The NAPARC Nanny State

By: Thomas F. Booher

Part 2: http://tulipdrivenlife.blogspot.com/2020/06/broad-brushing-and-yellow-wallpaper.html

Part 3: http://tulipdrivenlife.blogspot.com/2020/06/punching-right-while-leaning-left.html

Part 4: http://tulipdrivenlife.blogspot.com/2020/07/elder-ninjas-lady-teachers.html

Part 5: http://tulipdrivenlife.blogspot.com/2020/07/scary-screenshots-and-telos-of-man.html

The current Twitter storm among the Reformed is that the Facebook group Genevan Commons is full of rowdy men who have whipped themselves up into a drunken rage in the belly of a pirate ship, talking trash and slandering Aimee Byrd and others. The claim is that they are carrying out character assassination, racism, coarse jesting, and other unhinged misogynistic madness. The ones painting this picture come courtesy of the not-wicked-or-sketchy-at-all anonymously created website that posted leaked screenshots and comments, many of which are taken out of context or only given limited context, some of which are edited and doctored (PDF’s with further context still fail to tell the whole story). 

Regardless, the claim is that somehow the screenshots should immediately induce, to any sane and reasonable person, outcry and dismay. Further, this website initially listed every Genevan Commoner’s name and occupation (putting some livelihoods in jeopardy), some of whom perhaps did not even know they were in the group as they had not interacted with it in years, if ever. Thankfully, the culprit decided to take that list down after some applied pressure, apparently even from Aimee Byrd’s recent co-hosts, Carl Trueman and Todd Pruitt, and others who are generally her supporters. Nevertheless, a growing list of OPC officers have agreed that dismay is the appropriate response, and have written an open letter and signed their names to it expressing concern for "an overtly misogynistic tone," among other things, and they offer this "fraternal appeal" that "must precede any judicial charges" on none other than Mrs. Byrd's own website. Ponder all this for a few minutes. 

So after the initial exposure of everyone in Genevan Commons, it seems that Byrd’s grievances are primarily aimed against the bigger names who were/are in Genevan Commons, such as Mark Jones and Steven Wedgeworth, the various admins, and others who are in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), particularly those serving as ministers and elders. But I assume anyone who has a screenshot tagged, such as myself, is still in view. 

But my being tagged in this is not the fundamental reason why I am writing. I am not concerned that I need to clear my good name, and if anything this post will just bring undesirable attention to myself. I am writing as one burnt out, saddened, and angered over the whole state of affairs in Reformed denominations and churches. I am no longer in a NAPARC denomination, but I wish I could be. What I mean is, I wish our NAPARC denominations were more faithful to Scripture and the Reformed faith, full of men of conviction rather than compromise in the name of compassion. When I first became a Calvinist, I cut my teeth on Paul Washer, James White, John Macarthur, R.C. Sproul, and John Piper. I read John Murray’s Redemption Accomplished and Applied, Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, John Colquhoun’s book on repentance, David Wells’ God in the Wasteland. I read some Puritans, read some Calvin, read the Westminster Confession and some of its authors. And much more. I’ve graduated from Bible College and Seminary. I found in my reading and listening to these great preachers and authors, men who spoke with Spirit-wrought conviction, prophetically, with firmness and straightforwardness, to get at the heart, without the fear of man. It was moving and compelling because these men were speaking the Truth without sugar. They were speaking the Truth with salt, and it burned in a good way. It burned up all my sins and exposed me, and drew me to the grace of God in Jesus Christ. This was such a stark contrast to the compassionate and impotent Jesus that most of the Church was painting for me. 

In truth, I had hardly heard real preaching before I began listening to and reading these men. I did enter the cage-stage as many do, and spoke in sharp tones more than I understood. I came out of that over time by God’s grace, but my compassion and concern and conviction for God and His people was so hot and bright at that time that there are truly things from then that I wish I could recover. 

God first opened my eyes to His sovereign grace in Christ in 2008 at a public University, but then He began opening my eyes to something else that was awful, namely that I could not continue in my naivety that all was somehow rainbows and lollipops in Reformed land. I assumed going to Covenant College would really draw me near to God and biblical Christianity in a robust community of faith with convicted and godly young men and women who embraced the Reformed faith with the same convictions and beliefs that I did, as well as learn from older professors who would teach, mentor, and guide us. So off I went to Covenant College, the College of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA, the largest NAPARC denomination by a country mile) in 2009, only to come home devastated about ten days later (more on that soon), struggling with some serious cognitive dissonance. I began to realize that the contemporary state of the Reformed churches and its institutions were severely compromised, today I would say compromised largely by way of emasculation, both in doctrine and conviction. There was not boldness to proclaim the Reformed faith, but timidity, almost like we had to apologize and have some shame for what we believed. Many of the students I came across (not all) had no real interest or conviction in the Reformed faith, and some seemed uninterested in the things of God at all. 

