One speaker favoring the side for approval of the changes, and one opposed, made statements followed by several hours of questioning from Elders in the Presbytery of the Blue Ridge

In a unique, unofficial meeting of the Elders of Blue Ridge Presbytery held on Saturday, September 18 at the Westminster Church, Roanoke, Va., three hours were dedicated solely to hearing facts and asking questions – no debate allowed.

The Facilitating Committee of the Presbytery voted to conduct this meeting, 3 weeks in advance of the fall Stated Meeting, which will be held in Winchester, Va., on October 8th. The purpose was to give elders a chance to get their questions answered about concerns they have with the proposed new funding plan for the General Assembly Administrative Committee (AC). It is hoped that this format will allow the Presbytery to focus on the few key disputed issues when they gather to vote next month.

Speaking on behalf of supporting the proposal was the Rev. Dr. David Silvernail, pastor of Potomac Hills Presbyterian Church in Leesburg, Virginia – in neighboring Potomac Presbytery. Silvernail is a member of the Permanent Committee on Administration and was present through all the work and vote of the committee to approve, modify, and bring the proposal to the floor of the General Assembly.

Essentially everyone present at Saturday’s meeting agreed that Silvernail’s presentation was the most clear and concise presentation of the needs of the AC and the reasons for supporting the CMC/AC proposal any had heard.

Several new items of information were brought forth during his presentation. He read from a legal opinion the AC had requested from a large, prestigious Atlanta law firm about the implications of this proposed change as it applied to property and employment rights. The opinion stated there were no implications in these areas.

He also reported that while the final decision has not yet been made, the AC is moving towards setting in place a procedure for how to handle claims of hardship from churches that, for whatever reason, fall many years behind in paying the required registration fees. The process under consideration would have the requesting church file the need with their Presbytery, and if the Presbytery could not assist the church or in some other way resolve the issue, then it would be forwarded to the AC Staff who would negotiate a settlement with the church.

One illustration was given that if a church was 10 years behind in paying fees that perhaps this debt could be negotiated down to only requiring 3 years of arrears to be paid and allow the church to do so over the next 3 years.

If negotiations with the AC staff failed, the hardship case would be taken to the full Administrative Committee, and if that failed, a panel of Presbytery Stated Clerks, elected by those Clerks in attendance at the annual meeting in Atlanta, would be the final arbiters.

Again, this process is still in discussion stage and has not yet been approved for forwarding to the GA as a change to the Rules of Assembly Operation.

The only question of the day for which Dr. Silvernail did not have a complete answer concerned the words ‘in needful works’ in the proposed change to BCO 14-2-(2) concerning Teaching Elders. The question asked the meaning of the words. Who would make the definition and/or decision? He said it was his belief that the decsions belonged to the Presbytery and he thought it meant all Teaching Elders and even referred to a previously published set of FAQ’s from the AC that said it meant all Teaching Elders who had been ordained/accepted by a Presbytery, but said he was not aware of why that phrase was necessary, if what was intended was all Teaching Elders.

There were 12 questions that had been submitted to the ‘In Favor’ side from members of Blue Ridge Presbytery that were reviewed by the Moderator and prepared to be asked on Saturday. (A copy of those questions, along with the ones approved and asked of the ‘Opposed” side appear at the end of this story.)

Each presenter was given copies of these questions several days in advance so they would have time to understand them and prepare materials needed to answer.

Speaking and answering questions for those ‘Opposed’ to adoption of the BCO Changes was the Rev. Dr. Dominic Aquila, President of New Geneva Seminary in Colorado Springs, Colo., a member of Rocky Mountain Presbytery, a former moderator of the General Assembly, and thus a member of the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC), as well as a long-term member of the Standing Judicial Commission.

In Dr. Aquila’s presentation he acknowledge the excellent and clear presentation made by Dr. Silvernail, but said he had come to different conclusions in several areas and would address the proposed amendments from a different perspective.

Dr. Aquila pointed out that the changes would create two ‘classes’ of Teaching Elders and two ‘classes’ of churches: Those that were ‘members’ of the PCA General Assembly and those that were ‘voting members.’ He explained that setting up such class differences was both unnecessary and dangerous because it was a change to the structure of the Book of Church Order (i.e., a part of the PCA Constitution) rather than just a change to the Assembly’s process. Changes to the Constitution, no matter how well intentioned at the time, are apt to allow for unintended consequences.

