In so far as these amendments about church officers address homosexuality (and they simultaneously address by name financial folly, relational abusiveness and racial wickedness), they simply parallel the common grace observation of AA. The absence of alcohol or of sex truly is significant, but it is not inherently decisive in the discernment for ordination. Gay and celibate isn’t enough. These amendments fix firmly the immutable obligation of PCA courts to recognize dry drunks and moist homosexuals as believers ineligible for ordination.

It is to be expected that the following opinion piece will be criticized as homophobic, fundamentally at odds with the gospel, grossly callous and hurtful. It will surely be faulted for issues it does not address, and for forbidden diction as well as insufficient empathy.
Criticism of that kind will simply prove the point. Some matters are indubitable, no matter how they provoke offense. Some matters are judgement calls, no matter how much a motion to call the question disappoints. You can’t have this discussion without a messy omelette. You can’t have this discussion without wails and consternation.
Such shadow & gesture & implication assessment of my assertions and conclusions is purposefully invoked by this italicized introduction as a convenient demonstration of the whole. Earnest engagement with homosexuality in the PCA will bring friction, flack and slow moralistic pressure. Our Constitution and our vows must be fit for both our convictions and our weakness. Pass 23 and 37.
Our Setting and Circumstance
In the summer of 2021, overtures 23 and 37 were passed by large majorities at the PCA General Assembly. During the subsequent year, 88 presbyteries will vote on the corresponding amendments to the Book of Church Order, defeating them if more than 29 presbyteries reject them. If at least 59 presbyteries uphold them, a final vote will be cast at the 2022 General assembly. Yes, that is 90 votes. That is what it takes for a positive result, but essentially only 31 votes for a negative conclusion. These are the numbers of the process.
The most sympathetic and poignant reasons to reject the overtures are the possible negative impact for some who aspire to office in the PCA. Purportedly the amendments would become discriminatory tools in the hands of teaching and ruling elders shepherding men through the process of ordination. They would cause collateral grief and provoke understandable sins. In sum, the argument arises from distrust in the competence of PCA officers to act with wisdom. (See Part One).
Distrust is a common thread in discussion of homosexual persons– not just in the church. Over the last decade the cultural significance of homosexuality has changed, and such distrust has become less defensive and rather preemptive. Homosexuality has been transformed– not into a matter of individuality and public indifference, but rather into a benchmark of recognizable authenticity and public liberty. (See Part Two)
Ensconced in the framework of sexual minority status, that distrust anticipates and squares off with any diminution of homosexuality as an honored value in the attempted social equilibrium. Similar though not identical preemptive distrust has been articulated in the PCA; however, at times similarity seems to bend from being identical only by the difference of being congruent. It can be difficult to detect the difference. A discriminating disposition to detect determinative differences is the desideratum in presbyterian process. In a wholesome sense– even if the lexicon expunges it– the business of church courts is discrimination.
PCA Policy and Procedure
The policy and procedures of the PCA regarding homosexuality must reckon with the de facto status imputed to homosexual men and women. Contemporary admiration and protection afforded to homosexual persons is grounded in the axiom that same sex attraction is fixed and immutable; moreover, that static foundation is all the more virtuously embraced when combined with the commitment to celibacy. The virtuous estimation of homosexuality combined with a traditional rejection of illicit sexual activity waxes more fully, even to both praise for and vigilance on behalf of homosexual persons in the PCA.
The offered amendments do not curtail either the praise or the vigilance; however they provide a stipulated requirement for courts to persist in distinguishing members from officers, a credible profession of faith with all its entitlements in the PCA from an exemplary piety with all its authority in the PCA. Preemptive distrust discolors discriminating examination and analysis as inherently discriminatory, so long as gay (fixed and immutable) is combined with celibate (persevering and reliable). Gay and celibate should be enough, or 95%, to end the consideration of a man’s fitness for office so far as the seventh commandment is concerned.
Is celibacy the boundary of homosexual corruption? Such self-mastery, no– Spiritual fortitude, in a professing Christian calls for admiration and protection. Gay&Celibate can be mocked and discouraged by other homosexuals as obvious “wannabes and gonnabes”. Certainly that is the diction of the accuser of the brethren– declaring that Christ has not emancipated them from the flesh. Victory must be celebrated and faith vigilantly bolstered in the household of God. Such is true with all believers and all besetting sins. Still, the question stands: is unstinting celibacy the homosexual line between the general office of church member and the special offices of deacon and elder? Does gay celibacy only need to pass the requisite ordination exams?
The offered amendments address only the standards for discriminating which men are fit for special office. They assume that what falls short of ordination does not disqualify from membership. In regards to homosexuality, they do not rule out some notion of “fixed” (indwelling sin, anyone?); however, they are in no way controversial for compromising “immutable.” Gay&celibate has already championed a real index of change. The amendments go further in rejecting celibacy as the demarcation of exemplary piety requisite for office in the case of same sex attracted aspirants to office. The amendments do not establish a checklist, rather they call for examination of the man’s character and conduct in regards to his remaining sinfulness in the specific array and dynamic of homosexuality.
Read More

