Reformed theology is diametrically opposed to social justice ideology. But many Reformed people today are mostly just 5 point Calvinists who do not embrace our confessions or the implications of the solas.

Many young Christians didn’t learn how to understand justice from Scripture. So in college, they learned how to understand justice from culture.
And now, they think injustice is justice. And they interpret Scripture through culture, not culture through Scripture.
That’s why many professing Christians are more committed to Black Lives Matter than Biblical theology.
But our culture’s understanding of justice—or social justice ideology—hasn’t only infiltrated colleges, it’s also infiltrated churches. Professors are influencing Christians to adopt an unbiblical view of justice, and pastors are encouraging them to embrace it—especially Reformed pastors.
I’ve received hundreds of emails from people over the last couple months. And they’re almost entirely from people who feel pressured to adopt social justice ideology or critical theory from their Reformed pastors.
Social justice has become so widely accepted in mainstream Reformed circles it might be considered their sixth point of Calvinism. Some influential leaders and organizations look like they identify with social justice just as much as they identify with the five points of Calvinism and the five solas.
At this rate, social justice is probably going to be one of the major legacies and pitfalls of the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement—and it’s precisely what John MacArthur warned us about that almost a decade ago.
In 2011, John MacArthur said:
“The [Young, Restless, and Reformed] movement as it is shaping up also needs to face up to some fairly serious problems and potential pitfalls.
As the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement has taken shape, some of the best-selling books and leading figures in the movement have been completely uncritical (and in some cases openly supportive) of seeker-sensitive-style pragmatism.
And one cannot be genuinely “Reformed” and deliberately worldly at the same time. The two things are inconsistent and incompatible. To embrace the world’s fashions and values—even under the guise of being “missional”—is to make oneself God’s enemy (James 4:4). Many supposed reformations have faltered on that rock.”
John MacArthur was severely criticized for those words, but he was right.
The Young, Restless, and Reformed movement—or New Calvinism—was born as an alternative to the seeker-sensitive movement, but it’ll die as its own version of the seeker-sensitive movement.
Like the seeker-sensitive movement, the Young, Restless, and Reformed movement embraced a celebrity culture and naturally, an elitist model that sometimes prioritizes tribalism over truth, compromise over courage.
Read More

Written by M. D. Perkins |
Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Here we have biblical truth, expounded clearly and succinctly. Christ’s blood does not merely take away the guilt of our sin but also removes the powerful grip it holds on us, enabling us to choose righteousness over wickedness, allowing us to actually put sin to death even at the level of our desires. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5). While Revoice proponents are busy delicately nuancing a distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior, the Lord calls us to put it all to death because it is worldly and wicked.

