The bottom line is that evaluating candidates and judging differences is not an empirical question, but a theological one. Each court has the right to declare the terms of admission into its membership (Preliminary Principle #2). Simply because a stated difference is commonly granted as an exception does not mean the same difference must be granted an exception in every presbytery. Conversely, simply because a stated difference is uncommon does not necessarily require that the exception may not be granted. It is also appropriate at this point to consider how helpful it may be – not only to the purity and unity of the church, but particularly for the candidate being examined – for presbytery not to grant an exception on a first examination, and instead to ask the man to consider further study. 

Good Faith Subscription (GFS), the practice of allowing a man to assent to most of the Westminster Standards in “good faith” while allowing him to state minor differences in parts, has been practiced in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) for almost 20 years.
The practice was officially amended into the PCA’s Book of Church Order when Overture 10 passed at the 31st General Assembly (see 2003 GA minutes, pp. 50-51, 54-56). This amendment required each candidate for the gospel ministry in the PCA to state in his own words any differences with the Westminster Standards (the Confession of Faith, together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as adopted by the PCA). Presbyteries are permitted to grant differences as “exceptions” to the Standards if the court determined that the difference “is neither hostile to the system nor strikes at the vitals of religion.”
Overture 10 from the 31st GA and overtures since adopted (see 2011 GA minutes, p. 25; 2012 GA minutes, pp. 63, 75, 105-107; 2013 GA minutes, p. 17) are unequivocally concerned with GA’s oversight of the peace, purity, and unity of the Church. However, to my knowledge, no one has systematically attempted to document how widespread the practice of “being granted exceptions” is or which Standards the practice touches, information that should be critical to GA’s oversight.
As a glorified bean counter, I turned to a basic skill on which I often rely to help make sense of a situation: counting. The purpose of this exercise is not for me to express an opinion on the merits and demerits of GFS, but rather to provide empirical insights to inform the conversation on so-called Good Faith and Full Subscription. Some may read these findings with great encouragement that GFS is working well and that clear distinctions are drawn between exceptions that do or do not strike at the vitals. Others may be concerned with the extent to which teaching elders in the PCA hold differences with the denomination’s constitutional standards. Hopefully, there will be helpful insights for those on both sides of the issue.
Methodology
In the absence of a census of stated differences, the only denomination-wide data on exceptions are in the reports to GA of the Committee on Review of Presbytery Records (RPR). According to the PCA’s Rules of Assembly Operations 16-3, whenever presbytery examines a candidate, presbytery must record any stated differences the candidate may have in his own words, as well as presbytery’s judgment of those differences. If a clerk fails to record any of these details, presbytery’s minutes may be flagged by RPR as an exception of substance. For example, RPR may note that the record of a teaching elder’s transfer exam was incomplete. During the subsequent year, presbytery may respond to RPR’s exception of substance by providing the missing elements of the transfer exam, including the teaching elder’s stated differences (if any) and the specific Standards with which he stated a difference. This process makes it possible to gain a generalizable sense of exceptions in the PCA, even if the RPR reports are a “fuzzy proxy” for stated differences across the PCA.
I want to make explicitly clear that I intend no judgment against presbytery clerks through this exercise. Indeed, exchanges between presbyteries and RPR have proven healthful for clarifying BCO language (see Overture 2 for the 51stGA) or for clarifying whether these differences can be taught (as in the cases of Calvary, Northwest Georgia, and Ohio Valley, see 2021 GA minutes, pp. 529-534, 592-594, 594-596). The kinds of mistakes that could lead to RPR flagging an item are the kinds of mistakes I likely make on a weekly basis, if not more frequently. Because they are such easy mistakes to make, it can be believed that this method approaches plausibly representative estimates for the denomination.
For this analysis to be generalizable, it must be believed that such a mistake is essentially random. Clerks are not picky about how they make mistakes. Rather, a mistake could be made just as easily for recording a Second Commandment exception as for a Fourth Commandment exception, or for a man stating no differences as for a man stating several. Random events in large enough samples should produce roughly representative data (e.g., 100 coin flips should yield roughly 50 heads and 50 tails).
The RPR reports from 2003 (the first year affected by the GFS overture) to 2023 provide a large enough sample that I believe we can accept them as reasonably representative. If anything, exceptions may be undercounted in my analysis. For example, Korean Language Presbyteries had twice as many flagged items as other presbyteries, but were three times as likely to have a man stating no differences. If KLPs are overrepresented in this sample, men who state no differences may be overrepresented as well.
Furthermore, it is likely that the Sabbath exception is undercounted. Pacific Northwest Presbytery, for example, mentioned that it was its practice not to record “the typical exception to the Standards’ definition of Sabbath sanctification” (see 2013 GA minutes, p. 465). If it is the case in some presbyteries not to record this exception, the relative prevalence of differences on the Fourth Commandment will be conservatively estimated by this method.
Findings
What did I find after reading these RPR reports? First, approximately 4 exceptions are granted (to other candidates) for each man who states no differences with the Standards. Second, the most common differences are related to the Westminster Standards’ teachings on the Fourth Commandment, the Second Commandment, and Creation. Third, exceptions to the Standards’ teaching regarding the Fourth Commandment touch the Standards in more places than do other exceptions.
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My message to believers is: do not wait to be led! It’s probably not going to happen. Educate yourselves, and start forming these small communities of faith, and networks of communities, so you can have a fighting chance of raising your kids in the faith, and enduring what’s to come. I talk about this in both The Benedict Option and Live Not By Lies. We do not have to sit passively by while this wave of darkness and chaos passes over us! There are things we can do, and do together. I think once again about the pastor I spoke to a couple of years ago, who told me he wouldn’t talk about gender ideology to his congregation because he didn’t want to be divisive, and introduce “politics” into the church. That man is going to have to answer to God one day for why he left his flock undefended. If you are part of a church whose clerical leadership is aware and courageous and engaged, give thanks to God! 

I got in late last night from several great days in London, meeting wonderful people, and feeling in the most important respects recharged. I have had perhaps the worst year of my life (I’m talking about the divorce), but at the same time, it was reaffirmed for me in London that I am inordinately blessed by the friends I have. In London, I gave a talk about Live Not By Lies — the lessons we Christians should learn from the suffering underground churches under Communism, that can be applied to our own situation. One of the main three lessons is the absolute importance of creating and sustaining small groups. Over and over, in my reporting for the book, I heard from dissidents who remained behind to live and struggle under Communism, that they could not have gotten through with their faith intact if it hadn’t been for small groups. The underground Slovak Catholic bishop (later cardinal) Jan Chrysostom Korec, told his followers that the state could take everything they have away from them, but the one thing the state must not be allowed to take away is their small groups of the faithful. These last few days in London, making new friends and renewing old friendships, helped me to understand this at a deep level. If you have others who love you, and whom you love, standing with you in the storm, you can endure anything. If it was true for those having to live under hard totalitarianism, how much more true must it be with us? I was making my coffee this morning, and a revised version of a well-known Auden line appeared in my mind: You will love your broken neighbor/With your broken heart.

On the flight back to Budapest, I was trying to sort out the meaning of this election day we just had. It seems clear to me that it likely would have been a Red Wave had Donald Trump not been a factor. He did a lot of good for the conservatives in 2016, but now, he is an enormous liability. True MAGA fans can’t accept it, but the truth is, there are a decisive number of Americans who would vote Republican, and will even vote for Trumpist policies, but won’t vote for Trump, or Trump-adjacent candidates. This is not hard to understand. Trump’s statements since election day reveal once again what we have always known about his character: that he is a reckless, vain man who doesn’t want to do anything other than create a cult of personality around himself.

