Unlike the Committee Report, the Minority Report contains no actual evaluation, theological or otherwise, of the various forms of the Insider Movement that are advocated in open missiological literature, taught in some seminaries and practiced in the field.  This lack of rigorous, detailed analysis makes it impossible to tell precisely which aspects of Insider Movement Paradigm the MR authors are recommending the PCA adopt as acceptable and which ones should be rejected

After reviewing the PCA’s 2014 Study Committee Report on Insider Movements and the 2014 Minority Report entitled, “Realities on the Ground, An Additional Perspective,” I offer the following perspective on why the Commissioners to the 2014 General Assembly should not accept the Minority Report.

The authors of the Minority Report state that they largely agree with the analysis of the Insider Movement Paradigm presented in the Committee Report; however, they also crafted an additional report encouraging presbyteries and local churches to consider the benefits of Insider Movement practices when making decisions about missions work in areas that are predominately non-Christian and are be generally hostile to the gospel of Jesus Christ.  In The Minority Report suffers from the following three critical inadequacies.

1. Unlike the Committee Report, the Minority Report contains no actual evaluation, theological or otherwise, of the various forms of the Insider Movement that are advocated in open missiological literature, taught in some seminaries and practiced in the field.  This lack of rigorous, detailed analysis makes it impossible to tell precisely which aspects of Insider Movement Paradigm the Minority Report authors are recommending the PCA adopt as acceptable and which ones should be rejected.  As seen in the open literature, there is a range of practices and techniques that fall under the rubric of Insider Movement Paradigm, but there is disagreement, even among Insider Movement advocates, on which ones are or are not acceptable.  (To get an idea of what one of the leading Insider Movement proponents actually proposes, Commissioners can Google “Insider Movement + Rebecca Lewis.”)  As noted in their report, the authors of the Minority Report have formally rejected the most egregious Insider Movement practice, that of Insider translations, but they have failed to provide any guidance on any of the other Insider Movement Paradigm practices.   As a consequence, if the Commissioners approve the Minority Report along with the Committee Report, it will throw open the door for any and all forms of Insider Movement approaches, even those that the Minority Report authors themselves might not support.  Three things need to be said about the problems this creates.
   1. If the Minority Report is not rejected, some will take this as the PCA’s tacit approval of Insider Movement Paradigm without any defined boundaries or restrictions.  Obviously, this could have serious unintended consequences.
   2. While the full range of Insider Movement practices may not be in use today by PCA missionaries, others may come along in the future and implement them since the Minority Report does not clearly identify what limitations should be placed on Insider Movement practices.
   3. Since each local church or presbytery is encouraged to decide for itself how much of Insider Movement Paradigm to employ, there will be uneven, fractured approaches to missions across the PCA.

In summary, the Minority Report encourages openness to Insider Movement Paradigm, but it does not provide the necessary specific boundaries on its practices to ensure that the integrity of the gospel is not lost in the field.

2. As the basis for concluding that Insider Movement practices are helpful or even necessary, the Part I of Minority Report describes some of the difficulties Christians face in parts of the world where Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. are the dominate religions.  Part II then presents the author’s Biblical rationale for adopting Insider Movement Paradigm to address these realities. While these insights may be helpful for mission’s committees to understand, they are not sufficient grounds to compromise the Biblically-revealed theological basis for global evangelism and disciple making which are described in the Committee Report.
3. The Study Committee on Insider Movements was commissioned to study the fundamental nature of Insider Movements and make recommendations to the PCA concerning the acceptability of Insider Movement practices as they relate to missions work in our denomination.  Adopting the Minority Report would undermine that very purpose by putting the onus back onto local churches and presbyteries to ferret out the nuances of Insider Movement Paradigm and make their own decisions on what is acceptable and what is not, without clear guidance from GA.

Finally, I noted two curiosities about the Minority Report proposal.  First, although seemingly to be in general agreement with the Committee Report , the authors of the Minority Report did not join in signing it but offer their report instead.   This raises the question about what degree they actually endorse the Committee Report.  Second, in their discussion of realities on the ground, they presented no supporting information from Muslim Background Believers themselves who advocate use of the Insider Movement Paradigm nor did they present any documentary evidence that, as a direct result of Insider Movement practices, the gospel is in fact moving within households and growing into fully functioning ecclesiastical bodies.

Wally Mertz is a ruling elder in Christ Community Church PCA) in Helena, Alabama.