Overture 15 Is Dead – Should We Now Leave the PCA?
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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Preparing Our Children for Babylon
We should not underestimate what God will do with wise children equipped with a biblical worldview in a covenant context. And we should not fear bringing them into the world, for God’s aim and desire is to use them to get glory for Himself in Babylon.
I don’t want to bring kids into this evil culture” is something I have heard more than once. Well-meaning Christians have long questioned the wisdom of bringing children into a fallen world. And while this hesitation might seem prudent, God doesn’t hesitate to command husband and wife, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28; 9:1). The earth is no longer a utopian Eden but a post-Eden wilderness, what the New Testament calls Babylon (1 Peter 5:13–14; Rev. 17:5). This Babylonian context isn’t foreign to children raised in covenant homes. The historical nation of Babylon was where the Jewish exiles were sent. Of those exiles, most notable were four Jewish “youths…Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah,” otherwise known by their Babylonian names: Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego (Dan. 1:1–7).
From these four youths, we find an unexpected parenting lesson: a lesson made more significant since these “youths” arrived in Babylon not as boys, six, eight, maybe ten years old but (according to the majority opinion among scholars) in their late teens or early twenties. In any, the text explicitly says they were “youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, and endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace” (Dan. 1:4).
The point is this, when these four Jewish youth entered Babylon, they entered equipped with a rigorous Hebrew education and biblical worldview that enabled them to take their stand against the secular ideologies of Babylonian paganism (Dan. 1:8–21; 3:8–30; 6). Babylon, then as now, is not neutral; it seeks to indoctrinate. These young exiles were ordered to “defile” themselves but “resolved” to abstain (Dan.1:8–21). When threatened with a fiery furnace for not bowing to idols, they refused to turn from Yahweh (Dan. 3:8–30). When commanded not to pray or else die in the lions’ jaws, they opened the curtains and kept praying (Dan. 6). Our children may never face these state-enforced punishments, but we would be naive not to expect modern versions to appear. Many concerned parents want to know what’s needed to prepare our children, and while it is tempting to want a few easy parenting tips that require little effort, moral resolve to stand in Babylon is not created that way. Scripture is clear (for Israel’s young exiles and ours) that preparing for Babylon requires a certain teaching in a certain context.
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Is the Bible the Word of God and Does it Have Authority?
Sacred Scripture is the voice of God in the world. It is authoritative in that it has the right to command because its author is God Himself. God’s people walk the difficult, narrow path, which takes them to meet their Saviour face-to-face in eternity, by submitting their thoughts and moral standards to God’s Word. Many Reformers lost their lives because they labored to get the printed Word of God into the hands of their people. In our day we take the Word of God for granted and, as we said earlier, many so-called Christian leaders today actually denigrate it in the eyes of those they lead.
12 There is a way which seems right to a man,But its end is the way of death. Proverbs 14:12 (LSB)
Several yeas ago I posted “Is there a war going on between God and His forces on one side and Satan and his forces on the other?” In that post I mentioned a link sent to me by a friend to a post on another blog called The Emergent Village. On that blog I could not help noticing a link to another post by another writer there titled “The Bible is NOT the WORD OF GOD: a polemic against Christendom“. What that fellow had to say is the centerpiece of “Christian Liberalism.” Denying The Bible as the Word of God, a gift from God to His people is the first step into apostasy. Once that step is taken all other truths are no longer held as absolute.
Without that God-given anchor into His absolute truth all else is up for grabs. Those like the fellow who wrote that article and those who agree with him are those who also have a problem with what Orthodox Christianity holds as the gospel, the sovereignty of God, election, the exclusivity of genuine discipleship, et cetera. Because of this “liberalism” they also force a man-centered perspective on God’s Word in one form or another. These same people lean towards a form of Christianity that is almost all experiential. Since their view of how the gospel works and how God works with Man is wrongly focused and the Word of God contains clear teachings about the sovereignty of God, these people conceive of their entire “Christian” paradigm from a philosophical and existential base rather than on the authority of Sacred Scripture. They have to do this since they deny that what we call Sacred Scripture has any authority.
The Christian principle of the authority of Sacred Scripture is centered on the truth that God is its author and He has given it to direct the belief and behavior of His people. Instead of conceiving of God, His ways, and our conduct from a man-made, philosophical base, these understandings should be measured, tested, corrected, and enlarged according to God’s Word. The sad state of the 21st Century Church did not come from God’s people diligently adhering to this principle. No, the man-focused free-for-all we see all around us now with the doctrines of demons being preached from pulpits of very large churches, is the product of this principle being largely and deliberately ignored.
The main reason this has taken place is that the church leadership has been deceived with the lie that God’s word does not have the right to command. Part of this delusion came from the philosophies of men, which teach that there is no absolute truth. When these leaders threw off the yoke of adhering to God’s Word as the ultimate authority they instead took on the yoke of the social gospel as they gleefully proclaimed the mantra of liberal theology, which is that Christianity is all about the person rather than all about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit-their glory, their honor, not the glorification of Man.
My brethren, God has chosen to exercise His rule over us through His written Word, which is the embodiment of His truth and wisdom. Sacred Scripture is the instrument of Christ’s lordship over the Church. We see a working example of this principle in Revelation 2 & 3, which are the seven letters to the seven churches.
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The “End” of our Lives: Loving and Caring for Others
It’s not uncommon to hear people suggest things like this. Marriage, family, and parenting are seen by many as distractions from what life is really about (amusement or travel or a career), or even worse, a sort of death sentence that marks the end of all our fun. For example, despite ample research showing otherwise, there’s a clear message in sitcoms and romcoms that the quickest way to become miserable and end a good sex life is to get married. Being single means being free and unencumbered, the story goes, especially for women.
In our recent conversation about the Dobbs case currently before the Supreme Court, Dr. Ryan Anderson described a similar sentiment: the claim often advanced by many in the pro-abortion movement that women “need” abortion in order to fully participate in society. Anderson observed, “If that statement is true, that is a condemnation of our society.” If we’re only fully human when we’re “free” from loving and caring for those closest to us, we have a puny vision of humanity.
So much of the American dream centers on pleasures and possessions, career paths and vacations, while seeing the dirty work of diapers, tending to a sick spouse, or making a meal for a neighbor as something between necessary and avoidable annoyances? Even Christians are tempted to imagine that in “real” Christian life and ministry, a big platform is preferable over caring for actual people.