Long story short, I sought answers to this jarring experience from several pastors and ministers, both in person and online. The common refrain was that what I was seeking in a Christian college was a pipe dream -- an institution with professors thoroughly committed to the Reformed faith with a student body largely committed and convicted of such a thing. I was told colleges had to raise money and so things would have to be watered down and broader in order to achieve financial stability. There was fear of offending and losing donors, and so the emphasis will always be on the side of broadness and inclusiveness. When I later tried coming under care in a particular presbytery of the PCA, I soon discovered there, too, that the belief was that you had to win people over to the sharp doctrines of Calvinism gradually, gently, softly. In fact, you had to make Calvinism something that isn’t sharp for it to ever be embraced, or to grow your church. The desire for size and money causes all sorts of mischief.

But Calvinism is a hard and sharp thing because it is a faithful expression of God’s Word. God’s Word is the sword of the Spirit. And given all the necessary qualifications, it has to be swung like a sword. That’s what Paul Washer was doing in the Shocking Youth Message video on YouTube, and it slayed me and thousands of others. I was not born again when listening to Washer, I knew I was already converted. But his message and words were rich food for my spiritually impoverished soul. The same is true of MacArthur, Sproul, and many others. I also have been blessed to sit under faithful ministers of the Word who were not ashamed of what they proclaimed, and their sermons were richly edifying and convicting. But I quickly learned that the ones calling the shots in Reformed denominations and institutions, by and large, were not such men of conviction. And if you are a man of conviction and passion, these men don’t like that. Even the ones who would like to have such conviction but don’t because they are afraid of losing their jobs or had lost their pastoral positions previously. It’s un-Christlike to them, mean-spirited, prideful, unloving and even abusive to the spiritual well-being of others to not always and only be as gentle as possible (except, of course, when rebuking someone for not being gentle enough). So, finally, I found myself going outside of NAPARC to pursue a call to pastoral ministry. Not because I probably couldn’t find the right NAPARC presbytery somewhere that could stomach me, but honestly because I had a hard time stomaching many of the ministers in power in these denominations who would never take a principled stand. I very much care about our Reformed heritage and faith, and so I long to see some of our established Reformed denominations be filled with men of conviction once more, for the good of the Church and its people, and ultimately for the good of the nations. But for me, the most effective way to do that is to serve outside of NAPARC while speaking into it, for anyone willing to lend an ear.   

This also helps explain why I found myself in Genevan Commons. Men speak passionately there, and with much conviction. They express deep concern and grief in the direction our denominations and churches are heading. They don’t want this to continue, but see time and again men in positions of authority who do not love the Church enough to tell her to repent of mixing with the spirit of the age by diluting their doctrine and practice in order to (or at least resulting in) partially conform to the world's spirit.  Many of these regrettably weak and comfortable men are leading the charge away from God’s law/will; this kills denominational faithfulness softly and slowly, but surely, and those who do not want this to happen often do not have the courage to resist. They succumb to playing by the rules of compassion and tone and etiquette that the compromisers in charge require, neutering their righteous concern. The net result is the few that do speak out in holy boldness are voices crying in the wilderness, left unheard, and if heard, looked upon with scorn, disgust, and as radical, hateful fools. Some of these prophetic voices shake the dust off their feet and move to a different denomination. 

But to give up what you can say and how you can say it, to give up firm tone and real conviction, is to give up the whole ball game. The one tool, the one offensive weapon the Church has, is the Word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:17). When the rules of engagement effectively blunt God’s Word and godly warnings and admonitions, there is no warding off the compromisers, because you are wielding a dull blade. Of course, the compromisers are only soft where they should be sharp, yet cut deeply those who wish to stand with conviction on principle. It is a clever trick and double standard that they employ time and time again. Shut down those holding the line, and give a ready and attentive ear to those slowly drifting from God's Truth. Welcome to the NAPARC Nanny State, and beware the tone police.  

God isn’t pleased to pierce hearts by His Spirit with soft words without the necessary hard words, because the message of the gospel and the kingdom of God is a hard thing to hear at first. But it is good. It is glorious. We constantly need to be shaped and molded, rebuked and restrained, reformed and refashioned into the image of God. Sanctification comes by God’s Word, the Word of truth. But when the truth is smoothed out, it becomes something less than the full truth, often becomes a lie, and the Church suffers and is led further into the error that their flesh already craves. 

So is it any wonder when women like Aimee Byrd and others, who do not like (and have been coached and taught not to like) strong words and sharp doctrinal lines that they disagree with, cry foul and link to a dishonest website that paints firm and convicted men (and often their godly and grateful wives) in the worst possible light? This has happened to some of us, the ones seeking pastoral ministry, by fellow ministers. We are cast by many as the yellow wallpaper that Mrs. Byrd has warned about. In reality, the concept this yellow wallpaper expresses is not original to her or the Feminist she borrowed it from, Charlotte Perkins Gilman. She is just echoing an idea that is already in Reformed pulpits, hence her success and platforms given to her by such men. The end goal is that men of conviction who speak with conviction and are unwilling to budge on doctrine have to be torn down to finally, at last, liberate women and men in the Church who have been suffering under this yoke (of firm doctrinal lines and firm rebuke for those departing from it in word or deed), and in so doing at last “uncover” the truer, gentler, freer words and boundaries of Scripture. 

So yes, for those involved in this current fracas, which sweeps across several Reformed and Presbyterian denominations, the stakes are high, and neither side is swinging a dull blade. Which makes this something of a NAPARC nightmare, or perhaps even an existential crisis.