A relatively small band of progressives have declared war against the PCA, demanding greater conformity, not to our confessional standards but to a version of the world’s standard of human sexuality in which one’s identity is determined by the sum total of their lusts. Their efforts have been magnified by the National Partnership; a highly organized, clandestine fraternity of block-voting progressives. While naïve moderates and confessionalists have been busy writing sermons and pastoring their churches, NP leaders have been mastering the art of denominational chess, stacking committees, distributing General Assembly voting guides, and maintaining anonymous mailing lists, closed Facebook groups, and password-protected websites

In 1643, George Gillespie traveled to London as one of the eleven Scots chosen to participate in the Westminster Assembly. Initially tasked by Parliament to revise the 39 Articles of the Church of England, one of the most contentious topics of the Assembly was the nature of the relationship between the church and state. On one occasion the renowned legal scholar and Erastian, John Seldon, argued for the spiritual subordination of the church to the magistrate. The logic of the elder statesman seemed so unassailable none rose to challenge him. Parliament had called the meeting, after all. But then, Gillespie heard the whispered voice of his friend, Samuel Rutherford, “Rise, George! Rise up, man, and defend the church which Christ has purchased with his own blood.” Gillespie stood and with scripturally-saturated wisdom, trumpeted Christ’s supremacy over his church and won the day, leaving an indelibly biblical mark on the ecclesiology of the Standards and the Reformation itself. He was 31 years old.
Gillespie’s bold example should serve as smelling salts in the nostrils of young churchmen in the PCA. Caught in the crossfire between a godly impulse to show deference to fathers in the faith and a culture of prolonged adolescence, it can be difficult for young elders to know their place and find their voice. When controversial issues like Revoice come knocking on the doors of our sessions, presbyteries and general assemblies, conventional wisdom kicks in, urging the greener presbyter to “Sit tight. Stay out of it. Let the older titans clash. ‘Even a fool who keeps silent is considered wise’ (Proverbs 17:28).” For the assistant pastor whose livelihood is umbilically connected to the good graces of his senior minister and session or for the RUF minister, missionary, chaplain, or church planter whose support may come from a broad coalition of churches with conflicting visions for the future of the PCA, biblical boldness can have a steep price tag. But while there is a time for young elders “to keep silence,” there is also “a time to speak” (Ecclesiastes 3:7).
Brothers, that time is now.
The PCA ordains gay pastors.[1] The commitment of men like Greg Johnson to abstain from homosexual activity is important, but their insistence on identifying themselves by their sinful desires — instead of renouncing them with holy hatred — is a tragic compromise. While the adoption of the Nashville Statement and the Report on Human Sexuality were encouraging psychological victories for those eager to guard the purity of Christ’s church, all actual judicial attempts to exercise discipline have proven unsuccessful. This, coupled with the recent failure of two-thirds of our presbyteries to approve overtures intended to slow the spread of Revoice theology, is symptomatic of a denomination in crisis.
The Ephesian church of Paul’s day faced similar challenges. False teachers had risen to prominence and infected the church with their “strange doctrines” regarding marriage, celibacy, and homosexuality, among others (1 Timothy 1:10 & 4:3). To resist these wolves and shepherd the Ephesian flock, Paul sent in young Timothy, urging him, “Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity” (1 Timothy 4:10). You see, Paul knew that while “the splendor of old men is their gray hair,” “the glory of young men is their strength” (Proverbs 20:29). He knew that “it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth” (Lamentations 3:27). He knew that Joseph was 30 when he entered the service of Pharoah and saved the world. He knew that Levitical priests were 30 when they started pleading for sinners before the mercy seat. He knew that David was 30 when he began to rule as king over Israel. He knew that Jesus was 30 when he came “into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God” (Mark 1:14–15). Paul knew that a man’s usefulness to the Kingdom of God has never been determined by his age but by his faithfulness. Young elders in the PCA must know it too.
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[1] See Greg Johnson’s USA Today article, I’m a Gay Celibate Pastor of a Conservative Church. Here’s a Trick for De-Escalation. 

