As a denomination, we need to worry exclusively about the second fear outlined in the preamble to the Report and commit ourselves to being a bold witness in the Apostolic model.  That means no nuance, no hand wringing, and no compromise. Our BCO needs to include a standard for our officers that is a clear testimony against today’s prevalent licentiousness and makes no provision for toleration of Side A or Side B homosexuality among our officers. 

Soon, Commissioners will be heading to Memphis for the Presbyterian Church in America’s (PCA) 50th General Assembly, its Golden Jubilee.  With the departure of Greg Johnson from the denomination, some may feel we need a break from disputes over the culture wars.  But we have unfinished business in the PCA, and our denomination remains in crisis.
In the last 5 years, the PCA has grappled with cultural forces that are in opposition to the Gospel.  Along with these cultural forces have come soft persecution and pressure to conform, causing many to shrink from a bold proclamation of the truth.  Pastors, churches, and entire presbyteries have adopted social justice, gender equality, racial equality, and climate activism as appendages to and sometimes substitutions for the Gospel.  Some have also flirted with or embraced the culture’s views on sexual identity and so-called orientation.  Greg Johnson is the most egregious example.
Greg Johnson and the Side B Homosexual Movement have served as a lightning rod for debate. While Johnson’s departure suggests the PCA has escaped his heterodoxy, it should be noted that Johnson left the denomination on his own and without censure.  Further evidence suggests that a large minority of the denominational leadership remains sympathetic to his cause.
Consider the facts.  In 2019, less than 60% of the General Assembly in Dallas voted to affirm the Nashville Statement on Human Sexuality.  In 2021, the General Assembly in St. Louis voted to adopt overtures that would effectively disqualify men that claimed a gay Christian or homosexual Christian identity from holding office in the denomination.  Those same overtures were defeated in the Presbytery confirmation process.  In 2022, at the General Assembly in Birmingham, concerned commissioners fought tooth and nail to push forward the simple but clear Overture 15.  However, it only made it to the floor via minority report, was affirmed by a narrow majority, and went on to be defeated in the Presbytery confirmation process.
In the midst of this, the administrative leadership of the PCA have not been advocates for a clear and bold repudiation of the Side B movement.  In fact, denominational leadership has argued that adopting the Report on Human Sexuality makes unnecessary any additions to the Book of Church Order (BCO) concerning officers and claims made about sexual identity, even though the Report is weak in tone and does not address officer qualifications.  In addition, at last year’s General Assembly, the leadership of the denomination argued against Overture 15 for not being procedurally sound while making no effort to put the measure in a procedurally better position to meet their own standard.
More disappointment came in the Standing Judicial Commission’s mishandling of the case regarding Greg Johnson and Memorial Presbyterian.  At a minimum, even if the members of the SJC made it clear they were only exonerating Johnson and Memorial on questions of procedure, they could have individually or collectively made statements condemning Johnson’s unbiblical views, especially after he published his heretical book Still Time to Care.
Ironically, the ongoing divide in the denomination seems reflective of two opposing fears described in the preamble of the Report on Human Sexuality: the first being that our denomination would be perceived as harsh and unfeeling in confronting sexual perversion, and the second that our denomination would compromise the truth.
My sense is that a great portion of our denomination has already surrendered to the first fear and is obsessed with appearing intellectual, winsome, intentional, pastoral, and relevant in today’s culture.  For them, a weak, complex, and professorial statement like the Report on Human Sexuality is preferable to a clear, concise repudiation of the homosexual and transgender movements; and the Report’s nuance gives ample room for proponents of Side B homosexuality to remain entrenched and ordained in the PCA.
We can only be so winsome when warning people to flee from the wrath to come, and wringing our hands or worrying about public perception is not the mark of a true Christian.  The truth does hurt, but it also saves, and if we are unabashedly loyal to the Word, it will divide us from the culture, as we are promised by our Lord Himself.
As a denomination, we need to worry exclusively about the second fear outlined in the preamble to the Report and commit ourselves to being a bold witness in the Apostolic model.  That means no nuance, no hand wringing, and no compromise. Our BCO needs to include a standard for our officers that is a clear testimony against today’s prevalent licentiousness and makes no provision for toleration of Side A or Side B homosexuality among our officers.  Anything less brings shame to the truth of Christ and destroys the fellowship of the PCA.
Brett Doster is a Ruling Elder in Westminster Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Tallahassee, FL
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Several years ago I heard about a large suburban church that rented a fifteen-thousand seat performance hall and invited a well-known college football coach to give his testimony about being a Christian coach. When I heard about this, what concerned me was not the fact that a college football coach was asked to give his testimony but that this event replaced the church’s Easter worship service. Instead of dedicating their worship service to the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ (as we are called to do each Lord’s Day), this church decided it could serve the interests of God’s people better if the congregation were not confined to the house of God where there was a pulpit and a cross. Rather, it seemed fitting to meet in a concert hall so that unbelievers would feel more comfortable in attending church on Easter Sunday. And by forsaking the testimony of the Word of God in order to hear the testimony of a popular football coach, the thousands who attended the event were deprived of true worship by the entrepreneurs of contemporary evangelicalism.

