It is not always the direct, frontal assaults that prove to be fatal to entities, but rather the constant repetition, year after year of an agenda, subtle innuendo, hubris, a calling into question of the current status of things, and disingenuousness.

As the PCA approaches its 40th General Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky in June of 2012, it is facing a number of important concerns and doctrinal issues, including the question of some form of theistic evolution as well as the notion of intinction at the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.

The PCA has ostensibly dealt with the deaconess matter, but “ostensibly” is the operative word here, because in reality a number of PCA congregations continue to disregard, ignore, and show utter disdain for decisions that have been made regarding the role and place of females on a local congregation’s deacon board.

On April 1st (and it was not meant to be an April Fool’s joke) Andy Webb, PCA pastor in Fayetteville, N.C., posted the following on his FaceBook page:

My heart is grieved right now. Joy is away at the moment and I just called her and asked how her Lord’s Day worship was. She visited another PCA church and what she described made me incredibly sad. Church calendar traditions, stations of the cross, copious apologies for supernaturalism, a muddled message with no clear Gospel proclamation, kneeling to receive communion, children invited to come up and partake.

Unfortunately, this sort of thing is becoming more common in PCA congregations. The Aquila Report recently ran an article by Dr. Terry Johnson, pastor of Independent Presbyterian Church in Savannah, Ga., lamenting many of the same things that Pastor Webb enumerated. Johnson spoke of “liturgical anarchy” with a view to how certain PCA congregations conduct their worship services. Clearly, the PCA has a problem; some problems and it is my intention to address some of those problems.

In this series of three articles, I want to address the spoken or unspoken “big tent” mentality that is prevalent in the PCA currently and to address some attendant concerns. I want to state at the outset that these views are mine. Having said that, I believe these are also “shared” views by others in the PCA; nevertheless, I do not speak for them. I speak for myself. Part of my military training and background taught me that it was far better to speak in a timely fashion than to have regrets later. Therefore, even if no one else shares these concerns, I am compelled to air them. That being said let me explain why I believe that a “big tent” mentality can be helpful, but why it can also be detrimental.

Other Churches in “Our Time”

In a desire for our PCA church affiliation to be a “big tent” what are the limits? Are there limits? Who decides what they are and how and when they will be implemented? In the various discussions surrounding the “big tent” notion in the PCA, has there been any direction about when the big tent has become too big? Is the PCA adverse to unity, or is diversity the term du jour? If we decide that we are more about diversity than unity when do PCA pastors and Sessions morph over into ecclesiastical anarchists in their big tent approach?

Half of my almost thirty years of ministerial labors have been conducted in what some today call “cross-cultural” ministry. I was a pastor in a Dutch-speaking congregation for four years in a suburb of The Hague and a pastor in Toronto, Canada for nine years and change. My third “foreign country” of ministry is Southern California. It was California that forced me to make a choice of church affiliations and I consciously chose for the PCA. I realize that everyone is not equally thrilled about what is rapidly becoming a “big tent” mentality in the PCA. I admit to being one of those not enthralled and thrilled with the idea, for a number of reasons that I will explain. While acknowledging that we are not, in the words of the old song that some of us remember when our memory is still functioning “all made out of ticky-tacky,” there is something very biblical about uniformity of worship. Note well: I said uniformity, not identity.

Allow me to explain the difference between uniformity and identity by using a bit of history. History teaches us about a document that is called the Solemn League and Covenant (1643). The purpose of this document was to unify the worship practices in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Those who cobbled the Solemn League and Covenant together were striving to get out from under the oppression of the unreasonable requirements of the Church of England.

The Church of England demanded slavish adherence to its liturgy. In other words, the Church of England demanded identity of worship. There could be no variance or deviation from one village to the other in terms of liturgy. That is a key and an important point to keep in mind because what the Solemn League and Covenant envisioned was something quite different from identity, all the while maintaining the value of unity among the Reformed and Presbyterian churches. The first section of the Solemn League and Covenant sets the stage for the remainder of the short document. Here is what it says:

That we shall sincerely, really, and constantly, through the grace of GOD, endeavor, in our several places and callings, the preservation of the reformed religion in the Church of Scotland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, against our common enemies; the reformation of religion in the kingdoms of England and Ireland, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and government, according to the Word of GOD, and the example of the best reformed Churches; and shall endeavour to bring the Churches of GOD in the three kingdoms to the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion, Confession of Faith, Form of Church Government, Directory for Worship, and Catechising; that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us (emphasis added).

