From what I heard from many of the dissenting voters at GA was NOT a progressivist agenda, but a reasoned assertion that those who came before us did a pretty fine job of upholding these things in how they set up BCO 24-1, and that it does not need to be re-written.

I respectfully disagree with how the author of The PCA Conflict Over The Moral Law has framed things in this piece –under two headings only: conservative and progressive. I would have concerns about any such patronizing and condescending depiction of our ruling and teaching elders. We ought to give them more credit than this!

The author’s perspective on where the various officers of our denomination are coming from is so radically different from mine, I have to wonder if he was even there.

Surely, some of these folks are represented, but I would humbly assert that the author is wrong about these two camps representing the whole of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). My primary concern is that he presents a skewed and overly simplistic perspective on this important and divisive issue. Let’s assume this is an honest misperception — that this is not being done to further a polemical interest or to stir up greater controversy.

What I have observed is that there are more than two interests at stake here.

Yes, there is a concern for God’s Moral Law (Westminster Larger Catechism 93). But I was at the General Assembly (GA). I was listening intently to everything that was said into the microphones. I heard NO ONE give voice to a compromise of God’s Moral Law, which clearly decries all forms of homosexuality as sin.

Readers of The Aquila Report ought to know that many are also concerned for the purity of our doctrines of redemption and of sanctification (WLC 75 – 78).

If we erect a fence deterring men who make a good faith subscription to every point of doctrine in the Westminster Confession of Faith but who have also committed sexual sins in their past, how is this not a violation of these essential doctrines? Can’t a homosexual man be redeemed? Can’t he be sanctified? Can’t he be called of God to serve as an elder? Are homosexual sins unpardonable sins? Are they disqualifying sins?

How complete must a man’s sanctification be to stand before a Session and congregation for examination to the office and class of ruling elder? (Or before a Presbytery in the case of a teaching elder?) These are matters that require great discernment and the government-in-action of whichever church court has original jurisdiction. Such matters cannot be simply legislated away from those officers of the church whose duty it is to make such determinations.

If we’re going to site the Larger Catechism (the author calls attention to LC 93), I would call attention to LC 78 which affirms that there are “imperfections” in the sanctification of believers. That these arise [universally] from remnants of sin in every part of a man, and from the perpetual lusting of the flesh against the Spirit. By these we are [univerally] foiled with temptations and fall into sins AND are hindered in all our spiritual service. It says of even the most morally upright among us, “their best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.”

What we are wrestling with is how to uphold God’s moral law and also maintain the purity of the Reformed doctrines of redemption and sanctification.

From what I heard from many of the dissenting voters at GA was NOT a progressivist agenda, but a reasoned assertion that those who came before us did a pretty fine job of upholding these things in how they set up BCO 24-1, and that it does not need to be re-written.

Already churches and Sessions are charged to evaluate a man according to Scriptural standards. It is true that the Scriptures references in BCO 24-1 (namely, 1 Tim. 3 and Titus 1) do not explicitly condemn the sin of homosexuality, but neither do they give permission for it.

I heard our commissioners debating questions such as: Do we need a full catalogue of every sort of sin? Do we want to update our stated sins on a regular basis according to the winds of culture? Subpoint A instructs us already to examine each nominee in his Christian experience and personal character. This makes exceedingly clear already that willful practice of any sort of sin renders a man ineligible for office.

Is God’s moral law really what’s at the center of the debate inside the PCA? Or is this a case of jousting with windmills? I am praying that it is the latter and that we will work to improve on our efforts to reason together.

Ryan Sparks is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Old Orchard Church in Webster Groves, MO.