As we in the PCA continue to deliberate about contentious and important matters of human sexuality – and about homosexuality in particular – we will hear the well-worn arguments, “We have the study report…We have the Bible…We have the Book of Church Order. We don’t need added clarity when we have so many resources that speak to this issue already.” What I am arguing is that we need a Book of Church Order (BCO)that speaks with “straight talk” to the issues facing us. The majority of mainline Protestants – such as our Presbyterian cousins in the PCUSA – thought they were being pastoral and accommodating when they asked for “chastity in singleness” from their LGBTQ-identifying ministers. We see that such “pastoral” accommodation did nothing to protect the Church from a compromised ministry. 

“Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18
For the second year in a row, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has sent down overtures regarding the sexuality of ministers to the presbyteries. Overture 29 presented to the 49th General Assembly passed on the floor of the Assembly and was referred to the 88 presbyteries of the PCA as Item 4. Along with a related proposal (Item 5), it has received overwhelming approval from across the spectrum of the PCA. Indeed, leaders of the Gospel Reformation Network[1] and the former leader of the National Partnership[2] have both expressed their desire to see these approved and added to the BCO.
Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on your opinion – Overture 15 presented before the 49th Assembly passed by a much narrower vote and has now failed to achieve the requisite 2/3 majority of affirmative votes from the presbyteries (as Item 1) to proceed to a final ratification vote at the 50th General Assembly in Memphis. For some reason, the unity around PCAGA49 Overture 29 splits when it comes to PCAGA49 Overture 15. Why is that? Perhaps it is due – in TE Richard D. Phillips’s supportive words – to the “straight talk” expressed in the proposal contained in the Overture. The proposal contained in PCAGA49 Overture 15 as passed by the Assembly sought to amend Chapter 7 of the Book of Church Order (BCO) by adding a new paragraph, “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.”
My argument for supporting such a proposal is primarily historical. Scripture calls us to be people who remember their history. By studying another denomination with a common history and once-similar polity handling this issue, I hope to show that the PCA is on dangerous ground if we do not incorporate more robust language in our BCO regarding issues of sexual sin for church officers.
Before moving forward with a crash course in the history of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) (hereafter, PCUSA) and LGBTQ[3] ordination, I would like to respond to a legitimate criticism that many will make. Some will perhaps respond to my concern as follows: “We have nothing in common with the Liberalism of the Mainline Protestant denominations.” Yes, the PCA started in 1973, ten years before the PCUSA united the northern and southern Presbyterian churches. Yes, both those churches were decidedly Liberal in theology and much more liberal socially at that time than the PCA, and the PCUSA of today is certainly far more liberal than the PCA.
However, as the history of LGBTQ ordination in the PCUSA will show, there were enough conservative and moderate believers in the PCUSA to curb LGBTQ ordination for over forty years. There even continues to be renewal movements within the PCUSA.[4] What ultimately led to the full acceptance of LGBTQ ordination in the PCUSA was a failure on the part of the denomination to add “straight talk” language regarding human sexuality to their Book of Order. Like us, as we will see, the PCUSA had Scripture and the Westminster Standards, but they decided not to change their other authoritative constitutional document, the Book of Order. Consider what has since become of them. Their history is a warning for the PCA.
Troubling Hermeneutics in the North 1970
Our history lesson begins in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (The Northern Presbyterian Church; hereafter, UPCUSA), when a study report, “Sexuality and the Human Community,” was presented to the General Assembly. The “Sexuality and the Human Community” is a fascinating report. The Northern Presbyterians were more liberal than their Southern cousins (the Presbyterian Church in the United States; hereafter, PCUS). While informing the reader that they turned “repeatedly to the theological issues and questions of Biblical tradition which have informed the church’s view of human sexuality,” they also, “found ourselves relying heavily on the social and behavioral sciences. Insights from psychology and psychiatry about the workings of sex influenced us to think often with criteria of psychological health in mind” (italics mine, page 6).
The report continues on a shaky foundation as the authors wrote about their research into sociology, “We frequently found ourselves challenging the conventional wisdom of the Christian community concerning sexuality, only to find that those conventions were too often the culture-bound wisdom of part of the community: to wit, the white, Protestant, and middle-class part. But the Christian community encompasses a wide diversity of racial, ethnic, and cultural groups, and therefore a wide variety of assessments of sexuality and sexual behavior.” (pg 7).
The report continues with recommendations for ethical considerations:

Difference between homosexuality as “a condition of personal existence and homosexualism as explicit homosexual behavior” (18).
The biblical condemnation of homosexuality in St. Paul, in context, shows, “It is not singled out as more heinous than other sins, but is discussed with other forms of behavior which betoken man’s refusal to accept his creatureliness” (18).
The context of St. Paul’s condemnation suggests that he objected to “the element of disregard for the neighbor more than he did to acts in themselves…Perhaps pederasty, homosexual prostitution, and similar neighbor-disregarding forms of behavior ought not to overshadow our entire response to the human condition of homosexuality” (18, these arguments have historically and linguistically been debunked even among some liberal scholars. For example, see the works of William Loader).
No one is exempt from the experience of alienation from God. Thus everyone may experience reconciliation in Christ (19).