In states with universal programs, Wolf at Arkansas foresees a gradual increase in the number of students who participate, eventually attracting 15% to 20% of all students in a state. That wouldn’t be the end of public schools, but it would mark a significant increase in the number of students who choose their own educational path with the support of the state.

A growing number of states are adopting a comprehensive new type of school choice program that would pose a threat to public schools if many students were to leave them for a private education. 

Eight states – including Arizona, Florida, Indiana, and West Virginia – have approved “universal” or near-universal school choice laws since 2021. They open the door completely to school choice by making all students, including those already in private schools and from wealthy families, eligible for about $7,000 to $10,000 in state funding each year for their education. 

What’s more, most of these states have also enacted education savings accounts, or ESAs. They give families much more freedom than traditional tuition vouchers, depositing state funds into private accounts to spend on virtually anything related to learning, from homeschooling and online classes to therapy and supplies. 

The universal laws amount to a bracing change in school choice. Such programs have existed for decades but until now have been limited to a narrow set of students, such as those from low-income families, or in poor performing public schools, or in need of special education. 

By making all students eligible, regardless of their ability to pay for a private education, universal programs in the eight states expand the pool of possible participants by about 4 million students, according to an estimate by EdChoice, an advocacy group. That’s a 40% increase in eligibility since 2021, bringing the total to 13.6 million students after the programs start in the next few years. 

School choice advocates – led by grassroots conservative Christian groups, big money political lobbies like American Federation for Children, and education nonprofits like EdChoice – call the universal programs a major milestone in their long and contentious battle for parental rights. They argue that parents, not the government, are best suited to direct the education of their children and should receive taxpayer support to do so as a competitive check on public schools they also pay for but consider failing or inadequate. 

But over the years, school choice has suffered from a low participation rate, with fewer than 1 million students partaking in state programs today, mostly to attend religous schools, in a nation with about 50 million public school students. The big question is whether universal laws, paired with the flexibility of ESAs to customized learning, will spur a major exodus to private schooling. 

“Universal choice is really a significant move beyond the existing programs we have now,” says Professor Patrick Wolf at the University of Arkansas, who has studied school choice for 25 years. “In terms of regulating education providers, this is a much stronger move into the free-market provision of K-12.” 

Why Now? 

This sudden success reflects both long-term trends and recent events. Americans’ satisfaction in public education has slowly eroded over the last two decades. And during the pandemic, student test scores in math and English plummeted as a result of ineffective remote learning, with satisfaction dropping sharply from a majority before COVID to a mere 42% last year, according to Gallup. 

Advocates in Republican-controlled states seized the opportunity created by COVID, when teachers unions blocked the reopening of schools, spurring parents to search for educational options, including homeschooling, to keep their kids from falling behind. 

“Parents saw there were many ways to educate kids,” says Robert Enlow, president of EdChoice. “It opened up a world of possibilities for them.” 

At the same time, the spread of a woke curriculum following the police murder of George Floyd in 2020 provided some parents with another reason to seek alternatives to public schools. In cities from Seattle to Buffalo, students have been taught a version of history casting white Americans as privileged oppressors and blacks and Latinos as powerless victims of structural racism. 

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis made these two related educational crusades ‒ curbing political correctness and passing universal choice ‒ his own in the runup to his campaign for president. In 2022 he spearheaded a Florida ban on teaching that America is racist at its core, and also won restrictions on instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity – prohibitions embraced by several other states as well. Then earlier this year, DeSantis won legislative approval of a universal law, making Florida the largest state to adopt school choice for all. 

But just as progressives have embraced a race- and transgender-conscious agenda that has spurred a backlash in many states, the universal choice program pushed by conservatives is stirring much controversy, too. In addition to solid opposition from Democrats, who fear a flight of students and funding from public schools, some Republicans, particularly in rural areas, also object to the costs of giving taxpayer dollars to wealthy families to pay for private schooling. 

Although Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Utah have joined the four other red states in approving universal choice, Republicans in Texas have joined Democrats in blocking efforts to pass it, suggesting the program may have limited room to run nationwide. 

