Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Monday, April 17, 2023
Traditional, orthodox Anglicans are about to meet in Rwanda in order to assess the global situation and further attenuate, perhaps even completely sever, links with the Church of England. One reason is that the African bishops see the West’s attempt to foist this liquefied anthropology upon the global church as yet another act of Western colonialism. As I argued in my last column, LGBTQ-affirming churches are simply doing what the pro-slavery churches of the nineteenth century did: giving specious blessing to the values of the world in which they find themselves. It is depressingly gratifying that Theo Hobson seems to have proved my point with almost indecent haste.

Does the Church of England need evangelicals? The question is now a pressing one, given that the last few months of chaos over the issue of gay marriage seem finally to have done what decades of doctrinal indifferentism and even the advent of women priests failed to achieve: an evangelical rebellion among the Church of England’s most committed evangelical congregations.
Theo Hobson in The Spectator is confident of the answer: No, the C of E does not need evangelicals. To quote his reasoning:
Evangelical dynamism cannot renew the Church as a whole. Its energy is too counter-cultural; it presents Christianity as an identity in sharp contrast to the surrounding culture, it insists that a true Christian is marked out by brave dissent from liberal views on sexual morality…. An established Church cannot foreground such energy.
The argument is interesting: An established national church cannot ultimately oppose the culture of her nation. Some (including myself) would argue that this is precisely why no church should be established, since such politically motivated alliances always have a dominant partner, and history makes it very clear who the dominant partner always is. Hobson’s vision, while short on details, shows no concern for this particular outcome and seems to envisage the church as the rightly submissive handmaiden of the cultural Zeitgeist, existing to offer a religious and liturgical gloss that legitimates the liberal state and whatever its current moral tastes happen to be. In short, the church is there to express in religious idiom the values of the dominant class, in this case urban progressives. Since evangelicals will not do this, they are now surplus to requirements.
Hobson’s article stands in stark contrast to another article published last week at the dissident website UnHerd by the feminist writer Mary Harrington. In “The Death of Christian Privilege,” she raises a far more significant question than Hobson: Does the decline of Christianity also signify the liquefaction of meaning and the descent into the kind of moral chaos into which the West has descended, with its demolition of sexual taboos and its long war against the authority of the body? Her answer is yes, it does.
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When we see evil, when we encounter it personally, when we hear about it on the news, when we see a sign in a hotel lobby that tells us to be aware of human trafficking, we should resist the temptation to wallow in the brokenness of the world. Instead, we must lift our eyes up, see the Lord, and pray as David prays in Psalm 34 “All my bones will say, ‘Lord, who is like You, who rescues the afflicted from one who is too strong for him, and the afflicted and the poor from one who robs him?’”

This past weekend, my wife and I went on a babymoon staycation. On our way to dinner Saturday night, we shared an elevator with a young boy—he looked to be 5 or 6 years old—and his father. From the moment we stepped into the elevator until we got off, the boy huddled in the corner, weeping and shaking. He seemed genuinely terrified. Having our own six-year old boy, we were unsettled by the boy’s tears. They didn’t seem like normal sadness or frustration for a kid that age. These tears seemed to come from a place of genuine fear. I assumed the boy was afraid of the elevator. My wife thought the boy’s fear might be something more, particularly when she saw a sign by the hotel entrance warning of human trafficking and encouraging hotel guests to notify the staff if they see anything strange or unsettling involving children. Since my wife couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not right with that boy and the adult with him, we went to the front desk and reported what we’d seen. The staff member took notes and promised the hotel security look into it. Thankfully, they did investigate. Later that night, that same staff member notified me that they’d confirmed the child was with his father and had been upset for a benign reason. My wife and I were obviously relieved, and happy to have misjudged the situation. Still, there was something unsettling about the incident, particularly when paired with the sign warning about human trafficking displayed prominently by the hotel entrance. Clearly that sign exists because that area has had issues with human trafficking. And this wasn’t a run-down part of town. It was a Hyatt hotel in a nice neighborhood a little south of Los Angeles.  
Though the incident turned out not to be a case of human trafficking, it reminded me that truly heinous evil exists. Is there anything more wicked than the sexual exploitation of children? And tragically, it’s not rare. That kind of evil occurs every day, often close to where we live, work, and vacation. Reminded of that reality this weekend, I found myself asking the question: how should I respond to the world’s wickedness? Should I ignore it? Should I shrug my shoulders and tell myself there’s nothing I can do about it, so why bother? Or should I take the opposite approach? Should I invest every second of my life, every financial resource, and every ounce of my strength in confronting the world’s evil? More specifically, to combat human trafficking, do I need to financially support an organization that works to end it? Or do I have to quit my job and work for one of those organizations?  
While that might be God’s will for your life, I don’t think it’s his will for everyone. Some of us are supposed to be on the front lines, fighting to blunt the impact of the world’s wickedness. Others are supposed to work in business, education, politics, food service, hospitality, and entertainment.
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There is no need to despair because of what the General Assembly did not do this year or because of a few hostile and misleading headlines. Instead, those who genuinely and passionately care about preventing abuse, ministering to abuse survivors, and calling abusers to repentance (remember that is the purpose of the Church Court), should study our Constitution and seek ways to make the Church Courts more effective at fulfilling the roles given to them by her King.