Aaron Renn, the Calvinist public intellectual best known today for his “three worlds of Evangelicalism” model, writes of the striking repudiation of pro-life advocacy in this election:
This is just more evidence that we live in what I called the negative world. Conservative Christians need to understand that the majority of the public simply does not agree with their social positions. This is one reason that the culture war approach is obsolete. This is going to be a painful adjustment for a lot of people who are used to thinking of themselves as a “moral majority.”
He goes on:
I think this election shows that the MAGA movement in America is out of gas. Paul Gottfried once said that conservatism was basically a journalism project. That is, it was mostly a collection of op-ed writers, not serious academics, policy people, or a real political movement.
Similarly, one way to describe MAGA is as a social media influencer movement. It’s been long on e-celebrities and rhetoricians, short on serious, competent people who can produce results. The most MAGA/Trumpy candidates in this election underperformed in competitive races. JD Vance won his Senate race in Ohio, for example, but badly trailed the performance of Republican Ron DeWine in his gubernatorial campaign.
DeSantis is an interesting case study in post-MAGA politics. He recognized the unpopularity of the consensus status quo. And he took strong actions against that consensus that were publicly popular while largely avoiding ones that were not. For example, child transgenderization is not popular. On the other hand, most people want abortion to be legal. So he only signed a 15-week abortion ban, which seems in line with public opinion.
In retrospect, he was also the best performing governor of any major state leader during the pandemic. I believe Florida’s death rates were in the middle of the pack. But his decision to mostly keep the schools open is now the conventional wisdom about what should have been done everywhere. And by keeping business largely open as well, he positioned Florida to profit enormously from the shifting landscape. Big time venture capital and high finance – even the very progressive, ESG promoting BlackRock – have streamed into South Florida. This took enormous courage, and DeSantis was vilified by the media for two years over it. Even today they refuse to give him credit even when adopting his positions.
He also seems to have handled the recent hurricane relatively well. And although it is perhaps not something he personally did, Florida seems to have the gold standard for running elections, with its results available very quickly. That’s a big change from 2000. So he appears competent.
DeSantis lacks the natural charisma of many politicians. It’s not clear how he or his approach will play outside of Florida. But he’s shown that an aggressive Republicanism that stakes out popular post-MAGA positions, and which demonstrates courageous leadership and the competent ability to actually get things done can be not just popular but extremely popular. This demonstrates the divergent fortunes of traditional religious conservatism and a possible post-Christian, post-MAGA Republican Party.

Aaron published this on his Substack newsletter, which he’s got a this-week-only special subscription offer extant. I strongly suggest that you subscribe, even if you’re not a Protestant. Aaron is really smart, and he’s not afraid to tell hard truths to his fellow Christian conservatives.

Note that he points out that religious conservatism’s interests and that of the “post-Christian, post-MAGA Republican Party” diverge. This is something that is very hard for older Christians to grasp — I mean, the idea that politics are not the solution. Don’t misread me (I mean, everybody misreads me, but I’m going to make another plea here): It’s not an either/or. It’s not either “throw yourself completely into politics” or “head for the hills.” There are no hills to head to. We are stuck in this thing whether we want to be or not. Christians (and other traditionalists) have to do the best we can within political possibility, while AT THE SAME TIME preparing ourselves and our communities for dark and difficult days ahead. We have no choice. I was telling somebody in London that I find it so much more rewarding to be among younger (under 50) Christians in Europe and the UK talking about this stuff, because they live in more advanced post-Christian societies, and can see very clearly how hard it is, and is going to be. Americans are not quite there yet. We American Christians would do very well to engage British and European Christians who are serious about the faith (I’m not talking about people like the liberal Catholics who are now busy trying to revolutionize the Catholic Church in the name of synodality and accompaniment), to benefit from their counsel.
For me, the trans issue, even more than abortion, is the bellwether issue of our time for Christians. As far as I know, Wes Yang is not a believer, or even a conservative, but he has been a passionate opponent of the transing of America. His Twitter account features stories from detransitioners about how they were lied to and manipulated. He tweeted this after the election:
I’m where he is. This campaign to alienate young people from their bodies, to mutilate them chemically and surgically, and to deceive and sideline parents, is one of the most evil things I have ever seen. And yet, few people seem to care. The GOP certainly doesn’t care. People like Chris Rufo and Matt Walsh have done more to roll this evil back than any GOP politician, with the exception of Ron DeSantis and now, the governor and legislators in Tennessee, where Walsh lives. It is mind-blowing to me that Republicans have not made an issue of this — not because it will help them win votes, but because it is just so damn evil. But then, how many pastors are making an issue of it? How many pastors are explaining to their congregations why it’s bad, and how parents and their kids can resist it? How many people in the pews want to hear it? This is what it means to be a post-Christian country. This is what it means to have bought the modern story that the material world, especially the human body, is meaningless matter upon which we can impose our will, without limits. Again, so many Christians have bought into this story, and know so little about the faith that they don’t understand what they are doing. An Evangelical pastor friend of mine texted me yesterday to say that he had spoken to a group of about 60 Evangelical college students at a big Southern university, and was shocked to find that none of them knew much of anything about the Bible, or the faith. They were blank slates. They didn’t choose to be that way: this is what their parents and grandparents did to them. We Christians — in part because we put too much faith in politics — have created a generation of men (and women) without chests, and we wonder why they consent to becoming men and women without breasts and balls.
You think Pope Francis’s “synodal” church, a church of “inclusivity” and “accompaniment” is going to form Catholics capable of resisting? Read this column by Gavin Ashenden, a former Anglican priest, now Catholic. He saw what this kind of talk did to his former church, and he’s now sounding the alarm. Excerpt:
[I]n the world of Anglicanism, an essential part of the leftist sociological take-over of the church was almost always accompanied by the promise that the Holy Spirit was very much part of the project.  It turned out, at the end of the process that the progressives had in fact  mistaken the spirit of the age for the Holy Spirit. Having seen the ploy used once to such divisive and destructive effect, the ex-Anglicans are hoping to share their experience of the danger this constitutes to the integrity of the Church.
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Written by David L. Bahnsen |
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
It is easy to watch a series like this and suspect the modern anarchy movement guilty of a flawed or miscalculated sociology. But I am sad to say, sadder after watching this series, that it is not a particular sociology that is at the root of this tragedy. That could conceivably be re-engineered. Rather, it is a moral pathology that hated a loving Lawgiver who alone holds the key to our escape from bondage.

