Dallas, Texas – The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, meeting in Dallas on Wednesday, June 11, 2008, heard the moderator read an admonition to Louisiana Presbytery. The Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) had filed charges against Louisiana Presbytery for “its failure adequately to protect the peace, purity and unity of the Church in its investigation of and proceedings pertaining to TE Stephen Wilkins that should have raised a strong presumption of guilt that the views held and taught by TE Wilkins differed from the ‘standard exposition of Scripture contained in our Constitution’ (BCO 29-1). In failing to find a strong presumption of guilt that some of the views of TE Wilkins were out of conformity with the Constitution, Louisiana Presbytery was derelict in its duty under BCO 13-9, 40-4, and 40-5, and thus caused much unresolved pastoral confusion, and, likely, harm throughout the Church.”

 
Louisiana Presbytery had been charged with two specifications of error; it pleaded guilty to one of the charges and not guilty to the second charge. The SJC conducted a trial in March 2008 and found Louisiana not guilty on the second charge. The admonition that was pronounced against the Presbytery was for its guilty plea.
 
 
The SJC adopted the following resolution: “As this matter involves a public offense, the following censure of admonition is to be announced in public by letter to Louisiana Presbytery that is to be included in their minutes and by inclusion in the report of the Standing Judicial Commission which is made a part of the minutes of General Assembly (SJCM 21-2, 3), and administered by the Moderator of the 36th General Assembly in the presence of the General Assembly (BCO 36-3).”
 
The Admonition against Louisiana Presbytery:
 
The Presbyterian Church in America, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and for the sake of the peace, purity and unity of His Church, does hereby publicly admonish Louisiana Presbytery for its failure adequately to protect the peace, purity and unity of the Church in its investigation of and proceedings pertaining to TE Stephen Wilkins that should have raised a strong presumption of guilt that the views held and taught by TE Wilkins differed from the “standard exposition of Scripture contained in our Constitution” (BCO 29-1). In failing to find a strong presumption of guilt that some of the views of TE Wilkins were out of conformity with the Constitution, Louisiana Presbytery was derelict in its duty under BCO 13-9, 40-4, and 40-5, and thus caused much unresolved pastoral confusion, and, likely, harm throughout the Church. 
 
We further admonish Louisiana Presbytery that, should they be faced in the future with credible reports raising questions about the orthodoxy of the views of a teaching elder under its jurisdiction (BCO 31-2, 40-4, and 40-5), they must insure that they conduct a full and thorough investigation, which would include specific, documented findings as to “…whether [the view(s)] strike at the vitals of religion and are industriously spread, or whether they arise from the weakness of the human understanding and are not likely to do much injury” (BCO 34-5).
 
Finally, we admonish Louisiana Presbytery to take care that it be diligent to “condemn erroneous opinions which injure the purity and peace of the Church” (BCO 13-9(f) and that it be careful that heretical opinions not be allowed to gain ground (BCO 40-4). These are critical duties of Presbytery that cannot be satisfied by deferring to a lower court or to the views of a teaching elder (See BCO 39-3(4)).   The faithful performance of these duties by presbyteries is a critical component of our corporate responsibility to live out, in love, the truth of Ephesians 4:11-16:
 
And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love (NKJV).