…that for the PCA to allow its ministers to teach their own doctrine alongside of its official doctrine would be to lay the groundwork of its own destruction as a confessional denomination, the assertion of multiple doctrines serving to engender confusion and to allow the official position on many matters to be crowded out by the alternatives. For now, it is enough to see that this is another dubious attempt to shift the blame for the denomination’s present troubles away from that faction which is anxious to keep in step with the culture and to lay it at the feet of others who dare object to the said faction’s methods and desires.

Dr. David Cassidy, pastor of Spanish River Presbyterian in Florida, recently wrote an essay, “PCA at the Crossroads”, in which he denies there are any problems with disunity in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) save those caused by some people raising false alarms about “theological declension.” He denies that there are any progressives in the PCA and regards any suggestions to the contrary as slanderous. He exults in the PCA’s diversity of practice and asserts that good faith subscription is essential to the denomination’s continued effectiveness. In his first section he says:
Looking back, men like Kennedy Smartt, Frank Barker, Francis Schaeffer, James Kennedy . . . and many others were not only deeply Reformed but also broadly evangelical, and resistant to fundamentalist impulses.
Lay aside the dubious name dropping and note that claim that such men were “resistant to fundamentalist impulses.” Fundamentalism is a bête noire of progressives, and disparaging it is nearly the first thing that Cassidy does – yet he assures us that neither he nor anyone else in the PCA is progressive, this progressive rhetoric notwithstanding.
Regarding progressivism, Cassidy writes:
Using that word about fellow PCA ministers is an abuse of the language and little more than Humpty Dumpty verbicide.
And then continues, after a mistaken literary allusion:
This is all part of a wider project to redefine what “conservative” and “subscription” mean in order to reset the boundaries of what is allowable in PCA.
Note that Cassidy does what he accuses others of doing by redefining a word for polemic use. He thinks it unfair for others to call his faction progressives, but he is glad to intimate his opponents have “fundamentalist impulses.”
What Cassidy objects to is progressive being used in an absolute sense to describe both people who deny orthodox teaching as well as people like him. I concur that it is improper to use progressive to refer to a contemporary school of heterodoxy, and that it is further unfair, having done so, to then also use it to refer to PCA pastors such as Cassidy. The proper term for “Progressive Christianity” is heresy, there being nothing either progressive or truly Christian about it, the terms for its proponents, such things as false teachers or apostates. I do not accuse Cassidy of being that, which would indeed be slanderous. But I do say that he is a progressive in another sense.
Here’s why. Rather than describing one’s doctrine, comparative terms like conservative and progressive are best used to describe one’s disposition or impulses as they relate to those of others. A conservative is one who wants to do things now as they have been done in the past. That may be good or bad, depending on what he wishes to conserve. A progressive is one who wishes to keep abreast of change, and who wishes to alter things in order to influence the people with whom he deals. That may be good or bad, depending upon what is influencing him, whom he wishes to influence, and what changes he wants to make to do so. And, of course, one may be both, conservative about some matters and progressive about others, and each to a greater or lesser extent. Now I say that Cassidy and many others are progressive because their disposition is to look at society and to ponder whether our present practices might be hindering us from reaching its various constituent groups. I do not doubt his sincerity or good intentions, but I do say he is taking his cues from society at large and from his contemplations upon the PCA’s relation to it rather than from scripture alone.
Regarding Cassidy’s progressivism, one sees it in what he emphasizes. Contemporary society is obsessed with race, and he mentions it multiple times. He decries “the fertile soil of criticism for all who seek to address the very valid issue of how we bring the unchanging Gospel to an increasingly hostile secularized society and how we address racism in the Church.” In such a phrase he suggests that addressing racism is as urgently needed as evangelism – as if racism in the church is anywhere near as prevalent or severe as the rampant unbelief of our wider society. He further says that:
Racism has been a sinful reality in the church for years and it is an insufficient response to simply decry critical theory without adequately listening to and addressing the real concerns of minority communities in the church.
