this Thursday or whatever day it was, the doors will be open. The pastor will be here uh in the sanctuary for prayer with chairs set up, and uh, if you want to join him, you're welcome to. It was never a largely attended thing. Uh, if it's during a lunch, you can see how the difficulty of getting a large group together during a lunch midweek. Uh, but it was often an intimate experience and a time where you can spend perhaps in smaller groups praying with your pastor, for your pastor, for the ministry, for your country, things of that nature. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, having sufficient time to prepare is good. I mean, especially if it's a health issue for some people if they want to join in in fasting. And I think of in the past, fasting may have been how much of your day do you spend in food preparation to take that time away to now be focusing on being in the word, being in prayer. But then also it kind of it focuses you and anybody that's done intermittent fasting for health reasons, it actually does focus you on terms of workouts and then it does something with your with your mind too, that after after the hunger pains go away, you actually tend to be more focused. And I mean, I don't know if that's meant to be one of the benefits of God calling us to fast, but is not only are there not the distractions of food preparation, think of Mary and Martha, but there's also not some of the your physical bodies in just a different state in which it it focuses a little bit differently.

BCO 62-5

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, so 625 goes on and says there should be public worship upon all such days, and the prayers, psalms, or hymns, a selection of scripture and sermons should all be in a special manner adapted to the occasion. You know, well, I you know, I don't know how we want to talk about this. Can you call a day of prayer or a day of fasting or a day of thanksgiving and not do this? Would be would be one question. Because, you know, I've been involved in some where there have been what Scott described, right, where you the day is set aside, the church is open, sometimes there would be a meal at the end of the day where people would come together to break the fast together, but never have I seen one where there's an actual service hosted. Jared's already alluded to you know a service of Thanksgiving, maybe around like the the November Thanksgiving in the United States. Um what do y'all think about this? Work worship on a upon such days.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

I've never seen it, and maybe that's to my own chagrin. I've never been a part of a church where we've called a special day for Thanksgiving or fasting that has led to additional worship services. Sometimes there's times that are included in that with like conferences, um, where you have prayer seasons of prayer in the middle of a conference that is more worship-like as presented here, but I've not seen it so structured in our world. And maybe that's uh getting to just the busyness of modern Americans that having more worship services than even just Sunday morning is just too much, and then attendance goes down, it's hard to get good attendance for evening service. Um, and maybe a special service like this would garner more attendance, I don't know, but it seems that Americans have said they're too busy for things like this. Um, I'm curious to know 50 years ago when this was drafted and developed, what the culture was like for this sort of community work.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Again, there are still some churches in our Presbyteria that will have a Thanksgiving Day service. Growing up in a Baptist church, I had a Thanksgiving Day service. So it used to be much more common for that to be the case. I don't know if I've ever been to a service of fasting, like to actually hold a public service on such a day, although reminding that the prayers and psalms and hymns should reflect that. I mean, don't sing abide with me on a Thanksgiving day, or you know, um a happy song on a fasting death that should be obvious, but sometimes you have to say the obvious.

BCO 62-6

SPEAKER_01 14:49

626. On days of fasting, the minister should point out the authority and providence as calling for the observance, and he should spend more than the usual time in solemn prayer, particular confession of sin, especially for the sins of the day in place, and the whole day should be spent in prayer and meditation. So Jared just pointed out a second ago, right? You want to you want to be aware of what you're observing, and so this is particularly for days of fasting. Um you start off by saying, has somebody called this, and what's the reason, the authority and the providences for calling the observance? Um so we we um I should really should pull that overture up so we know exactly what we were talking about earlier this year. Uh yeah. And um so there's there's gonna be a reason for the calling of the fast, and then you should spend more time in prayer, a particular confession of sin, particularly for sins that are relevant to the the reason that you're you're doing this, and the whole day should be spent in prayer and meditation. Um so it really is a call for the day to be set aside for this particular purpose. So this seems to be giving the impression to me that it's not just I'm gonna do my normal day uh and I'm just gonna not gonna eat, but that actually you have the day that you plan to fast for the particular purpose, you tr you try to orient your whole day around that and not just not just the the lack of food, but that you make time, special time set aside for praying. Probably general counsel would be at the very least what Jared's already alluded to, that when you would normally be eating or preparing food, that time could be set aside, especially. But y y'all jump in. I mean, what are the thoughts here about the day of fasting?