In his new book Still Time to Care: What We Can Learn from the Church’s Failed Attempt to Cure Homosexuality (Zondervan, 2021), PCA pastor Greg Johnson gives a history of the “ex-gay movement.” He believes it utterly failed and bemoans the fact that many evangelicals today still think homosexuality can be cured. In the conclusion of the book, Johnson gives what he sees as a new path by way of an old path: double repentance.
Quoting from an obscure 1978 book by Richard Lovelace, the idea of “double repentance” is essentially this: homosexuals in the church must repent of homosexual behavior and the rest of the church must repent of homophobia. It is a path that Greg Johnson claims evangelicals were on before their views were hijacked by the false hopes of the “ex-gay movement” and the fear-mongering of the culture war that fought against the normalizing of homosexuality in America. In short, “double repentance” is what the church should be about in the 21st century.
Most people reading Johnson’s book will not have a copy of Richard Lovelace’s Homosexuality and the Church on their bookshelf. It has long been out-of-print and has never been a major work in the discourse about Christians and homosexuality. This makes it a prime candidate for misrepresentation.
The “Double Repentance” Quote
The first time I ever heard of Richard Lovelace’s book Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978) was when Greg Johnson was being examined by his PCA presbytery in 2020 for his concerning views on homosexuality. While defending his own status as a gay celibate minister, Johnson decided to defer to Richard Lovelace.
Johnson set up the quote by saying, “Decades ago, before the culture war, before the ex-gay movement, Reformed scholars were writing about homosexuality unencumbered by the fear and combativeness of our era.”[1] Then, after name-dropping several notable endorsements the book received, he quoted from Lovelace’s book:
There is another approach to homosexuality which would be healthier both for the church and for gay believers, and which could be a very significant witness to the world. This approach requires a double repentance, a repentance both for the church and for its gay membership. First, it would require professing Christians who are gay to have the courage both to avow their orientation openly and to obey the Bible’s clear injunction to turn away from the active homosexual life-style… Second, it would require the church to accept, honor, and nurture non-practicing gay believers in its membership, and ordain these to positions of leadership for ministry. The church’s sponsorship of openly avowed but repentant homosexuals in leadership positions would be a profound witness to the world concerning the power of the Gospel to free the church from homophobia and the homosexual from guilt and bondage.[2]
A Notable Ellipsis
The discerning reader may have noticed that between Lovelace’s first point and second point, there is an ellipsis (…). Some form of this ellipsis has been present every time Johnson has publicly referenced Lovelace—in the report from Missouri Presbytery’s examination in 2020, the three times Johnson mentions Lovelace in Still Time to Care[3], and in a promotional video for Still Time to Care that discusses “double repentance.”
This ellipsis was added by Greg Johnson in order to conceal a recurring theme in Lovelace’s Homosexuality and the Church: the need for repentant homosexuals to pursue heterosexual reorientation. Here is the full quotation from Lovelace (p. 125), with emphasis added to the revealed portion:
There is another approach to homosexuality which would be healthier both for the church and for gay believers, and which could be a very significant witness to the world. This approach requires a double repentance, a repentance both for the church and for its gay membership. First, it would require professing Christians who are gay to have the courage both to avow their orientation openly and to obey the Bible’s clear injunction to turn away from the active homosexual life-style, seeking a heterosexual reorientation when this is possible and adopting a celibate life-style when it is not. Second, it would require the church to accept, honor, and nurture non-practicing gay believers in its membership, and ordain these to positions of leadership for ministry. The church’s sponsorship of openly avowed but repentant homosexuals in leadership positions would be a profound witness to the world concerning the power of the Gospel to free the church from homophobia and the homosexual from guilt and bondage.[4]
It should be obvious why the full quote would be embarrassing for Greg Johnson. The major thrust of his message is that homosexuality cannot be cured. If change happens at all, Johnson assures us, it is a miniscule shift and an anomaly at that. But really, reorientation is a false hope perpetuated by homophobic fundamentalists who refuse to listen to gay people. This is the formal position of Side B proponents, also known as the Revoice movement.
Because of his other ideological commitments, Johnson cannot alert us to the fact that his beloved proponent of “double repentance” was also a proponent of heterosexual reorientation.
Lovelace as a Proponent of Reorientation
Richard F. Lovelace was a professor of church history at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and an ordained minister in the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA).[5] He published Homosexuality and the Church in 1978—the same year he finished his work with a denominational task force charged with studying homosexuality and the possibility of gay ordination in the UPCUSA. No doubt Homosexuality and the Church came out of the work he had done on the task force. In fact, the book is dedicated to that group.
Lovelace was one of the few conservative voices on the 19-member task force—and, thereby, in the minority in calling homosexual behavior sinful and voting against the ordination of “avowed and practicing homosexuals.” Interestingly, the minority position ended up being what passed the UPCUSA General Assembly in 1978, which did not allow practicing homosexuals to be ordained but did speak of repentant homosexuals who “redirected” their desires in a heterosexual marriage or adopted a “celibate lifestyle.” Lovelace’s position was nearly identical with the “definitive guidance” of his denomination.
While Lovelace did not seem to see reorientation as possible in every circumstance, he nevertheless was a proponent of it. He speaks favorably about it at multiple points in Homosexuality and the Church and offered thoughts on why some homosexuals failed to find lasting change:
Proponents of the active homosexual life-style within the church often attempt to prove that they cannot change or restrain their orientation by citing the failure of much nonreligious psychotherapy, or by protesting that they have “prayed about it, but nothing changed.” But few have shown any awareness of the full resources of spiritual power for change which the Christian can tap.[6]
Later in the book, Lovelace says:
The testimony of gay Christians who have turned away from living out their orientation or have even seen that orientation reversed indicates that a firsthand conviction that God (and not merely the society) speaks against the gay life, based on Scripture, is essential in gaining traction for change. Once a homosexual is gripped by a deep sense of the reality of the holy God and an awareness that He has set limits to human sexuality which rule out the gay life-style, most of the battle for change has already been won, for the heart is already broken in repentance.[7]
Even more, Lovelace does not speak of homosexual orientation as morally neutral:
The attempt to persuade the conscience that homosexuality is sinful only if it is expressed in outward acts will not pacify the conscience, which grasps instinctively the fact that all inner motives which are not perfectly channeled according to the will of God are sin. The homosexual Christian must therefore learn to relax in the honest admission that his motives are disordered, but he must commit himself to their reordering—or at least restraint—through the power of Christ infused in the process of sanctification. As he exercises the faith to believe that he is accepted [by God because of Christ], he must also face the harder task of believing that he is free not to act out the compulsive drives that still may inhere in a part of his personality. If the twin resources of justification and sanctification through Christ are preached and taught and counseled in our congregations, the barriers to reaching and delivering homosexuals will fall.[8]
“Double Repentance” in Context
There is another piece of missing context in Lovelace’s comment about “double repentance.” This is hinted at by the sentence that opens the entire quote, which says (emphasis added):
It is my hope, however, that we will not be forced to resolve our conflicts by emptying the mainline churches of homosexual believers. There is another approach to homosexuality which would be healthier both for the church and for gay believers… [the rest of the “double repentance” quote].[9]
This is an understandable omission on Johnson’s part because it only makes sense with the context of the prior section in the book. However, this missing context really is the skeleton key to the entirety of Lovelace’s point about “double repentance.”
To summarize from Homosexuality and the Church (pp. 120–123), Lovelace was making the point that there were many gay people already in the mainline church. He didn’t want to conduct trials to expose them but he wanted gay people, of their own volition, to confess their homosexuality if they were going to turn from it or to transfer out to a gay-affirming denomination if they were not. If they were unwilling to repent and unwilling to leave, Lovelace said they should stay silent about their homosexuality for the sake of unity and the consciences of the other believers in the church who were convinced homosexual behavior was sinful. Overall, it is probably the weakest section of the entire Lovelace book—riddled with his own justifications for staying in a spiritually dying denomination.
The reality is that Lovelace knew there were many practicing homosexuals already in the UPCUSA. Some were church members; others were seeking to be ordained. Some may have already been ordained and were wanting to “come out” publicly. Many had spoken directly to the task force over the 15 months that the group met. The task force itself had Nick Glaser on it—an openly gay man who had been denied ordination in his presbytery. Furthermore, during the process of deliberations, a fellow task force member and former General Assembly moderator, Willard Heckel, came out to the group as a homosexual.[10] Lovelace didn’t want to see anyone kicked out of the church but hoped that anyone who embraced homosexuality would have the integrity to repent or leave on their own. Unsurprisingly, this did not happen—even after the conservative position won out at General Assembly in 1978.
When Lovelace presents the idea of “double repentance,” he is speaking of active sodomites who are repenting of their sin and being renewed by the Holy Spirit’s work. He envisions that this work would include some repentant homosexuals eventually being ordained into leadership—but in order for that to happen, any lingering fear of homosexuals would need to be removed. He rightly recognizes homosexual behavior as destructive and ensnaring. Lovelace also sees compulsive homosexual behavior as so deep-rooted and entangling that celibacy will be a marked victory for some.
