By: Thomas F. Booher
I would encourage you to read (in print or online) Matthew Poole's commentary on I Corinthians 5. The PCA has been leavened with scandalous wickedness for years & hasn't purged it out. They have not because there has been a lack of a will to do so. This is not an indictment of those who truly have fought (and were largely ignored even by naive conservatives) to purge the leaven that was among them (and it isn't just Greg Johnson/Side-B issues, it's woke-ism, feminism, phony racist charges, etc.). But it is to say that whether we like it or not, in Presbyterianism you are covenanted together, even if the worst leaven isn't in your Presbytery.
This spreadsheet is constantly updated and shows how grim things really are in the PCA. Overture 37 is already dead, and overture 23 is on the brink of failing as well. Both of them, but especially 23, would have focused on eradicating "gay but celibate" Christian pastors in the PCA.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k0xdOpSv1U-sRlS2jC32ZwVF_GVdm7RKS0xIIQrzZi4/edit#gid=0
Given the almost certain failure of both overtures, notice the multiplication of what seem to me to be panic pieces disguised as "don't panic" by conservatives in the PCA rebuking (as always) those to the right of them who are considering leaving the PCA (or already have) for the sake of being faithful. Many who left the PCA or are considering leaving see the wicked leaven in the PCA and don't see any means of recourse, and many of them fought for years trying to purge the leaven out before it spread like cancer. Sadly, other conservatives, more prominent ones, largely ignored or underestimated how much leaven there was, and how quickly it would spread.Here's a quote from one fairly desperate attempt (IMHO) at controlling the narrative and assuring everyone that the PCA is fine: "Therefore, some of the majority, to some extent, share the concerns of the minority. That is, 15 of the 24 men on the SJC have now, to some extent, gone on official record to express concern over TE Johnson’s views. This development contradicts claims that TE Johnson’s views were exonerated by the SJC in Speck v. Missouri Presbytery. In the case, the SJC decision represented an adjudication regarding a particular presbytery’s process by evaluating the investigative process of Missouri Presbytery. This case was chiefly about Missouri Presbytery and not about TE Johnson or his views. The case was about evaluating Missouri Presbytery’s investigation of TE Johnson. At the very least, the SJC has not vindicated TE Johnson (as Johnson claims), and this case has not made the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) into a Side-B denomination (as some concerned onlookers are beginning to claim). Basically, the door has not closed on this issue in the PCA. The denomination will continue to navigate the perilous waters of this controversy in the courts and pulpits of the Church. Be in prayer for the peace and purity of the Presbyterian Church in America."
https://pcapolity.com/.../dissent-response-concurrences.../
MY COMMENTS: The SJC was a bad ruling for conservatives/faithful in the PCA, but my above comment links to an article where the conservatives are trying to say what amounts to, "Wait a sec, see, it's not so bad after all. SOME of the majority share SOME of the concerns of the conservative minority to SOME extent. The door on the issue isn't closed." Wow, what a rallying cry. Purging out the old leaven of homosexuality isn't an entirely DEAD issue. The door isn't quite closed on being faithful on something so basic, yet.
Here's another misguided assurance of the PCA's health, part 1 of a series, and I'll comment below after quoting from it: https://rfbwcf.substack.com/p/its-not-time-to-leave
"Even if the required 67% of presbyteries fail to approve the critical BCO Amendments this year, I remain optimistic about the health of the PCA. If the amendments are not approved, that doesn’t mean the PCA has sided with progressives, post-modernists, or the Gay “Christian” movement.
Consider the votes within the presbyteries, for example. Each Presbytery receives one vote regardless of its size. The raw data available reveal a good number of the presbyteries rejecting the amendments are extraordinarily small in terms of number of churches and elders.5 For example, one presbytery voting against these amendments had only 14 elders present and that presbytery’s vote counts just as much as a presbytery with 100 or more elders."
MY COMMENTS: Now the article linked in this comment expresses optimism about the PCA's health EVEN IF THE PRESBYTERIES FAIL TO APPROVE THE CRITICAL BCO AMENDMENTS! Really? That's like being told by one physician that your cancer is so bad its inoperable, but you remain hopeful that a second opinion/alternative medicine can bring the healing you need to your body. Sure, you can try everything you can, but "optimistic" isn't the word I would use at that point. I'd use something closer to desperate, or last ditch, or exhaust all alternatives. The bigger issue, which I cannot develop in full here but have elsewhere, is that amending the BCO is itself a desperate measure. Our Confessions and Catechisms are clear on the "gay but celibate" issue. It's just that some presbyteries in the PCA, quite a few of them, are so leavened that they deny what their own confessions say, and most importantly, what God's Word says. The conservatives in the PCA know this, and so they have to try something desperate like amend the BCO to do something that should be so plain and obvious that you'd have to be utterly incompetent and disqualified to be a minister to miss it, or outright malicious and heretical.
