It’s been said many times, he who controls the language controls the culture. For believers in Jesus Christ to use the term “biological men” amounts to a surrender to the culture’s mistaken notion that there exists the possibility of a man/male other than one who is identifiable biologically as a man/male. If we know there is no such possibility – and we do know it according to “what sayeth the Lord” in Scripture – then to add the one word “biological” becomes, at best, unnecessary and useless; and, at worst, an acknowledgment and promoting of a new teaching we know to be false and harmful.

For starters, please don’t assume this year’s Overture 15 is similar to last year’s. During 2022-2023, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) dealt with an Overture 15 that had to do with homosexuality. This year’s Overture 15, rather, has to do with the madness called transgenderism.

The PCA’s 51st General Assembly (GA) will consider Overture 15, which requests a one-word amendment to the final sentence of Book of Church Order (BCO) 7-2, that would add the word “biological” to the requirement for church office, so if approved would read: “In accord with Scripture, these offices [elder, deacon] are open to biological men only.”

The above sentence was rejected by a presbytery but adopted by a church session in that presbytery and the overture was submitted to GA. I do not know what the rationale was for the rejection and I refuse to speculate. If there is one thing I’ve learned from my experience as a commissioner to previous GAs, it’s this: There are various rationales for a “no” vote, sometimes unexpected ones.

The Apostle Paul’s first letter to Corinth may help here. In chapter 8, Paul addresses, within the context of knowledge and love, the liberty of eating or not eating meat that has been offered to an idol. He writes, “. . . we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world” (8:4). In verse 7, he continues, “. . . but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol.”

In his commentary on 1 Corinthians 8:4, Calvin says that Paul

. . . explains particularly, what is the kind of knowledge on which they valued themselves – that an idol is an empty figment of the human brain, and must therefore be reckoned as nothing; and accordingly, that the consecration, that is gone through in name of the idol, is a foolish imagination, and of no importance [emphasis in original].

(Although Calvin says the Corinthians abused this teaching “in opposition to love,” Paul did not set it aside as false, “. . . for it contains excellent doctrine.”)

Calvin goes on to say that “inasmuch as there is but one God,” he prefers the older rendering, “An idol is nothing,” over that of Erasmus, “An idol has no existence.”

That said, just as an idol does not actually exist – or, is nothing according to Calvin – so also a man/male other than one who is biologically identifiable as a man/male, does not actually exist. Rather, today’s Western culture seemingly bent on suicide engages in foolish imagination, or, as in Psalm 2, it rages against the LORD and imagines a vain thing.

It’s been said many times, he who controls the language controls the culture. For believers in Jesus Christ to use the term “biological men” amounts to a surrender to the culture’s mistaken notion that there exists the possibility of a man/male other than one who is identifiable biologically as a man/male. If we know there is no such possibility – and we do know it according to “what sayeth the Lord” in Scripture – then to add the one word “biological” becomes, at best, unnecessary and useless; and, at worst, an acknowledgment and promoting of a new teaching we know to be false and harmful.

So as not to be misunderstood: all persons deserve both dignity and respect. Why? Because all mankind are created in the likeness of God, whom He made male and female. “And God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”

As one PCA elder says, “If this [Overture 15] were to pass, it would unwittingly introduce the [LGBTQ+] ideology into the BCO.”

The Overtures Committee should answer this overture in the negative. But should Overture 15 be approved and sent to the floor for a vote, I urge Commissioners to vote “No.”

Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church (PCA), Crossville, Tennessee.