For numerous reasons it is my belief that now is not the time to leave the PCA, and I would encourage churches and teaching elders contemplating such action to stay and “fight the good fight.”  I would encourage more churches to become actively involved in both their presbyteries and at the General Assembly level. The ruling elders of our denomination have recently risen up and enabled us to have a greater voice for our conservative beliefs, and we must not retreat. 

Probably no one is more disappointed in the failure of Overture 15 than I am. Overture 15 would have codified the position that Side B homosexuals will not be allowed to be ordained as officers in the PCA. Last year, I predicted it would not pass the two-thirds threshold vote required of presbyteries, but until recently, I still maintained a small amount of hope.
How a statement so straight-forward and plain could fail is incomprehensible.  In days when perversion is becoming rampant in our society, we did not make a clear and unequivocal stand on this important issue. We failed to bear a good testimony to a generation living in darkness.
Like many of my brethren in the PCA, I must not only deal with disappointment but also with fatigue.  After fighting this battle for several years, I am tired and weary. Something in me just wants to give up, transfer to another denomination, or just become part of a local independent church. Some PCA churches undoubtedly will withdraw into their own local shell and isolate themselves, ignoring what goes on in the broader church.
I know that those who voted against the Overture will have well-developed and refined theological arguments for their vote.  I suspect that their consciences are clear.
However, one of my major concerns is perception. For example, I have heard others outside of the PCA interpret our action as opening the floodgate for homosexual preachers.  I do not think they understand all the nuances of the action, but regardless, this is how the PCA is now perceived in reformed and evangelical circles. At times, perception is everything.  This may not be everything in this case, but it is a major consideration.
I have dedicated much of my life to the PCA.  I am hurt because her character has been tarnished. It is akin to someone impugning the reputation of my own wife.
Yet, I am reminded of a few biblical passages that give me some encouragement.  “And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for we shall reap if we faint not” (Gal. 6:9).  For we have “not resisted to the point of shedding blood (Heb. 14:4).” Weariness is never a reason to give up the fight.  Weariness produces a temptation that must be resisted.
I am encouraged by several of things in the PCA.  First, it was heartening to me that even though the majority report of the Committee of Commissioners at the 49th General Assembly voted against the Overture, a minority report supporting the Overture was adopted by the Court.  According to the latest report at www.pcapolity.com, 45 presbyteries have now cast a positive vote for Overture 15, a majority of the total of 88 presbyteries, with 12 more still to vote.  I am also encouraged that a number of other overtures on this same issue will be forthcoming at the 50th General Assembly in Memphis. Greg Johnson and the Memorial Church have left the PCA.  This has promoted the peace and purity of our denomination.  There is an awareness among conservative presbyteries that we need to put more of our men on the GA Nominating Committee.  Thus, even with this defeat, overall, there are positive signs of hope.
Then too, I can always come home to my own Presbytery (Westminster) where we have already taken our stand on this issue. Only a judicial case against us could possibly change our minds, and I do not see that happening. In a document adopted by our Presbytery, (a document that does not rise to the level of our confessional standards), we have stated clearly that “men who identify as homosexual, even those who identify as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy in that self-identification, are disqualified from holding office in Westminster Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America.”  Any man who seeks to become a part of this Presbytery will be sent a document containing this statement, and told if he does not agree with it, then he need not apply for membership. He will not pass our examination. I would encourage other presbyteries to follow our example.
For numerous reasons it is my belief that now is not the time to leave the PCA, and I would encourage churches and teaching elders contemplating such action to stay and “fight the good fight.”  I would encourage more churches to become actively involved in both their presbyteries and at the General Assembly level. The ruling elders of our denomination have recently risen up and enabled us to have a greater voice for our conservative beliefs, and we must not retreat.
We are Presbyterians and we do believe that the church is connected by way of graded courts. We are not Congregationalists. We believe that our system of government is biblical, or so at least we took a vow declaring it to be so.  Every elder in the PCA has an obligation to participate in the work of the church at both the Presbytery and General Assembly level. To fail to do so, apart from providential reasons, is to fall short of our calling by God.
It is my personal conviction that Presbyterianism in America reflects modern consumerism more than it does the Bible or even the examples of our heroes of the past.  We are raised in a culture of a multitude of choices evident every time we go shopping.  We can buy a Chevrolet or a Ford. We are free to move from one state to another at our own discretion.  Sadly, this consumerism mentality has negated a right reading of the Scriptures and carried over into our “religious” choices.  American religiosity now allows us to move with ease from one church to another, and from one denomination to another any time we like. This is not to say that it may be necessary in some cases, but the choice is just too easy.
We recently celebrated the life of J. Gresham Machen, 100 years after he penned his landmark book “Christianity and Liberalism” in 1923.   However, little attention was given to the fact that he was suspended from the ministry by a Permanent Judicial Commission of New Brunswick Presbytery. He then appealed the matter to the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly and lost the appeal.  When under duress, he did not immediately transfer to another denomination, or walk down the street to form a “Continuing Presbyterian Church,” never to be heard from again.  He used every avenue available to him in the Church.  He stayed in his church for the duration of the fight.  Not only should he be a model for us theologically, but also ecclesiastically.
Machen’s day was a different era. Thoughts of transfer, starting a new denomination, or even quitting was never the first thing on their minds.  His fame was greatly enhanced because of his courage before the church courts, and thus he became the hero that he is today. Heroes are not created by disappearing into a fog of obscurity, but by being suspended from the ministry (defrocked) by your own Presbytery for unjust cause. Heroes are made by those who endure to the end.
So, how do we overcome our discouragement.  We rise to the occasion and fight on.  We do not succumb to temptation and flee when the opposition appears strong, but rather we choose the pathway of endurance, while praying for victory.
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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The legal nature of earthly marriage, while dissoluble due to sin, is meant to exist until death parts a couple. Legality also implies consequences for failure, such as we find in the Old Testament where Hosea’s marriage to the prostitute Gomer was a warning to Israel not to play the harlot with the Lord and instead return to him and be faithful. If Christ were not faithful to his bride, the church, he would be liable to judgment, which is impossible (Heb. 6:13; 2 Tim. 2:13). The union between Christ and the church is indissoluble—believers are beloved by Christ and forever belong to him.