What Lovelace doesn’t address in Homosexuality and the Church is what few had even considered at that point—the question of the gay identity existing apart from sexual expression. This lack is reflected in most discourse about homosexuality at the time—both secular and Christian. Perhaps it reflected a lack in the culture at large, as public expressions of gay identity were only just beginning to take shape during the 70s and 80s. It was only after homosexuality became more mainstream and overall acceptable that the subtler distinctions within homosexuality—such as the distinction between orientation and sexual behavior—became more discussed. With these distinctions also grew an expanded category of ways to “sin” against homosexuals.
The Ambiguous Charge of Homophobia
The other side of “double repentance” is the question of homophobia. The word gets thrown around a lot these days—especially by non-Christians supporting the LGBTQ+ socio-political cause. But with the ascendency of Side B/Revoice, we now see it used by evangelicals speaking about evangelicals.
In a promotional video for Still Time to Care, Greg Johnson says this of Richard Lovelace:
This is an old school, conservative evangelical in the 1970s who is grieved over the sins of the church against gay people. And he wants the church’s gay membership to be embraced. And uh and the “dual repentance” is people like me, we repent of homosexual practice, and everybody else repents of homophobia. And the evidence of that is non-practicing gay pastors.[11]
What Johnson doesn’t ask is what exactly did Lovelace mean by the term homophobia? One really doesn’t have to go very far to find out, as Lovelace clearly defined it as “irrational fear and hatred of homosexual persons.”[12] He saw this attitude expressed in “the inability of church people to maintain an attitude of compassionate concern for homosexuals while disapproving of the active homosexual life-style.”[13] He didn’t give much detail beyond this, but he was describing an unloving attitude that shows no concern for the soul or state of a particular sinner.
Lovelace highlights the “sin of homophobia” in his book because it was one of the few points of consensus that could be reached between the warring parties within the UPCUSA. The liberals in the UPCUSA rejected the authority of the Bible and believed the sexual teaching of Scripture to be astonishingly unclear. Nevertheless, the liberals had no doubt about homophobia: it was a sin. Meanwhile, there were conservative ministers in the denomination, like Lovelace, who also saw homophobia as an issue that needed to be addressed.
Jerry Kirk—a conservative UPCUSA minister—summarized this position well in his 1978 book, The Homosexual Crisis in the Mainline Church:
The homosexual has sinned. But Christian, your sin of lovelessness may be keeping him from finding hope and Christ. He may not as yet have found a Christian who will love him as he is and guide him to wholeness in Christ.[14]
Similar to Lovelace, Jerry Kirk defined homophobia as “the fear and rejection of homosexuals as people.”[15] Yet, even with the call to be compassionate and loving, Kirk still warned people of the dangers of “the gay movement” in the church and society:
The battle is not just a decision for or against ordination of homosexuals. The battle is against moral laxity within the life of the church (its clergy and laity) and in our nation. The battle is for more stable and wholesome family life. The battle is for deeper spiritual vitality and for congregational renewal. God is calling the church to a new sense of prophetic clarity in private morality and for pastoral compassion in ministry to broken people.[16]
We should also recognize that, in our day, the term homophobia is notoriously ambiguous. It was originally coined by a psychologist in order to describe “the dread of being in close quarters with homosexuals”[17] but was quickly co-opted by activists to describe any form of discrimination or rejection felt by gay people. More often than not, it is a political word utilized to accomplish political goals. Similar to the current charge of racism, homophobia is less a definable action someone does than a certain feeling of being slighted or treated differently as a minority. With that, the charge of it can be levelled against openly hostile acts of aggression and demeaning language or for “microaggressions” and inferences.
Also, similar to the discussion of racism, homophobia can point beyond personal attitudes of rejection to a systemic privileging of heterosexuality over homosexuality. In this way, any belief that sees heterosexuality as normal and good is demonized by mainstream LGBTQ+ as being homophobic—especially orthodox Christianity.
Greg Johnson will not admit it but the Revoice movement has imbibed enough mainstream LGBTQ+ thinking to join them in using the charge of homophobia as a weapon against evangelical churches. It is a bully tactic—easy to say and nearly impossible to disprove. It feels like it fits—even though what actually counts as homophobia remains ill-defined. Is it homophobic for Christian parents to wish that their gay-identified child were heterosexual? Ed Shaw[18], Nate Collins[19], and many other Revoice proponents say “yes.” Is it homophobic for a church not to hire a youth pastor who says he is same-sex attracted? According to Ray Low at the Revoice 18 conference, yes.[20]  Is trying to cure homosexuality homophobic? According to Greg Johnson’s book, absolutely.
If everything that falls under this broad definition of homophobia is a sin—which is the implication when anyone says it needs repentance—then the conservative pushback against the LGBTQ+ cultural onslaught is also sinful. That is the charge, a charge implied by the very fact that Johnson cites the “culture war” as part of the problem. Christians should agree that being unkind or hating someone is wrong—but Johnson is trafficking a lot more in that term than Lovelace was.
The Forgotten Threat of Spiritual Warfare
One thing that Richard Lovelace discusses in Homosexuality and the Church that Greg Johnson, Nate Collins, Wesley Hill, Preston Sprinkle, Scott Sauls and any of the other proponents of the Revoice movement are unwilling to discuss is the reality of fierce spiritual warfare that surrounds homosexuality. It is a fundamental component of why so many supposed former homosexuals go back to the lifestyle, why so many gay people twist Scripture to justify their lust, and why the LGBTQ+ agenda seeks to either silence or queer the church. Yet Revoice and Greg Johnson have been utterly silent on this.
In contrast to them, Lovelace says few Christians are prepared for the spiritual battle that wages war for their souls—which is a major reason behind the stunted sanctification of many “gay Christians”:
Most Christians today are unaware of the personal and institutional forces attempting to destroy God’s creation, and few are braced against these in the attitude of resistance commanded in Ephesians 6:10–12, 1 Peter 5:8–9, and James 4:7. Ministers and laypersons alike persist in the rather unreasonable belief, left over from the Age of Reason, that there are no superhuman beings active in God’s creation. But the Scripture speaks plainly, if tersely and without superstition, about angelic beings who are loyal to God and benign, or are fallen and malicious. Paul speaks not only of our encountering structures and systems which are demonic, but of our hand wrestling with personal demonic agents (see Ephesians 6:12). Since the principal aim of fallen angels is the destruction or distortion of God’s creation, it is not surprising that frequently these are involved in the twisting of human sexuality, as in the case of Mary Magdalene (see Luke 8:2). While the indiscriminate use of lengthy procedures of exorcism may not be called for in all cases of persistent sexual bondage, what is certainly appropriate in every case is the admonition of James: “Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7 NAS). Probably few gay Christians who have “prayed about” their condition without success have been spiritually realistic enough to follow this injunction, and therefore it is not surprising that the condition has persisted without healing or control.[21]
For anyone who has worked with or spoken to repentant homosexuals, those who have come to a knowledge of the truth will testify to this reality. Satan loves to keep men and women in bondage to their lusts—and the Revoice movement has found clever ways to help him.
“Double Repentance” versus the “Double Cure”
Greg Johnson has tried to say that the best way forward for the evangelical church is a “double repentance.” As we have seen, he misrepresents Lovelace in order to make his own point. Johnson says there is no cure (apart from final glorification) for dishonorable passions. He also says that this view does nothing to diminish the power of the gospel or the work of the Holy Spirit. Still Time to Care attempts to prove that the expectation of change is completely unfounded—and potentially homophobic. If it is homophobic, then it needs repentance.
Johnson says Christians should move beyond trying to “cure” homosexuality in order to “care” for homosexuals. But what makes these ideas so exclusive? The idea that one of them is impossible.
Any sincere Christian should be asking: what is wrong with thinking that there should be a “cure” for the reigning power of any particular sin—even homosexuality? The Bible certainly gives us cause to think there is a cure:
We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. (Romans 6:5–6)
Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace. (Romans 6:12–14)
This is where Revoice proponents like Johnson attempt to put “dishonorable passions” (Romans 1:26) in a different category from “shameless acts” (Romans 1:27), as if the latter needs direct repentance and can be overcome by the power of God but the former will permanently inhere in the life of a believer with little change until we are in the new heavens.
Rather than embracing the vexed concept of “double repentance,” Christians should rally around the much more biblically defined concept of the “double cure”:
Rock of Ages, cleft for meLet me hide myself in thee;Let the water and the blood,From thy riven side which flowed,Be of sin the double cure,Cleanse me from its guilt and pow’r.(from Augustus Toplady’s hymn “Rock of Ages”)
Here we have biblical truth, expounded clearly and succinctly. Christ’s blood does not merely take away the guilt of our sin but also removes the powerful grip it holds on us, enabling us to choose righteousness over wickedness, allowing us to actually put sin to death even at the level of our desires. “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3:5).
While Revoice proponents are busy delicately nuancing a distinction between homosexual orientation and homosexual behavior, the Lord calls us to put it all to death because it is worldly and wicked. Certainly, where there is a lack of compassion or outright hostility among Christians in our churches, the Scripture speaks to this as well: “But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth” (Colossians 3:8). In this all Christians have the power to change—having received this double cure by the blood of our Savior. “Cleanse me from its guilt and power.”
M.D. Perkins is research fellow of church and culture for the American Family Association and is a ruling elder at Lawndale Presbyterian Church (PCA). His study into the issues surrounding “gay Christianity” and the Revoice movement are featured in the paper A Little Leaven: Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement (2021) and in his forthcoming book Dangerous Affirmation: The Threat of “Gay Christianity” (2022).