Of course, he said, the major unintended consequence could well be in the future, if some civil court took note of the inconsistencies in the PCA BCO and said if the higher court has the power to require payments (at one point he used the ‘T’ word, “tax”) then it could possibly be deemed by the court to be hierarchial at this point, and at best had an internal conflict within its Constitution.

Dr. Aquila pointed out several times in his statement and in the answers to the questions, that the problem facing the AC could be fixed through other means. He emphasized that we should not enshrine in the BCO a process to fund one committee of the church. There are other ways to improve funding for the AC that do not tamper with the Constitution.

When asked during the Q&A period about the difference of opinion between the proposers of the change and himself concerning the suspected unconstitutional nature of the change, he emphasized several times that the opinions of both the attorneys contacted by AC and the Constitutional Business Committee (CCB) said the change did not affect property and/or employment rights – but did NOT speak to the issue of monies. Quoting from BCO 25-8 he pointed out that local churches ‘shall be sole owner of any equity in any real estate or any fund or property of any king held by or belonging to any particular church, or any board, society, committee, Sunday school class or branch thereof. The superior courts of the church may receive MONIES OR PROPERTIES from a local church ONLY by free and voluntary actions of the latter (emphases made by Dr. Aquila).

He also pointed out that the answers given by the law firm and CCB were based on the framing of the questions put to them; however, those questions were not the ones being asked by those opposed to the proposed amendments, which resulted in the answers being non-responsive concerning the issue of whether the resulting language could change the present understanding of the PCA as a non-hierarchical connectional church.

One other question asked of Dr. Aquila was if he was opposed to this change, what process would he be in favor of to resolve the AC’s problems in receiving sufficient funding for its assigned task. Since the PCA had been set up with each committee and agency responsible to raise their own funds, he felt that what was really needed was a stronger casting of the vision of the work of the AC, stating that in our day and age, money follows vision.

After the event was completed, many of those who attended commented on how helpful it had been and all urged others in Blue Ridge Presbytery (and any other Presbytery) to obtain DVDs of the video presentations and/or audio CDs of the entire event so they would benefit from this informativer debate.

DVDs and/or CDs will be available from Barker Media in Birmingham, Ala., through its website at http://www.barkerproductions.net/shop.asp?action=cat&catID=21494. The DVDs and CDs should be available to be mailed at least by Wednesday,September 22. Orders may be placed at any time.

Editor’s Note: We asked both participants to review the summaries of their presentations and to suggest changes. Both men have done this and are reflected in the summaries above.

Below are the Preapproved Questions exactly as they that were sent to the particiapants prior to the debate and then put to them by the Moderator of Blue Ridge Presbytery:

Compiled Questions submitted by members of Blue Ridge Presbytery, ranked in priority order (there will not be time to cover all in 40 minutes)

To TE Silvernail (In favor of adopting changes):

1. Blue Ridge Presbytery has a lot of smaller churches including small church plants. How will this affect churches/plants like ours with limited resources?

2. What do you understand the basis of the Constitutional Business Committee was in declaring that these changes were not unconstitutional?

3. This proposed change is part of the overall new Strategic Plan that was presented at the GA this summer. Who were the primary authors initially of the Strategic Plan? How does the Strategic Plan (and therefore this proposal) meet the ‘Principles for the Organization of the Assembly, Number 7, which reads “The Assembly’s committees are to serve and not to direct any Church judicatories. They are not to establish policy…” (BCO 14-1-7)?

4. Currently churches are giving approximately .13% of their income. How is it reasonable to expect them to give more than twice as much (.33%)? Won’t you still end up with a shortfall to fund the AC at the expense of an extreme change in the BCO?

5. What will the amount of the Registration Fee be? Why is this not part of the proposed changes to the BCO? What is the rational for not including in the BCO some structure for determining, communicating and changing the amount of the Registration Fee? There is mention of the amount as well as provision for changing the amount in the grounds, but not in the proposed changes to the BCO on which Presbyteries will be voting. Why was this not included in the BCO changes?

