PCA Study Committee Report: Recommendation 2
Recommendation 2 was contentious because there is no broad agreement in the PCA about the scriptural and constitutional parameters on the role of women serving in the church.
It is the lack of clarity in the report regarding what is biblically and confessionally acceptable for women in worship that makes it difficult to adopt anything other than a wait-and-see attitude with regard to the 2nd recommendation. Mutual respect is not the problem. For the most part, I think progressive and conservative men in the... Continue Reading
An Overview of the 2017 ARP General Synod: “The Lord Showed Up and Showed Out!“
One Commissioner’s assessment on the 2017 of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian General Synod.
I am a realist. Our doctrine of sin says sin happens. One glorious meeting of Synod is not a cure-all. It is only a beginning. We expect hard days ahead. We expect failures and sins. But we also expect grace-days when “the Lord shows up and shows out.” Indeed, when leaders of our institutions transparently... Continue Reading
When the Exception Becomes the Rule: An Observation from the Recent PCA General Assembly
An observation about subscription to confessional standards and then granting of exceptions to parts of the standards.
Some have said that we may allow exceptions to the standards so long as the person taking the exception promises to not teach or practice their actual convictions. I think that is a horrible attack on Christian conscience. How can we ask a believer to bury their convictions? If a believer does not do or... Continue Reading
Missing Mandate and Better Metrics: Understanding the 2017 PCA General Assembly
If broad churchmen were looking for a mandate to increase female ordination in the PCA, based on a concessive study, it didn’t happen at this PCA General Assembly.
To be encouraged: after 8-9 years of sustained badgering, virtue signaling, and nagging, the vaunted study of women’s roles has now been completed, and barely anything is settled. There’s nothing left but to amend the constitution—which in its present form is clear and offers little consolation to those who’ve given so much of themselves to... Continue Reading
A Big Moment for the PCA
In a time when the cultural winds are blowing so strong in support of the normalization of homosexuality and other forms of sexual perversion Christians do well to articulate God’s standard all the more clearly.
If you are a commissioner at this year’s GA I urge you to vote in favor of Overture 2. If you are a member of a PCA church I urge you to pray that it passes. In recent months we have become aware that those opposing such actions as Overture 2 are well organized, ready to “fight,”... Continue Reading
Transgenderism Comes to the PCA?
A Sober Look at the PCA Report On “Women Serving in the Ministry of the Church” before the 45th GA.
How can there be multiple conflicting views that are all in accord with Scripture? By condoning multiple practices and views, the committee does not clarify and allows those who would undermine the church’s standard to continue to practice without any constraint. It is difficult to address aberrant views and practices since those who have them... Continue Reading
Some Last Minute Thoughts About Overture 2
Overture 2 was always more of a beginning than an end of the work that lies ahead of us, but if we are unwilling even to make a start of that work then what hope does the PCA have of standing in the evil day?
All of these factors will inevitably create considerable agitation within our denomination to take a more Laodicean approach and end our opposition to homosexual marriage. Those who doubt this need only look at what has happened in the mainline denominations and in formerly evangelical denominations, including our closest denominational analogue, the CRC. We also need... Continue Reading
My Hopes for General Assembly 2017
Most of all I hope to, along with our Lord’s church, be more thoroughly conformed to Christ.
The following are a few hopes I have for myself during that week and beyond: That I would pray before I speak. That I would take my thoughts captive for Christ. That I would be hopeful and not cynical. That I would assume the best about my brothers with whom I disagree. That I would rejoice in any news that... Continue Reading
Review of the Ad-Interim Committee’s Report On Women Serving In The Ministry Of The Church
Evangelicals seem to be confused about what the Bible teaches about the roles of men and women in the life of the church.
My suggestion is that the Assembly thank the committee for its work and send the report to the Presbyteries for study. The report establishes guidelines for in-depth discussion. If there are any substantive actions to be taken, they must come from the Presbyteries. Because, even if the report is adopted, it would have no binding... Continue Reading
Slow to Speak
Civility on the Floor of the PCA General Assembly
I realize that we all do not agree on every issue in the PCA. I even realize that there are sharp disagreements about significant matters in the PCA. But it would do us all well to remember that in the midst of our disagreement, we are brothers. The belief that Jesus Christ is fully God,... Continue Reading
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