Dominion and the Blessing of the Garden
God has designed the world to be a place where human beings can enhance the ecosystem through intervention. As Titchmarsh’s testimony shows, the “dominion mandate,” utilised in managing gardens and parks, actually increases biodiversity, not lessens it. On the other hand, naïve environmental campaigns that seek to rewild nature may reduce biodiversity instead—abandoning the well-ordered garden in favour of something less managed is counter-productive.
Alan Titchmarsh is a well-known gardener and TV personality in the UK. He has recently defended the traditional well managed garden that exists in Britain. This defence was in response to environmental campaigns that seek to rewild many of our gardens, parks, and countryside. Titchmarsh stated in a written representation to the British Parliament’s House of Lords that a carefully kept garden actually attracts more insects, birds, and small mammals than those areas of land that have been set aside for rewilding purposes. In other words, human activity, far from harming the environment, actually increases bio-diversity, and provides food and shelter for many more months of the year.
He said:
“Domestic gardens and well-planted parks offer an opportunity to all forms of wildlife—be they birds seeking nesting sites in hedges, berried plants that provide winter food, or shrubs that offer shelter to mammals.”1
This is borne out of his own gardening experience; he had set-aside two acres of land to grow according its own devices.
“Domestic gardens, with their greater plant diversity, offer sustenance and shelter to wildlife from March through November. Nine months of nourishment. A rewilded garden will offer nothing but straw and hay from August to March. A four-month flowering season is the norm.…This is at odds with my experience as the custodian of a two-acre wildflower meadow and garden.…The garden is patently richer—and for longer—in the variety of insect and bird species it sustains.”1
He also drew attention to prejudice that exists against imported plants; florae which have actually helped to increase diversity of species in the UK.
“I find it worrying that misleading propaganda suggests only native plants are of any value to wildlife and the environment.…Domestic gardeners have a duty to ensure the survival of this unparalleled resource.…Should a current fashionable and ill-considered trend deplete our gardens of their botanical riches then we have presided over a diminution in biodiversity of catastrophic proportions.”1
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12 Ways We See Christ’s Infinite Wisdom
Christ is fully equipped and qualified to do all that He has purposed for His people. There is nothing required for the work which He does not have. David Dickson imagines a poor soul asking, “Christ may be able to do all I need; but is He willing to employ His wisdom and strength for me?” He answers that Christ not only has wisdom and strength, but He will deal prudently. He foresees all the impediments in His way, anything that could mar the work of salvation. There is no wound His soldiers get that He has no cure for. There is no adversary He does not know how to defeat. In a word, everything from eternity to eternity is managed prudently. Dickson is expounding and applying Isaiah 52:13 “Behold, my servant shall deal prudently” and in the course of doing this he brings out the way in which Christ applies His wisdom. There are twelve ways this is identified in the following updated extract (Dickson’s fifteen ways have been summarised into twelve).
1. Christ Deals with God’s Justice Wisely
The justice of God must lose nothing, before we are reconciled or get heaven, a just God must be satisfied. Our prudent Lord answers, “If these people cannot get to heaven until justice is satisfied, behold I am come to satisfy it.” And yet the Lord’s mercy will have as great a place as it pleases; for He deals so prudently that He makes mercy and justice kiss each other. Mercy runs like a river, and justice is satisfied — is not that prudent dealing?
2. Christ Deals with God’s Law Wisely
The law says, “I will take satisfaction from Christ for past sins; but what obedience will I have for the future? Will those whom Christ has redeemed, be permitted to break me in the future?” Prudent Christ answers, “What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us.” Before the law could only get punishment for its being broken, now, it gets full obedience by Christ. Christ did not come to abolish but to fulfil the law; He came only to abolish the cursing part of it, but to establish the obeying part of it. Here is prudent dealing.
3. Christ Conquers Satan Wisely
In comes Satan the jailer and death with him; he flies at Christ to get Him overthrown. But prudent Christ destroyed him who had the power of death by the means of death. He overcomes him who had the power of death, and says, he will be the death of death.
So death lies down in the grave and all his own die and lie down with him. Satan thinks to have Christ held in this way. But He could not be held by the sorrows of death. He rises and breaks an opening with Him through death. Like Samson, He takes away the gates and bars of death and has left death neither door nor lock to hold us in. Here is prudence.
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Exploring Overture 15 from the PCA General Assembly
This issue has caused disunity, confusion, and chaos in the PCA for far too long. If we desire that this particular sword should depart our house, then we will acknowledge that Overture 29 needs Overture 15 to be effective and pass both through our presbyteries. The two overtures go hand-in-hand. The one works through the other.
