An apparent victory in the short run may conceal a defeat in the long run, especially if it failed to uproot the poisonous roots that the ‘losing side’ planted. Already I am told that presbyteries are arguing that the recent BCO additions which many of us thought were meant to prohibit men who are tempted to break Lev. 18:22 from office mean no such thing… Already at least one of our presbyteries thinks that forbidding office to men on that ground would harm our witness to unbelievers. 

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has been troubled in recent years by controversy over whether men inclined to certain lusts ought to be permitted or forbidden from exercising office among us. Internal disputes are nothing new, of course, either for the PCA or the church universal, and as controversies are likely to continue with her and with other Reformed churches, here is a guide for how those who wish to establish a doctrinal innovation in their own denominations might accomplish it. What follows are presented, in no particular order, but are lessons that might be drawn for how best to achieve the desired result based on the PCA’s recent experience and that of other denominations on similar questions like women’s ordination.

1. Conceive the matter in view in a different manner than historically or in the confessions or scripture.
2. Elevate personal experience (esp. feelings) above objective standards like scripture or the church’s constitution, and always speak from experience as though it is an indisputable authority. This has great advantages: other people cannot know, much less authoritatively contradict your own internal experiences, and it forces them to concede the point or else appear uncharitable by publicly doubting your own testimony about your own inner experiences, which in turn allows you to complain about being misunderstood, misrepresented, or mistreated.
3. Expect others to use your terms and conceptions. Insist they are uncharitably ‘policing’ the language if they will not, and that they are guilty of needlessly disputing over the meaning of words (2 Tim. 2:14) if they do not admit the permissibility of your own terms, however novel, unclear, elastic, of worldly origin, or outright blasphemous they might be.
4. Work for representation on things like denominational or presbytery study committees or standing commissions.
5. Combine your innovation with a generous dose of orthodoxy, but where possible see to it that the orthodoxy is in matters of behavior that cost you nothing. The key is to poison the doctrinal root so that the ethical fruit follows in time, especially in matters that you don’t follow. Say things like ‘I believe marriage is between one man and one woman’ (where you are single and have elsewhere stated you have no interest in entering such a union).
6. If people object, say that nothing in the constitution or confessional standards prevents people who [innovation here] from being ordained—knowing full well that it couldn’t, since you have changed the terms and conceptions used to discuss the matter.
7. Be generous with slander, both implicit and explicit. Don’t be afraid to malign your opponents on cultural grounds or those of ecclesiastical controversy, especially from the past history of the church. Accuse people of things like “pietistic Southern Moralism,” the old standbys “fundamentalism” or “legalism,” or of being Pharisees or “the circumcision party.” Just be sure not to name names so you can’t be charged with slander.
8. Set yourself up as both the victim of denominational heartlessness and the true defender of grace. You’re to be admired for your fortitude in enduring not only your own internal struggles but also the lack of support or active opposition of others in the church. Let your cries that you are misrepresented, misunderstood, and neglected be ceaseless both day and night.
9. Talk out of both sides of your mouth. Say whatever you please in sympathetic forums, but if called to explain yourself by the church let your answers be the most pristinely orthodox and polished statements to come forth since the ecumenical councils.
10. Have a double standard on clarity. As above, when you say something (however plainly) that is deemed erroneous, be vigorous in asserting that you didn’t mean what it sounded like you meant, and that your clarification when pressed is the true meaning and absolves you of the error. When other people come along and propose amendments to the church constitution to disbar people of your faction from office, raise a howl that such changes in the wording are unclear and could either bear uncertain, dreadful future consequences, or else embroil the church in endless wrangling over their proper interpretation and application. Clarity is a virtue that inheres only in your ‘clarifications’ of error when confronted, never to your original statements or to the statements or intended reforms of your opponents.
11. Work incrementally. First ask mere tolerance for the broaching of your opinions in a few settings of limited reach and audience (your own church, a niche podcast or blog). Then ask for a denominational or presbyterial study of them and that you be included only as a minority perspective. When their acceptance is established use your position to assail those that disagree for troubling the church with their mistaken opinions.
12. Insist people ‘move on’ if the controversy gets too hot or begins to go against you.
13. Be brazen and shameless at all times, and have a large dose of sanctimoniousness, always talking about how you love and pray for those that disagree, mistaken though they are, while also combining it with plenty of implicit slander. Statements like “I love my brethren who disagree, but if they could only experience what I do they would know how much their words hurt” are perfect, combining a large, plain measure of apparent virtue with a subtle slander (the attribution of their opposition to ignorance and implication that it hurts you).
14. Keep the end goal in mind. In every immediate skirmish in the larger controversy your goal is to move the window of the discourse from “[novelty] is unthinkable and indisputably wrong” to a tacit acceptance of the concepts and terms upon which the thing relies. Even if you appear to have suffered defeat in the short run – lo, even if you have been forced out of the denomination by persistent opposition – you have ensured ultimate victory by normalizing the discussion of the novelty, acclimating even opponents to thinking and talking about it along your lines, and otherwise setting the framework in which such things are discussed.
15. Make endless war on shame. A thing cannot be accepted if it is too shameful even to broach in polite company, so work endlessly to destigmatize it.
16. Be willing to drag the ecclesiastical dispute in which you are involved before the wider world, and to discuss it in the secular press.
17. Appeal to authority. Name dropping respected figures from the past is always good and should be done in abundance. Confidently assert that all history, scripture, and the confessions are on your side and that it is your opponents who adhere to a novelty. But be very selective in how you quote such things, silently eliding those things in them that contradict you. (And be sure that the men you appeal to are all dead, so that they cannot personally expose you for twisting their words.)
18. Use worldly concepts like sexual orientation or sexuality as a constituent part of Man, and then either indignantly deny that they are of worldly origin or else mount a robust ‘but science and personal experience have proved the validity of these terms’ argument. By so doing you insist scripture and historical confessions must be interpreted in light of such worldly concepts from the ‘social sciences’ and present cultural experience rather than by their own conceptual frameworks, lest we misapply them and ‘fail to reach the present generation.’
19. Be adamant in your insistence that your position must be adhered to promptly, else we will drive away contemporary people, both the young within our fold and the unbelievers that we desire to win. Disparage anyone who disputes this appeal on logical grounds as the fallacy of ‘denying the antecedent,’ or who does so on the ground that church history has invariably shown that what is calculated to win the lost serves rather to shrink the church than to increase her evangelistic effectiveness.
20. Cut yourself off from all disagreement as much as possible. Have your secretary trash your ‘hate mail’ so that no one can rebuke you via letter. When people respond by opening a complaint with your presbytery or publicly criticizing you, say that the Matthew 18 process has not been followed because they have not personally taken it up with you, and that such actions are therefore unjust.

