As most readers will be aware, the 38th PCA General Assembly in Nashville considered a strategic plan proposed by the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC), and then approved and recommended by the Administrative Committee (AC).

After several hours of debate, the Assembly passed the themes, goals, and all but one of the means. The controversy surrounding the plan in the weeks before the Assembly carried over into the floor debate. According to the L. Roy Taylor, Stated Clerk of the PCA, in his report on the actions of the 38th General Assembly,

After the Strategic Planning portion of the AC report, Dr. Joseph Pipa, President of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, entered a protest into the minutes, alleging that the report was deficient in biblical data and that RAO 7-3 c. required that the report come to the floor through each of the ten Committees and Agencies separately rather than only through the AC. One hundred twenty-eight of the registered commissioners signed the protest.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should make it clear that I write as one of the commissioners who signed the protest. While I found Dr. Taylor’s report helpful and good overall, I do believe that this summary of the protest is incomplete regarding the first point and inaccurate regarding the second. Here is the text of the protest:

Protest to GA Action on Recommendations 16 and 17 of the Report of the Committee of Commissioners on Administrative Committee
We the undersigned protest the action of the 38th General Assembly of the PCA in voting down the motions to recommit recommendations 16 and 17 of the Committee of Commissioners on Administrative Committee to the Committee on Administration.

Two reasons:

First, no scriptural grounds are given for the analysis or the Plan. Moreover, the debate was wrongly influenced when the court was told that the earlier editions of the plan in 2003 and 2006 gave the scriptural basis. Upon investigation there appears to be strong evidence that neither edition of the plan included scriptural basis.

Second, the Assembly violated its Rules of Assembly Operations (17.3.c), which require recommendations from the CMC to come to the Assembly through respective Committees and Agencies, whose works are involved in the recommendation: “Any matters requiring General Assembly action shall be referred to the appropriate Committee or Agency for its consideration and recommendation.”
TE Joseph A. Pipa, Jr., Calvary Presbytery, et al.

As you can see in the first reason, Dr. Pipa does protest the lack of biblical data (a concern raised by many commissioners on several occasions during floor debate). However, the most important point of his rationale is that the Assembly was told that extensive biblical analysis had been done and was included in previous installments of the plan sent to the Assembly in 2003 and 2006. Upon reviewing those documents in the Minutes of the respective General Assemblies, he found no evidence of such analysis.

In the second reason, notice that Dr. Pipa’s point concerning the Rules of Assembly Operation (RAO) 7-3 c. is not that it required the entire report (singular) to come to the floor through each of the ten Committees and Agencies separately. The point is that RAO 7-3 c. mandates that the various elements of the Strategic Plan which required General Assembly action be brought to the floor through the appropriate Committee or Agency. That is precisely what RAO 7-3 c. says in describing this particular responsibility of the CMC, it is to:

c. Facilitate integrated long-range planning that supports progress toward the overall mission and ministry of the PCA. Such planning shall be with respect to matters that fall within the ordinary scope of the respective responsibilities of the PCA’s Committees and Agencies, particularly with a view toward the mission of the PCA as a whole. Any matters requiring General Assembly action shall be referred to the appropriate Committee or Agency for its consideration and recommendation.

RAO Article 7 defines the Cooperative Ministries Committee, and RAO 7-3 details its responsibilities. First, notice that the CMC is charged with facilitating long-range planning. This point was raised repeatedly during the General Assembly by those defending the CMC’s right and responsibility to develop this plan. For example, Dr. Taylor says “The General Assembly in 2006 created the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC) and gave it the ongoing task of long range planning.” I would merely point out that RAO 7-3 c. does not instruct the CMC to “do” the long-range (strategic) planning, but to “facilitate” it. Though it may be inconsequential, there is a difference. To facilitate is to make something easier, not to do it yourself. The CMC was not tasked by the Assembly to develop or carry out long-range planning, but to enable the various committees and agencies to do so cooperatively.

But more importantly, and to the point of the protest, note that 7-3 c. explicitly states that “any matters requiring General Assembly action shall be referred to the appropriate Committee of Agency for its consideration and recommendation.”
This restriction in RAO 7-3 c. serves at least a couple of important purposes. The first is that it provides a check or restraint upon the CMC. It is important to remember that the voting members of the CMC are not elected according to the standard nomination and election procedure. For every other committee, men are either elected by their Presbyteries, or nominated by the Presbyteries, recommended to the Assembly by GA’s Nominating Committee (itself comprised of men selected by the Presbyteries), and elected by the Assembly itself with opportunities for nominations from the floor. The CMC is different. The Presbyteries do not nominate the members directly, and no nominations come from the floor. Instead, the CMC is made up entirely of ex officio members, those who are members by virtue of holding another office (see RAO 7-1).