Our hearts are deceitful, but God knows our hearts inside out. He has made our hearts new. The labyrinth belongs to him now and he is gradually remodelling it into a beautiful place where sin cannot hide.  And if you want to know the true state of your heart, the Lord will help you. Ps 139.23f: Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

In Proverbs 4.23 Solomon warns his son, ‘Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.’ He goes on to give admonitions about the mouth, the eyes and the feet (vv24-27), but it is the heart that must be guarded above all else. Why?
In Scripture, the word ‘heart’ is used more than 1000 times, but it almost never refers to the physical organ inside our chests. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament sums up all the usages of the term in this way: it is ‘the richest, most all-encompassing biblical term for the totality of a man’s inner nature.’ The heart is said to do a wide range of things in the Bible, but all its many activities fall into one of the three main faculties of the soul: the mind, the affections and the will. It includes the mind—our thoughts, imagination, fantasies, judgments and attitudes. It encompasses the affections—our emotions, our desires and longings, our revulsions. And it describes the will—our choices, decisions and motivations.
Once we understand that the heart involves all these things, it becomes even clearer why we must guard it with all vigilance, before all else—because it is so fundamental. It is the control centre of the whole person. Indeed Scripture sometimes uses ‘heart’ as a kind of synonym for the self (e.g. Gen 18.5; Ex 9.14; 1Pt 3.4: ‘…the hidden person of the heart’.)
We also need to guard our hearts with all vigilance because they are under constant attack. From the world and the devil outside ourselves of course, but also—most dangerously of all—from an enemy within: the flesh—a traitor inside our own hearts, a Judas looking for an opportune moment to hand us over to sin. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it? (Jer 17.9). It is like an unsearchable labyrinth, with endless twists and turns, blind alleys and dark corners where the Minotaur of our indwelling sin lurks in wait for us.
We need to guard our hearts too because the Lord wants our hearts. Prov 23.6: My son, give me your heart. What a beautiful and powerful incentive this is! We are keeping our hearts for our Father! We wouldn’t be satisfied with a marriage where our spouse was dutiful and faithful outwardly, but longed inwardly to be with someone else to whom their heart belonged. Why would God be content with that from us? He wants our hearts—our minds, our affections and our wills. The totality of our inner nature and not just our outward behaviour. Isa 29.13: And the Lord said: “…this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me… Ps 51.16f: For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
How then do we do this vital work of guarding our hearts? The first step is to do a ‘spiritual MRI scan’ of our hearts. We need to know the current state of our hearts so that we can address the problems and weaknesses we find. Rom 12.3 tells us to ‘think [of ourselves] with sober judgment.’ The Puritan John Flavel, in an exposition of Prov 4.23, wrote these challenging words: ‘Some people have lived forty or fifty years and have had scarcely one hour’s discourse with their own hearts! … Of all works in religion, this is the most difficult, constant and important work. Heart work is indeed hard work. To shuffle over religious duties with a loose and heedless spirit will cost no great pains. But to set yourself before the Lord and tie up your loose and vain thoughts to a constant and serious attention upon him, this will cost you something.’ John Owen in his book The Mortification of Sin advises his readers: “Be acquainted, then, with thine own heart: though it be deep, search it; though it be dark, inquire into it; though it give all its distempers other names than what are their due, believe it not.”
As we carry out this spiritual MRI scan of our hearts we need to bear in mind what the heart is—the totality of our inner nature: the mind, will and affections. We need to assess all three areas of the heart with probing diagnostic questions. Here are some examples of what that might look like:
A. The mind (thoughts, attitudes, imagination, plans, judgments, discernment).
a) What do you think about? Do you think about spiritual things? The glory of God? The Person and work of Jesus Christ? The Gospel of grace? Sinclair Ferguson once asked the unsettling question, ‘How many Christians today could sit in a room without any resources and think about Jesus Christ for more than five minutes before they run dry?’
b) What do you think about when you’re not focused on specific tasks? John Owen calls these ‘Natural, voluntary thoughts’. They’re like the screensaver that comes up on our computer screens. When the computer is idling for more than a few minutes, it’s the image that appears. What images appear in your mind when it’s not actively engaged in a particular task? Owen says, ‘These thoughts give the best measure of the frame of our minds and hearts… such as the mind of its own accord is apt for, inclines & ordinarily betakes itself unto.’ In other words, do you think about spiritual things when you’re not forced to because you’re listening to a sermon in church or taking part in a Bible study?
c) Owen also asks, do you abound in spiritual thoughts? What proportion of your thoughts are spiritual compared to your thoughts about other things? Here’s a very challenging way of asking the question: do spiritual thoughts ever distract you when you’re engaged in other pursuits? We all know what it’s like to be distracted by earthly thoughts intruding when we’re trying to pray or read the Bible in our daily devotions or listen to a sermon, but is it ever the other way around? Do you ever find yourself thinking about the Lord Jesus when you’re in the middle of watching a film or a football match?
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