The PCA GA’s Recommendation to Adopt a Revised BCO 32-20 is Wise
The question of whether an indictment should be brought for an offense committed in the distant past, is, and should be, a matter of judgment and discretion for the original court — regardless of whether the offense was personal or general, private or public (BCO 29). Granted, the court might decide that commencing process for an alleged offense in the distant past would be unfair to the accused (for various reasons) or even too challenging for effective prosecution.
This article provides seven brief reasons why the 48th General Assembly’s recommendation is wise, and why Presbyteries should vote to approve the proposed revision to BCO 32-20.
At the July 2021 PCA GA in St. Louis, the Overtures Committee voted 95-22 to recommend the GA approve a revision to BCO 32-20 (below). The Assembly, which may have been divided on many other votes, overwhelmingly approved this recommendation on a simple, hands-raised vote.
Proposed New BCO 32-20. The accused or a member of the court may object to the consideration of a charge, for example, if he thinks the passage of time since the alleged offense makes fair adjudication unachievable. The court should consider factors such as the gravity of the alleged offense as well as what degradations of evidence and memory may have occurred in the intervening period.
Before giving reasons why the proposed revision should be adopted, we note a September 7 article in The Aquila Report misquoted the above text of the GA’s proposed revision. It quoted the original Overture instead of the amended text adopted by the GA. The misquote included a different and additional first sentence, which was deleted by the GA.
Below are a some of the many reasons to approve the revision, a few of which were included in the original Overture.
- Expeditious judicial process is important, especially in a case of public scandal. Nothing in the proposed revision would hinder or delay process. In fact, it could expedite it.
- The current version of BCO 32-20 prohibits judicial process against a scandalous offender if process doesn’t commence within a year of the alleged offence. While that might encourage expeditious process, it has a huge downside. If the cause of Christ is jeopardized by the Church’s neglect of timely discipline, how would disallowing prosecution on day 366 repair the matter? The scandal would continue, unabated. And one might even argue, from our current BCO 32-20, that a higher court could not institute process in a case of scandal after a year has passed if the original, lower court declined to do so within that year.
- The current wording of BCO 32-20 might even be used to shield a child abuser. For example, if a person alleges a church officer abused them two years ago, the accused might claim BCO 32-20 shields him from prosecution, contending that because the alleged offense occurred two years ago, and was not publicly known (not a case of scandal), and has not “recently become flagrant,” the current BCO 32-20 disallows prosecution in the PCA.
- The two SJC Decisions cited in the September 7 article did not involve cases of scandal. Each involved ministers seeking to get convictions dismissed, partly on the grounds that the alleged offenses occurred more than one year in the past. In other words, they essentially argued for a hard one-year statute of limitations for all offenses. Surely that’s not the biblical view, and if that’s the way BCO 32-20 is being interpreted, then it warrants revision. It was probably an overstatement for the September 7 article to contend: “The Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) found the present wording in BCO 32-20 useful in deciding a number of recent cases.” Sometimes, the SJC is compelled to rule a certain way based on a poorly written BCO paragraph. Neither of the cited SJC Decisions should automatically be interpreted as the SJC regarding BCO 32-20 as being well-written or “useful.”
- Three items from the September 7 article warrant brief comment. First, it implied the 2021 Assembly approved the revision hastily, late into the night. But Overture 22 was filed and published online in March 2019, so St. Louis GA Commissioners had over two years to consider and discuss it. In fact, the overturing Presbytery revised it after such discussions in 2019 and 2020. Second, the article contends the GA’s recommended revision, “leaves the question of what constitutes a timely matter to uncertain whims of individual church courts resulting in differing actions based on undefined variables.” Such a statement mistakenly suggests that the bodies assigned by our Lord to the enormous task of judging guilt or innocence are somehow incapable of just judgment in such a lesser consideration. Finally, the September 7 article contends presbyteries should “vote down the proposed amendment and seek an amendment that better addresses the valid concerns raised in the original overture.” But the current, 140-year-old antiquated language in BCO 32-20 is so liable to misuse that it should be revised as soon as possible. If further refinements are needed, there’s ample opportunity to perfect the language with future overtures.
- The question of whether an indictment should be brought for an offense committed in the distant past, is, and should be, a matter of judgment and discretion for the original court — regardless of whether the offense was personal or general, private or public (BCO 29). Granted, the court might decide that commencing process for an alleged offense in the distant past would be unfair to the accused (for various reasons) or even too challenging for effective prosecution. And the accused could raise that objection.
- Finally, the St. Louis Overtures Committee had many ministers and elders experienced in matters related to BCO 32-20, including 10 members of the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (i.e., 40% of the entire SJC, including all four of its Officers). If there had been procedural concerns with this revision, the SJC members certainly would have brought it to the attention of the OC, which they did not. The Overtures Committee approved the revision by an 81% majority.
It would be wise and prudent for Presbyteries to vote in favor of this proposed revision of BCO 32-20.
Howie Donahoe is a Ruling Elder in Boise Presbyterian Church, Boise, Idaho.
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The Bait of Satan
This is the remedy and the cure for our temptation. Abhor what is evil. Run from it. Flee it. Do not indulge it. And then, with all your heart, cling to what is good. Both of these actions are necessary if we want to live in victory.
The Deception in Fishing
Growing up in the foothills of North Carolina, my grandpa and I used every excuse conceivable to steal away, out to the water, so that we could drop a line and go fishing. It didn’t matter if we were trolling quietly up the Yadkin river, sitting on the bank under the shade of a weeping willow tree, in flip-flops on the sandy shore of Holden Beach, or miles from land in my papa’s boat, rocking rhythmically to the waves and cooled by the misty wind. So long as we had a rod in our hand, a fish on the line, and the sun to our backs, we were in hog-heaven.
