“PCA” is not a uniform brand. We don’t even have an official logo, after all these years! MacDonalds is the same the world over. But every PCA church is different. You cannot move to another town, and look up the PCA church there, and know what you are going to get.

A while ago I wrote an essay on the “Future of the PCA” which featured “Reasons Why the PCA Must Decline,” and focused on both denominational and sociological issues.

Naturally, the PCA has been changing. I have been a pastor in the PCA myself for about twenty-five years, and I have seen these changes happening. No one is intentionally trying to harm our denomination, but as the “founders” die off or retire, and a new crowd of ruling and teaching elders takes over, things change. (That does not mean that every young minister takes a progressive view. It’s not really a generational thing.)

The progressive element is “well-meaning!” We must beware of charging anyone with evil motives. Only God can see the heart, and I have no doubt that the vast majority of commissioners are sincere about serving the Lord. But the progressives will naturally always push for what they see as true “progress.”

As the car commercial went, “This isn’t your father’s Oldsmobile!” We can now say of our denomination, “This isn’t your father’s PCA!” What’s happening? The dimly seen outlines of what divides us are emerging from the fog, and becoming clearer each year. It’s my intention in this essay to refrain from taking sides. I just want to describe the issues as I see them; and offer what will be seen as an impossible and unwanted solution, but one which I believe would be helpful to the denomination.

1. It is not often hinted at that we are disagreeing about the nature of the Bible. But I believe we do disagree amongst ourselves about the inspiration, infallibility and authority of the Bible. What do we mean by those terms? We would all agree that whatever the Bible teaches is true. And we all say the Bible IS the Word of God, not BECOMES the Word of God, as it speaks to us (the old Neo-orthodox position). But we are scholars, not uneducated Bible thumpers. We believe in the rules of Hermeneutics. We understand that we must see each Bible verse in its context; and we must take into account literary devices, the meaning of the original Greek and Hebrew, etc. The problem is that this approach to the Bible lends itself to a multitude of interpretations. We view the Bible from different angles. This is particularly evident in our divisions over the doctrine of Creation. We thought we had settled this a decade ago by creating a large umbrella about acceptable views. We said it was OK to believe in just about any view, except Theistic Evolution. But the fact is that some of the acceptable views “leaned” toward Theistic Evolution, and we now have pastors in the PCA who believe and teach that God made Adam and Eve by taking two existing animals and gifting them with eternal souls and humanity. Their views are known and allowed by their presbyteries. This is not just about Creation, it’s about inspiration, inerrancy and infallibility; and quite a few people are unsettled.

2. We have Presbyteries that are friendly toward the Federal Vision theology, even though our denomination has repudiated this theology of the Church and Salvation. There is quite a tussle going on right now in Pacific Northwest and Missouri Presbyteries, and in other places in the PCA. We speak of the need for “safe places” for theological discussions. Why do we need safe places? Because there are charges being filed here and there about this and that. For some, the PCA is no longer a safe place to be.

3. We have an uneasy situation with regard to “blogs” and “church news websites” on the Internet. We are connected as never before. Information and opinion are instantaneous. There are many pastors who blog and their readership is large. People are sharing their knowledge and views about pastors, Presbyteries, charges and trials. Some ministers are extremely offended to find themselves the center of an Internet discussion that has become nationwide. The situation is made even worse by the fact that the PCA has an official site (ByFaithonline magazine) that appears to take sides. Instead of uniting the denomination, ByFaithonline is becoming part of that which divides us. The conservative blogs and online news magazines also serve to make us take sides.

4. Since the the “Strategic Plan” was passed by the 2010 General Assembly, there is now a wide-spread feeling (true or not) that the leadership of our denomination is becoming both wasteful and coercive. It has been written in the blogs that the financial shortfall would cease to exist if the powers that be would just drop Byfaith Magazine, and quit buying so much bottled water (I’m not making this up). The vote of approval on the SP was a bare majority, and the minority is feeling that they are being tyrannized, especially since the Administrative Committee is spending time and money pulling out all the stops to get the Presbyteries to vote in favor of the AC Funding Plan (BCO 14 amendments). The plan itself is seen as a form of coercion: pay or you can’t play. Instead of voluntary giving to support the Administrative Committee, we will have taxation (whatever you call it). Further uneasiness is spread around by the political machinations, the backroom planning (of both sides) to pass or defeat the funding plan in the Presbyteries. In other words, we don’t trust each other anymore. We are working to defeat each other. Can two walk together except they be agreed? Lack of trust will split the denomination for sure.