Now perhaps you will object, dear reader, to the sarcastic tone that I have channeled above, or the general claims I made. Perhaps you will object further on the ground that the PCA did not normalize immorality but resisted it, adopting clear teaching on its nature (the Ad Interim Report on Sexuality), amending its Book of Church Order (BCO) to prohibit the insufficiently holy from attaining office, seeing chief antagonists leave the denomination willingly and secret internal cabals (the National Partnership) that were largely sympathetic to it disbanded, etc.

Perhaps you think that in recent General Assemblies ‘the little guy stood up,’ made his objections heard, and turned the denomination back in a healthy direction. The tactics above did not work, in other words, and having failed with the PCA may not work elsewhere. That presumes that the PCA has won its battle against doctrinal and practical innovation on this point.

And that is far from clear. Again, an apparent victory in the short run may conceal a defeat in the long run, especially if it failed to uproot the poisonous roots that the ‘losing side’ planted. Already I am told that presbyteries are arguing that the recent BCO additions which many of us thought were meant to prohibit men who are tempted to break Lev. 18:22 from office mean no such thing (see para. 4 here). Already at least one of our presbyteries thinks that forbidding office to men on that ground would harm our witness to unbelievers.[1] We still have ruling elders who openly profess the experience of such temptation, and if one ruling elder’s claims are correct, a teaching elder who thinks that such temptation or that to pedophilia (!) ought not to disqualify from office has already been ordained with much less public awareness than attended the Revoice and Greg Johnson controversies.[2] Those things being the case, are we so sure we have put the kibosh on this, and that the above will not ultimately prove successful in our own midst?

Tom Hervey is a member of Friendship Presbyterian Church in Laurens County, South Carolina. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] From Missouri Presbytery’s report on allegations against Greg Johnson: “we should realize that we are likely to lose rather than gain respect ourselves if we do not allow men to sit in the teaching/ruling office of the church just because they self-identify as those who feel same-sex inclinations within themselves” (pp. 83-4, emphasis original).

[2] I have not mentioned this elder by name or linked his public statements on this point because his is the only claim to this effect that I have heard, and such a stark claim wants further corroboration (the standard for such things being two or more witnesses). Still, that such claims can be broached at all raises serious questions, and if anyone is familiar with the matter I allude to and has testimony that either contradicts or corroborates it I’d be pleased to hear it via email to the linked address in my name in the byline.