The CMC reported that it is empowered “to focus on the overall ministry and mission of the PCA,” and had identified five key issues facing the denomination it would study and report on next year: The role of women in the PCA; Homosexuality and related issues; The rising generation of leaders in the PCA;

Making the General Assembly more attractive to younger pastors and ruling elders; Practicing diversity well in the PCA. In one stroke, with no discussion or debate, the CMC undid much of what the General Assembly did this year.

While popular culture often emphasizes the superficial, God’s people are called to think in a biblically incisive way.

The assumptions that lie underneath something that happens often indicate what is likely to happen later and perhaps more importantly, why it will happen.

You might ask what does that have to do with the recent United States Supreme Court decision in the Hobby Lobby case? Or with the PCA 42nd General Assembly?

Wasn’t one a celebrated result for religious liberty and the other a denominational meeting with solid biblical result for going forward?

In both instances, some context gives an indication of what is likely to happen next.

Take the case, Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc.

There was the positive aspect of a family owned business having struggled for years with the expense and uncertainty of defending itself against the exercise of federal power that would, in effect, require it to promote the destruction of innocent human life.

It might appear it is now settled law that Christian employers cannot be forced to provide abortion for their employees.

One might assume that a constitutional right to religious liberty prevailed.

But what really happened?

What the Ruling Means

The 5-4 ruling established that five Justices believe a federal law, The Religious Freedom Restoration Act, may function as it was intended to function, e.g. protecting employers with religious objections from legal requirement to provide abortions to their employees under the new federal law, The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

Note that it also means four of nine Justices are on record as holding that the United States Constitution allows the federal government to subject employers to civil and possibly criminal penalties for not doing so.

The holding was NOT based on a constitutional right- but rather, the ruling was tailored narrowly to the facts of this case.

The ruling seems to legitimize the notion of universal abortion funding unless an employer has a legally recognized exception.

It is already having the effect of identifying faith-based employers and institutions, including Christian schools, so they have to defend themselves against a media and special interest group campaign against them.

Recently, a grocery store chain announced it would discontinue carrying a certain brand of canned goods because the canned goods company has a stance similar to Hobby Lobby. The news media reported the grocery store chain was doing so because the brand company has a policy of “denying reproductive rights to women.”

Lost in the popular culture/media discussion is the term “abortion,” not to mention the notion of constitutional limitations on government power.

If the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is any indication, a media campaign will take a law passed with overwhelming support and create the impression, at least, of a shift in public opinion, which will embolden legislative or judicial activism.

Somehow, this does not seem like victory.

So, what does that have to do with the 42^nd General Assembly?

Lauding an Irenic Assembly

Published reports about the Assembly generally commend an irenic tone in resolving difficult issues.

The PCA Stated Clerk’s Letter said, “The goodwill demonstrated…. the Christian spirit evinced by commissioners both in committee and Assembly sessions, as a genuine meeting of the minds was accomplished.”

And much good did come out of the General Assembly.

Leading into this year’s General Assembly an Evening of Confessional Concern and Prayer was held. It identified four key biblical issues before the Assembly: Accountability for discipline and doctrine rulings of the Assembly’s Standing Judicial Commission, the role of women in church offices, erroneous views of creation, and the Insider Movement.

On one level, it seems most of the Confessional Concern areas were resolved in a manner consistent with a biblical, reformed denomination.

A well written, biblically based report on the Insider Movement was approved and a counterpoint report rejected.  Although one of the original study purposes, assessing PCA mission partners regarding influence of the Insider Movement within them, has not happened, the report has already helped biblical discernment in the PCA and even in the wider church.

And while Resolutions rebuking the teaching of evolution, condemning homosexuality and its promotion in the government schools, and reaffirming biblical truths on marriage, life and creation were either rejected or ruled out-of-order, little, if any contrary sentiment was expressed. A proposal to study church officer vows in relation to views on ordaining women elders was overwhelmingly defeated.

But what was done on one hand was largely undone in an almost unnoticed move on the other.

A Committee Intervenes

The Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC) is a relatively recent creation that acts as a kind of Supercommittee of the ten PCA denominational agencies and permanent committees, e.g. Mission to the World (MTW), The Administrative Committee (AC), and PCA Retirement & Benefits, Inc (PCARBI), etc. In one sense, it represents the denominational bureaucracy of the PCA.

Denominational agency infrastructure was greatly empowered by a Strategic Plan the CMC brought forward at the 2010 General Assembly.

That year, there was a formal protest recorded over procedure which required the Assembly to vote on provisions of the Plan bundled in complex take-it-or-leave-it “themes,” rather than presentation in parts by the affected denominational agency.

Some of the “themes” was substantially re-written shortly before voting, and a few parts of the Plan were defeated, such as a plan to tax churches to pay for the work of the AC.

In the end, despite objections that denominational agencies were”doing” rather than “facilitating” the strategic direction of the denomination, most parts of the Strategic Plan passed.

This year, the CMC reported, through Bruce Terrell, moderator of last year’s General Assembly that it is empowered “to focus on the overall ministry and mission of the PCA,” and had identified five key issues facing the denomination it would study and report on next year:

• The role of women in the PCA
• Homosexuality and related issues
• The rising generation of leaders in the PCA
• Making the General Assembly more attractive to younger pastors and ruling elders
• Practicing diversity well in the PCA

In one stroke, with no discussion or debate, the CMC undid much of what the General Assembly did this year.

The first study area, “The role of women in the PCA- particularly, giving women a greater voice and more visible roles,” is very broad and vague. It assumes both a problem and an objective. It is interesting to note that in Presbyterian circles, “voice” is sometimes used in connection with church officers in the courts of the church, e.g., the right of an elder to have a “voice” (be heard and vote) at General Assembly.

It is especially curious in light of the fact General Assembly, both in Committee and on the floor, nearly unanimously rejected a related study proposal.

The CMC study area, “Practicing diversity well in the PCA- particularly, theological diversity within our confessional parameters,” assumes there is not a similar, conforming or consistent theology within the denomination. Or, that theology is to be evaluated by denominational agencies rather than the spiritual courts of the denomination- Sessions, Presbyteries and General Assembly.

Resolutions about homosexuality and related issues were rejected or ruled out of order this year partly because, it was said, the denomination’s position on them is so clear. One wonders why then, the CMC has assumed the right to study them.

The study topic, “Making General Assembly more ‘attractive’ to younger pastors and ruling elders,” combines two different propositions, and assumes a compelling need to attract more younger pastors, but apparently not older Pastors?

Based on Assembly actions this year and in the past, there is substantial reason to believe that not one of the five areas the CMC identified would have been approved by General Assembly for a Study Committee, especially not as they are stated.

The action creates unsettledness over issues that were addressed at this year’s General Assembly.

In these two instances, one a court case, one a denomination’s annual meeting, looking right below the popular report reveals more about what happened, and what is likely to happen next.

Scott Truax is a free-lance writer living in Cary, N.C. He is a member of Peace Presbyterian Church in America where he has served as a Deacon.