Don’t Be Fooled By “Nice”
“Nice” tripped me up in high school and for a decade after. “Nice” took my friend down a dark path of deadly sin and apostasy. “Nice” still threatens every one of us, our children, and even our good priests and bishops. The devil comes as an angel of light, wolves come in sheep’s (and shepherds’) clothing, and the con man is short for “confidence” man. Not every deceiver has malicious intent, but he deceives, nonetheless. To counter the deceptions of “nice,” let us always look for true. The truth may often hurt—but, unlike “nice,” it can never harm.
As a teen in the 1980s, I was at a moral crossroads. I was a typical, poorly catechized Catholic, playing around with serious sin, and my conscience was slightly bothering me. I had a sense of right and wrong (because relativism was not yet all the rage), but I saw God as a permissive parent who was too “loving” to enforce His own boundaries. However, before I waded further into sin, I thought it best to seek out the holiest friend I knew, Marianne, to get some advice.
Marianne was a practicing Catholic who was caring, kind, sober, and chaste. Always cheerful and patient, she openly spoke of her love for Jesus, went to Mass every Sunday, and was one of the few people I knew through my K-12 public-school years who seemed to be very devoted to Catholicism—certainly much more than I was. It seemed reasonable, then, for me to go to Marianne with my question: Should I continue on this path of serious sin or turn around? Of course, I did not phrase it that way, but she and I both knew that our Faith held these actions to be sinful.
Marianne leaned over and touched my forearm. “Leila,” she said, looking directly into my eyes and smiling warmly, “I just want you to be happy.”
I am 55 years old now, but I still remember her face, the classroom, the surroundings, and the peace of that moment. Those words were all I needed to hear from my most moral friend. I didn’t look back, and for the next ten years, I continued in ever-deepening mortal sin.
I didn’t fully understand that by listening to my friend’s soothing words, I was placing myself into the hands of the devil. She was so nice! She loved me! But in truth, I was a living example of St. Ignatius’ First Rule of the Discernment of Spirits (emphasis mine):
In the persons who go from mortal sin to mortal sin, the enemy is commonly used to propose to them apparent pleasures, making them imagine sensual delights and pleasures in order to hold them more and make them grow in their vices and sins. In these persons the good spirit uses the opposite method, pricking them and biting their consciences through the process of reason.
I fell into the trap that ensnares many souls today: believing that if a person has a pleasing personality, is affable, attentive, and “accepting” (whatever that means), then the person is good. Somewhere along the line, Catholics began making crucial judgments based on feelings rather than reason. We are lulled by a hearty laugh, a twinkling eye, a hug with a knowing smile. We get sucked in by a sense that someone loves us, even though we are being led down a garden path.
The friendly person who accepts us, the one who reaches out to “accompany” and affirm us—that person may not always have our best interests at heart. And sometimes a person who does want the best for us is harming us unknowingly despite his good intentions. We cannot know by outward appearances or our emotions whether or not the other is truly being Christ to us. The only standard we can use to measure another’s advice and guidance is whether or not that advice conforms to objective truth and goodness.
However, because we have been conditioned to use our feelings as a gauge for what is true, discernment has become difficult. The one who laughs at our jokes, is affectionate, and is interested in what we have to say appeals to our senses; we are drawn to him, we like how we feel when we are with him, we want him to like us. We even find it harder to resist or say no to such a person, even when we know we should.
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What Does Disunity Say?
Church leaders must not be spiritually immature (1 Timothy 3:1–7) lest they pour the gasoline of fleshliness on the flames of emerging church schisms rather than the water of sacrificial love and godly wisdom. Mature leaders foster cultures in their churches that help saints pursue “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” And they’re not naive. They know that factors like fleshliness, maturity diversity, and false Christians make this corporate pursuit hard. But they also know it’s necessarily hard. In this age.
Things fall apart. It’s the second law of thermodynamics. It’s Romans 8:20 happening all around us. It’s a reality I increasingly experience in my body as I pass through the second half of middle age. Cracks permeate everything — including every church I’ve known.
Christian relationships encounter all the temptations common to man. That’s why Christian churches will rarely experience a kind of unity that knows no conflict or struggle.
But an absence of conflict and struggle is not what God has in mind for Christian unity in this age. As I’ve explained more thoroughly elsewhere, God gives unity as part of our inheritance in Christ (Ephesians 1:5, 11), but Christian oneness has a participatory dimension through which God accomplishes some glorious work in us and the world. So when God, through Paul, commands us to eagerly “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3), he intends for this endeavor to be hard — for some very good reasons.
But more than that, God intends our churches to experience seasons of noticeable disunity. In fact, these seasons are necessary, because they bring to light some very important realities. The old hymn pinpoints it well:
Tho’ with a scornful wonderThe world sees her oppressed,By schisms rent asunder,By heresies distressed.Yet saints their watch are keeping;Their cry goes up, “How long?”And soon the night of weepingShall be the morn of song.
When it comes to Christian unity in this age of things falling apart, the reality we experience is “sorrowful” over our frequent factions, “yet always rejoicing” over the future grace of perfected unity set before us (2 Corinthians 6:10).
By Schisms Rent Asunder
Church schisms happen, as we all know. And they get a lot of bad press from Christians and non-Christians — often much deserved, as we also know. But schisms perform necessary functions in the church by revealing numerous areas requiring attention. Let me address three types of division in the church.
1. Fleshly Schisms
Paul illustrates the first type of schism in his blunt reproof of the Corinthian church:
I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? (1 Corinthians 3:1–3)
Fleshly schisms plagued this church. They were divided into partisan loyalties and impressed by worldly wisdom and rhetoric (chapters 1–3), easily swayed by those who slandered Paul in his absence (chapter 4), tolerating shocking sexual immorality (chapter 5), suing each other in civil court (chapter 6), damaging each other’s faith over issues of Christian freedom (chapter 8), and more. Paul didn’t call them false Christians; he called them fleshly Christians — people governed more by carnal discernment and desires than by the Spirit in numerous areas.
True Christian unity can be experienced and maintained only where Christlike love governs — the kind Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 13. Therefore, it’s a much-needed mercy to bring our unity-killing fleshliness into the light so we can see it and repent. And church schisms often perform that function.
2. Maturity Schisms
A second type of schism overlaps with the first, but its function is distinct enough to highlight. I call them maturity schisms.
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The Way, Truth, and Life: Jesus is the Answer to All Our Questions
John 13 is full of bombshells.
After having traveled with Him for three years, the disciples likely thought they had a handle on this thing. Though they never quite knew what to expect from Jesus, they knew enough to expect the unexpected. Three years, after all, is a long time to breathe the same air as a person. But then came the trip to Jerusalem.
There was the foot washing and the objection and misunderstanding of Peter. Then it was the uncomfortable truth that there was a traitor in their midst. And then, to top it all off, was the prediction that Peter, of all people, would actually deny any association with Jesus not once, not twice, but three times that very night. The result of all, no doubt was troubled hearts. Hearts of anxiety. Hearts of confusion. Hearts of pain. And it was to those hearts Jesus spoke:Your heart must not be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if not, I would have told you. I am going away to prepare a place for you. If I go away and prepare a place for you, I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also. You know the way to where I am going (John 14:1-4).
Though these words were meant for comfort, they only seemed to inspire more questions. And Thomas was the one who verbalized them for the room.
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A Political View of the PCA Jubilee General Assembly
Another critical issue was related to the use of the term “pastor” as being reserved for ordained teaching elders. It seems that the modern evangelical church tends to label everyone contributing service to the Lord’s work as pastor. From nonordained youth “pastors” to nonordained music “pastors,” it has become a very generic term. This has contributed to much confusion in the wider church.
On my Facebook page I recently referred to the 50th General Assembly (GA) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) as a silent coup d’état. I realize that for some folks this language would be considered too strong, but I believe it is fitting. As a commissioner this year to the GA in Memphis, and as a founding father who attended the original GA in 1973, I believe the use of this term is appropriate.
Because of a lack of better terms in defining opposing parties in the PCA, in this brief article, I will use the political terms of conservative (confessionalist) and progressive. In short, almost every vote at the GA this year was won by the conservatives, and that by a large margin. That is one reason for the use of my strong term. It seems like for years now, we have been losing, but things dramatically changed this year.
For example, progressive churches are always pushing the envelope and trying to put women in the pulpit. Such was the case recently when a woman ascended to the pulpit in a worship service at a church in Metro New York Presbytery. It was called a Bible Study and not a sermon, even though it was a worship service with the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper being celebrated at the end of the service.
The Assembly voted overwhelmingly to send this matter to the Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) to hold this Church and this Presbytery accountable for their actions. This now will become a test case for the SJC. Hopefully, they will hold the line on women preaching in our pulpits.