Furthermore, the CMC does not have its own Committee of Commissioners to review and approve its work. As a result, the CMC is not directly accountable to the General Assembly itself or to any other committee. It should also be noted that no committee of commissioners has ever reviewed the minutes of the CMC. RAO 7-3 c. (and RAO 7-6) requires any recommendation made by the CMC which requires General Assembly action to be referred to the appropriate Committee or Agency for its review, which if approved would in turn require further review and approval by a Committee of Commissioners before coming to the Assembly floor.

The strategic plan developed by the CMC contained matters which the CMC believed required General Assembly action. This is an interesting point in itself, since the Assembly was told repeatedly that apart from the AC funding model nothing in the plan was legislative, that most of these things are already being done today, and that the main point was to get feedback from the Assembly on whether these activities should be continued. One could argue (and many did) that apart from the funding plan, none of this required General Assembly action at all, but the CMC and AC disagreed.

The question is, why did every theme, goal, and means come through the Administrative Committee, and not the Committee or Agency responsible for its implementation? One argument that was made during debate is that this is permissible since all of the committees are represented on the AC; that all of the committees have a voice. Dr. Taylor made this same point in his Actions of the 38th General Assembly:

Since the Strategic Planning recommendations affect all ten committees and agencies, the recommendations came to the Assembly through the AC because all committees and agencies have voting members on the AC.

This leaves us to ask, however, if all strategic planning reports and recommendations may come to the floor through the Administrative Committee, regardless of which Committee or Agency is responsible for implementation, then why doesn’t 7-3 c. simply say so? Why the specification that each matter shall be referred to the appropriate Committee or Agency?

The last part of 7-3 c. makes it clear, and provides the second important purpose of this restriction: it was included so that the respective Committee or Agency could consider and recommend it. The value of this is obvious: it allows for input and approval by the committee or agency responsible for its implementation. Hence the protest: since every theme, goal, and means of the Strategic Plan came through only the Administrative Committee, most of the committees and agencies responsible have had no opportunity to consider and approve these matters at all!

In circumventing this requirement of 7-3 c. (however unintentionally), we have approved a plan which will be imposed upon our Agencies and Committees without their advice, approval, or even their official consideration. And this is despite the fact that the General Assembly has formed these committees for the specific purpose of handling those affairs relating to their respective areas of responsibility.

For example, the Assembly was asked to approve the following specific means:

Theme #2: “More Seats”, Means (Specific) #5: “Formalize a CEP Women’s Ministries organization for women in vocational ministries.”

As far as I can tell, the CEP Committee did not consider or recommend this specific means. While I assume specific individuals were consulted, and that the representatives of CEP on the CMC and AC approved, the fact remains that the committee as a whole had no say, and neither did the Committee of Commissioners for CEP.

Another example from the plan is in Theme #3:

Theme #3: “In God’s Global Mission.” Means (Specific) #1b: “Fund joint research of Covenant College and Covenant Seminary, CEP, MTW, and MNA re: the most effective centers of influence to engage the culture with Reformed thinking and leadership and how to multiply them beyond the PCA.”

Again, as far as I can tell, none of these committees or agency boards had an opportunity to consider or approve of this research, and none of the appropriate Committees of Commissioners were able to make recommendations on this proposal. Do we know if each of these bodies agrees with such research? Are we sure they think it is important to their mission? Does it matter? According to RAO 7-3 c., the answer is “YES.”

That is why the CMC is explicitly required to refer these matters to the appropriate committee or agency. It is the best way to get input from those with the most expertise. It is the best way to get approval from those explicitly charged by the Assembly with responsibility for each particular area. To borrow language from the Strategic Plan, there is no better way to “increase involvement by providing more opportunities to utilize greater variety of people and life experiences (especially younger leaders, women, ethnic leaders, and global church representatives) in the discussions concerning PCA ministry direction and development.”

This is why I signed the protest. It’s one thing to be required to follow the rules because they are the rules. As Presbyterians we strive to do all things “decently and in order.” But this is a case where the spirit of the law is as important as the letter. RAO 7-3 c. is very clear, and it is very important. It places a limit on the authority of the CMC, and it gets the maximum number of people involved through the various permanent committees and agencies as well as their respective committees of commissioners, and involves those who have the most expertise and involvement. Therefore, its violation by the Assembly must be protested vigorously.

Jerry Koerkenmeier is a Ruling Elder at Providence Presbyterian Church, PCA, Edwardsville, Illinois, Illiana Presbytery

[Editor’s note: The source for this document was originally published on johannesweslianus.blogspot.com – however, the original URL is no longer available.]