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

I enjoy being a woman according to the example outlined in Scripture, in part, just so that I can see my husband being a man as defined by Scripture. I am fulfilled as a woman with my beautiful submissive, nurturing role that provides opportunities to bring out the leadership role of my husband….Nevertheless, my culture... Continue Reading

When it comes to calling upon believers to confess and repent of the sins of a prior generation the vast majority of which they had little if anything to do with personally, it seems to me we are in danger of trivializing repentance along the lines of Calvin’s warning and at the same time falling... Continue Reading

Why do I regard the approval of this study committee as a “troubling turn?” I believe that this approach poses a threat to the unity of the PCA. If the progressives have their way and ordination is opened to women, there will most certainly be a split. Too many of us recognize that there is... Continue Reading

The way the Reformed Christian community talks about, responds to, and values women needs much work. I hope that the newly formed study committee on the role of women in the PCA will conduct a more thorough investigation into what these many unanswered questions affecting women actually are before they start attempting to answer them.... Continue Reading

Contention over the PCA’s stance against female ordination isn’t new. In 2009, the general assembly narrowly voted (446–427) against creating a committee to study women’s roles. Even before that, the denomination argued over whether commissioning “deaconesses” to help male deacons is tantamount to ordaining them. (Tim Keller argued for commissioning, and not ordaining, deaconesses.)  ... Continue Reading

But if the PCA is going to corporately repent for sins committed by PCUS churches in the south during the battles over civil rights then let us also as a denomination repent for the northeastern PCUSA’s sins of rejecting the authority of Scripture and de-gospeling missions. Is not the PCUSA our parent denomination? Under this... Continue Reading