And again, caricaturing a hypothetical strict subscription PCA:
It could disparage other ethnicities and insist that anyone pointing out that such a practice is problematic is probably a Marxist.
Elsewhere he says he was “shocked” and “deeply grieved” when someone issued “a disdainful critique of ‘Korean Style Praying’ as being unbiblical.” Disdain is arrogant condescension, and if that is a fair description of what happened, such a tone was indeed wrong; but I do not concur that “these kinds of comments … must be rejected” with the vehemence he displays, for I can certainly see why someone would regard such a style of prayer as unscriptural in light of I Corinthians 14:26-40. Cassidy tacitly assumes the propriety of such prayer, and with it the impropriety of criticizing it in whatever manner (“maybe we should all be at the feet of our Korean brothers and sisters to learn how to pray”).
As for Cassidy’s deep concern with race matters as shown in such examples, I ask: is it a coincidence that a matter that weighs so heavily with Cassidy is also one with which our society is obsessed? Is it a coincidence that the anonymous agency heads’ “Statement on Heinous Killings” appeared in the middle of the George Floyd upheaval and that it used the language of many unbelieving political activists? I think not. Such a preoccupation with a contemporary social/political issue is a result of trying to keep abreast of cultural developments and looking to them to set one’s agenda and form one’s thinking – in short, the progressive temperament in action.
I said earlier that Cassidy does what he accuses others of doing in the case of polemic claims, and he does so in another matter as well. He accuses others of attempting “to redefine what ‘conservative’ and ‘subscription’ mean in order to reset the boundaries of what is allowable in the PCA,” and says this about the alleged attempt:
It is always done in nameless ways because naming names would open the door to the refutation of the false claims and remove the weapon of fear from the arsenal of those who want to stir people up and lead them deeper into a “Truly Reformed” cul-de-sac, something the PCA was never designed to be.
At no point in his 2,800-word essay does Cassidy name a single opponent, nor does he name the faction which he opposes: the closest he gets is implying somewhat his opponents’ position (strict subscription), and, in the statement above, their self-conception (“Truly Reformed”) – and yet he says it is his opponents who don’t name names. But note further that this man who accuses unnamed others of conspiring to redefine the meaning of subscription actually does that very thing himself. He writes:
Some argue for the right of Presbyteries to forbid a man to teach an exception that they’ve already judged to be an allowable exception. In my view, this is de facto strict subscription and it not only dangerously exalts the standards to the place where a minister’s conscience is needlessly bound by the action of Presbytery but also wrongly exalts the authority of Presbytery over the denomination as a whole.
Nothing in the Book of Church Order (BCO) either regards a minister as having any right to teach his exceptions or denies a presbytery the authority to forbid teaching exceptions. Past attempts to establish the right to teach exceptions, such as New Jersey Presbytery’s Overture 6 at the 31st General Assembly, have not been adopted. What Cassidy seeks to recast as “de facto strict subscription” is really good faith subscription as it is actually provided for by the BCO (21-4).
When he regards this as dangerously “exalting the standards” and binding consciences he is proceeding from a theory of polity that is not Presbyterian but Independent. Everyone who is in the PCA is bound by its government. One who regards his own conscience as a higher teaching authority than the presbytery or the denomination is doing the very thing that Presbyterian government – including an authoritative confession which one must subscribe – is intended to guard against. It is of the essence of the Presbyterian system that each individual presbyter is subordinate to the presbytery as a whole, and that what authority is in the church is distributed among a plurality of elders but may only be exercised by the relevant body of which they are a part (session, presbytery, general assembly) acting in unison as a corporate entity. When a man accepts ordination he swears to “approve of the form of government and discipline” of the PCA and to “promise subjection to [his] brethren” (21-5, Qs. 3-4). Inherent in doing so is surrendering somewhat his own freedom, including that of conscience, in the interest of good order and peace in service to the church.
