Note, I do not say this about questions of worship style, apologetic method, manner of dress, whether or not one’s church has a Sunday evening service, views of the millennium, internal administrative arrangements, confessional subscription, or other such things about which there has been internal disagreement within the PCA, but rather about cases of flagrant, impenitent, public wrongdoing. There can and should be peaceful dialogue about those other matters, (though simple tolerance is preferable in some of them, Rom. 14). But there cannot and should not be dialogue where PCA ministers have committed sins before the whole world, as is the case at present.

Dialogue occurs when two or more parties discuss their differences under circumstances in which each party is afforded equal dignity and equal opportunity to express their views, and when they do so to reach a rapprochement (in cases of conflict) or for mutual edification (where conflict is not present). Probably most people will agree on such a definition, but the question of the function of dialogue in the present, controversy-ridden Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) merits a few further reflections.

Dialogue Has Been Attempted

In 2018 prominent members of the National Partnership (NP) and the Gospel Reformation Network (GRN) met to discuss differences. Some idea of the meeting’s temper may be gleaned from the title of the GRN article relating it (“Cultivating the Bonds of Peace in the PCA”). There have been other attempts, formal and informal, in both person and via written format. For example, at the 2021 General Assembly David Strain and David Cassidy discussed differences regarding confessional subscription, while Jon Payne and David Coffin contributed differing articles at ByFaith viz. Overtures 23 and 37 at the end of 2021.

Dialogue Does Not Appear To Have Worked

Judging by the tone of “Cultivating the Bonds of Peace,” its author, GRN head Jon Payne, thought that 2018 meeting went well. Skip forward to March, 2022 and a publicly-avowed member of the National Partnership accused him and the GRN ruling council of bearing false testimony for using labels too loosely. That 2018 meeting’s restoration of peace either did not last, or else it achieved peace only between some of the members of the respective parties. So also with other attempts at dialogue: judging by the continuing controversies, they have not ushered in an era of general peace and good will in the denomination. If they have had good effects they have been limited in extent, and it is not clear that dialogue has accomplished even such limited benefits in most cases.

Dialogue Is Not Possible Between Many In The PCA

Where presuppositions and perspectives differ, the respective parties are often unable to understand each other, thus making meaningful dialogue impossible. Consider the matter of the National Partnership. Its members assert that it is merely a private forum for like-minded elders to discuss denominational polity and voluntarily coordinate their efforts regarding it. Others say it is a secret organization that seeks to alter the denomination according to its own agenda, and which to that end is working to elevate its own men to key positions within the denomination and its presbyteries after the fashion of the old Presbyterian Church in the United States’ Fellowship of Saint James.[1] Between ‘innocent private club’ and ‘inexcusable subversive conspiracy’ is a difference of type, not merely degree. If dialogue is attempted between people whose understanding is so radically different, probably nothing will be accomplished except to create more misunderstanding and strife.

It Is Doubtful That Dialogue Is Truly Desired By Everyone

I do not accuse any of our public proponents of dialogue of such mendacity. But probably people of all opinions can agree that there are some people who simply want to argue – it is a fairly common Reformed failing, after all. In addition, I have correspondence from elders whose revelations about the inner workings of their courts and committees suggests that dialogue is certainly not always wanted under those circumstances, even in matters of great importance. And experience has often shown that when someone says he wants dialogue, what he really means is that he wants an occasion to force his views upon others: dialogue means ‘I’ll talk and you can nod your head in agreement,’ not ‘let’s chat it out together in a spirit of give and take.’

Dialogue Is Not Always Useful For Achieving Peace

As any parent (and many bosses and teachers) can attest, what is needed in many cases of conflict is not dialogue but silence, perhaps arranged and enforced by higher authority.

Dialogue Is Not Always A Duty Or Act Of Prudence And Obedience

Were Paul and Barnabas wrong to forgo gentle dialogue and instead engage in “no small dissension and debate” with the Judaizers (Acts 15:2)? No. Their opponents were wrong and were upsetting the faith of new believers by distorting the gospel (Gal. 2:4-5; 5:1-12). Dialogue would have been wrong, for dialogue implies that the respective views of the varying parties are worthy of equal audience and respect.[2] But heresy and the truth are not equally legitimate, and they do not deserve an equal audience or respect. Where a matter is one between truth and falsehood, wisdom and folly, light and dark, life and death, obedience to Christ or obedience to the flesh, the respective options are irreconcilable, and one must predominate to the exclusion of the other. “What accord has Christ with Belial?” (2 Cor. 6:15a). In such cases the believer is not to engage in dialogue with the errant, but is to rebuke them and urge them to repentance (Gal. 2:11-14; 1 Tim. 5:20; Tit. 1:13; 2:15). If they persist in error the individual is to avoid them (Rom. 16:17; 2 Tim. 3:5; Tit. 3:10-11) and the church is to excommunicate them (Matt. 18:17; 1 Tim. 1:20).

