Sometimes people say they believe something, but it’s pretty hard to tell. While they verbally assent to a given fact or idea, their actions can be decisively going in the opposite direction. In the political sphere there are those who are known as RINOs, or Republicans In Name Only. They are those who, while there is a party platform that they belong to and claim to represent, actually go against the platform in their policy decisions. They claim to be a part of a group and yet fight against the ideals of the very group they claim to be representing.
Within Christianity we have a similar situation, those who are Confessional In Name Only or CINOs. CINOs are those that claim to hold to a creed, doctrinal statement or an historic confession, who then in their actions or teaching go directly against the confession that they claim to hold.
Now this post is not a polemic about levels of confessional subscription, and I do think that there is a reasonable case for the allowance of certain exceptions within a confession. This is however, a call for clarity. If you don’t believe something, then say so, don’t act like you do and then violate it. One of the reasons for even having a confession in the first place is for the sake of clarity on doctrinal issues; to not be clear on a personal dissention obliterates the very reason for a confession to exist. A confession, as its name suggests, is not primarily the document or an organizational administration piece, it is something that is actually “confessed.” If you say you confess it, when you don’t really believe it, it’s just plain dishonest.
Let’s just say for instance, purely hypothetical of course, that someone claimed to hold to the Westminster Confession of Faith. This person then implies that sanctification isn’t related to the believer striving to obey the law of God, and that to do so indicates an understanding of works righteousness in justification. Well the Westminster Confession speaks very clearly against that idea in chapter 13 of sanctification, chapter 16 of good works and chapter 19 of the law of God. Such a person would either need to bring his teaching in line with the confession, or state plainly that he believes the Westminster Confession to be unbiblical in those points. What is not an option, however, is to pretend to be holding to the Westminster Confession in these areas while teaching against them.
The temptation for a CINO is to simply change the definitions of the words in a confession into a loosey goosey, whatever I want them to say pile of meaninglessness. It’s as absurd as someone claiming to hold to the Trinity as one God in three Persons as long as “Persons” actually means “manifestations.” It’s claiming to hold to a position while distorting the definition in your mind to make it mean the opposite. It’s a tactic of crossing your fingers in your mind so that you can affirm something verbally while not feeling like you are lying. A CINO may say, “Yes, I completely confess A” while in their mind they know full well that when they say A they actually mean Q. It’s a postmodern mind game that is sometimes played by those that would despise such things if done to the Biblical text. It is often very clear what is meant by a confessional statement and also very clear what others understand those words to mean. If you affirm something, knowing full well that you have some secret definition in your mind to get around it, it is plain and simply bearing false witness.
One of the clearest ways to spot a CINO is by examining their teaching. It is easy to say you believe something, to put it on a shelf and never touch it again unless a controversy arises. Then you can dust off the confession and point to the dotted line with your signature and proclaim you signed something in the past to silence the controversy. Sometimes this is a valid way of clearing things up, but sometimes it is obfuscation. The fact is that if you truly confess what a statement teaches then it should be reflected by what comes out of your mouth. If you say you hold to something then your teaching should be informed by the confessional statement you claim to adhere to. If you sit under someone for long enough you should be able to have a pretty good guess what their confessional commitments are without even being directly told. If you cannot tell, or even if what is taught is consistently against confessional stances, then that person is Confessional In Name Only, as the confession they claim obviously doesn’t effect their actual doctrinal teaching.
I understand that people may have questions or they may have confessed something previously which now causes them a conflict of conscience. If that is the case then notify those to whom you are accountable. Either let them help you work through the issue you are struggling with or walk in integrity and be upfront about what you disagree with. There is a temptation to tell people what they want to hear, or to minimize differences in order to gain acceptance, especially among young men who desire ordination. Among those who are already ordained, much of their lively hood and standing in a church or denomination is often connected to their confessional adherence, so they convince themselves to go undercover and act like the confession doesn’t exist. But this is conducting ministry under a false pretense, and it is both harmful and confusing for your people. It is unfair to claim that you are teaching them something that you are not or that you are in accord with a confession that you are in fact violating. The secular world actually has a term for this – False Advertising.