Judging by what Cassidy says elsewhere (“I suspect the Westminster Divines themselves and our forefathers in the Reformation would be appalled… by this practice”), he might say this leaves us in the position of Rome by making the church instead of Christ (speaking through Scripture) the sole lord of the conscience. It is not so. No one is either obligated or entitled to ministry in the PCA, and by accepting ordination he freely accepts its conditions, including what is entailed in submitting to the discipline and government of the church as expressed in its courts and standards.[1] Unlike with Rome, one is free to go elsewhere anytime he wishes, and there are many other denominations in which Cassidy could labor whose views of polity align more nearly with his own. Also, he retains the right to lobby the church courts for a change that would make his exception into an accepted article, or which would otherwise allow it to be taught. There are means of redress for his complaint, and he has simply to use them rather than to rely upon arguments that proceed upon un-Presbyterian theories of polity.
Time will fail to consider more fully his other arguments, other elements of Presbyterian doctrine touching upon the relation of conscience to church government and the role of the church as the mediating agency through which Christ confers teaching authority and by which he governs its use, as well as the question of what the “good faith” in good faith subscription should entail (BCO 21.4e; 21-5, Q.2.). It would fail also to note that a denomination is only as good as its ministers and that a house divided against itself cannot stand (Matt. 12:25): i.e., that for the PCA to allow its ministers to teach their own doctrine alongside of its official doctrine would be to lay the groundwork of its own destruction as a confessional denomination, the assertion of multiple doctrines serving to engender confusion and to allow the official position on many matters to be crowded out by the alternatives. For now, it is enough to see that this is another dubious attempt to shift the blame for the denomination’s present troubles away from that faction which is anxious to keep in step with the culture and to lay it at the feet of others who dare object to the said faction’s methods and desires.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Simpsonville, S.C.

[1] This is so only in secondary or minor matters. A church that would require heresy to be taught or that would restrict the gospel is ipso facto a false church and has no authority, each minister being then bound to follow his conscience as guided by scripture rather than the direction of the apostate church.

Scripture refers to a dynamic wind that is ever-present and permanent for the believer. The word “spirit” in both Hebrew and Greek means “wind” or “breath.” Both breeze and breath are appropriate images of the Holy Spirit. That wind or breath of air, first revealed in the creation (Genesis 2:7), arrived again in history on the Day of Pentecost.

It’s interesting how memories are aroused and brought to the fore. I was working a crossword puzzle online, and 9-down called for the name of a cold, dry European wind. Immediately, I typed in “MISTRAL.” How did I know the answer? I lived in France for five years—two in Montpellier and three in Marseille. In Marseille, Le Mistral blew in and often swept through the city. The French also called it le balai (the broom) as it blew down from the North to sweep the streets clean with its forceful winds.
Another wind blew northward from Africa’s Sahara, sweeping across the Mediterranean into and across France. Its name is Le Sirocco. This wind is known for its dry, hot, violent wind. When it blows, it sucks up Saharan sand and deposits it across the north African coast and into southern Europe. I first became acquainted with it when living in Tunisia, and also experienced its powerful effects in France. The African desert sand would blow across the Mediterranean Sea and reach France covering cars, buildings, and streets. Two fierce winds with names known to millions.
We name our intense winds, too, don’t we? El Nino and Nor’easter winds qualify. However, I confess that it’s Le Mistral and Le Sirocco that arouse more memories for me, especially memories of riding my moped on both continents in my younger and more daring years of my life. Besides the sights and experiences that they recall, they remind me of winds that buffet our lives—sometimes for good as refreshing and sometimes for ill as trials to contend with.
We can all remember the winds in our lives that rocked our world, battered self-esteem, or pummeled us into the reality that we aren’t as self-sufficient as we thought. They might have been harsh winds representing want or need. Perhaps our self-reliance faltered, an important relationship was broken, the loss of a loved one occurred, faith in the existence God was challenged, the loss of status in life, or dire health conditions. We can all agree that we have experienced strong and harsh winds in our journey through this life.