Dialogue Is Not The Need Of The Hour In The PCA

Many people would likely agree with the last several sentences above. But many would probably disagree that they bear upon our present case. Many speak and act as though we are discussing nonessential matters of mere taste or form. I disagree. The very soul of the denomination is at stake. Consider the following example. In an article in 2021 Greg Johnson quoted approvingly a statement from Francis Spufford’s book Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense, in which he refers to “the human propensity to [expletive excised].” With Spufford this phrase is a formal concept—he capitalizes the acronym—and he uses it as a substitute for the doctrine of sin.[3]

Now, one could say that this is just an example of nuanced, culturally-sensitive, and well-informed ministry. Johnson is providing comfort to the afflicted, and doing so in language that is understandable to people who have grown up outside of the church. The correct way of looking at it recognizes that this represents a severe offense against the holiness of God that brings the church and her ministry into disrepute (Jas. 1:26; comp. Eph. 4:29 & Col. 4:6); risks making the little ones stumble by commending bad sources and suggesting that foul language is acceptable (Lk. 17:1-2); and is evidence of an unclean heart (Matt. 12:33-37) and a bad character unfit for office (1 Tim. 3:2). Even many unbelievers would fire an employee who used such language – should the church not have a higher standard of holiness for its ministers?

In such a case what is needed is not dialogue. What is needed is for the officers of the PCA to take seriously their sworn duty to preserve the church’s purity and for Greg Johnson to be meaningfully disciplined and told that Christ’s judgment is fast-approaching and that such behavior does much harm to everyone, not least he himself. A failure to do so makes the denomination tolerant of wrongdoing, a thing which invites divine judgment (Rev. 2:20), even where an offense is hidden or has been committed by a single individual (Josh. 7:10-26).

Note, I do not say this about questions of worship style, apologetic method, manner of dress, whether or not one’s church has a Sunday evening service, views of the millennium, internal administrative arrangements, confessional subscription, or other such things about which there has been internal disagreement within the PCA, but rather about cases of flagrant, impenitent, public wrongdoing. There can and should be peaceful dialogue about those other matters, (though simple tolerance is preferable in some of them, Rom. 14). But there cannot and should not be dialogue where PCA ministers have committed sins before the whole world, as is the case at present. There is a pastor in Utah who committed obvious blasphemy; that situation does not call for dialogue, but for discipline. I know a man who was at a church with deaconesses. When he pried he was first told that they were ‘creatively complying’ with the BCO, but when he persisted he was told that they were in willful violation of it and he could either accept that or go elsewhere. Such men are rebels and oath-breaking liars; they should not be engaged in dialogue, but disciplined.

Examples could be multiplied, but the point holds true that what is needed is not high-sounding rhetoric and polite dialogue, but meaningful action. Many of us in the pews do not wish to dialogue with flagrant offenders, nor for our courts and officers to do so. Such a thing is not morally or spiritually safe (1 Cor. 15:33). We want our leaders to exercise their vows faithfully, which means punishing wrongdoing in our own midst.

Dialogue Can Only Occur When Heinous Offenses Are First Removed

The latest entry at ByFaith that calls for dialogue (as well as trust and appreciation of differences) comes from Tom Gibbs, president of Covenant Seminary. Covenant seminary employs a librarian who praises Allan Boesak, a pro-LGBT theologian who threatened to quit his church if it failed to interpret the Belhar Confession to also prohibit discrimination about sexual preferences; uses the Black Lives Matter hash tag (an organization with some concerning ideas about nuclear families);  approves Calvin University retaining faculty that disagree with the CRC’s recent disapproval of homosexual sin; and has no qualms whatsoever about using foul language in various ways.[4] Compare those last couple examples to Eph. 5:4&6: “Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking . . . for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience.”

This is the face of (theological) liberalism and creeping infidelity.[5] It is here in the PCA at Pres. Gibbs’ institution, as well as elsewhere – check out what qualifies as holiness and pastoral humility and gentleness with the National Partnership’s founder[6] (comp. Christ: “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt. 12:34) – and the question of the hour is this: what is going to be done about it? Because until the relevant parties begin to maintain holiness and discipline among those for whom they are responsible, they have no business lecturing the rest of us about trust, dialogue, and agreeing to disagree.

Tom Hervey is a member, Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Simpsonville, SC. The statements made in this article are the personal opinions of the author alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of his church or its leadership or other members.

[1] The Fellowship of Saint James was a secret group in that denomination that included major figures who worked to strategically place the group’s preferred men in pulpits and professorships at major churches and the seminaries. It resisted inquiries into its doings and membership and asserted it was an innocent club for mutual edification, so there is uncertainty as to how decisive of a role it played in the Presbyterian Church in the United States becoming faithless.

[2] There is a difference between dialogue and debate: the former seeks the unification of the parties; the latter, the identification and triumph of the truth.

[3]Spufford’s book, it must be noted, is full of vile content and heresy, and I strongly recommend against reading it.

[4] Note that I excised the profanity in those examples, and that the one provides a good reason why we should not get caught up in the ‘Elon Musk is great’ craze.

[5] The librarian in question is also a vocal Democrat: I do not criticize him for that, nor do I wish for the church and its agencies to do so.

[6] The video is of a sheep repeatedly getting stuck in a ditch after every rescue.