PCA at the Crossroads
Just over twenty years ago I was received into the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) as a minister. I joined a Gospel-proclaiming, grace-saturated Presbytery in a Good-Faith Subscription, warmly Evangelical denomination that was in partnership with other Presbyterian & Reformed Communions.
I was astonished to find myself in the same denomination with men I’d long regarded as heroes of the Faith, who’d shown me kindness and taught me so much, albeit from a distance. It was a diverse body of churches and stories of the Gospel’s advance, a home big enough for a whole host of views on secondary matters, possessing a joyful embrace of all that is most vital.
While I want to see that approach maintained, deepened, and furthered, it’s clear that there are some in the PCA today who do not appear to share that hope with me.
Roots and Wings
Looking back, men like Kennedy Smartt, Frank Barker, Francis Schaeffer, James Kennedy, David Nicholas, Cortez Cooper, RC Sproul, Steve Brown, and many others were not only deeply Reformed but also broadly evangelical, and resistant to fundamentalist impulses. They showed the way ahead on many critical issues while embracing authentic confessional integrity.
From the outset, and including the “Joining and Receiving” of the Reformed Presbyterian Church Evangelical Synod, the PCA has offered a sometimes uncomfortable but committed communion of those who preferred a more strict approach to the Confession and a majority of others who favored a Good Faith approach. We have been united in our commitments to the inerrancy of Scripture, the Reformed Faith (especially in regard to the Solas & Sacraments), and the Great Commission. Largely leaving worship practices to the wisdom of local Sessions, a great family of churches emerged and grew in the rich soil of these convictions. It was a denomination with roots to go deep and wings to take flight.
This stance inspired many and led to the PCA becoming a place of personal growth and safe harbor for some who, like me, saw the need to be part of a Presbyterian Church with its strong connectional practice & accountability in a Reformed theological framework that was also deeply committed to reaching others with the Gospel and modeling a genuinely ecumenical spirit. Tim Keller, Charles McGowan, Scotty Smith, Bryan Chappell, Ligon Duncan, and so many more have carried this forward.
Now a new generation of leaders like Philip Ryken, Tom Gibbs, Kevin DeYoung, Julius Kim, Irwyn Ince, Nancy Guthrie, Paige Benton Brown and others maintain our historical commitment to reformed orthodoxy joined to a broader evangelicalism & joyful outreach through the Gospel. The PCA offers a desirable destination for those who seek to serve in churches that maintain our theological convictions with a posture of gracious welcome, engaged mission, and commitment to unity in the Body of Christ.
Keeping the Good Faith
Being a Good Faith Subscription denomination is central to that fruitfulness. The PCA is not and must not become a Strict Subscription denomination, even in a de facto sense. Maintaining fidelity to Scripture and insisting on our Confession and Catechisms having subordinate authority in our practice and polity is essential. The uniqueness of Scripture and the limits of our own understanding commend this Good Faith approach.
Some argue for the right of Presbyteries to forbid a man to teach an exception that they’ve already judged to be an allowable exception. In my view, this is de facto strict subscription and it not only dangerously exalts the Standards to the place where a minister’s conscience is needlessly bound by the action of Presbytery but also wrongly exalts the authority of the Presbytery over the denomination as a whole. How can we say, “Your exception is allowable and does not strike at the vitals of our theology” and in the same breath add, “But, you must not teach what you believe the Bible says even if you faithfully present what the WCF says also”? That is not the PCA I joined and it is not the one our founders fashioned.
The power to stipulate the qualifications for ordination belongs not to the Presbytery - as was wrongly asserted on the floor of the 2021 General Assembly during debate on this issue - but to the denomination as a whole. The PCA’s Preliminary Principles make this clear, despite any claims to the contrary. Presbytery does have considerable latitude in the application of what constitutes adherence to those standards, but they may neither lower them nor go beyond them; they must act in conformity with our denominational standards. This fact is implicitly acknowledged by the current debate over proposed changes to the BCO in regard to the examination of candidates for ordination. No Presbytery gets to go rogue on what it holds to be such qualifications and standards for examination; it has to adhere to the BCO.
Demanding that ministers only teach in conformity with the Confession and Catechisms - when their stated exception is already acknowledged as acceptable and ‘not striking at the vitals’ - is a-historical and contrary to the practice of the very Westminster Divines who framed the Standards. It establishes a dangerous precedent that sends a signal to churches that far from being a faithful summary of what the Scriptures teach, the Standards set the boundary marker of everything Scripture says. This approximates the authority of the Standards in the Church with the authority of Scripture itself, a direct violation of Sola Scriptura. I suspect the Westminster Divines themselves and our forefathers in the Reformation would be appalled and deeply troubled by this practice in the PCA.
