The Strategic Plan enhances the power of the agency Coordinators and the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC).

There are some attributes of a thing that can be altered without compromising its basic character. You could remove the stone cladding of Buckingham Palace to reveal the red brick underneath and it would still be Buckingham Palace. Yet if you painted the White House even a pale shade of yellow, you would make it something other than the White House.

Likewise, the Pentecostals can officially place leadership in the hands of people other than ordained elders and they will still be Pentecostals. However, it is doubtful whether you can do that in the Presbyterian Church in America without making it something else. So we ask just this basic question of the PCA Strategic Plan: is it Presbyterian?

The Presbyterian form of church government is very simple. In accordance with Scripture and the Westminster Standards, all leadership at every level is exercised collegially by ordained elders. Nothing more (special officers exercising greater authority than rank and file elders by virtue of some quasi-permanent office) and nothing less (those who are not elders exercising any authority at all beyond that of casting their congregational vote) can truly be called Presbyterian. The Strategic Plan, however, proposes several initiatives that seem to run counter to this beautiful simple, biblical polity.

First, the plan enhances the power of the agency Coordinators and the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC). References to the CMC “identifying,” “suggesting,” “picking,” “forwarding,” “approving,” and “reviewing” are littered throughout the document. Clearly, the plan intends for the Coordinators and the CMC to exercise authority in the PCA in ways other than that of ordinary elders acting through the courts of the church. Now there is nothing novel in hierarchical leadership and bureaucratic structures. However, these things are proper characteristics of Roman Catholicism and Episcopalianism, not Presbyterianism.

Secondly, the plan would like us to “establish standards for voluntary certification of men and women for specific non-ordained vocational ministries” in order to “endorse the importance of lay men’s and lay women’s gifts in non-ordained church ministry” and “Gain”/ “Protect” their “insights & contributions” (22). Yet the Bible knows nothing of “voluntary certification” for “non-ordained vocational ministry.” Certified vocational ministry means that one has been called to it by God and set aside to it by the church. If this is the case, then the person must meet the qualifications that are established in the Pastoral Epistles and be ordained. If they do not meet the biblical qualifications, then “voluntary certification” is either meaningless or it creates a parallel track that will subvert the meaning of true ordination.

Third, the Strategic Plan wants to create more “seats at the table” for women (17). Indeed, one of our “resources/strengths” is listed as “Theological Respect for PCA in Broader Evangelicalism” with this minor exception: “except for actual position on women…” (16). That negative perception in the eyes of broader (more liberal) evangelicalism would not be a problem, unless one of our stated objectives is to acquire “Significant PCA Representation in Leadership of Major Evangelical Organizations” (16). Of course no one intends to ordain women in order to achieve this. But what does creating “seats at the table” mean? That women can advise elders on an informal basis? They can already do that. Or does it mean some official role in church leadership? That is what ordained elders do, and allowing women to teach or exercise authority over men is precisely what Paul specifically prohibits (1 Tim 2:12).

Giving people a “voice” or a “seat at the table” is fundamentally about power. If it would not make any difference at all to give these non-ordained people voice and seat, why do it? No, of course it will make a difference. Outcomes will be changed. If nothing else, there will be a real shift of authority in the church to those who are not biblically qualified and rightly ordained elders. One must therefore question in what sense the proposed Strategic Plan can be considered Presbyterian, much less a blueprint for a better PCA.
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William M. Schweitzer is a MTW Church Planting Minister in Gateshead, England