[1] “Missouri Presbytery Ad Hoc Committee to Respond to Memorial Presbyterian Church Report of Its BCO 31-2 Investigation of TE Greg Johnson”, Missouri Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), July 21, 2020, 38. https://1ar.s3.amazonaws.com/2020/08/2020.07.21-MOP-BCO-31-2-investigation-of-TE-Greg-Johnson-CRM.pdf
[2] Ibid., 38.
[3] Greg Johnson has a patchwork version of the Lovelace quote on pages 83, 207, and 244 (in the conclusion of the book) in Still Time to Care.
[4] Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978), 125.
[5] The UPCUSA was the “northern” Presbyterian church. It would merge with the “southern” Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) in 1983 to form the Presbyterian Church (USA) denomination we know today as the mainline Presbyterian church.
[6] Ibid., 129–130.
[7] Ibid., 133–134.
[8] Ibid., 135–136.
[9] Ibid., 125.
[10] Chris Glaser, Uncommon Calling: A Gay Christian’s Struggle to Serve the Church (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996 [originally published San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row, 1988]), 169–170.
[11] Greg Johnson (@PcaMemorial). “Our approach to care requires a double repentance: repentance from homosexuals who confess their sin and turn away from any homosexual lifestyle, and repentance from the church for its mistreatment of LGBTQ+ members, and then open acceptance of non-straight believers.” November 2, 2021, 8:37 AM. Tweet. https://twitter.com/PcaMemorial/status/1455529375659593734
[12] Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978), 147.
[13] Ibid., 66.
[14] Jerry R. Kirk, The Homosexual Crisis in the Mainline Church (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1978), 125.
[15] Ibid., 125.
[16] Ibid., 141.
[17] George Weinberg, Society and the Healthy Homosexual (Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1972), 4.
[18] Ed Shaw, Same-Sex Attraction and the Church: The Surprising Plausibility of the Celibate Life (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2015), 95.
[19] Nate Collins, All But Invisible: Exploring Identity Questions at the Intersection of Faith, Gender, and Sexuality (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2017), 256–257.
[20] M.D. Perkins, A Little Leaven: Confronting the Ideology of the Revoice Movement (Tupelo, MS: American Family Association, 2021), 53. https://afa.net/media/595378/afa_alittleleaven_perkins_2021.pdf
[21] Richard F. Lovelace, Homosexuality and the Church: Crisis, Conflict, Compassion (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1978), 137.