Nonetheless, such winds that came from either direction may have also brought refreshment, a breath of fresh, cool, soothing air in a very tense, hot period of our lives. Perhaps a friend or soul mate blew into our lives at just the right time, or God provided incredible, necessary help in a time of need, or we rose out of a spiritually dry period to experience renewed joy and hope, or someone spoke a word of encouragement when we couldn’t see light through our depressed, hopeless, clouded vision.
Such dynamic winds blow in and out and across our lives with mixed effects. One deposits something unwanted, like sand causing various problems. Another wind acts like a broom sweeping our lives clean of worry and concern, bringing refreshing clean, cool air. If an artist were to attempt to paint an image of these winds, one representation might be of one exhaling a strong breath across the earth. Le Mistral and Le Sirocco come and go. I’m happy to have experienced them both.
Scripture refers to a dynamic wind that is ever-present and permanent for the believer. The word “spirit” in both Hebrew and Greek means “wind” or “breath.” Both breeze and breath are appropriate images of the Holy Spirit. That wind or breath of air, first revealed in the creation (Genesis 2:7), arrived again in history on the Day of Pentecost. “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. . . All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit . . .” (Acts 2: 1-4). When Jesus spoke to Nicodemus on the need to be born again, he said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” He explained to Nicodemus that the “wind blows wherever it pleases . . . you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So, it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3: 6).
But there is more. Christians are filled with a wind, a breath of air—the Holy Spirit—at their spiritual birth! This is a wind that will blow only good in our lives, that is, good as God intends for our welfare, His purposes, and His glory. It may be a broom (le balai) at times bringing cleansing from sin into our lives. It may be the force behind worshiping God in Spirit and in truth, or of deeds of compassion and mercy to others. At other times it will be that breath of fresh air that encourages us to be steadfast in faith as we complete our life’s journey. It surpasses Le Mistral and Le Sirocco in impact—both temporal and eternal, and I am thankful to God for making it known to me.
Thanks to a crossword puzzle for prompting these thoughts.
Helen Louise Herndon is a member of Central Presbyterian Church (EPC) in St. Louis, Missouri. She is freelance writer and served as a missionary to the Arab/Muslim world in France and North Africa.
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A theologian pondered how we can draw near to the throne of grace and what role prayer plays in this. He thought of a boat that was attached to the shore with a long rope. Once that boat was far out into the sea, the crew began to pull on the line. As the distance closed between land and boat, the sailors might have been tempted to think that they were drawing the land toward themselves. But, of course, the land did not move one inch. Rather, it was the boat that moved as it was steadily pulled toward the land. And just like that, we are to attach our desires to God’s throne with prayer. 

Last week I spent an unexpectedly long time in small-town Alaska—in a town that revolves around commercial fishing. If you’ve seen shows like Deadliest Catch, you’ve seen Amaknak Island which forms part of the sprawling Aleutian chain. You’ve seen the town of Unalaska and its harbor, Dutch Harbor. You’ve seen the fleet that heads into the dangerous Bering Sea to fish for crab. You’ve seen the outsized characters who captain these boats and who man them.
We had the interesting experience of spending a couple of afternoons on one of these boats to see how crab is hauled up from the depths (and, later, how it is cleaned, cut, cooked, and devoured). The owners of the boat, a delightful Christian couple, were eager to show us their trade and to answer all of our questions. On Sunday we worshipped with their church as part of our Worship Round the World project. On Monday morning we prepared to head home. And then everything started to get strange.
As morning broke we saw that a deep, low fog had settled in and we learned that every flight to the mainland had been canceled. No ferries run this time of year and there is no other way off the island except to fly, so we would need to wait it out. The fog remained on Tuesday and flights were canceled again. On Wednesday a volcano that had erupted in Russia blew volcanic ash east over the Aleutians and flights were grounded for that reason. On Thursday a volcano in western Alaska erupted and spewed ash west over the Aleutians, once again grounding flights. How the same wind can blow ash both east and west I’ll never know! On Friday the bad weather returned, until finally Saturday was clear enough that planes could once again come and go.
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