SPEAKER_00 16:17

Yeah, if you find old sermons by famous people, I was just looking through some of the works of McGill because he's written on ecclesiology, and he had, I believe, a day in which he preached on fasting during the Civil War. And to think about that in terms of like, you know, if your country is in conflict, to be praying about the sins of the country, and that's his uh his sermon focused on that, just to be confessing and praying that the the nation would be brought to repentance, not only of presenting issues, but uh other issues that have it's been neglecting, and it'd be a time to reflect on those things. So yeah, there there really needs to be some leading into why are we doing this, not just like, oh, it's fasting time again. No, there's a particular reason that we're doing this.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

It could be helpful in that regard to be helpful to note that when preparing for special times of prayer and fasting, it'd probably be good for the session or the pastor to draft a guide to help their people um pray. Uh giving just a general plea, pray for our country. It might be helpful to know areas in which you could pray for our country, your the troops, the civil magistrate, your governor, things of that nature. And perhaps in those times in that that document, your people could be praying together, whether they are together or separately for the same things. So there's perhaps some unity even in the midst of diversity or being further away or apart. Um and so perhaps it'd be good when thinking through this idea is to actually give your people resources to prepare well, whether that be prayers from Puritans, a value of vision, or a little more structure on what the content that they can be praying for at that time.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Uh just while we're finishing up the thoughts about fasting, because the last section is on Thanksgiving. Uh, you know, remember up earlier, fasting is not just something that has to be called for, but you may observe it at your own discretion, right? 62.3. So it's it's not uh we're we're expected as Christians to make use of fasting uh in our lives to practice this means of grace. And so I I taught on the means of grace several years ago in our church and have a whole lesson on fasting we went through, and just in terms of practicality, you know, it can be a hard thing to get going with because a lot of people don't do it. But you know, so start small. You don't have to just, you know, even if your session calls for a whole day, if you can't manage a whole day because you're not well versed or practice, it's okay, right? Like you can go from doing one meal in that day, you know, maybe the middle meal in the day is a good way to actually make you feel hungry. You know, try try two, try a whole day. You don't have to fast for a week to make it valuable. Uh you can start small. Make sure you're thinking about what you're gonna do when you're not eating. It's alluded to here a little bit in the chapter, right? That fasting is not just a matter of self-deprivation, but of of dedication to the Lord. And so you should have a plan in mind for what you're gonna do uh when you might normally be eating. Uh, and that that time is good to give away to prayer and meditation. Make sure you think about the way you appear. Uh, Jesus didn't didn't say we should let people know that we're fasting. You shouldn't go around looking gloomy like the hypocrites, right? You just go along with your life, keep moving. If you're doing it with other people, of course it's okay to talk about it with them, but it it shouldn't be something that you decide to do and then complain about all day, right? And make sure people know how much you're suffering. That's that's not the intention of a fast. I'm curious what you guys think. Uh, a lot of people will talk about fasting in relationship to things that are not food. Do you help do you all have an opinion on that? Any hot takes? Can you fast from something that's not food in the way that we're speaking about fasting as a spiritual discipline?

SPEAKER_00 19:58

Well, I'll just uh add to what you were saying in terms of dress and appearance. The original uh director for public worship seems to spend about half its time on talking about the other things that are not just food. So it says it requires a total absence of abstinence not only from all food, but also from all worldly labor, discourses, thoughts, bodily delights, and like rich apparel ornaments and such during the fast. And so they put that as at least part of it, not maybe an alternative, but at least as as part of it. And it may be something like if I'm dedicating this day to fasting, maybe I should delete my social media uh apps on my phone that day. I should not be watching TV that day, you know, fasting from other things in order to focus on this. And I think it's especially true if, you know, you have health reasons, you're diabetic, you're whatever, you can't do a food fast, fast from other things that would be distracting you from from prayer and and these exercises and the service. So, you know, the TV's off that day or whatever it may be.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

Yeah, I think it'd be odd if you fasted from food and then instead of praying during the time you'd be eating, you started just doom scrolling on Twitter. It's like that's right. Okay, I'm not eating and I'm distracting myself with something else. I think that kind of destroys the point of it. I I think the food thing is to show your lack and relying on the Lord in the midst of your you're lacking. And I don't know if I would elevate social media personally to like that sort of need. I would hope that I could live the rest of my days without ever logging into Twitter again. I can't live the rest of my days without food and drink. And so perhaps there is a place for for that. I I think it'd be odd if a church called like this month no ex. Uh that'd be an interesting overture to the General Assembly. But PCA will give up X for the next year as part of a mandated fast.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Odd, but perhaps necessary.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

Yeah, yeah. It's for the good of the church. You're finding our our missing overtures from Next year.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Oh man.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

We need more.