Universal choice is also untested. Parents looking to control their kids’ education could find themselves in the dark because there’s little publicly available information about the quality of private and religious education. Homeschools and various types of private instruction are mostly unregulated and don’t require teacher credentialing or student testing in many states, leaving parents without objective ways to evaluate them. At public schools, at least parents have an inkling, based on public test score data, of what to expect. 

Academic research can only hint at the value of universal choice programs, which have never been studied. The exhaustive research on restricted school choice has shown neutral to negative effects on test scores in statewide programs, which include middle-income students. But the programs have had clear positive benefits on scores for low-income students in particular and have improved high school graduation and college admission rates for some students. 

“Universal choice is a great leap into the unknown,” says Professor Wolf. “Parents are experts on their child’s needs, but parents are not experts on private educational providers. They need accurate and complete information about them.” 

The Godfather of Universal Choice 

Milton Friedman, who won the Nobel Prize for economics, is considered the first prominent proponent of universal choice, bringing his theory of efficient competitive markets to education in a 1955 paper. He and his wife Rose later started a foundation for educational choice in their names that morphed in 2016 into EdChoice. 

“Friedman said you can’t create opportunity and access for people unless you give everyone choices in a marketplace,” says Enlow of EdChoice. “If you really had a competitive marketplace that included public, private, charter, and other school options, many new schools would spring up and it would have a positive impact on education.” 

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The first person to be tortured was the senator Dativus who, due to his position, was thought to have been an instigator (Fortunatianus had placed the blame on him). While Dativus was being prepared for torture, another Christian, Thelica, stepped forward to clarify that the meeting was a collective decision: “We are Christians. It was we who came together.” As expected, Thelica was the next to be placed on the rack. While torn apart by iron claws, he alternated prayers for his persecutors with exhortations.

“Sine dominico non possumus” (“We can’t do without the Lord’s Day”). This was the answer of a group of 49 Christians (31 men and 18 women) who were arrested for participating in a Lord’s Day service. They lived in or around Abitina, a city in today’s Tunisia which was at that time under Rome. It was the year 304, and Emperor Diocletian had launched an empire-wide persecution against Christians, forbidding their meetings, destroying their churches, and demanding them to hand over (tradere) their Scriptures.
Defying the emperor’s orders, this group, led by their presbyter Saturninus, continued to meet secretly for worship in private homes. Discovered and arrested, they were sent to Carthage, about 50 miles away, to be tried by proconsul Gaius Annius Anulinus.
Commenting on this arrest, the author of the Acts of the Abitinian Martyrs[1] – most likely an eye-witness – wrote: “As if a Christian could exist without the Lord’s Day, or the Lord’s Day exist without a Christian celebration! Do you not know, Satan, that the Christian is based on the Lord’s Day, and the Lord’s Day is based on a Christian, so that the one cannot survive without the other? When you hear the phrase ‘Lord’s Day,’ understand that it means the assembly of the Lord. And when you hear the bell ring, recognize that it is the Lord’s Day.”[2]
On their way to Carthage, the Christians encouraged each other by singing hymns. Once there, they unanimously refused to renounce their faith. Imprisoned, they were denied food, while any supporter who tried to bring supplies was sent away. This measure gave way to a small brawl outside the prison.
A Collective Decision
When an eager relative, Fortunatianus, rushed to rescue his sister Victoria by claiming that she and a few other women had been deceived, Victoria rose in protest. She had attended worship of her own free will and with full knowledge of what she was doing, she said. Fortunatianus should have known better. She had previously refused an arranged marriage by escaping through a window.
Moved by this family exchange, Anulinus tried to convince Victoria to listen to her brother. “I am a Christian, and my brothers are those who keep God’s commandments,” she replied. “These are my convictions, and I have never changed them. If I have participated to the Sunday service with my brothers and sisters, it is because I am a Christian.”[3]
Augustine of Hippo, writing a century later, gives a specific date for their trial: February 12, 304.
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