The American Presbyterian Church began in 1706, with the founding of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, especially through the leadership of Francis Makemie (the “father of American Presbyterianism”).9 The first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA took place in 1789, with four synods: New York and New Jersey (four presbyteries), Philadelphia (five presbyteries) Virginia (four presbyteries), and the Carolinas (three presbyteries).

Note: These are the lecture notes for the first class of an 8-week series that I am teaching at Harvest Community Church, called “What Does it Mean to be Presbyterian?” This is by no means comprehensive, but a quick overview of some of the key historical moments that have led to the development of the Presbyterianism that we experience today. This survey does not include the history of my own denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA); Lord willing, I will lay out a brief survey of that history in a future lecture/post.
To understand Presbyterianism, it helps to understand some of the history that shaped it. Presbyterianism seeks to be thoroughly biblical; however, being “biblical” cannot happen in a vacuum. The questions we seek to answer from the Bible are always answered in response to objections, aberrations, and innovations posed from within the church or by the wider culture. Knowing the history of Presbyterianism helps to explain why we take certain things more seriously than someone might imagine.
Origins of Presbyterian Church Government
The word “Presbyterian” comes from the Greek word πρεσβύτερος (presbyteros), meaning “elder.” Accordingly, Presbyterian church government is elder-ruled church government, as we see clearly taught in the New Testament: “Let the elders [πρεσβύτεροι] who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching” (1 Tim. 5:17).
Nevertheless, the origins of Presbyterian church government stretch further back into history than the New Testament, but began in the Old Testament. We see elders serving the nation of Israel from the time of Moses onward:

“Go and gather the elders of Israel together and say to them, ‘The LORD, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, has appeared to me, saying…’” (Ex. 3:16)
Then Moses called all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go and select lambs for yourselves according to your clans, and kill the Passover lamb….” (Ex. 12:21)
And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go.” (Ex. 17:5)
“Then he said to Moses, “Come up to the LORD, you and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship from afar.” (Ex. 24:1)
“And the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the LORD, and the bull shall be killed before the LORD.” (Lev. 4:15)
Then the LORD came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the Spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders. And as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. (Num. 11:25)
Now Moses and the elders of Israel commanded the people, saying, “Keep the whole commandment that I command you today.” (Deut. 27:1)

The New Testament (especially the Gospels and Acts) reveals that this system of elder-rule continued through the time of Jesus. Particular congregation of Jewish worshipers met in synagogues, which were governed by Ruling Elders.1 All the elders ruled over the synagogue, so that sometimes these elders are called the “rulers of the synagogue,” while other times one is singled out as the “ruler of the synagogue,” signifying the one who presided over the ecclesiastical business of the synagogue:

Then came one of the rulers of the synagogue, Jairus by name, and seeing him, he fell at his feet…. (Mark 5:22)
But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, “There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.” (Luke 13:14)
After the reading from the Law and the Prophets, the rulers of the synagogue sent a message to them, saying, “Brothers, if you have any word of encouragement for the people, say it.” (Acts 13:15)
Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, believed in the Lord, together with his entire household. And many of the Corinthians hearing Paul believed and were baptized. (Acts 18:8)

In the synagogues, the rulers all had equal standing and rank, and the ruler of the synagogue (sometimes called an overseer/bishop or president of the synagogue) was considered the primus inter pares, the “first among equals.” The ruler of the synagogue was distinguished by moderating the elder meetings, and by reading the Scriptures and leading the prayers in the synagogue worship services.2
Also, we can see evidence for a graded court system. While each synagogue had a bench of elders to oversee the local congregation, there was also a regional governing council, called the “Presbytery,” and the high council, called the “Sanhedrin.”3 The word “Presbytery” (i.e., council of elders) appears in three places in the New Testament:

When day came, the assembly of the elders [πρεσβυτέριον; presbyterion] of the people gathered together, both chief priests and scribes…. (Luke 22:66)
“…as the high priest and the whole council of elders [πρεσβυτέριον; presbyterion] can bear me witness….” (Acts 22:5)
Do not neglect the gift you have, which was given you by prophecy when the council of elders [πρεσβυτερίου; presbyteriou] laid their hands on you. (1 Tim. 4:14)

Notice carefully the close connection between the Jewish synagogue polity and the Presbyterian church polity that we still use today. We consider both Ruling Elders and Teaching Elders to be equal, as members of the one biblical office of elder; however, we do make a distinction between those who “rule well” only, and those who “labor in preaching and teaching” in addition to ruling (1 Tim. 5:17), by their leadership in worship, as well as their moderating over the Session of the church. Finally, the Jewish graded court system of Synagogue, Presbytery, and Sanhedrin corresponds to our Presbyterian graded courts system of Session, Presbytery, and General Assembly.
The New Testament Apostles did not make up their church government out of thin air. They carefully carried forward the principles that had been long established for God’s church from early in the Old Testament. Our polity is inherited from the Old Testament, not invented.4
Evidence from the Apostolic Fathers
The earliest surviving Christian documents from the early church outside the New Testament were written by two figures: Clement of Rome (35–99 AD) and Ignatius of Antioch (d. 108 AD). The writings of Clement of Rome urge obedience to the “elders/presbyters”:

“You, therefore, who laid the foundation of the revolt must submit to the presbyters and accept discipline leading to repentance, bending the knees of your heart.” (1 Clement 57:1)5

The writings of Ignatius of Antioch are similar, urging obedience to the “bishop and presbyters”:

“It is essential, therefore, that you continue your current practice and do nothing without the bishop, but be subject also to the council of presbyters as to the apostles of Jesus Christ, our hope, in whom we shall be found, if we so live.” (Ignatius to the Trallians, 2:2)6

