I implore you to ask your commissioners to the General Assembly to call on the Administrative Committee and Committee of Commissioners to ask Dr. Chapell to reverse his decision to retire and continue to serve as Stated Clerk. Of course, the expectation would be for Dr. Chapell to continue his personal efforts at reconciliation with those he has offended, as he promised. But how much greater would be the impact to a culture accustomed to cancellation, to see the PCA’s Stated Clerk exemplifying humble repentance and the highest church court extending restorative forgiveness?

Dear brothers and sisters,

While I have no official status in the PCA, I still love her as the Church that nurtured and formed me for forty-seven years. My plan was not to leave my beloved PCA, even after accepting the call to Second Presbyterian Church in Memphis [a member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church]. But God had other plans. So, while my credentials have been transferred to another denomination, which I also love, my heart has remained prayerfully committed to my first Church.

From that heart of love, I humbly appeal to you regarding Bryan Chapell’s status as Stated Clerk. Over the last forty years, Bryan has been my professor, mentor, parishioner, boss, colleague, and dear friend. Along with anyone else who has known him well, I can say his inaccurate verbal characterization of all the men and women listed on the small note was not typical of Bryan. In younger days, such hyperbole would not have been unusual for me. My mouth could be an open sepulcher on the floor of presbytery and General Assembly. But it was from men like Ligon Duncan, David Coffin, Roy Taylor, Tim Keller, Harry Reeder, Joel Belz, Frank Barker, Sean Lucas, Ray Cortese, Mike Khandjian, John Bise, and especially Bryan Chapell I learned to speak words “full of grace, seasoned with salt.”

Bryan has taken responsibility for his sin and openly repented of defaming brothers and sisters in Christ. Moreover, Bryan has pursued in love and forgiven many in the PCA over the years. In this way, he has obeyed the call to “forgive as the Lord forgave you.” I ask the PCA to do the same and to do so in a public way so the world will “hear about your love for all his holy people.”

Specifically, I implore you to ask your commissioners to the General Assembly to call on the Administrative Committee and Committee of Commissioners to ask Dr. Chapell to reverse his decision to retire and continue to serve as Stated Clerk. Of course, the expectation would be for Dr. Chapell to continue his personal efforts at reconciliation with those he has offended, as he promised. But how much greater would be the impact to a culture accustomed to cancellation, to see the PCA’s Stated Clerk exemplifying humble repentance and the highest church court extending restorative forgiveness?

To my beloved brothers and sisters in the Presbyterian Church in America, thank you for nurturing and shaping my gospel ministry and thank you for giving me a hearing. May the Lord richly bless you and keep you and make his face shine upon you and give you peace even as you respond to that grace by manifesting a culture of blessed peace.

Blessings,

George Robertson
Senior Pastor
Second Presbyterian Church
Memphis, Tennessee