The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) recently adopted changes to its Book of Church Order (BCO) that specify that an elder “should conform to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in his descriptions of himself, and in his convictions, character, and conduct” (BCO 8-2). Similarly, deacons are to be conspicuous for “conforming to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in their descriptions of themselves and in their convictions, character, and conduct” (9-3).

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) recently adopted changes to its Book of Church Order (BCO) that specify that an elder “should conform to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in his descriptions of himself, and in his convictions, character, and conduct” (BCO 8-2). Similarly, deacons are to be conspicuous for “conforming to the biblical requirement of chastity and sexual purity in their descriptions of themselves and in their convictions, character, and conduct” (9-3). It may be fairly asked what this means, as the phrases “chastity” and “sexual purity” occur nowhere else in the BCO. To understand the terms we are therefore compelled to consider their use in the other elements of our constitution, the Westminster Confession and Larger and Shorter Catechisms (BCO Preface III).

In considering this it is helpful to consider the original overture (O23) from Mississippi Valley Presbytery that urged the modification of BCO 8-2 and 9-3. In its “whereas” statements, O23 plainly states “the preservation of chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior in oneself is an indispensable duty and qualification for office (1 Tim.3:2; Titus 1:5-9)” and that “any expression of sexual attraction or sexual intimacy that is not directed toward the fulfillment of a lifelong covenant of marriage between one man and one woman is contrary to nature and to nature’s God” (50th General Assembly Minutes, pp. 1022-24). In so doing it cites Larger Catechism (LC) Question 139, which says “all unnatural lusts” are “sins forbidden” by the seventh commandment, as are “all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections.” The positive duty enjoined by said commandment is “chastity in body, mind, affections, words, and behavior” (LC 138), i.e., exactly what O23 said in its whereas statement above. From this we see that “chaste” and “sexually pure” are matters of the heart and mind as well as of the body, and that they are opposed not only to immoral deeds, but to the lust that provokes such deeds, both in general and in the case of “unclean” and “unnatural” lusts in particular.

Now let us suppose that a man comes before one of our presbyteries seeking ordination, but that he, by his own admission, experiences what he calls “same-sex attraction.” Our constitution knows nothing of such terminology, and in its framework such attraction is an unclean and unnatural lust that is against the law of God. It is not merely a temptation, weakness, or potential moral liability, but one of those “sins forbidden” that LC 139 mentions. A man who experiences it is therefore not chaste or pure “in his convictions, character, and conduct,” nor in his “imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections.” For character and conduct bear an internal form in our hearts before they show themselves as outward deeds – “out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander” (Matt. 15:19, emphases mine) – and a man who experiences unnatural lusts is therefore awry in his internal character and the conduct and affections of his heart and mind. Failing to meet the constitution’s requirements for his character and conduct, and possibly his convictions and self-description as well,[1] such a man ought to be deemed disqualified and be denied office among us when examined by presbytery.

Why This Matters

The immediate reason this matters is that I have correspondence which states that even some of those who are opposed to the errors of Revoice cannot see where our constitution forbids office to men who experience the lust in question, even those who have a public reputation as such. As can be seen above, our constitution requires chastity in thought and affections as well as in external behavior, hence someone who experiences unclean and unnatural lust is to be accounted unchaste in mind and therefore unfit per its provisions. Internal consistency and a faithful testimony to the egregiousness of the lust in question also require such a position. In the rules of discipline relating to the trial of teaching elders we read:

When a minister, pending a trial, shall make confession, if the matter be base and flagitious, such as drunkenness, uncleanness, or crimes of a greater nature, however penitent he may appear to the satisfaction of all, the court shall without delay impose definite suspension or depose him from the ministry.

We believe that a sin involving uncleanness is so heinous that even a minister who confesses it and seems to be sincerely repentant of the offense must be immediately suspended or removed from the ministry. Now if a man who has many years of fruitful labor and faithful service must nonetheless, on account of a single act of uncleanness, be suspended from the ministry, why should a man who is yet untested but admits to persistent unclean lusts not be deemed to be prohibited from ministerial office? Will anyone dare say that it is because there is a difference between lust in one’s own heart and acting upon such lust in external deeds? But what then is the meaning of this teaching of our Lord:

You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell. (Matt. 5:27-30)

