There are indeed many reasons to continue to be hopeful, optimistic, and engaged in the work of the PCA courts. The PCA continues to move slowly but steadily in a direction that reflects greater faithfulness and integrity regarding our confessional commitments and Reformed distinctives. 

The PCA turns a half century this year, and the 50th General Assembly meets in Memphis, Tenn. June 12-16. Numerous elders (e.g. TEs Jon Payne and the late Harry Reeder) have noted the fifty-year mark is a crucial milestone for faithfulness as a Church. Fittingly, the PCA has been engaged in a lengthy family discussion over the last few years over what sort of communion we will be.
Will the PCA be a “big tent” with wide latitude regarding what it means to be “Reformed” and “Presbyterian” (as in David Cassidy’s blog here) or will she be a house, with well-defined, clearly demarcated boundaries of what is in and out, as RE Brad Isbell articulates in his helpful overview?
The Scripture uses both analogies to describe the Church:
Enlarge the place of your tent, and let the curtains of your habitations be stretched out; do not hold back; lengthen your cords and strengthen your stakes. For you will spread abroad to the right and to the left, and your offspring will possess the nations and will people the desolate cities.(Isaiah 54:2–3)
That sounds like the design of the Church is to be a “big tent,” although perhaps without the clowns who normally populate such. But then again, in the New Covenant, we are exhorted not to long for a big tent:
We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.(Hebrews 13:10)
and
As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.(1 Peter 2:4–5)
The PCA is nonetheless trending in the direction not of a “big tent,” but of a distinctively Reformed communion committed to the historic expression of Presbyterianism articulated in the Westminster Standards. In an interview with TE George Sayour, the legendary churchman TE O. Palmer Robertson reflected on this trajectory during his time in the PCA since 1973 and how the PCA has steadily moved in a more solidly Reformed direction.
1. The State of the PCA
The founding generation of the PCA envisioned her being a confessionally Reformed and Presbyterian faith communion:
…committed without reservation to the Reformed Faith as set forth in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. It is our conviction that the Reformed faith is not sectarian, but an authentic and valid expression of Biblical Christianity…We particularly wish to labor with other Christians committed to this theology.1
Over the last half-century, the PCA has indeed moved decidedly in that direction in terms of worship, polity, and piety. The founding generation of the PCA, largely educated in the institutions of the old PCUS, may not have had a rich theologically Reformed foundation, but it is clear they desired the new denomination to develop in that area and to raise up ministers who had such a foundation and could impart such commitments in the new denomination. Institutions such as Reformed Theological Seminary and fathers such as TE Morton Smith would instill in the first generation of men ordained in the PCA a love for the Reformed Faith and a desire for the nations to come to Christ to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.
This progress has been slow and not without regression or exception. But the PCA is becoming more distinctively Reformed with each passing decade.
A. Review of 2022 Overtures
TE Scott Edburg along with RE Joshua Torrey have maintained a helpful spreadsheet tracking each of the 49th General Assembly’s overtures. What follows is a brief overview of some of the most significant results of the last year.
The Character Overtures (Overtures 15, 29 & 31)
To the 50th General Assembly will come a number of overtures approved by the presbyteries for final ratification. While the presbyteries approved Overtures 29 and 31, which both serve to strengthen character requirements for ordination, the presbyteries failed to approve Overture 15, which would have added this clear and concise statement to the Book of Church Order:
Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.
While this amendment passed nearly 60% of PCA presbyteries, it failed to reach the necessary 2/3 majority to enable final ratification by the 50th Assembly. Even if Overtures 29 and 31 are ratified by this Assembly, there will still be no clear standard barring men dominated by unnatural lusts from ordination. A few “do-overtures” will be considered by the 2023 General Assembly in an attempt to spare the PCA further discord resulting from the new ideas brought in by some in Saint Louis and elsewhere who dwell in the bulwarks of nuance and ambiguity.
The Jurisdiction Overture (Overture 8)
A valiant effort was made last year by Houston Metro Presbytery to codify how scandal in one presbytery or congregation may be addressed by the wider Church. Currently the language of the constitution is vague regarding how a higher court may intervene in a scandal within a lower court, which has allowed a number of men to avoid judicial scrutiny of views and practices that are clearly deviant.