From what we have seen about the continuity between the Jewish system and the New Testament church, it is clear what these offices were. On one hand, it was possible to speak of the presbyters as a unified group, just as we speak of the elders or the session. On the other hand, it is also possible to distinguish the bishop (lit., “overseer”) from the other presbyters if we are describing a pastor (Teaching Elder) and the other Ruling Elders. There is no evidence whatsoever that bishop at this time meant what it quickly came to mean in the Roman Catholic Church, as a hierarchical overseer of a group of churches, without pastoring any particular church himself.
(Continental) Reformed Churches vs. (Scottish/Irish) Presbyterian Churches
Reformation in the church always happens gradually and sequentially. No generation can reform everything in need of reformation at once. So, Luther and the first generation of Reformers restored the church’s confidence in the authority of Scripture, and the gospel of justification by faith alone. Calvin and the second generation of Reformers worked through a fuller vision for Christianity and church life, especially in the midst of the unique situation in Geneva. While the continental Reformed churches have many similarities with Presbyterian polity, most of their foundational documents were formed in an early period of the Reformation.
It was the Scottish Reformation that pioneered the enduring biblical vision of fully Presbyterian church polity. Under the leadership of John Knox, the Church of Scotland drew up the First Book of Discipline, published in 1560. Then after John Knox’s death in 1572, the Church of Scotland published the Second Book of Discipline in 1578, which had abiding significance and influence. Finally, the Westminster Assembly published an important guide for church government in 1645, called The Form of Presbyterial Church Government. In each of these books, the overriding goal was to draw out and apply biblical principles to guide the life of the church. Some of these Scottish Presbyterians migrated to the United States, forming two streams of Scottish Presbyterian traditions: the Covenanters (such as the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America), and the Seceders (such as the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church).7
The majority of the church fathers for the broadest stream of American Presbyterianism (including denominations like the Presbyterian Church in the USA, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, and the Presbyterian Church in America) came from Ulster Presbyterians from Northern Ireland.8 The American Presbyterian Church began in 1706, with the founding of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, especially through the leadership of Francis Makemie (the “father of American Presbyterianism”).9 The first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA took place in 1789, with four synods: New York and New Jersey (four presbyteries), Philadelphia (five presbyteries) Virginia (four presbyteries), and the Carolinas (three presbyteries).10
Old Side / New Side Controversy
One of the earliest controversies in the American Presbyterian Church has come to be known as the Old Side / New Side Controversy. This controversy grew out of issues surrounding the First Great Awakening. Three main issues emerged from this controversy. The first had to do with a disagreement with confessional fidelity vs. piety. Although these two issues are not necessarily at odds with one another, Old Side ministers sought to keep the church free from doctrinal error by insisting upon “strict subscription” to the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. New Side ministers, on the other hand, sought to emphasize a warmer kind of piety, and they argued for evaluating ministerial candidates on the basis of “religious experience.”11
The second was related, and had to do with the methods of ministerial training. This controversy centered around a theological seminary called the Log College, which was founded in 1727 by William Tennent Sr. While Old Side ministers favored a more traditional (and more doctrinally rigorous) training at more established schools back in Scotland, New Side ministers set up the Log College as an attempt to establish a school for theological training in the new world. While this was not a problem per se,  Hart and Muether explain that “the school was also the creation of the Tennent family and nurtured an introspective and enthusiastic piety among its students that could lead to…excesses of religious experience….From the perspective of strict subscriptionists, Log College was also clearly on the wrong side of debates about ministerial qualifications.”12
The third issue had to do with itinerant preaching ministries during the First Great Awakening. At the center of the First Great Awakening in America was a man named George Whitefield. Whitefield was an Anglican, evangelical preacher who traveled through both England and the United States, preaching in the open air and in any churches who would welcome him. He was a man of extraordinary preaching gifts, and a number of people professed conversion to Christianity under his preaching in the early 18th century. New Side ministers were eager to invite Whitefield into their pulpits, while Old Side ministers believed that churches should hear from their own pastors, not from unaccountable itinerant preachers.13
To this day, Presbyterians still wrestle with questions about confessional subscription, ministerial training, and formal vs. informal ministry methods. On one side are those who advocate for purity of doctrine and the simple use of the biblical means of grace, while on the other side are those who advocate for religious experience and innovative methods for reaching the lost.
Old School / New School Controversy
About one hundred years later, the Second Great Awakening led to another controversy in the Presbyterian Church. The origins of this controversy stem from 1801, when the Presbyterians and the Congregationalists adopted “The Plan of Union,” which sought to join forces between the two denominations for the more rapid expansion of evangelism and church planting efforts as America moved west. This required a significant downplaying of the confessional distinctives of Presbyterians, especially through the approval of Charles Finney as Presbyterian minister in 1824.14
Once again, the “old” in this controversy favored a more traditional, confessional Presbyterian approach to ministry, while the “new” were open to innovations—and Finney introduced a number of New School innovations. Finney attempted to boil evangelistic revivals down to a science of psychological, emotional, and spiritual manipulation, using techniques such as altar calls and the anxious bench.15 His theological innovations were more significant, since Finney denied the doctrine of original sin.16 This doctrine was an important Finney’s practice, since he wrote that “a revival is not a miracle, or dependent on a miracle in any sense. It is a purely philosophic [i.e., scientific] result of the right use of the constituted means.”17
This denial of original sin extended beyond Finney alone into the Congregational Church of the time, causing significant divisions between the Old School ministers who wanted to protect the biblical doctrines (as summarized in the Westminster Standards) and biblically-regulated methods of worship and ministry, and the New School ministers who wanted to introduce new doctrines and methods for achieving the “results” of ministers like Finney.18
Once again, we see confessional standards and formality of ministry patterns forming the lines of this division. Here, the theological error is more pronounced, with an outright denial of original sin. We should recognize that innovations in worship and in the methods of ministry are not theologically neutral. The Old School ministers who (like the Old Side ministers before them) insisted upon the simple use of the biblical means of grace in worship and evangelism clearly saw the theological and confessional problems with those who innovated new approaches to ministry.
The Modernist Controversy
The Modernist Controversy takes us forward yet another hundred years in American Presbyterian church history. Once again, the Modernist Controversy deals with a question that arises in the wider culture. In this case, it was the theological issues that arose from historical-critical biblical scholarship that split the church apart.
Perhaps the best summary of the Modernist Controversy comes in the so-called “Auburn Affirmation,” published in January, 1924, and signed by 150 pastors and elders in the PCUSA. The affirmation was republished four months later on May 5, 1924, now with nearly 1300 signatures.19 The Auburn affirmation sought to protect liberty (1) concerning the interpretation of the Confession of Faith, and (2) concerning the interpretation of the Scriptures. The letter critiques a decision of the General Assembly of 1923, which had identified certain doctrines as “contrary to the standards of the Presbyterian church.”
Here is the significant paragraph:
Furthermore, this opinion of the General Assembly attempts to commit our church to certain theories concerning the inspiration of the Bible, and the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the Continuing Life and Supernatural Power of our Lord Jesus Christ. We hold most earnestly to these great facts and doctrines; we all believe from our hearts that the writers of the Bible were inspired of God; that Jesus Christ was God manifest in the flesh; that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, and through Him we have our redemption; that having died for our sins He rose from the dead and is our everliving Saviour; that in His earthly ministry He wrought many mighty works, and by His vicarious death and unfailing presence He is able to save to the uttermost. Some of us regard the particular theories contained in the deliverance of the General Assembly of 1923 as satisfactory explanations of these facts and doctrines. But we are united in believing that these are not the only theories allowed by the Scriptures and our standards as explanations of these facts and doctrines of our religion, and that all who hold to these facts and doctrines, whatever theories they may employ to explain them, are worthy of all confidence and fellowship.20
The stated goal of this affirmation was not to repudiate the inerrancy of Scripture, nor the virgin birth of Jesus, nor whether he paid for sins by substitutionary atonement, nor that he was bodily resurrected from the dead, nor that he is still alive, reigning at the right hand of the Father, until his bodily return. The point was not to repudiate these doctrines altogether, but simply to allow for other interpretations alongside these “theories” about these biblical doctrines. The effect, however, was the same: the toleration of false teaching is a cancer in the church.
The fallout from this doctrinal declension was great, and it included the separation of a great number of Presbyterians from the PCUSA into a new denomination in 1936, originally called the Presbyterian Church of America, but later renamed to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in 1939, through the leadership of J. Gresham Machen.21 Similarly, many of the faculty from Princeton Theological Seminary (including Machen) had already left to form Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929.22
In the Modernist Controversy, we see how the spirit of the age can infiltrate the church, twisting her from the faithful proclamation of the gospel. This danger is present in every era, including our own.
Summary
This is only a brief history of Presbyterianism, and it leaves out many of the significant issues that lead to the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America (the PCA) in 1973. We will deal with those questions later; however, as we will see, many of these same issues resurface in the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) which had contributed to the separation of the OPC from the Northern Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). Furthermore, we find the seeds of many of those issues in the Old School/New School and the Old Side/New Side Controversies.
What should we make of these trends over time? What should we learn from, so that we can avoid it? What should we study, as we continue to wrestle with the right balance of these issues today? How should we be diligent to defend and cultivate a healthy PCA today?
Jacob Gerber is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor at Harvest Community Church (PCA) in Omaha, NE. This article is used with permission.

