Here is the reality. The Address cannot be read literally as descriptive of the PCA at its founding. The more recent letter reflects the PCA as it was and is. If one goes only by the words of the Address, then the PCA intended to be a thoroughly Reformed denomination holding strictly to the Westminster Standards. But the words of the Address and the reality of the views and practices of both the majority of the founders and the majority of the original ministers are two different things.
I’m not a Presbyterian anymore. I transferred my ministerial credentials from the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) to the Reformed Episcopal Church last November. Some may think that I jumped from one frying pan, if not into the fire, at least into another frying pan. I would not disagree. But I am used to being in the minority. I remain content with my decision. Moreover, thanks to the graciousness of the interim rector and a small REC congregation I am getting opportunities for ministry on Sundays, assisting in the liturgy and sometimes preaching.
So, in one sense I do not have a dog in the PCA fight. However, there are two factors that lead me to say something anyway: (1) I had a dog in this fight for 40 years (1973 – 2013), and, (2) I seldom am lacking an opinion.
The Aquila Report has recently carried two pieces addressing the state of the PCA. One was A Tale of Two Letters by Bob Mattes which appeared at Green Baggins. The other is Five Reasons It Might Be Time to Leave the PCA, a resolution adopted by the Session of Providence Presbyterian Church where Andy Webb is pastor. (Who are we kidding here?) The concerns of both The Tale and Five Reasons largely overlap.
A Tale of Two Letters contrasts the Address to All the Churches (for what it’s worth, I was a signatory), which was adopted by the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America as a declaration regarding the decision to leave the Presbyterian Church U.S. (the Southern Presbyterian Church) and to form the PCA, and an open letter dated January 28, 2014, calling for unity in the PCA and signed by 18 men who were involved in the founding of the denomination. Bob Mattes finds a fundamental contradiction between the two letters.
The Address declared “we are committed without reservation to the Reformed faith as set forth in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.” The January 2014 letter endorses good faith subscription as a way members can respect, love, and accept one another’s orthodoxy without becoming too broad or too narrow with regard to holding to the Westminster Standards. It notes that repeatedly the PCA has taken decisions that show that there is a “broad middle” that resists tugs to go too far to the left or to the right.
Here is the reality. The Address cannot be read literally as descriptive of the PCA at its founding. The more recent letter reflects the PCA as it was and is. If one goes only by the words of the Address, then the PCA intended to be a thoroughly Reformed denomination holding strictly to the Westminster Standards. But the words of the Address and the reality of the views and practices of both the majority of the founders and the majority of the original ministers are two different things.
My guess as to how we got the Address: (1) The only real theologian among the founders was Dr. Morton H. Smith, who was fully committed to the Standards and the Southern Presbyterian tradition. The Address was modeled after and drew language from the Address adopted by the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America (later PCUS) to give its rationale for forming a separate church. (2) The founders of the PCA had been pointing out how the PCUS had departed from its roots and original commitments and calling for a return to the old church’s commitments. But what to say and how to say it? (3) The necessity to say something to explain the reasons for the PCA, the need for a historic standard to contrast the PCUS with the new denomination, and Dr. Smith’s status as a theologian, theological commitments, and influence in the area of theological foundations led to the proposal that the Assembly adopt the Address.
But the address did not reflect the real operating (as distinct from formal) theology of the majority of the founders of the PCA. Your operating theology is what you believe that makes a difference in what you preach and how you go about your ministry. The PCA was formed by conservative men most of whom were educated at Columbia Theological Seminary and who were part of the broadly evangelical coalition on the right of the PCUS. That broadly evangelical group had a “mix” of theological views that included such theological influences as dispensationalism, Finneyism, higher life pietism, and Westminster Calvinism. The majority of those who were Reformed and who were part of that coalition were not the fire-eating TR types. Nor were they the Puritan applicatory preaching sort. Rather they were Southern Presbyterian teaching ministers.
The main things that these men with diverse views and practices agreed on were that the PCUS had gone too far in the direction of theological liberalism, that the Bible is inerrant and infallible, and that people are lost and need a Savior (hence the commitment to evangelism and missions). From the beginning the PCA was mission not theologically driven. It was never a strict subscription denomination. Those who formed the minority on the hard right of the PCA were almost entirely young men who had been educated at Reformed Theological Seminary (those who sat together in one of the wings at old Briarwood and voted together at the first General Assembly). They held to Westminster Calvinism, Southern Presbyterian polity, Puritan experiential piety, and Kuyperian cultural engagement.