In case you have never been fishing before, one of the core principles of that enterprise is deception. A great fisherman will not only have the proper gear for his location, but he will invest the effort toward understanding the desires and inclinations of the fish he is after. Then he will liberally give them precisely what they want, yet with one metallic twist.
The idea behind fishing is to take something that is good – something that the fish cannot resist – and then hide a barbed dagger inside it to hook them as soon as they indulge. Their ignorant lust for the lure leads them to their tragic demise. In this sense, the bait is what drags from safety and security to the grill and the plate. The whole process is pretty gruesome when you set about describing it.
Satanic Similarities
In the garden, Satan adopted a very similar posture towards man. He cleverly disguised that first golden hook of sin in the beautiful flesh of a forbidden fruit and tossed the perfect cast before her lustful eyes. He said:
For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.– Genesis 3:5
Her eyes dazzled with a peculiar glimmer never known before. Instantly, she wanted this thing more than anything else she owned. And then, after sharing it with her husband, that barbed hook of guilt, shame, and death dragged the unsuspecting couple into the boat of Satan and away from the tranquil pleasures of knowing God.
The same is true for us today; Satan lures us away from God by using our unholy affections against us. Like a good fisherman, he has studied us well and chooses the exact baits we cannot resist. And while the bait may differ from person to person, depending on their peculiarities and personality, the hook will always be the same.
Every temptation we sink our teeth into, regardless of what attracts us, will lead to the same destination. Once that Satanic hook is set in the lip, we find ourselves dragged violently away from God. For this reason, our greatest defense must not be spent trying to get off the hook once we clamp down but fighting our desires so that we do not fall for the bait in the first place.
To that end, let me give you three things to think about as you seek to avoid sin and gain victory over your temptations.
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So You’ve Been Told You Should Read Some Old Books…
If I had to plot out a short reading list with one book from each era, I might go in this order: The Pilgrim’s Progress, The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, A Little Book on the Christian Life, Holiness, Knowing God, Confessions, the Religious Affections. Either way, I hope this article brings some clarity and motivates you to explore some of the true classics of the Christian faith.
A reader of this site recently got in touch to ask me for some book suggestions. She has been a believer for quite a long time and along the way has heard of the value of reading “Christian classics.” Yet she hasn’t been sure where to begin and asked for some guidance. I was glad to take on that challenge!
In this article I will offer some suggestions that cover various eras from the early church until the late twentieth century. I should note that these recommendations will tend more toward literature that is devotional than scholarly or purely theological. And I should note as well that there is not a person in the world who will agree with every book I’ve included and every book I’ve excluded—and that is just fine because there is always a degree of subjectivity to these things. And now, without further ado, here are some Christian classics to consider reading.
John Bunyan allegorical The Pilgrim’s Progress is one of the bestselling books in all of history and a great place to begin. It has never gone out of print and in one way or another has influenced every generation of Christians since it was first published in the late 1600s. For those reasons alone it is well worth a read. Though you can find modernizations that adapt the language either lightly or significantly, the original is still surprisingly accessible. There are also some lovely audio versions available. If you’d like to listen to it, I recommend the Nadia May recording. If you’d like to read a slight modernization, this one by Crossway is well done. Otherwise, perhaps try this edition. (Most editions contain part 1 and part 2—the journeys of Christian and Christiana. You can consider yourself to have read The Pilgrim’s Progress once you complete part 1 since that is the original work.)
We should go back in time a little to make sure we don’t neglect the earliest Christian classics, which include the most noteworthy work of Augustine: Confessions. It is available in a multitude of editions and translations.
I know little about the 1,000 years between Augustine and the Puritans so don’t have a lot to offer here beyond names like Dante and Thomas Aquinas. But as far as I can tell, this was not an era in which there were a lot of devotional works that have since been affirmed by Protestants. (Authors like Thomas à Kempis and Brother Lawrence are still read and treasured today, but typically not by Reformed Protestants.) Calvin’s A Little Book on the Christian Life gets us into the Reformation era and is an excerpt of the most practical section of his Institutes.
You may have heard of the Puritans and been told you should try reading their books. When we talk about “Puritan books,” we are talking about thousands of titles written over more than a century, many of them incredibly voluminous, so there are more options than any one person could read in a lifetime (except maybe Joel Beeke).
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Leaking to the Left
“Isn’t it good that egalitarian or less confessional ministers leave?” We would answer in the affirmative, but we’d also note that the precipitating change in convictions probably didn’t arrive with lightning-bolt speed. The number leaving left suggests that men with egalitarian convictions operated in the PCA for a number of years before departing.
When PCA ministers leave for other denominations, where do they go? Our friend Zack Groff has tracked this and takes a slightly different approach in his analysis than do we. He uses more peaceful/less peaceful to describe the receiving denominations. We will use the flawed left/right descriptor.
For our purposes left will basically mean less doctrinally precise and/or more egalitarian than the PCA. Right indicates denominations more doctrinally precise or socially conservative than the PCA. Far fewer congregations leave for other denominations than do ministers, thus the ministerial numbers are more significant than the congregational data. Here is the section of the General Assembly minutes from 2023 that reflects ministerial moves in 2022:1The data suggests that when PCA ministers leave, they go left. More than half of the leavers went to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC – 9)) and ECO (A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians – 2) are less concerned2 with confessional Reformed doctrine and both allow women elders and pastors. The same is true for the hard-to-categorize Anglican Church in North America (ACNA – 1). And the Episcopal Church (1) is simply a liberal mainline church. It should be noted that all of these “left” denominations (Except the Episcopal) were late 20th/early 21st-century institutions meant primarily to serve as landing zones for “conservative” refugees from the mainline.
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