5. It is becoming plain that our decisions of the past decade or two about the nature of the General Assembly have led to a General Assembly that is more of a camp meeting or convention, rather than a true court of the church. We are now able to get all of the GA work completed on by working on only Wednesday and Thursday. Even on those days we find time for a number of long worship services, and a multitude of reports from our agencies. The real work is done in committees. This GA delegated work and authority “style” was debated and approved years ago. There really are advantages. But the result is that many elders are increasingly feeling that GA is largely an expensive waste of time. Part of the rationale for changing the GA was to improve the ratio of ruling to teaching elders, but this has not happened. It may be that some local Sessions will decide to stop sending commissioners to GA in order to save money during the present economic downturn.

6. The various camps in the PCA still irritate each other by our worship style (and substance) differences. Both sides are dug in. Traditionalists want to sing the old hymns of the Faith, in the old arrangements from the hymnbook, to the sound of an organ. We still do that a lot. Progressives want to have a praise band, an overhead screen, learn new songs, raise their hands in the air, and sing even the old songs to a different beat and melody. We are doing more of this. We try “blended” worship but the two sides remain like oil and water. This is a problem every year at General Assembly and throughout the denomination.
“PCA” is not a uniform brand. We don’t even have an official logo, after all these years! MacDonalds is the same the world over. But every PCA church is different. You cannot move to another town, and look up the PCA church there, and know what you are going to get. And it isn’t just about the music: we differ in our approach to preaching, too. We don’t really have a recognizable brand as perhaps we did in 1973.

7. The issue of women deacons is one that will not go away. I am convinced that the progressives WILL continue to push and agitate until someday women deacons in the PCA will be a reality. Western culture is on their side. Women can be doctors, lawyers, bank presidents, secretaries of state, congresswomen, and so on; but they can’t be deacons or elders in the PCA. This makes us a little Fundamentalist denomination in the eyes of the world. I don’t know how soon the Progressives will be able to persuade the denomination to change the constitution about this, but the reality of having women deacons is already in some of our congregations. We all know it is possible to do an “end run” around the Book of Church Order. This situation will continue to create bad feelings and division in the denomination. We have to decide. Are we Fundamentalists, or aren’t we?

What about a solution, can anything be done? Yes. It’s pretty obvious to me that in order for the PCA to continue to grow and live together as a happy family of God, these issues need to be “fixed.” It’s no use saying, “Why can’t we all just get along?” We’ve been trying that for many years; and while we are still together, I see the unease increasing. But HOW to fix all these things?

I believe there is a KEY that can enable us to stick together and live in peace and harmony: truly being a “grassroots” denomination. We have told ourselves over the years that we are a “grassroots” church, but we have been growing away from that concept and toward being a top-down organization. I believe our present divisions came about and are increasing because we have not been guided in our decision making by the ruling elders of the local congregations.

Church pastors, seminary professors, and agency administrators have been calling the shots and giving the directions. Everyone means well. But the ideas and principles of the PCA have not been coming from Sessions. If the Sessions had been leading the way, many of the divisive issues already mentioned in this little essay would never have become issues.

I suggest we take three simple steps: 1) Allow only active pastors and ruling elders to vote in the higher courts of the church as we do on the local church level. 2) Limit the number of teaching elders who can vote in either presbytery or GA to the number of ruling elders voting. 3) Limit voting to one pastor and one ruling elder per church, regardless of size. We would become a truly “grassroots” church almost overnight.

I have little hope that we will take these three steps. The entrenched “powers that be” won’t like them. But by enshrining these principles in our constitution, there could develop some really powerful glue holding us together; trust for each other would blossom; decisions made in presbytery and GA would very likely always be good and pleasing for nearly all the local congregations.

I believe this change might stop the decline in our numbers, and might make us attractive to conservative congregations leaving top-heavy liberal denominations. We might once again be the fastest growing denomination in America. I don’t see any other practical solution to our divisions.

Marshall St. John is a Teaching Elder in the PCA and serves as pastor of Wayside Presbyterian Church in Signal Mountain, Tenn.