That the foremost sufferers of our present deeds are those that are tempted with homosexual lust. For they need to be encouraged diligently with the assurance that their sin belongs to the old man that was crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), and that they are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) who have been cleansed of their sin and who can and will finally overcome it (Rom. 6:12-14). And yet we set before them as leaders and models men who proudly claim their sin as an essential part of their identity, and who name themselves by it.

That a defective doctrine of sin makes impossible all right thinking and practice in ethical matters.
That all same sex attraction is a species of lust. “For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world” (1 Jn. 2:16, emphasis mine). And again, scripture in speaking of such desire always portrays it as illicit and contrary to the right order of nature (Rom. 1:26-27), and as having the same effects of defilement of body and mind as other forms of sexual immorality (Rom. 1:24, 27; comp. 1 Cor. 6:18; 1 Pet. 2:11).
That sin consists not only in unlawful deeds of the body or tongue, but also in the principle of corruption that animates such deeds, and in various perversions of desire, thought, or will. For as our Lord says, “everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:28).
That the teachings of those associated with Revoice imply that sin lies only in deeds and not in the corruption that issues forth as such deeds. Thus do they bring near Pelagianizing tendencies whose influence is apt to work corruption in other matters: for a little leaven leavens the whole lump.
That the teachings of those associated with Revoice have the practical effect of categorizing homosexual attraction differently than the right doctrine of the church. For we have ever held that it is a question of morality, of sin that needs to be repented and mortified; yet they often speak as though it is rather a burden to be borne, and thus conceive of it in therapeutic terms. In other cases they speak of it positively, as though it gives its bearers special grace that might be used to the benefit of others.
That it is well outside the bounds of propriety for members of the papal communion to be employed in conferences held at churches that are members of our denomination, or for their teaching to be permitted in other circumstances. A distinction is made here between Rome as she has been since the time of her depravity in the middle ages and the earlier church prior to her ‘Babylonian captivity.’
That the teachings of those associated with Revoice have brought near again the doctrine of concupiscence of the papal communion – which is no wonder, many of Revoice’s teachers being associated with that body. Having escaped from the errors and tyranny of Rome with such suffering and difficulty, are we content to again expose ourselves to its baleful influences?
That the Revoice position proceeds on the same assumption that was used to justify the recognition of so-called same sex marriage in society at large, viz., that sexual desires are the result of a largely immutable genetic or hereditary disposition (orientation).
That sexual orientation is a very recent and suspect concept, holding as it does that homosexual desires are exclusively a result of physical and psychological constitution, rather than being acts of the will or habits resulting from one’s behavior.
That sundry sins sometimes have a genetic or hereditary lineage, and that they are further propagated by example and environment; but these extravolitional factors do not comprise the whole body of sin, nor do they excuse it.
That all positive discussion of Revoice and the same-sex attraction controversy is an act of disobedience to our Lord. For he says in his word that “sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints” (Eph. 5:3); and yet we have discussed this matter openly and blithely before the whole world.
That to even have such a controversy is a loss for us and indicates how worldly we have become. For it should be unthinkable that such things would be contemplated or acted out in the church of God, and their first mention should have been censured in keeping with the urgency with which Scripture enjoins the suppression of destructive ideas (Deut. 13:6-8).
That we dishonor our brothers throughout the world in other bodies of the faith, for many of them suffer poverty or persecution at the hands of unbelievers, and yet while they languish we give ourselves to comfortable and orderly discussions of matters which ought not to be discussed at all.
That we dishonor our forefathers by acting contrary to them and dishonoring the heritage that they have bequeathed to us. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses (Heb. 12:1); and who can maintain that those witnesses would discuss these matters as we now do? Can we imagine Moses or Peter or John Knox or Daniel Baker regarding it as an imperative of justice and ministerial effectiveness to plead the case of immorality as is now done?
That we ill serve the world that we ought to labor to save when we engage in such matters. For the world needs to be told to flee the wrath that is to come, not to see and hear that the Presbyterian Church in America is proud to have same sex-attracted ministers in her midst.
