The Assembly will have the opportunity to consider whether to uphold our polity and/or to reform our judicial procedures. Additionally the Assembly will take crucial votes regarding the personnel who comprise our GA Committees and Judicial Commission as well as for the staff who administer the daily operations of the denominational agencies.

Thanks to last year’s overture from the Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley (PMV), a broad consensus regarding officer qualifications and character seems to be emerging in the PCA. This much-needed respite from debates on sexuality and abuse has given the PCA the luxury to focus on other issues that may seem less exciting, but may be more significant.
This year’s Assembly will focus largely on three main issues: Polity, Procedure, and Personnel. The Assembly will have the opportunity to consider whether to uphold our polity and/or to reform our judicial procedures. Additionally the Assembly will take crucial votes regarding the personnel who comprise our GA Committees and Judicial Commission as well as for the staff who administer the daily operations of the denominational agencies.
A number of men have prepared guides to and analyses of the overtures as they prepared for GA. Some of them have been made available to others; this is not an attempt to sway votes, but to aid the brethren in their own preparations:
TE David CoffinRE Howie DonahoeTEs Jared Nelson & Scott Edburg (Polity Matters Podcast)TE Fred Greco
Whether you’re an elder or not, I’d encourage you to consider the commentary provided by these brothers. It will help you to better understand and to talk with the elders and members of your congregation about the issues before the Assembly.
I. Presiding Officer
The first vote of the Assembly will be to elect a new moderator. TE Fred Greco did a superb job in the role at the PCA’s Semi-Centennial Assembly. An attempt to elect him “moderator for life” was ruled out of order at the close of last year.
By custom, this year’s moderator will come from among the PCA’s Ruling Elders, since last year’s moderator was a Teaching Elder.
For Prayer: Ask the Lord to grant the Church a moderator who is clear, compassionate, and competent to efficiently guide the Assembly through the business. Pray God will give the moderator wisdom in the appointments and rulings he will make.
II. Previous Overtures
One of the first votes of the Assembly will be whether to ratify the Amendments to the Book of Church Order that were passed by the 50th General Assembly. This year there are three items the 51st Assembly may ratify:
Item 1: The titles of pastor, elder, and deacon may be used to refer only to men ordained by a church court to those offices.
Item 2: Officers in the PCA must conform to the biblical requirement of chastity in their convictions, character, and conduct.
Item 3: Any confession from a person coming as his own accuser must be reviewed by the person(s) offended before a Church Court approves an official confession.
For Prayer: Ask the Lord to grant unity to the PCA regarding decisions on these items and to promote truth, righteousness, and justice in all the Courts of the PCA.
III. Polity
1. Review of Presbytery Records (RPR)
Among the most important works of the General Assembly is the examination of the minutes of the 88 presbyteries that comprise the PCA. This is a necessary component of our polity and ensures consistency and fairness across the spectrum of the PCA.
Each year a committee consisting of (up to) one representative from each presbytery examines the minutes of the presbyteries to ensure the presbyteries are upholding the theology of the Westminster Standards, balancing the rights and responsibilities of the congregations and ministers who comprise the Presbyteries, and correctly recording the actions of the Presbyteries.
Holding one another accountable, spurring one another along, and encouraging the brethren is a crucial aspect of Presbyterianism. The RPR committee meets this week; its report is usually worth careful consideration.
At last year’s General Assembly two presbyteries were referred to the Judicial Commission (SJC) due to irregularities in their minutes. For example, Metro New York Presbytery will have to report back on how it has fulfilled the corrective actions mandated by the SJC to this year’s Assembly (see WS Pod Episode 27 for more).
2. Preaching (Overture 3)
Last year the PCA saw a number of congregations depart for independency or more progressive faith communions over the issue of women’s roles (see WS Pod Special Episode for more).
Even though some churches have left the PCA due to a desire for women to preach, other congregations continue to push the envelope on the matter. Pee Dee Presbytery has proposed granting a section of our Directory of Worship (Chapter 53) constitutional authority and specifying that only “qualified men” may preach.
In our day there is great confusion both in the Church and the culture. Language games and equivocations abuse the plain meaning of words, which require us to further clarify our position on preaching: what it is and who may do it. The Overture says much more than that only “qualified men” may preach, but that seems to be the focus of the attention. The definition and description of a sermon contained in BCO 53 is a needed addition to our Constitution.