The quote above from the article also tries to argue that the presbyteries rejecting are somehow small ones in terms of number of churches and elders. But don't take his word for it. Look at the actual data in the spreadsheet that I linked above. The tallies tab shows that both large and small presbyteries are rejecting the overtures, and large and small presbyteries are accepting the overtures. In fact, Overture 37, which is already dead, has only earned 54.23% of the vote, and Overture 23 which is hanging on by a thread has received only 56.22%.
So I am pleading with conservatives in the PCA, especially pastors and leaders but laypersons too -- look at the situation soberly, and heed God's command through Paul in I Cor. 5 to not "glory" right now in the PCA. "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."
And given it's been years and things are looking pretty bleak, you need to consider if you can in good conscience before the Lord remain in the PCA.
"Even if the required 67% of presbyteries fail to approve the critical BCO Amendments this year, I remain optimistic about the health of the PCA. If the amendments are not approved, that doesn’t mean the PCA has sided with progressives, post-modernists, or the Gay “Christian” movement.
Consider the votes within the presbyteries, for example. Each Presbytery receives one vote regardless of its size. The raw data available reveal a good number of the presbyteries rejecting the amendments are extraordinarily small in terms of number of churches and elders.5 For example, one presbytery voting against these amendments had only 14 elders present and that presbytery’s vote counts just as much as a presbytery with 100 or more elders."
MY COMMENTS: Now the article linked in this comment expresses optimism about the PCA's health EVEN IF THE PRESBYTERIES FAIL TO APPROVE THE CRITICAL BCO AMENDMENTS! Really? That's like being told by one physician that your cancer is so bad its inoperable, but you remain hopeful that a second opinion/alternative medicine can bring the healing you need to your body. Sure, you can try everything you can, but "optimistic" isn't the word I would use at that point. I'd use something closer to desperate, or last ditch, or exhaust all alternatives. The bigger issue, which I cannot develop in full here but have elsewhere, is that amending the BCO is itself a desperate measure. Our Confessions and Catechisms are clear on the "gay but celibate" issue. It's just that some presbyteries in the PCA, quite a few of them, are so leavened that they deny what their own confessions say, and most importantly, what God's Word says. The conservatives in the PCA know this, and so they have to try something desperate like amend the BCO to do something that should be so plain and obvious that you'd have to be utterly incompetent and disqualified to be a minister to miss it, or outright malicious and heretical.
The quote above from the article also tries to argue that the presbyteries rejecting are somehow small ones in terms of number of churches and elders. But don't take his word for it. Look at the actual data in the spreadsheet that I linked above. The tallies tab shows that both large and small presbyteries are rejecting the overtures, and large and small presbyteries are accepting the overtures. In fact, Overture 37, which is already dead, has only earned 54.23% of the vote, and Overture 23 which is hanging on by a thread has received only 56.22%.
So I am pleading with conservatives in the PCA, especially pastors and leaders but laypersons too -- look at the situation soberly, and heed God's command through Paul in I Cor. 5 to not "glory" right now in the PCA. "Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us."
And given it's been years and things are looking pretty bleak, you need to consider if you can in good conscience before the Lord remain in the PCA.
Brothers, we need faithful pastors, faithful churches, and faithful denominations. Denying the disease, the wicked leaven that has been spreading and festering in the PCA for years is not faithfulness. It is dishonest, and it is disobedience. We may have differing opinions about the exact health of the PCA or lack thereof, and wisdom is justified by her children, but let none of us say that the Lord is pleased with the PCA when it cannot and/or will not purge the leaven from among its midst. We are unleavened, Christ was sacrificed for us, yet we have many wolves in sheep's clothing in our midst, many doctrines and practices of demons who teach their error unabated, hiding behind Presbyterian politics and bureaucratic bloat. Most conservatives in the PCA seem to refrain from calling out someone as a wolf until after they've already taken off the sheep's clothing. But the wolves only do so after they've eaten the sheep!
May God raise up righteous men to actually fight with the spirit of a prophet for the health of the PCA, calling out the wolves in sheep's clothing while the wolf is still in disguise and most dangerous. Or may the faithful ones realize the PCA is too thoroughly leavened with wickedness to be redeemed, and depart from her for the glory of God, the purity of His Church, and the advancement of His kingdom. In this way, let us indeed pray for the purity of the Church, and in that purity, its peace.
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