Is it not that lust is to be deprecated just as strongly in the thoughts of the heart or in the gaze as in the physical deed? For if that were not so, how is it that he says to tear out one’s eye lest it cause one to sin and be damned? How could he say to take the same radical preventive action toward both the hand that does the deed and the eye that desires it unless both were equally culpable? But as it is with adulterous lust, so it is with unnatural lust to that which God condemns by euphemism (Lev. 18:22). It is the sinful root, whereas the deed is the sinful fruit; yet both are sinful and therefore at odds with chastity and purity, hence why LC139 cites Matt. 5:28 (and the aforementioned Matt. 15:19) as proof for its statement that God forbids “all unclean imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections” in the seventh commandment.[2]

I must also point out that what our catechisms and older translations of scripture call “uncleanness” is what modern translations usually render as “impurity,” the Greek akatharsía that appears in verses such as Col. 3:5 and Rom. 1:24 that are in LC139’s scripture proofs for such concepts as “unnatural lusts” (Rom. 1:24) and “unclean imaginations, etc.” (Col. 3:5). In short, where an older work refers to something as ‘unclean” in the matter of sexual morality we can usually refer to it as ‘impure;’ and I trust that it needs no elaboration that what is impure, whether “imaginations, thoughts, purposes, and affections” or actual deeds, is the opposite of the “sexual purity” that our constitution requires. (For that matter, “chastity” and “sexual purity” are synonyms, the Online Etymology Dictionary giving the following definition of chastity: “c. 1200, chastete, ‘sexual purity’ (as defined by the Church), including but not limited to virginity or celibacy, from Old French chastete ‘chastity, purity’ (12c., Modern French chasteté), from Latin castitatem (nominative castitas) ‘purity, chastity.’”)

All of which is to say that our constitution, when considered in its entirety, regards a man who experiences unnatural and unclean lusts as being internally unchaste and impure, and therefore disqualified for the offices of elder and deacon. The question that now arises is whether our presbyters will have the determination to enforce this which they have sworn to approve (BCO 21-5 and 24-6, Q.3) in the case of not only prospective but also current officeholders. Further, whether any current officeholders who find themselves disqualified by these provisions will fulfill their promise of “subjection to your brethren in the Lord” (BCO 21-5, Q. 4; 24-6, Q. 5) by complying with their removal from office, or else willingly resign it of their own initiative.

Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity 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] If he regards his lust as being the result of an immutable sexual orientation, he is mistaken in his convictions, regarding his desires along worldly lines as a result of a fixed constituent part of man (sexuality/orientation), rather than as a result of the moral condition of his heart, mind, and will (which are susceptible to improvement as a result of sanctification). And if he has a public reputation as such because he regularly discusses it with others or refers to himself as experiencing such lust – especially if he refers to himself with the blasphemous affixing of the world’s term for a violator of Lev. 18:22 with what Acts 11:26 calls a member of our faith – then he does not conform to BCO 8-2’s requirement that he be chaste in his descriptions of himself, for he describes himself by his unchaste lusts.

[2] But does this not contradict James 1:14-15 (“each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death”)? For James suggests a distinction is to be drawn between the desire that produces temptation and the sin that results when temptation has been yielded to, which suggests that if one resists the temptation he is therefore guiltless of sin. That is a correct distinction in one sense, but sin has multiple senses in scripture, sometimes referring to actual wrong deeds that we perform, and in other cases referring to the principle of anti-God lawlessness that resides within us that animates such actual transgressions.

Thayer’s Lexicon says that in James 1:15 “sin” refers to a “committed or resultant sin” “generally,” i.e., that it refers not to the principle of sin but to actual transgression, but without specifying the sin committed. In other words, the phrase “lying is a sin” is an example of the particular actual (“committed or resultant”) sin of lying, whereas “our sins offend God” represents actual sins in a general sense, without classifying them. James 1:15 falls in the latter category, which means the sin it talks about is actual, committed transgression of God’s law, not the evil impulse that precedes it. The desire he speaks of in 1:14, however, is sin in this latter sense, as the Greek epithymía it speaks of is inordinate desire (or “lust,” which is how many translations such as the KJV and NAS render it). In short, the evil desire or lust of James 1:14 is sin in principle, and it produces the temptation to commit actual sins in deed. Both the lust that tempts and the actual sin one is tempted to commit are sin, but in these two different senses, so that one can be guiltless of actual sin (if he resists the temptation) but still have within himself the principle of sin (lust) that produces the temptation.