Amending the Constitution of the PCA is a difficult task by design; it takes the approval of two General Assemblies and the consent of two-thirds of the Presbyteries. It is not something that can be done lightly or speedily. Many on the conservative and/or confessional side of the PCA were frustrated by the pace at which the PCA amended her Book of Church Order (BCO) to fortify the Church against the Saint Louis Theology/Revoice.
TE Charles Scott Williams first raised the alarm regarding the deviations emanating from Nashville and Saint Louis in 2016. Now, seven years later, the PCA seems to have reached a consensus on what our Constitution needs in order to close the door to “Side-B” and Revoice. But it will not be until 2024 until the most recent of those amendments can go into effect.
Likewise this year, many were disappointed when the General Assembly rejected proposed amendments to her Constitution that purported to help the PCA respond more effectively to allegations of abuse.
I. On the “Tragic” Assembly
Some have decried the actions of the Assembly in rejecting these proposals. If you read the news or follow social media, you might presume the PCA is rife with all manner of abusers.

In an article published in Christianity Today, Covenant College alumna Emily Belz decrees: “The Presbyterian Church in America Has an Abuse Crisis Too.” In which she cites self-styled, but unnamed, “advocates” who assert the PCA typically handles things badly.
The Baptist News Global announces: “Conservative Presbyterians reject four proposals to curb sexual abuse. But we must question: what would these four ‘rejected’ proposals have done to ‘curb’ sexual abuse?
The Tennessean claims the PCA limits who can be called pastor, elder, and deacon while at the same time rejecting “abuse measures.” But did the PCA actually reject abuse measures? And would these measures actually do what they claimed?

These are the sort of headlines about which TE Tim LeCroy warned us. They seem to imply the PCA is negligent regarding abuse. But is there proof for the headlines?
II. On Not Being Reactionary
If you believe the (social) media hype, the PCA is a communion that cares more about ensuring women are not addressed as pastor or deacon than about protecting women and other vulnerable people from abuse. TE Charles Stover has already written thoughtfully on this matter and exhorted us to remain calm.
Rather than react hastily to media headlines, the Church ought to remedy well rather than speedily any defects in her Constitution.
The Church must not yield to reactionary rhetoric and manipulative reporting. This is not to say reforms are not needed or would not be helpful. But neither ought we assume there is a crisis simply because some people loudly assert there is one.
As saints and as elders in the Kingdom of God, we must not submit to the tyranny of headlines and Tweets, but instead take stock of what is true, where we are, and what our duty is.
A. What Is True?
Does the PCA care more about who can use the titles of ordained office than protecting people from abuse? Well, maybe. But is that wrong? Isn’t usurping a church office a form of abuse? Isn’t gaslighting someone into thinking she’s a deacon – when our Book of Church Order clearly declares she cannot be a deacon – a form of abuse? Perhaps abuse is not even properly understood.
But I will not grant the premise: it is not the case that the PCA cares more about regulating the use of officer titles than protecting the abused. People in various media have asserted this, but they have not proven this point.
B. Where Are We?
The PCA did not simply reject four overtures aimed to protect victims from abuse.
It referred back the proposal related to background checks for further perfection. In doing this, the Assembly recognized merit in the proposal, but also that the overture was not yet ready – as currently written and amended by the Overtures Committee – to be implemented by the Assembly. Amending the PCA Constitution does not work on the schedule of the news cycle, so the Church must not react to headlines.
Indeed, the Assembly rejected an entirely novel proposal to permit atheists (i.e., fools; cf. Psalm 14:1) to give testimony in the courts of the Church. To add this provision to our Constitution would undermine the teaching of our Confession of Faith on Oaths and Vows:
The name of God only is that by which men ought to swear, and therein it is to be used with all holy fear and reverence; therefore to swear vainly or rashly by that glorious and dreadful name, or to swear at all by any other thing, is sinful, and to be abhorred (WCF 22:2).
How can the members of a Church Court in good conscience administer an oath to an atheist, given what the PCA confesses regarding oaths and vows?
Yes, the Assembly also rejected Overture 14, which aimed to restrict Christian lawyers from participation in the Courts of the Church. Why did the Assembly do this? Because the proposal demonstrated partiality and was entirely “without Biblical authority.” Can you think of a better, more honorable reason to reject a proposal?
However, the narrative peddled by the media is completely undermined by the Assembly’s ratification of a very important change to our constitution, which does more to protect alleged victims of abuse than any of the failed overtures sought to do: the Assembly adopted Item 8.
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