If you think the PCA was from the beginning committed to the Reformed faith without reservations, consider: (1) Two of the PCA’s founding organizations were the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship and The Presbyterian Journal, neither of which was representative of the views of those who are unreservedly committed to the Reformed faith and the Westminster Standards. (2) Early decisions of the PCA included: (a) not to have a full Directory for Worship which shows the PCA was not at its founding a regulative principle denomination, and (b) to enter cooperative agreements with non-Reformed and para-church agencies for the purpose overseas mission work which shows the PCA did not hold to either strict Reformed theology nor to the church as the divinely ordained agency for evangelization. (3) Very soon after the PCA was formed the founders of Reformed Theological Seminary and its ministerial advisers made efforts to reign in their TRs and not to produce such graduates in the future. Bill Hill and others were deeply disturbed that TRs did not give “invitations.” The TRs were perceived as “anti-women” by some. (4) I was baptized by a dispensationalist PCUS minister. I grew up under (a) a Westminster Seminary educated minister who loved Machen and Murray but never liked PCA TRs and (b) a Columbia Seminary educated evangelistic pietist who came to like some TRs – sorta. They were followed by (a) a Lloyd-Jones wannabe who didn’t like TRs, (b) a foreign politician who didn’t like TRs, and (c) a one time TR who became a sonship minister. This church was the home of the Pensacola Theological Institute and influential in the formation of the PCA. (4) Consider some of the most influential of the founders of the PCA: Don Patterson, Jack Williamson, Frank Barker, Bill Hill, Bob Cannada, Kennedy Smart, Jim Baird. These were one and all good and courageous men whose zeal for God and the Gospel are unquestioned. But it is absurd to believe they intended the PCA to be literally what is called for in the Address.
This brings us to the resolution adopted by the Providence Presbyterian Church Session which gives five reasons it may be time to leave the PCA: (1) A Failure to Exercise Discipline, (2) Anarchy in Worship, (3) A Failure to Safeguard the Sacraments, (4) A Failure to Maintain the Teaching of Scripture Regarding Six-Day Creation, and (5) A Failure to Stand Against Moral Compromise.
A Tale of Two Letters and Five Reasons, as would be expected, share many of the specific concerns. A Tale lists: “So, since our 1973 founding, the PCA has ‘progressed’ from ‘committed without reservation’ to our Standards, to a ‘good faith subscription’ approach that has opened the PCA’s door to paedocommunion, intinction, female pseudo-officers, Federal Vision, theistic evolution (e.g., Biologos), et al, all of which depart from the Scriptures and the Standards.” To these Five Reasons adds the diversity of worship practices, disregard for the Sabbath, the failure to convict FVers Peter Leithart or Jeff Meyers, the failure to address the views on creation apparently held by Tim Keller, and the compliance of RUM with the Vanderbilt requirement that leadership in student organizations must be open to all regardless of religious beliefs or sexual orientation.
Specific issues have changed. Some things which were issues 40+ years ago have receded while new ones have risen. But the fundamental reality of the PCA remains. It never was, is not, and very unlikely ever will be a denomination that holds to the Reformed faith without reservation and strictly subscribes to the Westminster Standards.
The questions for those who look to the past that never was and those who wonder if the time to leave has come is, Where are you going to go? Which of the options is really acceptable? Which would allow you to live in peace and not have to fight? How tightly can the wagons be circled? How long till the conviction, “Everybody’s crazy save me and thee” must be qualified to “But sometimes I’m not so sure about thee”?
No answers here. But one caution: Some dogs bite.
O Gracious Father, we humbly beseech thee for thy Holy Catholic Church; that thou wouldest be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it. Where it is right, establish it; where it is in want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake of him who died and rose again, and ever liveth to make intercession for us, Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen. Book of Common Prayer
Bill Smith is a minister in the Reformed Episcopal Church. He is a writer and contributor to a number of Reformed journals and resides in Roanoke, Va. This article first appeared on his blog, The Christian Curmudgeon, and is used with permission.