What is fascinating is that given all the above statements, the authors of the report still recommended that pastors and theologians study this subject, “so that the desire for change can be more effectively elicited and encouraged…homosexual behavior is essentially incomplete in character. It is therefore important to guard against the development of fixed homosexual patterns during childhood and adolescence…one function of such an understanding is to spare young people from thinking they are destined to homosexuality because of some developmentally normal experience” (19). This was a study committee report that was received at the General Assembly and circulated widely in the UPCUSA.
1975-1978 The Task Force to Study Homosexuality (UPCUSA)
In 1975, an openly gay man came before the Presbytery of New York City having received a call from a congregation and thus seeking ordination. The debate on the floor of the Presbytery lasted hours. The end result was that the Presbytery petitioned the General Assembly for “definitive guidance” regarding the issue of homosexuals and ordination. As one commentator who voted in favor of the man argued, “the Book of Order (i.e., the Church’s constitution) didn’t mention homosexuality because it was immaterial and irrelevant.” Several other presbyteries sent overtures asking for “definitive guidance” as well. The 1976 General Assembly formed a Task Force (study committee) to provide “definitive guidance.”
The Task Force completed its study in January of 1978. The resultant report included a minority report. The recommendation from the majority of the Task Force was to let presbyteries make their own decisions in all aspects of ordination. The minority report, supported by 5 of the Task Force’s 19 members, advised against allowing homosexuals to be ordained. The General Assembly of 1978 approved the minority statement. Below are some highlights from the official summary of the Task Force’s majority report, which is available in its entirety here:

Homosexuality should be primarily viewed as affectional attraction, not as actions or behavioral patterns. Homosexuality is just the basic attraction and preference of part of the population. It is not “consciously chosen nor readily susceptible to change.”

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It may or may not surprise you that the majority of men seeking help from Harvest USA are married. The majority of these husbands are not coming to us because of their own conviction over sin but because they were caught. They were living, often for decades, in darkness, and now they’ve finally been forced into the light. They usually come to us with a mixture of pain and relief—the pain of the consequences of their sexual sin and its accompanying deception, and also the relief of no longer living as hypocrites.
This initial exposure is freeing and provides with it real opportunities for change and transformation. While there are many dangers and snares along the path towards marital restoration, none is more common and more deadly than going back into the darkness.
For any of you familiar with twentieth-century American poetry or Christopher Nolan’s brilliant film Interstellar, you probably know the poem by Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night.” In his poem about death, Thomas provides incredible wisdom for a husband tempted to go back into hiding. He writes,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Husbands who are battling sexual addictions are not only wrestling against the allure of sexual sin. They are also facing the constant temptation of lying about it to their wives. I’ve heard all of the major excuses for going back into the darkness:
“I love her too much to hurt her by telling her.”
“I know how she’ll react; she just can’t handle this.”
“She’s not supposed to be my accountability partner; I have men in my life I confess to.”
“Confessing to her doesn’t help me; she’ll just use that as fuel to punish me later.”
“I’ve already confessed it to the Lord.”
While we recognize that there are rare and extreme situations where it may not always be prudent or loving for husbands to confess their sexual sins to their wives, the general rule we find to be most beneficial for marriages is called “the 24-hour rule.”
What is the 24-hour rule?
The 24-hour rule is when a husband promises that he will confess, within 24 hours, any time that he engages in behavioral sexual sin—including masturbation, pornography, fantasy indulgence that lasts for minutes at a time, and anything worse than these behaviors. This includes any active pursuit of these behaviors, even if he is unsuccessful, such as seeking ways around internet filters to find pornography.
What the 24-hour rule is not.
The 24-hour rule, misapplied, has the potential to become very detrimental to a marriage, which is why clear, objective expectations are essential. It is unhelpful for a wife to be privy to every single battle a husband faces with sexual temptation. We believe she deserves to know the battles he clearly loses, but not every battle he faces.
While every couple requires a nuanced approach, we generally try to steer couples away from certain scrupulous standards of confession. We generally do not encourage couples to adopt the following types of confession as a rule:

Every time a husband takes a second look
A sexually suggestive image appears on his device apart from his active pursuit of it, and he immediately flees from it.
Tempting thoughts that come into his mind but against which he has fought and upon which he does linger for minutes at a time.

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When Elisabeth Elliott returned to the jungle in 1958, after subsequent missionaries had made successful contact with the Huaorani, the tribe told her they’d speared the five men because they thought they were cannibals. Reading back through the men’s journals after this revelation is like going back to the beginning of the movie and noticing all the signs you can’t believe you missed. 

Sixty-eight years ago this month, missionary Jim Elliot and four others were speared to death by Huaorani Indians in the Ecuadorian jungle.
However we understand this story now 70 years on—(was this a martyr’s epic adventure or an object lesson in cultural ignorance?)—I think it’s important to say that should anyone claim to know that God did not, in fact, call those men to that work and to their death, they are lying. Elliot and the others loved Jesus and were doing what they thought He wanted, at great personal cost. Let no cynicism invalidate that.
In my recent reading of Through Gates of Splendor, the book in which Elisabeth Elliot retells the story through the men’s journal entries, what struck me most was not the cultural awkwardness or even the great drama. It was the missionaries’ total confidence in their own intelligence gathering. For weeks leading up to their ground approach of the Huaorani, the men flew their prop plane over the tribe’s settlement, dropping gifts and yelling phrases they believed translated to “friend.”
They then painstakingly analyzed every tiny movement the tribe made in response. Jim wrote one day that he “saw a thing that thrilled me—
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