SPEAKER_01 22:02

If you wondered, we don't have enough. Yeah, as we record, we've we're at what eighty-nine on the website? Too few. Too few. We just just need I would settle for ninety-nine. So if we could get ten more, but a hundred would be fantastic. So I would say one just before we get move on, don't overthink it when you're coming to fasting. It can, you know, it is a serious endeavor, but don't I really mean like don't overthink it. Like don't overthink too much about what you're not doing and and turn yourself to the Lord, right? It's not just a grin and bear it kind of day, but actually a purposeful day. Um I uh Martin Lloyd Jones said fasting should really be made to include abstinence from anything which is legitimate in and of itself for the sake of some spiritual purpose. And so just remember that that point of it. It's it's for the sake of a spiritual purpose, it's not just uh for the sake of not having a thing for a little while. I'm loving may maybe we should encourage people who who observe a so-called Lenten season, whatever that may or may not be, that if they really want to go through with it, to Scott's point about social media and these other things not really being something you should fast from because they're not essential to us, fast just fast for 40 days if you want to observe Lent. Alright, just just go hardcore the direction that you think it's supposed to go. But no, generally I would say don't observe Lent anyway. Uh oh there's no Lenten in season in this PC. That's right. No Christmas, no Lenten, no Easter. Jared said it, go search for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

It should be a green biter with the Grinch.

SPEAKER_01 23:37

With

BCO 62-7

SPEAKER_01 23:38

a Grinch, yeah. Last section, 627. On days of Thanksgiving, he should give information respecting the authority and providences which call for the observance, and he should spend more than the usual time in giving thanks agreeably to the occasion and in singing psalms or hymns of praise. On these days the people should rejoice with holy gladness of heart, but their joy should be tempered with reverence that they indulge in no excess or unbecoming levity. There it is. This I mean the American Thanksgiving tradition right there.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

So This is unAmerican. Yeah, if if the uh GA does call for a day of Thanksgiving, though, if it if it's called for on July 4th, will anybody come to a service for or they all be out um doing the things that the last sentence tells us we're not supposed to.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Is that really the day that it's called for?

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Why wouldn't it be I thought it was like a whole they wanted to set aside some time in a given month, not a particular day. Never mind. We'll go look later. Yeah, it's similarly structured, right? That you give time to the thing that you're observing. So instead of solemn prayer, giving thanks, you sing psalms or hymns of praise. You should rejoice, but temper your joy with reverence so that you don't indulge in unbecoming levity. Are we content with this? Y'all y'all y'all feel like people understand what it's getting at? This might be the one that's less observed.

SPEAKER_00 24:59

89 says to do it on uh July 4th, so just be prepared for somebody from the fire department to come to your church.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

We actually do have celebrations on July 4th at our church. But they're not like we uh when we bought our church building, we didn't realize, but it's like the best place to watch Troy's fireworks show, and the community has been watching Troy fireworks from this property for the better part of a decade. Wow. And so it's kind of like one of those opportunities. You might as well have a barbecue at the church property instead of kicking people off the church property, might as well host them with some food and some time together and make a mini outreach of it. Cool. So we will celebrate.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

We get together as a church around July 4th and fry catfish in our in our back lot and uh have have blow up you know water slide things on the property. It's a good time.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

We do none of that.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Jared's cringing. He's like one of these presentations. Is your church not in America? Is that what happened?

SPEAKER_00 26:05

Yeah. We're we're all all doing our own thing, you know. Your church doesn't celebrate July 4th. I mean, other than the battle hymn of the Republic and the service and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 26:15

You look it up. You've you've been talking about how Christmas and Easter aren't in the BCO, but you look up 7-4 and you tell me if it's not in the BCO. If it is, you tell me. Uh and actually it's not in the BCO, because chapter 7 only has three sections. Alright, that was that joke did not land very well.

Y’all Take Care

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Is that where we are? As John Withersman would say, this podcast is over. Thanks for joining us. Hope you guys have been encouraged uh to uh take part in some fasting and Thanksgiving whenever it may or may not be appropriate. Probably not whenever it's not appropriate, but whenever it is appropriate, you should uh you should you should engage in it. You can find us on social media, on Facebook and Twitter, and you uh you know that you should be subscribed to your podcast app of choice. We are glad that you've joined us. Don't think there's anything else to say except to uh say goodbye, gentlemen. Goodbye. Goodbye. Y'all take care.