Critics of the overture at last year’s Assembly expressed concern that such a change to clarify the PCA Constitution would enable “witch hunts.”
Except for Overtures 8 and 15, all others sent to the presbyteries for approval received overwhelming support and will likely be ratified by the Assembly in Memphis.
B. Signs of and Challenges to Confessional Health in the PCA
There are numerous reasons to be optimistic regarding the trajectory and continued fidelity of the PCA. Since 2019, the Assembly’s acts and deliverances have generally tended to strengthen our commitment to historic Christianity and distinctively Reformed Presbyterianism. But congregations must continue to send their full complements to General Assembly in order to participate in the work of the Church and contend for the faith against those who would broaden or weaken our constitutional commitments.
Good Faith or System Subscription?
Long ago, the PCA wisely determined she would not require full subscription to every proposition of the Westminster Standards by her officers. Instead the PCA enshrined in her constitution what has come to be called “Good Faith Subscription” (GFS). In GFS, all a candidate’s differences must be submitted to the Church court for assessment and it is expected – in good faith – that the man has no other differences with the system of doctrine other than those few that he has articulated. The Presbytery then must determine whether those differences are acceptable and whether/how they impact the rest of the system.
GFS is not loose subscription or “System Subscription” in which a wide variety of differences may be held, practiced, and taught. In GFS, a man’s stated differences are presumed not to impact the rest of the system and that he is in agreement with everything else within the Standards except where has he has narrowly stated a difference. GFS is one of the more strict forms of confessional subscription.
In “System Subscription,” a man simply states his agreement with the system, but in there is no necessary check or examination to ensure the system the man claims to hold actually conforms to the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Standards. It is important to remember, the Westminster Standards are themselves a system and to disagree with or reject one portion often results in a series of other disagreements, since much of the Westminster Standards are interdependent.2
Recently there seems to be a blurring of the distinctions between GFS and System Subscription by some within the PCA, but the two are not the same. In his farewell / sabbatical blog, SemperRef editor TE Travis Scott inaccurately equated System Subscription with the Good Faith Subscription required by the PCA’s constitution:
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In all of this we see that sometimes justice comes about quickly. Sometimes justice is delayed. And sometimes justice never seems to come at all – in this life at least. When it seems like great injustice is happening and is never being rectified, that can be a very grievous thing to go through. God’s people of course see this occurring all the time and often all they can do is cry out, “How Long O Lord? When will we see some justice?” The Bible speaks to this often. Indeed, the entirety of Scripture informs us that our God is a God of justice. We see him carrying out justice in the here and now, and we read about justice that is forthcoming.

Today justice is not always found, but full justice IS coming:
A million times a day there are acts of injustice taking place, be they greater or lesser acts. Most people have an innate dislike of injustice, and a strong desire for justice. Here I want to simply offer four examples of injustice: two recent and two ancient – some of which are followed by justice. I will then look at how the book of Revelation speaks to all this.
The first case involves a Christian in Ireland who was jailed. He was not involved in theft or sexual abuse of students. No, much worse, he refused to go along with the woke pronoun nonsense. And for that he had been jailed for several months and was set to miss out on Christmas. Talk about gross injustice and gross idiocy on the part of the authorities. One report says this:
“A teacher in Ireland has been suspended from work and then jailed for contempt of court after he refused to use the correct pronouns to address a transgender student. Enoch Burke was arrested on Monday for violating a court order barring him from teaching at Wilson’s Hospital School in Westmeath, or even being present there.” nypost.com/2022/09/06/teacher-enoch-burke-jailed-over-trans-pronouns-flap/
But a court has just allowed his release, so he was able to be with family to celebrate Christmas. Finally, a bit of justice: “A teacher who was jailed for ignoring a court order has been released from prison after a ruling by the High Court. Enoch Burke was jailed in September for breaching an order which prevents him from attending the school where he works.” www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn3z8x0vvk2o
Another recent case, also from Europe, involves a woman arrested for praying outside of an abortion mill: “The thing could seem implausible or grotesque, but one does not trifle with the law. Thus, a woman was arrested and charged with ‘mental prayer’ at an abortion clinic. Isabel Vaughan-Spruce is the director of March for Life in the UK and a volunteer supporting women in difficult pregnancy situations. She was arrested by police at an abortion clinic in Birmingham. She was later charged with four counts after telling police she was ‘maybe’ praying silently when asked why she was standing on a public road near an abortion center.” fsspx.news/en/news-events/news/uk-it-forbidden-silently-pray-certain-places-78890
Although released on bail, this sort of thing should never have happened. We really are at the end of civilisation as we know it when silent prayer is deemed to be a crime by the godless state, and those involved in it can be arrested and jailed. Where is the justice?