Recently, the Presbyterian Church in America held its 49th General Assembly in Birmingham, Alabama. Much lively debate was once again centered around issues of human sexuality. This was not out of choice or obsession, as most commissioners would readily admit, but out of necessity. Since 2018, the denomination has been rocked and troubled by the collective frustrations of Side-B “Gay Christianity” and the repercussions & lasting legacy of the Revoice Conference. It is the issue of the day in the PCA and everyone is looking for a solution to restore the peace and purity of the church. The most recent attempts at reaching a solution are Overtures 29 and 15, both of which are being sent out for presbytery approval
Many criticisms have mounted towards Overture 15, some with merit & some without. Let us consider Overture 15 in light of the Westminster Standards, the PCA’s own AIC Report of Human Sexuality, and Overture 29 itself. Let us see what it addresses and how it fits into the framework provided by these three streams of teaching.
False Dichotomy
First, a bit of context. Overture 29 was approved by the Overtures Committee, while Overture 15 was put forward to the assembly via minority report. Overture 29 was considered a ‘bipartisan’ success gaining wide support in the Overtures Committee and in the assembly, passing on the floor with a vote of 90% in favor and only one commissioner speaking against it. Overture 15 was the subject of significant floor debate, and passed the assembly with a much narrower 54% vote in favor.
Critics of either overture would like you to think that the two amendments are diametrically opposed. Some vocal proponents of Overture 15 argued that Overture 29 does not go far enough in its language and lacks teeth, leaving room for equivocation on the part of lower courts. Some who would see Overture 29 as a unifying compromise say that Overture 15 goes too far, that it will bind the courts and arbitrarily disqualify some men from church office.
The reality is that both of these views are wrong. As the minority report stated, Overture 29 wonderfully defines the standard, and Overture 15 clearly applies that standard by drawing a line in the sand that shall not be crossed. The truth is, to be effective & unifying in our current moment in the PCA, Overture 29 needs Overture 15. Taken together, these two overtures build up the defenses of the Book of Church Order’s standard of holiness for officers in light of repeated attacks on the Church from the world.
Amendments
To recap, Overture 29 seeks to amend BCO 16 by adding the following paragraph:
16-4. Officers in the Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christlike in their character. Those who deny the sinfulness of fallen desires, or who deny the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or who fail to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions are not qualified for ordained office.
Our standard of conduct is always the Word of God, which transcends any culture; whether a sin is especially hated or excused in a particular society shall neither excuse those who are unrepentant nor bar those who are clearly repentant.
Overture 15 seeks to amend BCO 7 by adding the following paragraph:
7-4. 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.
In Light of the Westminster Standards
It is often said that the Church does not invent new doctrine; it merely refines & codifies the teachings of Holy Scripture in light of challenges, controversies, or attacks from without or within. The standard which Overture 15 seeks to codify is not a new imposition upon the church or its requirements for officers. While it meets a particular need for the current time of difficulty the PCA finds itself in, the requirement is as old as the Reformed tradition itself.
Westminster Larger Catechism 139 clearly contains these sins & their attached desires as forbidden by the 7th Commandment. Besides expressly forbidding sodomy, there are also prohibitions on ‘all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections.’ Cherishing a homosexual or gay self-conception is clearly a product of an unclean imagination & affections, particularly realized within our postmodern era. A man holding to this decayed self-conception is worthy of our love, pity, and ministry of care, but not the weighty responsibility of church office.
It is almost as if the Westminster Divines were present in the 21st century to hear argumentation of Side B proponents. LC 139 goes beyond refraining from the external sin of sodomy and pushes us to remember the innermost places where we must be chaste: our hearts & minds. The divines would not have allowed men who serve as church officers to envelop themselves in worldly desires & appetites of the flesh as though they were not to be repented of, but instead used as casual descriptors. The divines would have directed such men to continue to seek Christ and to cast off what the world tells him about how his sin defines him and instead adopt what the Bible says about him as a new creation.
In Light of the AIC Report on Human Sexuality
The Ad-Interim Committee Report on Human Sexuality was received with broad support by all wings of the PCA when it was presented to the 48th General Assembly in 2021 for being eminently applicable in this area. It helped to clarify definitions, parse through seemingly impenetrable cultural language barriers, and provide context for conversations around sexuality. Overture 15 fits perfectly within its pastoral framework.
Statement 10 of the AIC Report states that it is ‘inappropriate to juxtapose this sinful desire, or any other sinful desire, as an identity marker alongside our identity as new creations in Christ.’
While recently it has become common practice in PCA circles to avoid “identity” language as it is often vague and unhelpful, here it stands as a synonym with the “describes” wording in Overture 15. The message is clear: Christians are to avoid defining or describing themselves by their sinful desires.
Statement 10 continues: ‘Our burden is that we do not justify our sin struggles by affixing them to our identity as Christians. Churches should be gentle, patient, and intentional with believers who call themselves “gay Christians,” encouraging them, as part of the process of sanctification, to leave behind identification language rooted in sinful desires, to live chaste lives, to refrain from entering into temptation, and to mortify their sinful desires.’