I cherish our Confessional Standards and employ them in my personal study as well as public ministry. I have been granted the three exceptions I have claimed (and I’ve been examined by three different Presbyteries over the course of my service), and I insist on the freedom of ministers to teach their allowable exceptions as long as they faithfully and fairly explain the issues and present the views of the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is sheer fantasy to suggest that those of us intent on maintaining the historical position of the PCA on Good Faith Subscription and the freedom of our ministers to teach allowable exceptions are being divisive or are in the clutches of ‘progressivism.’
The Drumbeat of Fear
Some PCA leaders claim that great theological declension is underway among us, that our Standards are being abandoned and subverted by other PCA Officers who are “Progressives.” I regard this broad brushstroke assertion to be a slander on faithful men and I call on these brothers to withdraw it. I regularly interface with many PCA Pastors, both older and younger than me, and I do not know one single PCA Pastor who is guilty of being a “Progressive Christian.” Reckless words from PCA fear-mongers threaten a beautiful, historical, and orthodox unity I hope most want to maintain in the bond of peace. It reflects an inevitably sectarian view and furthers fragmentation in an already deeply divided time.
Is Critical Theory a danger? Yes. But racism has been a sinful reality in the Church for years and it is an insufficient response to simply decry Critical Theory without adequately listening to and addressing the real concerns of minority communities in the church and where the church serves. Moreover, when brothers and sisters do address those issues with Ephesians 2 and Galatians 2-4 rather than Malcolm X at the center of their work, and then hear themselves attacked as cultural Marxists, we’ve entered the realm of the absurd.
Is a compromised view of human sexuality an important issue? Yes. Yet no Pastor I know is compromising on that issue in the PCA, and the overwhelmingly commended Report from the AIC on Sexuality is as bracing, pastoral, and clarifying a ‘stand’ as can be imagined. But here’s the thing - Porn is a massive problem in the churches, taking aim especially at our young people. Is that getting the same amount of attention? That doesn’t appear to be the case. What about the abuse of women? Is that a ‘concern’? It should be.
Greed is never mentioned as a concern, of course. No study committee is needed on that non-issue. Thankfully our hearts and lives are in no danger of being corrupted by mammon. Good to know. Christian Nationalism isn’t an issue of concern either, apparently. These represent no danger at all … said the Titanic lookout about icebergs.
I long for a PCA in which I can partner with all of my colleagues on the crucial issues of Biblical and theological fidelity, all the while leaving room for one another on what are not only secondary matters but even minor issues as well. That’s the actual big tent we have and it is one we should rejoice in. We don’t need pup tent Presbyterianism, populated by an a-historical sectarian narrowness of heart that seeks to promote its agenda through means that more resemble political machinery than ministerial community, one that always looks for the next quarrel with those who don’t agree 100% with their take on whatever the controversy du jour may be, while disparaging those who have different practices in prayer or worship or mission.
I witnessed this first hand in the Overtures Committee at the recent General Assembly. I was shocked when a fellow Committee member responded to the Overture from the Korean Presbyteries with a disdainful critique of “Korean Style Praying” as being unbiblical. That deeply grieved me. My PCA Korean brothers and sisters, our Korean brothers and sisters, have much to teach us about passionate, holy, earnest, and biblical prayer - the very kind of prayers and laments that we find in the Psalter! Frankly, given the fruitfulness of the Korean Church in the past century, maybe we should all be at the feet of our Korean brothers and sisters to learn how to pray more effectively. These kinds of comments cannot be allowed to stand unchallenged; they must be rejected and such scorn rebuked.
By way of contrast, the Report by the AIC on Human Sexuality is a fine example of what can be accomplished when we work together across all sectors of the PCA. We do need one another and can serve with one another for the good of the whole denomination, as well as that of the wider Evangelical & Reformed community. The PCA’s Ad Interim Committee Report on Human Sexuality makes me proud of and thankful for the PCA. It is what we need. I lament the rush to pass Overtures that diminish it, contradict it, and ignore its biblically faithful contribution and clarity.
These Concerns are Overstated
Some are obviously not pleased with such breadth in our denomination. Under the guise of “concern”, assertions of theological “Progressivism” have been bandied about by some, and as a result, a more strict adherence to our Standards has been called for in order to button up loose ends.