6. Isn’t there a danger that many churches will just permanently opt out of GA altogether? Won’t GA become the 50% or less who support the ministry now, and eventually become a smaller and smaller number of those interested in the national work and the Assembly? If that happens, won’t the Admin committee still be in a pickle at the end of the day?

7. What processes are being put in place to insure that the AC will negotiate impartially with churches which find themselves in arrears in regards to their Annual Registration Fee?

8. What happens if a pastor pays his annual fee and his church doesn’t? He is not a member of the church, so why is he not allowed to be a voting member of GA? Aren’t you judging his motives?

9. Are missionaries serving with MTW included in section (2) of this change, i.e. “teaching elders serving in needful works”? How about non-MTW missionaries? Chaplains? Administrators? Christian Counselors? How and by whom is the determination made?

10. Given the arguments made by Teaching Elder Todd Allen, who was involved in the important, precedent making property cases in the PCUS in the 1960’s, stating that the connectionalism implemented by these proposed changes could endanger the denomination’s structure as non-hierarchal, have attorneys familiar with property cases given opinions in regards to this issue?

11. Approximately 20% of the proposed budget for the AC under this proposal is designated to support byFaith Magazine? How can this be considered an essential work of the General Assembly? How is this different than other good, helpful ministries that other agencies cannot carry out because of their lack of full funding?

12. The Stated Clerk’s office defends the proposal by saying: “After considering many ideas and several models at length, this one appears better than anything else proposed in our near 37-year history.” Could you explain what other contribution formulas were considered before adopted the current recommendations? If so, why was this one better?”

13. The BCO calls for a ‘voluntary’ connectionalism? How does the word “require” fit with that definition?

14. Some say it is possible that churches may bring lawsuits against the denomination should this change (which they consider extreme) be made. What is the ramification of this on the denomination?

To Dr. Aquila (opposed to adopting the changes):

1. Blue Ridge Presbytery has a lot of smaller churches including small church plants. How will this affect churches/plants like ours with limited resources?

2. Doesn’t BCO 14-1-4 say the It is the responsibility of every member and every member congregation to support the whole work of the denomination? Doesn’t failure to fulfill responsibility have consequences?

3. The CCB instructed the General Assembly that this proposal was NOT out of according with other parts of the Book of Church Order. How can you argue that it is out of accord? How can we decide who is correct?

4. In the PCA Preliminary Principles (front of the BCO) Principle Number 7 states in part: “No church judicatory may make laws to bind the conscience.” The proposal is for churches to pay ‘fees for services’, which are ultimately voluntary. How can you say that this proposal is ‘binding the conscience?’

5. In what ways do you believe these amendments begin the process of making the GA’s committees more centralized? Explain how this would be a significant shift in the internal culture of the PCA?

6. The PCA has been trying all kinds of different ways to fund the important work of the church carried on at the denominational level. So far, nothing has worked. What would you propose to resolve this long-standing problem?

7. The Stated Clerk’s office is proposing that the Committee on Constitution Business shall be the impartial 3rd party to mediate appeals from churches or Teaching Elders whose hardship application has not been approved by the AC? Is this not sufficient to resolve this issue?

8. An argument against approving these amendments has been made that we are promoting an attitude of entitlement among our churches. The Stated Clerk’s office states:

• Yet the belief prevails that these same churches should help cover the cost only as each thinks it should. Thirty-six years of the current practice have proven this approach to be unwise, impracticable, and even unethical. If unethical seems a strong word, consider that our current practice may actually tempt and even train the leadership of our churches toward an attitude of entitlement to unpaid services, a habit of which none of us would approve.

Is this not a problem which must be fixed?

9. Would you support all denominational agencies charging a ‘fee for services’ basis to help meet their needs?

10. The Stated Clerks office states in their ‘Reasons for Supporting the BCO changes’ the following: By God’s grace and help, however, should we not get over the distrust of our brothers and fellow elders in Christ and free ourselves to be more eager and vigorous in the work of the kingdom? Isn’t it time we stop distrusting our brothers and fellow elders?

11. Rather than just being against something, do you have a better plan, one that will fund the necessary work that the AC has to do for the General Assembly?

12. If the vote of the Presbyteries is negative and the changes are not approved, do you believe the churches and Teaching Elders who opposed the changes have a moral obligation to support the necessary work of the AC?