We have received a lot of questions on the Beautiful Christian Life Facebook page regarding what constitutes a legitimate marriage in God’s sight. Here are seven questions and answers on the topic of the nature of marriage according to the Bible:
1. Can people be married in their hearts?
Nowhere in the Bible does it state that a true marriage exists where people agree in their hearts that they are husband and wife. In the Bible there is always a legal aspect to marriage. This is why a certificate of divorce had to be issued if the marriage was dissolved under the Mosaic covenant (Deut. 24:1-4; Matt. 19:7-8) and why Joseph was going to quietly divorce Mary after he learned she was pregnant, as there was a marriage contract in force even though their marriage had not been consummated yet:

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. (Matt. 1:18-19)

Waiting for a period of time between the signing of the marriage contract and the actual consummation of the marriage was common practice during the time of Joseph and Mary’s betrothal. In his book Backgrounds in Early Christianity, church historian Everett Ferguson writes the following about Jewish marriage in the first century:

The marriage was a contract between families. It was effected in two stages: the betrothal (or ‘acquisition’ of the bride) and the wedding proper (taking the bride into the husband’s home). The betrothal had the legal force of marriage and could be broken only by divorce (cf. Matt 1:18-19).” It was accomplished by the bridegroom paying the bride-price (or part of it) or delivering a deed. The customary written contract (ketubah) included the husband’s duties to his wife and the sum due her in the event of a divorce or his death” (p. 74).

The bride in all her special adornments was joyfully escorted to the groom’s house for the wedding ceremony. Along with the pronouncement of seven blessings, the marriage contract was read at the ceremony, which took place under a canopy (huppah). The wedding was then celebrated for seven days (Ferguson, p. 74).
2. Why do we have to sign a piece of paper to make a marriage legal?
People wonder why a man and woman have to sign a document in order to be married. In the Ancient Near East, in which biblical history took place, a written document was commonly associated with covenants. According to Ligonier Ministries,

The signing of a piece of paper is not a matter of affixing one’s signature in ink to a meaningless document. The signing of a marriage certificate is an integral part of what the Bible calls a covenant. Biblically, there is no such thing as a private marriage contract between two people. A covenant is done publicly before witnesses and with formal legal commitments that are taken seriously by the community. The protection of both partners is at stake; there is legal recourse should one of the partners act in a way that is destructive to the other. (“God’s Will and Your Marriage,” part 1)

Christians are called to obey governing authorities. If there are laws regarding marriage in the country where a Christian man and woman reside who are seeking to marry, they need to obey them as long as they are not disobeying God in doing so:

Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. (Rom. 13:1-2)

3. Does having sex with someone equal marriage (the “two become one flesh” passages)?
Some people think that two people are married if they have had sexual intercourse with each other based on the two-become-one flesh passages:

“Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24)

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The General Assembly retained one critical aspect of control over its judicial affairs by appointing CCB to review SJC’s minutes and report any possible exceptions, so that the General Assembly may direct SJC to retry cases where exceptions may arise. Within our procedural rules, the Assembly also retains the right to hear a minority report from CCB, and to substitute that minority report for the committee’s report…The General Assembly has delegated tremendous power to the SJC, and absent the ability of CCB to conduct a robust review of the SJC’s minutes — including the presentation of minority views to the Assembly — the SJC could violate its rules, leaving the parties to a case with no recourse.

In my last article, I detailed the parliamentary rules[1] which require minority reports from the Committee on Constitutional Business (CCB) the right to be presented to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) for consideration. Further, I showed how our parliamentary rules for handling such minority reports establish a process for the Assembly to substitute the minority report from CCB’s (majority) committee report.
This process is important, because it gives the Assembly its full freedom to oversee the procedural accuracy of the Standing Judicial Commission’s (SJC) business. If the final CCB report — whether the original committee report, or a substituted minority report — discovers procedural errors in the operations of the SJC, our Book of Church Order (BCO) enables the Assembly to redress any errors by directing the SJC to retry a case if the Assembly judges such a step to be necessary for justice to be realized in the proceedings of church courts.
In this article, I lay out three reasons for why it is important for the PCA’s General Assembly to protect this procedure within the Church’s polity.

The General Assembly has Retained Oversight over the SJC by the Review of the SJC’s Minutes

We must remember that the General Assembly has delegated to the SJC nearly absolute authority to conclude judicial appeals and complaints that arise from the Presbyteries. Unlike judicial commissions designated at the presbytery level, the General Assembly has not reserved to itself the right of approving or disapproving the decisions of the SJC (BCO 15-3, 5).
Nevertheless, the Assembly has retained one crucial aspect of direct control over the SJC: the annual review of SJC’s minutes through CCB (BCO 15-5.a; RAO 17-1). As some noted during floor debate at the 49th General Assembly, the review of the SJC’s minutes is very different from the work of the Committee on the Review of Presbytery Records (RPR). Our polity tasks RPR with reviewing the minutes of the PCA’s 88 presbyteries as one feature of the Assembly’s proactive work of “General Review and Control” of the lower courts of the presbyteries (BCO 40; RAO 16-1). Thus, RPR brings recommendations that the Assembly must approve.
The annual review of the SJC’s minutes, however, is not the proactive review of the proceedings of a lower court. Instead, it is a reactive identification of any issues (within a very limited scope) that the General Assembly then may cite as grounds for directing the SJC to retry a case (RAO 14-11.d.(2); 17-1). The report of CCB is non-binding, advisory, and for information only; however, without a report from CCB identifying possible exceptions in the SJC minutes (whether in the committee report, or in a substituted minority report), no motion is in order for the General Assembly to direct the SJC to retry a case. The identification of possible exceptions in a CCB report is the necessary prerequisite for a motion to retry a case.
Since this review of the SJC’s minutes is the only line of defense against an error in the SJC, it is a crucial check that the Assembly must not abdicate.

The General Assembly has Authority over its Committees and their Reports

Retaining the Assembly’s constitutional check on the SJC necessarily includes the right to substitute a minority report from CCB for the committee’s (majority) report. Therefore, minority reports differ from dissenting opinions by providing a procedural mechanism to give the full Assembly the final say in the case of differing opinions within the committee. The PCA’s committees operate under the authority of the Assembly, and not the other way around.
The authority of the Assembly over its committees rests on a fundamental principle of parliamentary law articulated in Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised, that a deliberative assembly may “establish and empower an effective leadership as it wishes, and at the same time to retain exactly the degree of direct control over its affairs that it chooses to reserve to itself” (RONR [12th ed.], “Principles Underlying Parliamentary Law,” emphasis added).
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[1] That is, the parliamentary rules governing the deliberations of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), namely those procedures outlined in Robert’s Rules of Order, Newly Revised (RONR) and the PCA’s Rules of Assembly Operation (RAO).
[2] I am thankful to RE Matt Fender for suggesting this paragraph.
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