How can we as the Church come alongside believers struggling with homosexual desires and encourage them? How can the PCA tell our people that the Holy Spirit can progressively sanctify them, and at the same time allow our officers to describe themselves by their impure lusts & affections? How can we allow the promotion of a lifestyle of celibacy in our officers, at the expense of chastity? How can we minister to poor sinners caught up in homosexual lifestyles, when we have nothing to offer them but a life of outward conformity? This is the particular issue that Overture 15 addresses. Our officers must be above reproach in their Christian walk, not as an futile exercise in reaching perfection, but to serve their purpose of edifying the body.
In Light of Overture 29
Take a close look at what Overture 15 seeks to prohibit. Men ‘who describe themselves as homosexual’ are disqualified. This is not a statement of experience. This is not even a statement of temptation to sin. This is a statement of how a man, a supposedly mature Christian man who is being considered by a church as an officer candidate, describes himself.
Imagine an officer in the PCA habitually describing himself as a thief, a drunkard, an adulterer, or a rapist. You would surely be shaken by this self-description. You might have questions as to whether he is speaking of his past, before his conversion to Christ or in some great trial of sinful relapse. Tragically, he insists he is describing himself at the present time. Now, imagine this officer describing himself by these words, and then going on to say that while he abstains from these particular sins, he feels such a strong desire to commit these particular sins daily that he chooses to describe himself by those sinful desires. It is his chosen self-description of his Christian walk. He is a thieving Christian. He is a drunken Christian. He is a fornicating Christian. He binds himself up in his remaining corruption as a self-descriptor. This postmodern contortion cannot be made square with Paul’s admonition to ‘put off your old self’ (Eph. 4:22).
Overture 29 says that those ‘who deny the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or who fail to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions are not qualified for ordained office’. This is the language that won overwhelming support on the general assembly floor. This raises the question: who in the PCA is denying the reality & hope of progressive deliverance from their sinful temptations? Who is saying that their sinful desires describe them? It is not thieves nor drunkards. Sadly, it is homosexuals who are being deceived by the world that their desires are uniquely descriptive of their lives and are an intrinsic part of their humanity. Overture 15 takes the exegetical language of Overture 29 and applies it to our current controversy in the PCA, adding actionable teeth with its addition to Chapter 7 of the Book of Church Order, which is exactly where strict officer requirements are explicitly stated.
Conclusion
The rapid advance of LGBTQ+ ideology into broader culture, into institutions, and indeed, into the church, has clearly necessitated this response. The PCA has arrived at the moment where we are asking ourselves: how does the church preach not just Gospel redemption, but Gospel transformation to a listening world? One way is through its officers, the heralds of Christ’s kingdom. While no one on this side of glory will see perfection, these men are recognized by and for their exemplary Christian character more so than any other qualification. Remember Paul as he says ‘be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.’ (1 Cor. 11:1) Overture 15 seeks to apply this principle to the Side B/Revoice controversy.
This issue has caused disunity, confusion, and chaos in the PCA for far too long. If we desire that this particular sword should depart our house, then we will acknowledge that Overture 29 needs Overture 15 to be effective and pass both through our presbyteries. The two overtures go hand-in-hand. The one works through the other.
Joe Gibbons is a member of First Presbyterian Church in Hattiesburg, Miss. This article is used with permission.
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B. B. Warfield on the Essence of Calvinism: “God Saves Sinners”
He who knows that it is God who has chosen him and not he who has chosen God, and that he owes his entire salvation in all its processes and in every one of its stages to this choice of God, would be an ingrate indeed if he gave not the glory of his salvation solely to the inexplicable elective love of God.
B. B. Warfield is well-known as an ardent defender of what is commonly identified as “Calvinism,” which Warfield defines simply as a “profound apprehension of God in His majesty.” In an entry entitled “Calvinism” written in 1908 for the New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge (a massive and respected reference work in its time), the Calvinist, says Warfield is one . . .
who believes in God without reserve, and is determined that God shall be God to him in all his thinking, feeling, willing—in the entire compass of his life-activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual, throughout all his individual, social, religious relations—is, by the force of that strictest of all logic which presides over the outworking of principles into thought and life, by the very necessity of the case, a Calvinist. In Calvinism, then, objectively speaking, theism comes to its rights; subjectively speaking, the religious relation attains its purity; soteriologically speaking, evangelical religion finds at length its full expression and its secure stability.
As for the Calvinist’s understanding of redemption from the guilt and power of sin, Warfield contends we must start with the fact of revelation—Calvinistic doctrine is revealed in Scripture and is not the consequence of human speculation (as often charged). He notes, “a supernatural revelation, in which God makes known to man His will and His purposes of grace; a supernatural record of this revelation in a supernaturally given book, in which God gives His revelation permanency and extension—such things are to the Calvinist almost matters of course.” To paraphrase Warfield here, Calvinism is “biblical.”
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