That the foremost sufferers of our present deeds are those that are tempted with homosexual lust. For they need to be encouraged diligently with the assurance that their sin belongs to the old man that was crucified with Christ (Rom. 6:6), and that they are new creations (2 Cor. 5:17) who have been cleansed of their sin and who can and will finally overcome it (Rom. 6:12-14). And yet we set before them as leaders and models men who proudly claim their sin as an essential part of their identity, and who name themselves by it. Paul says that “those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Gal. 5:24), and that former homosexuals were among the saints in Corinth that “were washed . . . were sanctified . . . were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 6:ll) – and yet we would hang the moniker ‘same-sex’ about the necks of the tempted or permit them to hang it upon themselves, thus constituting them a separate class of believers.
That the reasons put forward for the propriety of having publicly identified same-sex attracted ministers are self-refuting. For it is intimated that this is an important measure to reach the lost, especially those that struggle with homosexual lust, and yet our previous position, in which something like the Revoice conference would have been unthinkable, did not dissuade many of these same agitators from joining us in past years.
That the scriptural injunction about quarrels about words does not mean that the language we use is a matter of indifference, or that we may use any words we please. Paul’s prohibition in 1 Timothy 6:4 and 2 Timothy 2:14 is upon petty or needless controversies of no real consequence that are engaged (as among the ancients) rather for the amusement of the disputants than for the benefit of their audience. Paul’s ban prohibits the church from becoming the Areopagus (Acts 17:21); it does not condemn the necessity of controversies – as of the Orthodox against the Arians, the Reformers against Rome, or the Fundamentalists against the Modernists – which seek to preserve the true meaning of terms of great consequence, the mis-definition of which are matters of spiritual life and death.
That it is seldom wise and sometimes sinful to use terms taken from unbelieving society at large.
That it is not right to use the contemporary terms of our opponents (and in some cases, persecutors) in our contemporary discussions of sexual ethics. “For the sons of this world are more shrewd in dealing with their own generation than the sons of light” (Lk. 16:8), and they have deliberately chosen terms such as gay, same-sex, and Side B because they portray homosexuality as at least morally neutral, and often as positively wholesome and good.
That God in his word only denominates this sin with terms of strong, unambiguous denunciation (as “dishonorable” and “shameless,” Rom. 1:26-27), ever regarding it as contrary to the proper course of nature.
That it is proper for the church to use the terms of Scripture and of traditional Christian moral teaching rather than those of the world. For he who controls the terms that are used and defines their meanings determines how such matters are conceived, and thus controls the debate.
That it is the purpose of language to illumine, not obscure, and that any language which tends to minimize, hide, or deny the egregious nature of anything to do with homosexual sin is not appropriate for use by the church or her ministers. For such euphemisms are a form of dishonest speech, and as such have more to do with the kingdom of Satan than that of God.
That much of the language which has been used hithertofore has been worldly and euphemistic, and taken from hostile, unbelieving sources.
That the use of such improper language ought to be repented forthwith for the sake of all parties.
That unbelieving homosexuals are those who are most ill-served by the use of euphemistic language that obscures the nature and severity of their sin. For one cannot repent unless he realizes his behavior is sinful, and this process includes a proper understanding of how severe his sin is and of how urgently repentance is needed.

Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.

…that for the PCA to allow its ministers to teach their own doctrine alongside of its official doctrine would be to lay the groundwork of its own destruction as a confessional denomination, the assertion of multiple doctrines serving to engender confusion and to allow the official position on many matters to be crowded out by the alternatives. For now, it is enough to see that this is another dubious attempt to shift the blame for the denomination’s present troubles away from that faction which is anxious to keep in step with the culture and to lay it at the feet of others who dare object to the said faction’s methods and desires.

Dr. David Cassidy, pastor of Spanish River Presbyterian in Florida, recently wrote an essay, “PCA at the Crossroads”, in which he denies there are any problems with disunity in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) save those caused by some people raising false alarms about “theological declension.” He denies that there are any progressives in the PCA and regards any suggestions to the contrary as slanderous. He exults in the PCA’s diversity of practice and asserts that good faith subscription is essential to the denomination’s continued effectiveness. In his first section he says:
Looking back, men like Kennedy Smartt, Frank Barker, Francis Schaeffer, James Kennedy . . . and many others were not only deeply Reformed but also broadly evangelical, and resistant to fundamentalist impulses.
Lay aside the dubious name dropping and note that claim that such men were “resistant to fundamentalist impulses.” Fundamentalism is a bête noire of progressives, and disparaging it is nearly the first thing that Cassidy does – yet he assures us that neither he nor anyone else in the PCA is progressive, this progressive rhetoric notwithstanding.
Regarding progressivism, Cassidy writes:
Using that word about fellow PCA ministers is an abuse of the language and little more than Humpty Dumpty verbicide.
And then continues, after a mistaken literary allusion:
This is all part of a wider project to redefine what “conservative” and “subscription” mean in order to reset the boundaries of what is allowable in PCA.
Note that Cassidy does what he accuses others of doing by redefining a word for polemic use. He thinks it unfair for others to call his faction progressives, but he is glad to intimate his opponents have “fundamentalist impulses.”
What Cassidy objects to is progressive being used in an absolute sense to describe both people who deny orthodox teaching as well as people like him. I concur that it is improper to use progressive to refer to a contemporary school of heterodoxy, and that it is further unfair, having done so, to then also use it to refer to PCA pastors such as Cassidy. The proper term for “Progressive Christianity” is heresy, there being nothing either progressive or truly Christian about it, the terms for its proponents, such things as false teachers or apostates. I do not accuse Cassidy of being that, which would indeed be slanderous. But I do say that he is a progressive in another sense.
Here’s why. Rather than describing one’s doctrine, comparative terms like conservative and progressive are best used to describe one’s disposition or impulses as they relate to those of others. A conservative is one who wants to do things now as they have been done in the past. That may be good or bad, depending on what he wishes to conserve. A progressive is one who wishes to keep abreast of change, and who wishes to alter things in order to influence the people with whom he deals. That may be good or bad, depending upon what is influencing him, whom he wishes to influence, and what changes he wants to make to do so. And, of course, one may be both, conservative about some matters and progressive about others, and each to a greater or lesser extent. Now I say that Cassidy and many others are progressive because their disposition is to look at society and to ponder whether our present practices might be hindering us from reaching its various constituent groups. I do not doubt his sincerity or good intentions, but I do say he is taking his cues from society at large and from his contemplations upon the PCA’s relation to it rather than from scripture alone.
Regarding Cassidy’s progressivism, one sees it in what he emphasizes. Contemporary society is obsessed with race, and he mentions it multiple times. He decries “the fertile soil of criticism for all who seek to address the very valid issue of how we bring the unchanging Gospel to an increasingly hostile secularized society and how we address racism in the Church.” In such a phrase he suggests that addressing racism is as urgently needed as evangelism – as if racism in the church is anywhere near as prevalent or severe as the rampant unbelief of our wider society. He further says that:
Racism has been a sinful reality in the church for years and it is an insufficient response to simply decry critical theory without adequately listening to and addressing the real concerns of minority communities in the church.
And again, caricaturing a hypothetical strict subscription PCA:
It could disparage other ethnicities and insist that anyone pointing out that such a practice is problematic is probably a Marxist.
Elsewhere he says he was “shocked” and “deeply grieved” when someone issued “a disdainful critique of ‘Korean Style Praying’ as being unbiblical.” Disdain is arrogant condescension, and if that is a fair description of what happened, such a tone was indeed wrong; but I do not concur that “these kinds of comments … must be rejected” with the vehemence he displays, for I can certainly see why someone would regard such a style of prayer as unscriptural in light of I Corinthians 14:26-40. Cassidy tacitly assumes the propriety of such prayer, and with it the impropriety of criticizing it in whatever manner (“maybe we should all be at the feet of our Korean brothers and sisters to learn how to pray”).
As for Cassidy’s deep concern with race matters as shown in such examples, I ask: is it a coincidence that a matter that weighs so heavily with Cassidy is also one with which our society is obsessed? Is it a coincidence that the anonymous agency heads’ “Statement on Heinous Killings” appeared in the middle of the George Floyd upheaval and that it used the language of many unbelieving political activists? I think not. Such a preoccupation with a contemporary social/political issue is a result of trying to keep abreast of cultural developments and looking to them to set one’s agenda and form one’s thinking – in short, the progressive temperament in action.
I said earlier that Cassidy does what he accuses others of doing in the case of polemic claims, and he does so in another matter as well. He accuses others of attempting “to redefine what ‘conservative’ and ‘subscription’ mean in order to reset the boundaries of what is allowable in the PCA,” and says this about the alleged attempt:
It is always done in nameless ways because naming names would open the door to the refutation of the false claims and remove the weapon of fear from the arsenal of those who want to stir people up and lead them deeper into a “Truly Reformed” cul-de-sac, something the PCA was never designed to be.
At no point in his 2,800-word essay does Cassidy name a single opponent, nor does he name the faction which he opposes: the closest he gets is implying somewhat his opponents’ position (strict subscription), and, in the statement above, their self-conception (“Truly Reformed”) – and yet he says it is his opponents who don’t name names. But note further that this man who accuses unnamed others of conspiring to redefine the meaning of subscription actually does that very thing himself. He writes:
Some argue for the right of Presbyteries to forbid a man to teach an exception that they’ve already judged to be an allowable exception. In my view, this is de facto strict subscription and it not only dangerously exalts the standards to the place where a minister’s conscience is needlessly bound by the action of Presbytery but also wrongly exalts the authority of Presbytery over the denomination as a whole.
Nothing in the Book of Church Order (BCO) either regards a minister as having any right to teach his exceptions or denies a presbytery the authority to forbid teaching exceptions. Past attempts to establish the right to teach exceptions, such as New Jersey Presbytery’s Overture 6 at the 31st General Assembly, have not been adopted. What Cassidy seeks to recast as “de facto strict subscription” is really good faith subscription as it is actually provided for by the BCO (21-4).
When he regards this as dangerously “exalting the standards” and binding consciences he is proceeding from a theory of polity that is not Presbyterian but Independent. Everyone who is in the PCA is bound by its government. One who regards his own conscience as a higher teaching authority than the presbytery or the denomination is doing the very thing that Presbyterian government – including an authoritative confession which one must subscribe – is intended to guard against. It is of the essence of the Presbyterian system that each individual presbyter is subordinate to the presbytery as a whole, and that what authority is in the church is distributed among a plurality of elders but may only be exercised by the relevant body of which they are a part (session, presbytery, general assembly) acting in unison as a corporate entity. When a man accepts ordination he swears to “approve of the form of government and discipline” of the PCA and to “promise subjection to [his] brethren” (21-5, Qs. 3-4). Inherent in doing so is surrendering somewhat his own freedom, including that of conscience, in the interest of good order and peace in service to the church.
Judging by what Cassidy says elsewhere (“I suspect the Westminster Divines themselves and our forefathers in the Reformation would be appalled… by this practice”), he might say this leaves us in the position of Rome by making the church instead of Christ (speaking through Scripture) the sole lord of the conscience. It is not so. No one is either obligated or entitled to ministry in the PCA, and by accepting ordination he freely accepts its conditions, including what is entailed in submitting to the discipline and government of the church as expressed in its courts and standards.[1] Unlike with Rome, one is free to go elsewhere anytime he wishes, and there are many other denominations in which Cassidy could labor whose views of polity align more nearly with his own. Also, he retains the right to lobby the church courts for a change that would make his exception into an accepted article, or which would otherwise allow it to be taught. There are means of redress for his complaint, and he has simply to use them rather than to rely upon arguments that proceed upon un-Presbyterian theories of polity.
Time will fail to consider more fully his other arguments, other elements of Presbyterian doctrine touching upon the relation of conscience to church government and the role of the church as the mediating agency through which Christ confers teaching authority and by which he governs its use, as well as the question of what the “good faith” in good faith subscription should entail (BCO 21.4e; 21-5, Q.2.). It would fail also to note that a denomination is only as good as its ministers and that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Matt. 12:25): i.e., that for the PCA to allow its ministers to teach their own doctrine alongside of its official doctrine would be to lay the groundwork of its own destruction as a confessional denomination, the assertion of multiple doctrines serving to engender confusion and to allow the official position on many matters to be crowded out by the alternatives. For now, it is enough to see that this is another dubious attempt to shift the blame for the denomination’s present troubles away from that faction which is anxious to keep in step with the culture and to lay it at the feet of others who dare object to the said faction’s methods and desires.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.

[1] This is so only in secondary or minor matters. A church that would require heresy to be taught or that would restrict the gospel is ipso facto a false church and has no authority, each minister being then bound to follow his conscience as guided by scripture rather than the direction of the apostate church.