I have a reasonably high tolerance for uncomfortable television and movies, maybe a higher tolerance than I should, but the first thing I would say about the HBO Max series The Anarchists is that it is not for the faint of heart. In this case, though, the tough stomach required is not due to excessive violence, cringey sexual content, or other common factors in objectionable material. The series is tough to watch because it directly touches on elements of human depravity that are unpleasant to engage. It shines a light on a certain darkness that can creep over the human soul that is more than I bargained for when deciding to watch the documentary. And yet, out of the very depressing reality that the series covers, a lesson is to be discovered of profound importance for the intellectually curious and morally rooted.
The Anarchists is a look behind the scenes at a group of American-born anarchists who took refuge together in Acapulco, Mexico, leaving behind their careers and domestic roots for a life committed to autonomy. Eventually, select members of these anarchistic refugees start an annual conference called Anarchapulco. The documentary covers the rise and fall of the conference, dovetailed with the rise and fall of this community. The gripping drama that is both tangential to and at the root of this group’s implosion is the murder of a drug-dealing fugitive member of their community, and the eventual suicide of the PTSD-suffering veteran widely believed to have been complicit in the murder.
The tensions are heightened by the sensational real-life drama that defined this community—murder, drugs, inordinate alcohol consumption, scandal, fraud, corruption, violence, lawbreaking, and all the rest. Yet the filmmakers include some modest level of the philosophy of anarchism to seep through as well, allowing the leaders of the movement to state their case for a society disconnected from rules, norms, and institutions.
The filming of this sect could ideally have led to a provocative documentary on an iconoclastic group of intellectually eccentric adults. Perhaps the filmmakers (and the subjects of the documentary themselves) could have crafted a series that evaluated the pros and cons of anarcho-capitalistic thinking, countercultural philosophy, and the capacity for human autonomy unhindered by the laws of nature and the laws of men. But alas, like the philosophy of anarchism itself, such a documentary was doomed from the beginning, assured only of ending in the chaos and despair this series had to highlight. Missing from the Acapulco anarchy movement was a framework for liberty rooted in morality and ordered love. Ultimately, what was palpably present in the Acapulco anarchy movement was the fate of all human autonomy untethered from the law of God and awareness of the basic human condition.
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