Seen in the context of the 2,000-year history of the church, the PCA’s deliberations were hardly revolutionary. But in 2021 cultural revolutionary America, the language commissioners proposed be added to the PCA’s Book of Church Order ring with Christian bravery before a hostile world: “Those who profess an identity (such as, but not limited to, “gay Christian,” “same-sex attracted Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or like terms) that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ, either by denying the sinfulness of fallen desires . . . or by denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or by failing to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions are not qualified for ordained office.”
As the dust settles from the annual meetings of two major evangelical denominations, the contrast between them could hardly be more stark. In St. Louis, courage, that rarest of virtues, won the day at the General Assembly (GA) of the some 380,000 member Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). In Nashville, the fears of elites won the day as the 14 million strong Southern Baptist Convention (SBC), the largest Protestant denomination in North America, met to do business.
Seen in the context of the 2,000-year history of the church, the PCA’s deliberations were hardly revolutionary. But in 2021 cultural revolutionary America, the language commissioners proposed be added to the PCA’s Book of Church Order ring with Christian bravery before a hostile world:
Those who profess an identity (such as, but not limited to, “gay Christian,” “same-sex attracted Christian,” “homosexual Christian,” or like terms) that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ, either by denying the sinfulness of fallen desires . . . or by denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or by failing to pursue Spirit-empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations, and actions are not qualified for ordained office.
Rather than pay obeisance to a world poised to punish all who fail to adhere to the ever-more radical rules surrounding sexual identity, especially “gay” identity, these commissioners, mainly laypersons, but led by teaching elder and North Carolina pastor Kevin DeYoung, bowed to God.
In Nashville, SBC President J. D. Greear and Resolutions Committee Chairman James Merritt tried to embarrass Baptist messengers who called for explicit repudiation of critical race theory. Ordinary Baptists were charged from the podium with being afraid of persons of color when no such fears had been expressed. Since their 2019 annual convention in Birmingham, Alabama, the SBC has weathered a firestorm of pushback from rank-and-file Baptists after the Resolutions Committee pushed through a pro-CRT statement.
Un-woke black Baptist pastor and theological educator Voddie Baucham, who was canceled by SBC elites when he refused to adopt the far-left narrative about the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, details the shenanigans employed by elites in his hot off the presses, best-selling book, “Fault Lines: The Social Justice Movement and Evangelicalism’s Looming Catastrophe.” The 2019 committee gutted a thoroughly anti-CRT resolution submitted by a California pastor and then transformed it into a statement hailing CRT and intersectionality as “useful analytical tools” for understanding race. The committee brought forward its reengineered pro-CRT resolution with almost no time left on the clock for discussion, ruled objectors out of order, and rammed it through.
Rather than rescind or repudiate the now de-legitimized 2019 resolution that named and praised CRT, the 2021 committee instead repudiated all secular theories that do not accord with scripture with no mention of CRT. But why? Merritt explained by saying: “the world is watching.”
