General Assembly Preview: Polity, Procedure, & Personnel
The PCA's 51st General Assembly in Richmond lacks the social controversies that overshadowed recent assemblies, but this year's GA has the potential to reshape the character of the PCA.
The Assembly will have the opportunity to consider whether to uphold our polity and/or to reform our judicial procedures. Additionally the Assembly will take crucial votes regarding the personnel who comprise our GA Committees and Judicial Commission as well as for the staff who administer the daily operations of the denominational agencies. Thanks to... Continue Reading
Against Overture 15 Before the PCA General Assembly: To Say “Biological Men” is Caving to the Culture
Overture 15 has to do with the madness called transgenderism. The PCA General Assembly should answer this overture in the negative.
It’s been said many times, he who controls the language controls the culture. For believers in Jesus Christ to use the term “biological men” amounts to a surrender to the culture’s mistaken notion that there exists the possibility of a man/male other than one who is identifiable biologically as a man/male. If we know there... Continue Reading
A Roundup of the Final Overtures Heading to the 51st General Assembly
16 additional overtures have been sent to the GA.
Overtures 20, 21, 25, and 26 all call for changes to disciplinary procedures. Tennessee Valley also sent Overture 26, which proposes an amendment to BCO 32-19. Currently, when a person is charged with an offense and tried by his session or, in the case of a minister, by his presbytery, he may be represented before the court... Continue Reading
Update on Overtures to the 51st General Assembly
Eight new overtures have been sent to the 51st General Assembly.
The full text of each of these overtures may be found here. For information about how these overtures originate and are brought to the GA floor, click here. This article will be updated regularly to reflect new overtures received by the GA. In the PCA, an overture is a proposal from a lower church body to a... Continue Reading
UPDATE: Assembly-Wide Panel Discussion Canceled
The PCA’s Administrative Committee announced today: “That the General Assembly Plenary Seminar, ‘Supporting Your Pastor and Church Leaders in a Polarized Political Year’ not be offered.”
The committee provided the following rationale for their decision: “The concerns that have been raised about the seminar and its topic have been so significant that it seems wisest for the peace and unity of the church not to proceed in this way. Instead, the seminar time will be allocated to a prayer convocation that... Continue Reading
Presbyterian Church In America Invites Professional Polarizer David French To Lecture Christians On Getting Along
If the PCA wants to have David French talk about polarization, it should be as a poster child, not a panelist.
I emailed the PCA General Assembly and its Administrative Committee’s head Bryan Chapell that very question and received no response. An email obtained by The Federalist that was apparently sent to many people who complained about the French pick, however, said the PCA is “currently seeking to discern the accuracy of concerns that have been... Continue Reading
Overture 26 to Assist the Accused To Be Considered By the 51st PCA General Assembly
Overture 26 seeks to keep accused church members in the process for their own good and reclamation.
The proposed amendment’s solution is to expand potential representatives to “a communing member in good standing of a PCA church or any member in good standing of a PCA court (meaning all elders, ruling and teaching)….Another possible benefit of ensuring that accused church members have competent representation is a reduction in the number of appealed... Continue Reading
We Need to Support the PCA’s Agencies
Old School PCA Confessionalists have long exhibited ambivalence toward the Institutions of the PCA. It's time we embraced them with a view toward making them thoroughly Reformed.
Other than prayer, the best way Old School Confessionalists can support the agencies of the PCA at this time is by searching for more men who share a commitment to robust, Old School Presbyterianism who will be willing to serve on the permanent committees to help shape the policies and priorities of the College, the... Continue Reading
Reasons to Oppose Background Checks in the PCA
The 51st PCA General Assembly, in June 2024, will consider five overtures requesting amending the Book of Church Order to require background checks for ordained church leaders.
As Martin Luther and the Reformers held (and died for), only the Word of God can bind the consciences of believers. Church councils and church decrees (including the Book of Church Order) can and do err. We do not submit to our brethren when they require us to act against our consciences as informed by... Continue Reading
Thoughts on Overture 12 From the 2023 PCA General Assembly: Sending the Overture to the Civil Magistrate
From 1578 until the founding of the PCA in 1973, Presbyterian books of order consistently contrasted the powers and jurisdictions of church and state.
In American Presbyterian history, intermeddling with civil affairs that concern the commonwealth (aka political activism) has always led to theological liberalism. I am not predicting that the adoption of Overture 12 by the 50th General Assembly, or its adoption by many presbyteries, will lead the PCA in the same direction. I was and am disturbed,... Continue Reading
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