Written by Samuel D. James |
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
We should contemplate these different fates not as autonomous futures that threaten us, but as different possibilities for how the risen Jesus will empower his church. We can and should pray for a dynamic era of repentance and mission.

The populist movement alluded to in my previous post is closely connected (though not synonymous) with a larger group of evangelicals who stand opposed to what they perceive as liberal progressive sentiment on issues like race, sexuality, and free speech. Most people reading this probably have an idea of who this group is and what they say. For those who don’t, your best bet would probably to read evangelical-themed articles from publications like The American Reformer and First Things. Megan Basham, who I also referred to in the piece about anti-Big Eva sentiment, is also a rising star in this camp.
If this group or their platform mean nothing to you, feel free to skip this post. If you’re tracking, let me share what I think are their three possible fates. I’ve alluded to some of these ideas before, but it might be valuable to make their current and future options more explicit. All three of my points below are my predictions for where the evangelical anti-woke movement will end up in, say, 10 years time, if they follow a particular course.
Fate #1: Success
In this scenario, the anti-woke movement successfully reforms a number of existing institutions and churches, catechizes a generation of faithful churchgoers against secularist ideology, and supplies the American church with a strong crop of pastors and thinkers for the next decade.
While victories in American elections would certainly be an expression of this overall success, a true triumph for the anti-woke would be concentrated in evangelical spaces, particularly touching its seminaries, parachurch organizations, and denominational leadership structures. Changing demographics in American religious life, coupled with the longstanding reality that any meaningful institutional transformation requires cooperation and patience, mean that the anti-wokeness movement achieves this by a careful, mature approach to reformation: building evangelical allies and appealing to a diverse group of Christians, including ethnic minorities. A well-crafted alliance of those concerned with creeping liberalism in evangelicalism push out a number of existing evangelical leaders, but not too many, since the alliance itself depends on leadership and a sense of inside-out reformation.
The end result is that the American evangelical landscape looks quite different in a decade, but also stronger and more able to resist an increasingly intolerant secular progressivism. The gospel is clarified and modeled, and many unbelievers, burned by the sexual revolution and by modern shame culture, find healing in the liberating message of grace and atonement in Jesus.
Fate #2: Failure
In this scenario, the anti-wokeness movement as we know it right now is a colossal failure. A failure to build any meaningful coalition or institutional depth saps the movement of both urgency and vision, and its current spokesmen become little more than online pundits, reigning in insular subcultures that do just enough to get the occasional book deal but are forgotten by the vast majority of American Christians.
The story of failure for anti-wokeness could be a story in one of two directions. First, there would be failure of persuasion. Much like the Emergent Church in the early 2000s, the anti-woke movement fails to deliver that key intellectual contribution. As the cultural mood changes, the things that made anti-wokeness look more interesting and credible begin to disappear, and the movement becomes entirely reactionary. Consequently, it ends up alienating the people it needs to convince, mistaking doubters for enemies, and becomes paranoid and self-referential instead of confident and assertive.
Read More

The question of whether an indictment should be brought for an offense committed in the distant past, is, and should be, a matter of judgment and discretion for the original court — regardless of whether the offense was personal or general, private or public (BCO 29).   Granted, the court might decide that commencing process for an alleged offense in the distant past would be unfair to the accused (for various reasons) or even too challenging for effective prosecution.