The Side B homosexuality issue was handled by a proposed new change to the Book of Church Order. This again will require a two-thirds majority approval by presbyteries, and the approval at the next General Assembly meeting in Richmond, Virginia.
Although this new language of the proposed amendment to the BCO says that an officer “should conform to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in his description of himself, and in his convictions, character, and conduct,” in my opinion, there is too much wiggle room here. In my view, the words are too generic, and not direct enough. But then at the same time, ultimately, the whole issue depends on the integrity of the elders in the PCA, and not on the language itself. Hopefully, integrity will win out here. Even though Greg Johnson has left the PCA, we need to be ever diligent on this issue. I never heard one reference at this Assembly to same-sex attraction or to celibacy, and this was a blessing.
The Assembly adopted the recommendation that the PCA Stated Clerk send a letter to the President of the United States, and to other civil magistrates (including letters from presbytery clerks to governors) protesting the surgical mutilation of children in what has become described as gender-affirming care. Somewhat contrary to the PCA’s own doctrine of the spirituality of the church, I was glad to see the Assembly do this with an overwhelming vote. The political/spiritual divide has hampered the Church since the Civil War, but boldness on major political issues is the need of the day. Church leaders can no longer close themselves off in a monastic life and avoid the cultural issues facing us in this nation. One commissioner, from Canada I assume, requested that the letter be sent to the political leaders of Canada also. I believe a Canadian presbytery could do this. This would include a letter to Justin Trudeau. This would take a lot of courage.
The Assembly chose to leave unchanged the BCO which takes the position that atheists cannot give testimony in church court proceedings. Progressives thought that this might hamper the whole truth being presented at church trials. Their appeal was that those involved in abuse trials might not get a fair hearing. They appeared to argue that somehow the present limit in the BCO is unloving because it would exclude an expert witness who is an atheist. Substitute oaths to objects not of the “god category” could be used in oath-taking. The Assembly did not buy into this argument, and left the BCO as it presently reads.
Another critical issue was related to the use of the term “pastor” as being reserved for ordained teaching elders. It seems that the modern evangelical church tends to label everyone contributing service to the Lord’s work as pastor. From nonordained youth “pastors” to nonordained music “pastors,” it has become a very generic term. This has contributed to much confusion in the wider church including the Southern Baptist Convention. The Assembly voted to place in the Book of Church Order a restriction that the term elder/pastor and deacon should only be used only of ordained officers in the PCA.
I consider all these votes as victories for the conservatives in the PCA. We have seen the reversal of a long period of control by progressives. Let me conclude this article by stating my perspective as to why this is happening.We all hold in high-esteem the founding fathers of the PCA. Few people realize the godliness and the courage that motivated these men. I have plenty of stories of persecution and suffering that many of them had to endure, even before the PCA was organized. However, a number of these men were active participants in the National Partnership organization that tried to control the direction of the PCA for years. A new generation has arisen and now the General Assembly controls the Church and not a secret minority in high positions. There is a new day in the PCA.
I think the Church has been recaptured because of the increased involvement by Ruling Elders (RE). REs tend to be more conservative, and therefore the progressives are no long in control of the votes at the Assembly. I think the Gospel Reformation Network (GRN), although keeping a distance from church politics, still has had a good influence on the PCA. As a theonomist, I get frustrated with them, but I hold them in high regard with love and respect.
The PCA is still inundated by woke theology, but as the woke movement, which was originally a race issue, has been hijacked by transgenderism and drag queens, the woke movement is losing respect in the church, as well as in our nation. I think as the movement grows and as the plea for toleration becomes the threat of domination, churchmen may reconsider their support because, frankly, the entire woke movement has become an embarrassment and a threat to our national sanity. It is committing suicide. One overture this year asking for the Assembly to make a statement on Critical Race Theory was not adopted. I think this is probably best because there is too much division in the PCA over the issue, and I think we need to wait and let wokeness kill itself.
Lastly, I only wish that those conservative men who have left the PCA would have remained with us. If they had remained, we would have been an even stronger confessional church today. In good conscience they believed they had to leave, but for those of us who stayed, the 50th Jubilee General Assembly was a happy week. We have been patient, prayed, and fought hard. God is blessings our efforts, and after a several years of grief, I am happy that I stayed in the PCA.Larry E. Ball is a retired minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is now a CPA. He lives in Kingsport, Tenn.
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