A third case also involves the powers that be committing great injustice to those who could not easily stand up for themselves. It took place thousands of years ago and is recorded in the Bible. I refer to a story found in 1 Kings 21 concerning the evil King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. You know the story.
Ahab lusted after Naboth’s vineyard, and was bummed out about not being able to have it. Jezebel chewed him out: ‘Hey, who is king around here? Leave it to me – I will get it for you.’ She gets some worthless fellows to bear false witness against Naboth. He is declared guilty and killed, and Ahab gets his coveted vineyard. Talk about deplorable injustice. But the prophet Elijah quickly condemns the king and tells him justice is coming. And that it does: we read about Ahab’s death in the next chapter.
My fourth case is also very familiar, and it involves a good King – David. We all know how lust got the better of him, and he committed adultery with Bathsheba. He then had her husband killed to cover up his crime. Those are some very ugly and unjust actions indeed. But the prophet Nathan quickly appears on the scene to call him out. He tells David a story which enrages David and his sense of justice. But then Nathan tells him: “You are the man!” See 2 Samuel 11-12 for the full story.
Obviously much bigger and badder examples of injustice can be mentioned, including the Holodomor in Ukraine in the 1930s and the Holocaust in the 1940s – both of which resulted in the deaths of millions of people. So whether on a massive scale or on a smaller scale, injustice is always happening.
In all of this we see that sometimes justice comes about quickly. Sometimes justice is delayed. And sometimes justice never seems to come at all – in this life at least. When it seems like great injustice is happening and is never being rectified, that can be a very grievous thing to go through.
God’s people of course see this occurring all the time and often all they can do is cry out, “How Long O Lord? When will we see some justice?” The Bible speaks to this often. Indeed, the entirety of Scripture informs us that our God is a God of justice. We see him carrying out justice in the here and now, and we read about justice that is forthcoming.
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Every Christian I have ever met has an interest in and a desire for pleasing God by living in accordance with His will. When it comes to personal decision making—especially in seemingly large, life-affecting decisions (“Is this God’s will for my marriage partner?” “Is it God’s will for me to accept this job offer?”), we want God to give us His counsel, His advice, His direction. There is certainly nothing wrong with that. In especially hard decisions, we want to make an appointment with God and sit down across the desk from Him and explain to Him the situation and the decision we face and then to sit back and listen and have Him tell us exactly what decision to make. Or—maybe even more honestly—what we want is for God to decide for us so that we won’t have to.
The question is, does God direct us when we make personal decisions, and if so, how can I find that guidance? Or, can I know in advance God’s will for me in matters not explicitly spelled out in the Scriptures? While we cannot know God’s infallible will about anything except that which is revealed in Scripture, we are not to think that we have been left on our own with no assistance from God. The issue is not one of God’s willingness to assist but of the methodology by which God has stated He will give that assistance. What we find is that finding God’s will in personal decision making is a process, not an event. It is a process wherein we follow principles that God has given in His Word.
Here, then, are the means by which God has promised to give us the aid we so desperately desire when it comes to making specific decisions for our lives. While they are listed in no particular order (except for the first two, which are necessary and foundational), when woven together they are the means by which God ordinarily directs us in the way we should go.
1. The Bible: God’s revealed will and “our only rule of faith and life.”
God’s speaking in His Word is the only inerrant and infallible source of guidance and counsel concerning any decision. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules” (Ps. 119:105–6). We can know with certainty that any decision that involves violating what God has already said cannot please Him.
2. Prayer: Rooted in faith that God hears and cares.
He is a loving Father and is delighted to help in the decision-making process. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, it will be opened” (Matt. 7:7–8). “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given to him” (James 1:5).