1  Samuel Miller, An Essay on the Warrant, Nature and Duties of the Office of Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church (New York: Jonathan Leavitt, 1831), 36.
2 Miller, Office of Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, 39.
3 The Ministers of Sion College, ed. by David W. Hall, Jus Divinum Regiminis Ecclesiastici or The Divine Right of Church-Government (Dallas, TX: Naphtali Press, 1995; Originally Published in 1646), 193 (§2–12).
4 This language of invented vs. inherited comes from my friend Erik Bauer during the class discussion when I presented this material.
5 Clement of Rome, “1 Clement,” in The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, ed. by Michael W. Holmes, trans. by Michael W. Holmes, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2007), 121.
6 Ignatius of Antioch, “The Letter of Ignatius to the Trallians,” in The Apostolic Fathers: Greek Texts and English Translations, 215–16.
7 D. G. Hart and John R. Muether, Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2007), 8.
8 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 19.
9 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 24–32.
10 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 87.
11  Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 54.
12Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 55–56.
13 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 56–57.
14 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 111.
15 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 112.
16 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 113.
17 From Finney’s Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1846), as quoted in Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 113.
18 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 115–16.
19 “Text of the Auburn Affirmation,” on the website of the PCA Historical Center. Accessed January 12, 2022. < >
20 “Text of the Auburn Affirmation,” p. 4.
21 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 200.
22 Hart and Muether, Seeking a Better Country, 196.