(See WS Pod Episode 9 for an interview with the author of this overture or this recent episode of Presbycast).
3. RUF Affiliation Agreement
At last year’s Assembly, there was prolonged debate over a new standardized Affiliation Agreement that RUF National desired to have implemented across the denomination.
TE Zach Byrd of PMV successfully argued before the Assembly last year that RUF National Committee must submit any substantial change to the review and control of the General Assembly.
As the new “Affiliation Agreement” was crafted for consideration by the Richmond Assembly, careful attention was paid to the relationship between a campus ministry of RUF, the presbytery of which the RUF campus minister is a member, and the RUF National and Regional Coordinators.
For Prayer: Ask the Lord to bless the Presbyterian Church in America and keep us faithful to our historic polity and more rigorously, zealously, and charitably to apply the biblical principles Christ has given to govern His Church.
IV. Personnel
1. Nominating Committee
The Report of the Nominating Committee is one of the Assembly’s few “orders of the day.” At this time dozens of men are elected to serve on the boards (committees) for the agencies of the Presbyterian Church in America as well as her Standing Judicial Commission and special committees.
These committees are responsible for ensuring the staff and agency coordinators execute the policies and priorities of the General Assembly. These committees recommend to the Assembly who will serve as Agency Coordinators (e.g. Covenant College President, MTW Coordinator, Stated Clerk, etc.).
As a Presbyterian communion, the heads of staff for our missionary and discipleship organizations (e.g. MTW, RUF) are not styled “Presidents” as in the case of many other faith communions, but “Coordinators.” This is because the heads of staff for the PCA committees are ministers of the General Assembly and not executives with broad powers. This is another way in which the grass-roots nature of the PCA is manifested.
2. Election of the Stated Clerk
The Administrative Committee annually recommends a candidate to the Assembly to serve as Stated Clerk. Frequently, this election is simply a formality with the current clerk receiving overwhelming reelection. There have been some exceptions, for example at the 1986 General Assembly there was much back and forth regarding the resignation of inaugural Stated Clerk Dr Morton H Smith.1
The current Stated Clerk’s tenure has not been without controversy. In 2021 there was objection to his continued service on the SJC while simultaneously serving as interim Stated Clerk; historically when a judge on the SJC is elected Stated Clerk, he resigns his position on the SJC. As interim clerk, however, TE Chapell continued to participate in the SJC until the Assembly elected him Stated Clerk at which point he did resign. But many brothers believed he should have resigned or abstained during his service as interim.
In 2022 there were many questions as to whether the Stated Clerk had been or continued to be a member of the “National Partnership,” a caucus group advocating for progressive causes within the PCA. TE Chapell denied ever having been a member of the now-defunct Partnership and while emails claim him as a member, there is no evidence he actually participated in the National Partnership.
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These Gilded Age Christians would challenge us to examine the roots of our dearly held individualism critically. Rogers and Ely stressed a fraternity and equality based in their Christian anthropology — an understanding of humanity’s deep solidarity as divine image bearers. Given how many Christians around the world routinely vote for various social democratic parties, the politics of American evangelicals may be rooted today more in their Americanness than in their theology.

The rehabilitation of socialism’s reputation among Millennials and Gen Z has grabbed the attention of political analysts in recent years: “Socialism as Popular as Capitalism Among Young Adults in U.S.” (Gallup). “Majority of Gen Z Americans Hold Negative Views of Capitalism” (Newsweek). “Young Americans Increasingly Prefer Socialism” (Heritage). It’s surprising. Wasn’t the long debate between free markets and socialism resolved in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall? Wasn’t Karl Marx relegated once and for all to history’s dustbin?
What does this mean for American Christians? Few religious traditions have been as wedded to capitalist principles as American Protestants in the twentieth century. Evangelical thought and practice often mirror free enterprise’s elevation of the self-reliant individual and its fear of intrusive government. Just mentioning socialism or social justice leads to heated debates and threatens to split churches along generational lines.
There was a time when conversations about socialism weren’t as controversial among orthodox Christians. Before American Protestantism was polarized into liberal and conservative, there was a period of ferment during the Gilded Age (1865–1900) when economic, social, and political positions hadn’t yet hardened. Inspired by an earlier, mid-century English movement of Anglican clerics, and by recent labor unrest, a small circle of American Protestants began to explore the affinity between Christian and socialist ideas.
The energetic Episcopal priest, W. D. P. Bliss organized the short-lived Society of Christian Socialists in 1889, and some American Protestants even spoke at gatherings where speakers argued fervently for building a cooperative commonwealth on biblical principles. These Christians’ case for an egalitarian communitarianism invoked Moses and Jesus, rather than Karl Marx, and their arguments are worth revisiting. Indeed, their arguments anticipated C.S. Lewis’s overlooked observation in Mere Christianity (1952) that the New Testament’s social ideal looked “very socialistic.”
In a day when there’s a socialist revival among young people, understanding the perspectives of these Christian socialists from history is more than an antiquarian curiosity.
Edward H. Rogers
One Christian socialist addressed the ecumenical Evangelical Alliance at its Washington, D.C. meeting in 1887. Edward H. Rogers was a Methodist layman, shipyard worker, and Boston labor organizer. He’d led efforts to organize the Christian Labor Union that met in Boston’s famous Park Street Church.
As Rogers stepped to the podium for a session titled “Relation of the Church to the Capital and Labor Question,” he began not with tales of oppression or economic commentary but with a message about Christology from John 1. Most Protestants focused on Christ as a personal Savior and emphasized his identity as Prophet, Priest, and King, but John stressed that “all things were made by him” (John 1:3). Rogers emphasized that as the incarnate agent of Creation, Jesus is “the Master Workman of the laboring classes.” He also pointed out how the Gospels disparaged workers being reduced to “hirelings,” dependent wage earners with little personal investment in their work.
Having laid this theological foundation for Christian socialism, Rogers turned to analyze the current economic crisis and its social costs. Subsistence wages paid to industrial workers confirmed for Rogers the error of treating human labor as an abstract commodity. Wage competition led employers to not adjust wages for marital status or number of dependents. The result was the “break down of the family.” The new social sciences helped Rogers see these broader consequences of worsening inequality, and he believed that they appeared, in fact, to “confirm the doctrine of the Bible.”
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Christians will disagree about preferences. Romans 14, 1 Corinthians 8, and 1 Corinthians 10 are passages that deal with this exact issue. Preferences of application cannot be sin. This would exclude it from the category of Christian liberty. If your application of the word leads to breaking of a direct command or prohibition, then it is no longer a legitimate application (See Mark 7). Each person is directed by his own conscience in the matters of preference.

I have been thinking lately on the place of conscience, Christian liberty, and how we should relate to one another with our preferences. As a young Christian, I had a very low tolerance for any Christian liberty, and the result was that I was overly prescriptive for those around me, and honestly, I was extremely proud about what I had seen in the Bible. It was not just a way, it was the way to obey God. Thankfully the Lord rerouted my ideas and helped me to value those who were doers of the word, rather than doers of my preferences. Here are a few thoughts on the subject that I wanted to share here.
Conscience
God has given to each person a conscience which helps to discern what is right and wrong (Rom 2:15). God has given a conscience to those who are saved and unsaved. The conscience is like the check engine light of the soul, alerting to the fact that something might not be right. And while the conscience is a guide, it is not infallible. There are those with a weaker or stronger conscience (1 Cor 8). Sometimes the conscience is weak and forbids something that is not actually forbidden by God. Other times it can be seared, allowing what God has forbidden (1 Tim 4:2, Titus 1:15). Even though the conscience is fallible, it is the Christian duty to walk according to our conscience, because to disobey the conscience is faithless, and therefore sin (Rom 14:23).
We must strive to have a good and clear conscience (1 Peter 3:16, Acts 23:1). We need this good and clear conscience within ourselves and before God. Having a good and clear conscience means that there is nothing in our lives for which our conscience pricks us. We have lived our lives as best we know by the direction of God in His word. No matter what anyone else says, we have walked in integrity both before man and before God.
And this is a most important point: Our conscience is subservient to the Holy Spirit through the Bible. Since our consciences are fallible, our consciences must be submitted to the Word of God. If our conscience is pricked when it shouldn’t be, we should yield to God’s word. If our conscience is not pricked when it should be, we should yield to God’s word. The conscience is never to rule over the Spirit and the Bible, but is a servant of the Spirit to guide us.
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