The Gulfstream Presbytery approved an overture at its October 2016 Stated Meeting, asking that Westminster Confession of Faith 24.4 be amended by the addition of two Scripture proofs that would explicitly exclude homosexual marriage. The overture will be considered by the 45th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America. The PCA General Assembly will... Continue Reading

Dear Covenant Seminary Alumni, The following statement about our recently renamed Missional Theology Department will be going out to various public channels over the next few days, but we wanted to you to be among the first to see it. The statement provides a biblical rationale for the change and situates it within the larger framework... Continue Reading

One way to say yes to this question is to believe in corporate guilt, or imputed intergenerational guilt. Todd Pruitt, a PCA minister who voted for the overture to “repent of corporate and historical sins” nevertheless doubted whether such corporate guilt made theological sense.   Does it make sense to repent of someone else’s sins?... Continue Reading

Finally, our Good News wraps up with the report that the PCA grew by 11,816 people in 2015.  That’s nearly a 1,000 people a month coming into PCA churches!  On top of that we had 9,679 professions of faith, over half of them coming from adults!  That’s a lot of new believers! Could we do... Continue Reading

At the very least, there are covenantal applications with reference to the guilt of sin. These covenantal applications cross both space (trans-spatial) and time (trans-temporal). This does not mean personal culpability, responsibility for the sin. It does mean personal experience of the consequences of such guilt. Yes, the parameters and details of this need to be worked out,... Continue Reading

At the First General Assembly in 1973 the matter of a PCA logo was considered. In 1982, 1983, 2006, 2014, and 2015 it was discussed again. The matter had been referred to the Historical Center (HC) Subcommittee of the AC for report to the AC and recommendation to the Assembly…The Design Group initially developed over... Continue Reading

PCA statistics reported at the end of 2015: Total membership, 370,332 (increase of 11, 816, as opposed to a decrease of 1,318 the year before); Churches, 1,534 (increase of 35); Ministers, 4,556 (increase of 140); and Presbyteries, 84. Attendance at the 2016 General Assembly meeting in Mobile, Alabama: 1,252 commissioners (977 Teaching Elders, 275 Ruling... Continue Reading

“How then should Christians think about corporate apology and repentance? My short answer: as a careful, genuinely corporate exercise there can be great value in approving statements of shared repentance, but as a genre of complaint and rebuke, public apologies are normally misguided and misleading.”   It’s been a busy season for public apology and... Continue Reading

Actually, far more alarming to me now is the wording of the suggestion regarding the pastoral letter. The language of women serving alongside elders in the pastoral work of the church already suggests that the substance of what elders do is something that women can do. It is not a long step from that perspective... Continue Reading

Likewise, I departed from the PCA’s General Assembly with concerns and frustrations, as usual.  But I am grateful to the Lord to serve in a denomination that continues to occupy its vital spiritual real estate at the crossroads of evangelicalism and Calvinism. I agreed with the fraternal delegate from the OPC, who commented that what... Continue Reading