The desire was to bring the worship of the churches in England, Scotland, and Ireland into conformity of the examples of the best Reformed churches. Today, some in the PCA seem embarrassed by those examples and are striving to implement and introduce elements that no Reformed church has ever considered.

For instance, Reformed churches do not have a history of females serving the Lord’s Supper, reading Scripture from the pulpit, or leading in prayer. (Side bar: if a woman can serve the Lord’s Supper, why don’t progressive PCA congregations have a woman help with baptism?)

What solidly Reformed congregations that have remained solidly Presbyterian and Reformed have been strong advocates of theistic evolution?

How many Reformed congregations in the past have practiced intinction?

The PCA needs to strive for liturgical unity, so that we do not hear more statements like the ones from pastors Johnson and Webb. Furthermore, it is not true that we will all look the same if we adopt a policy of unity of worship today or actually use the Directory for Public Worship in the Book of Church Order.

It would be a true eye-opener to take a survey of how many members of a PCA congregation have ever read the Directory for Public Worship or have even heard of it. It would be equally intriguing and enlightening to discover how many PCA ruling elders are acquainted with the Directory. What might also be depressing is to ask how many PCA theological students study the Directory and its origin, or how many current pastors have ever read it.

In an unrelated article, Camille Paglia (a radical feminist) quipped that institutional religion carries with it the “majesty of history.” (1) It seems that even radical feminists appreciate what some Protestants and some people in the PCA want to minimize. Why be thankful for the “majesty of history” being on your side and at your fingertips when you can go out and “engage the culture”?

It is undeniably true that there are those in the PCA who are asking for a “larger tent” in terms of what it means to be Presbyterian in general and PCA in particular. Most certainly ecclesiastical “tents” can be too small, narrow, and constrictive, while others can be way too large and expansive.

As far as our subject in this chapter is concerned, D.G. Hart and John Muether have done an admirable job in describing Presbyterianism over the past three hundred years, thus providing with valuable insights into the warp and woof of how Presbyterians have ordered their “tent” in the past.(2) Their book chronicles eras when the Presbyterian “tent” was perhaps too small, but also they touch on epochs when the ecclesiastical tent was too large—much too large. They were so large that the inevitable results were internal ecclesiastical explosions.

What is instructive about their “too large” accounts is that there were clear warning and danger signs along the way indicating that the denomination was in trouble, but few were willing to cry “Wolf!” This is a common occurrence in many ecclesiastical circles.

Allow me to illustrate what I mean with an example from another arena: former-Supreme Court associate justice, Joseph Story. In 1829 Justice Story quipped:

Governments are not always overthrown by direct and open assaults. They are not always battered down by the arms of conquerors, or the successful daring of usurpers. There is often concealed the dry rot, which eats into the vitals, when all is fair and stately on the outside. And to republics this had been the more common fatal disease. The continual drippings of corruption may wear away the solid rock, when the tempest has failed to overturn it…(3)

Story’s point is a valid one and also one that reaches beyond the political and judicial spheres. What is most striking, I think, is his premise that it is not always the direct, frontal assaults that prove to be fatal to entities, but rather the constant repetition, year after year of an agenda, subtle innuendo, hubris, a calling into question of the current status of things, and disingenuousness. I will continue the analysis of my concerns in the next installment.

Ron Gleason, Ph.D., is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church in Yorba Linda, Calif.

@Copyright 2012 The Aquila Report – All Rights Reserved

(1) Camille Paglia, “The Joy of Presbyterian Sex,” The New Republic, Dec. 2, 1991. Reprinted in Sex, Art, and American Culture, (NY: Vintage, 1992), 36

(2) D.G. Hart & John Muether, Seeking a Better Country, (Phillipsburg, NJ: Presbyterian & Reformed Publishing, 2007).

(3) Joseph Story, “The Value and Importance of Legal Studies,” The Miscellaneous Writings of Joseph Story, (William Story [ed.]), (Boston: Little, Brown, 1852), 513.