The first issue is a false alarm that thrives in a culture of fear, but also in the fertile soil of criticism for all who seek to address the very valid issue of how we bring the unchanging Gospel to an increasingly hostile secularized society and how we address racism in the Church. That’s not progressivism; it is Good Faith Subscription and Biblical fidelity.
The second issue is an overreaction to supposed cases of men being less than straightforward about their views of the Standards and their exceptions (I don’t doubt that this has occurred at times, but it is not prevalent). The diagnosis is off and the prescription is as well. A new de facto strict subscription looks to treat with a bazooka a problem that requires a scalpel.
The qualifications I’ve heard some make about their use of the term “Progressivism” simply won’t fly. In theologically conservative circles, “Progressivism” is anathema, always indicating infidelity and declension. Using that word about fellow PCA ministers is an abuse of the language and little more than Humpty Dumpty verbicide. You’ll recall Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland in which Humpty Dumpty says, “When I use a word...it means just what I choose it to mean…” to which Alice rightly responded, “The question is…whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
This is all part of a wider project to redefine what “conservative” and “subscription” mean in order to reset the boundaries of what is allowable in the PCA. It is always done in nameless ways because naming names would open the door to the refutation of the false claims and remove the weapon of fear from the arsenal of those who want to stir people up and lead them deeper into a “Truly Reformed” cul-de-sac, something the PCA was never designed to be.
I have been distressed by the perpetual and publicly stated (yet) anonymous slanderous accusations about “Progressives” and “Liberals” in the PCA by men who have taken vows to uphold a BCO and Confession that denounces slander and clearly outlines how godly men and women should proceed with concerns about Pastors, Elder, and Churches. This really must come to a stop.
Enough Already
Enough is enough. I am a Schaeffer-Stott-Lovelace reformed evangelical, old enough to recall when that wasn’t a political label and was an honorable position in the PCA. Our denomination is messy at times, but like a garage where things are often untidy, with bikes and tools and athletic gear strewn about the place, that mess is a sign of life. We zealously guard our core commitments but we wisely leave to local leaders the conduct of worship and outreach in their churches. Yes, that creates a family of churches and Presbyteries where great differences exist. That’s cause for celebration in my view: vive la difference!
Perhaps some want a different and more tidy PCA than that one. If so, perhaps they’re considering forming a new denomination. I hope not, but I hope even more that they’ll stop trying to remake the PCA into something it was never intended to be. Such a new denomination might well embrace strict subscription or de facto strict subscription; it might allow very little latitude in liturgy and music; it could clearly embrace culture war conservatism as a standard of fidelity to Christ; it could refuse to allow any man who experiences SSA to serve as an officer, even if the man was committed to the mortification of that sin and sanctification of his entire person; it could disparage other ethnicities and insist that anyone pointing out that such a practice is problematic is probably a Marxist; it could be sure that the voices of women are never heard to offer counsel to Elders, Deacons, and General Assembly Committees.
That might be the perfect denomination for some people. It’ll be really small and it won’t be the PCA... at least not the PCA I joined and for which I am willing to give my all.
On the other hand, you can have a “deep and wide” Presbyterian Church in America, a Church that is deeply rooted theologically while also possessing a wide embrace of others for mission in the world, unity across Christ’s Church, and the expression of our Reformed Faith in worship. Doctrinalists, Pietists, and Culturalists - to use a well-worn taxonomy - will walk & work together in authentic affection and mutual appreciation; ethnic and cultural differences won’t be merely tolerated but actually celebrated as a preview of the day we all gather around the throne and sing “Worthy is the Lamb”; the wisdom of our sisters will help shape the policies and priorities we pursue; the rising generations in our congregations will be inspired by their leaders not only contending for the faith in their congregations but serving their communities for the common good; and far from being fear-mongers that take an “Us vs. Them” posture to fellowship and the prevailing culture, we can be those who live in an “Us for Them” posture of speaking the truth in love, becoming those who heal the broken streets and bridge the divides. We can be the PCA that beats swords into plowshares for the sake of the harvest.
That’s a PCA living in the vision of the founders, one doing “all things for the sake of the Gospel” and one I’d rejoice in every day.
At the Intersection
The PCA is at a crossroads. That’s not a bad place to be. Such intersections compel us to make decisions about our direction rather than simply ignoring the place we are in our journey. I hope we choose wisely in the fear of the Lord, with genuine humility towards and affection for one another, and profound commitment to Jesus Christ & the cause of his Gospel in the world. That’s the ancient path to which the Scriptures summon us (Jere 6:16), a path we can passionately pursue together. Let’s get going.