This article provides seven brief reasons why the 48th General Assembly’s recommendation is wise, and why Presbyteries should vote to approve the proposed revision to BCO 32-20.
At the July 2021 PCA GA in St. Louis, the Overtures Committee voted 95-22 to recommend the GA approve a revision to BCO 32-20 (below).  The Assembly, which may have been divided on many other votes, overwhelmingly approved this recommendation on a simple, hands-raised vote.
Proposed New BCO 32-20.  The accused or a member of the court may object to the consideration of a charge, for example, if he thinks the passage of time since the alleged offense makes fair adjudication unachievable.  The court should consider factors such as the gravity of the alleged offense as well as what degradations of evidence and memory may have occurred in the intervening period.
Before giving reasons why the proposed revision should be adopted, we note a September 7 article in The Aquila Report misquoted the above text of the GA’s proposed revision.  It quoted the original Overture instead of the amended text adopted by the GA.  The misquote included a different and additional first sentence, which was deleted by the GA.
Below are a some of the many reasons to approve the revision, a few of which were included in the original Overture.

Expeditious judicial process is important, especially in a case of public scandal. Nothing in the proposed revision would hinder or delay process.  In fact, it could expedite it.
The current version of BCO 32-20 prohibits judicial process against a scandalous offender if process doesn’t commence within a year of the alleged offence. While that might encourage expeditious process, it has a huge downside.  If the cause of Christ is jeopardized by the Church’s neglect of timely discipline, how would disallowing prosecution on day 366 repair the matter?  The scandal would continue, unabated. And one might even argue, from our current BCO 32-20, that a higher court could not institute process in a case of scandal after a year has passed if the original, lower court declined to do so within that year.
The current wording of BCO 32-20 might even be used to shield a child abuser. For example, if a person alleges a church officer abused them two years ago, the accused might claim BCO 32-20 shields him from prosecution, contending that because the alleged offense occurred two years ago, and was not publicly known (not a case of scandal), and has not “recently become flagrant,” the current BCO 32-20 disallows prosecution in the PCA.
The two SJC Decisions cited in the September 7 article did not involve cases of scandal. Each involved ministers seeking to get convictions dismissed, partly on the grounds that the alleged offenses occurred more than one year in the past. In other words, they essentially argued for a hard one-year statute of limitations for all offenses.  Surely that’s not the biblical view, and if that’s the way BCO 32-20 is being interpreted, then it warrants revision.  It was probably an overstatement for the September 7 article to contend: “The Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) found the present wording in BCO 32-20 useful in deciding a number of recent cases.”  Sometimes, the SJC is compelled to rule a certain way based on a poorly written BCO paragraph.  Neither of the cited SJC Decisions should automatically be interpreted as the SJC regarding BCO 32-20 as being well-written or “useful.”
Three items from the September 7 article warrant brief comment. First, it implied the 2021 Assembly approved the revision hastily, late into the night.  But Overture 22 was filed and published online in March 2019, so St. Louis GA Commissioners had over two years to consider and discuss it.  In fact, the overturing Presbytery revised it after such discussions in 2019 and 2020.  Second, the article contends the GA’s recommended revision, “leaves the question of what constitutes a timely matter to uncertain whims of individual church courts resulting in differing actions based on undefined variables.”  Such a statement mistakenly suggests that the bodies assigned by our Lord to the enormous task of judging guilt or innocence are somehow incapable of just judgment in such a lesser consideration. Finally, the September 7 article contends presbyteries should “vote down the proposed amendment and seek an amendment that better addresses the valid concerns raised in the original overture.”  But the current, 140-year-old antiquated language in BCO 32-20 is so liable to misuse that it should be revised as soon as possible. If further refinements are needed, there’s ample opportunity to perfect the language with future overtures.
The question of whether an indictment should be brought for an offense committed in the distant past, is, and should be, a matter of judgment and discretion for the original court — regardless of whether the offense was personal or general, private or public (BCO 29). Granted, the court might decide that commencing process for an alleged offense in the distant past would be unfair to the accused (for various reasons) or even too challenging for effective prosecution. And the accused could raise that objection.
Finally, the St. Louis Overtures Committee had many ministers and elders experienced in matters related to BCO 32-20, including 10 members of the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (i.e., 40% of the entire SJC, including all four of its Officers). If there had been procedural concerns with this revision, the SJC members certainly would have brought it to the attention of the OC, which they did not.  The Overtures Committee approved the revision by an 81% majority.

It would be wise and prudent for Presbyteries to vote in favor of this proposed revision of BCO 32-20.
Howie Donahoe is a Ruling Elder in Boise Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho.