The Tulip Driven Life

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:/...

Wow. Friends, I have no doubt that this conference is going to show that prominent professors/theologians/pastors in the SBC, PCA, OPC, and ARP, among other denominations, have lost sight of the heart of the gospel. "Just Gospel" is going to be a coming out party of redefining the Gospel by claiming that much of the evangelical church in the United States hasn't really had the Gospel for, I don't know, probably at least 60 years. Irwyn Ince, last year's PCA GA Moderator, along with SBC President J.D. Greear, are at this shindig. Leon Brown, now of the ARP but also still with Covenant College I believe, as well as the Edmondson's of the OPC, are also involved. Of course, I agree the church has lost the heart of the Gospel, but what's going to be proclaimed here, if it is remotely in keeping with what these men and women have been saying, isn't going to be remotely close to "just" the Gospel. Conservative churches will have to speak out against...

By: Thomas F. Booher The Reformed church is dying at the feet of Wokeback Mountain, and some prominent ministers are beginning to erect high places on Wokeback Mountain. If you told me ten years ago, when I first became a flame-throwing, cage-stage Calvinist, or even several years later after I matured a bit, that this is where we would be at the end of 2018, I would not have believed you. The Reformed church has been cowed by the culture, especially the homosexual culture and the so-called racial reconciliation movement. The Revoice conference put this on the map for homosexuality, and the MLK 50 conference did the same for racial issues, but make no mistake, these things didn't just pop out of the ground overnight. They have been growing and festering long before I knew anything about the doctrines of grace. Nine years ago I saw it at Covenant College, which is the college of the PCA, when my psychology professor praised his gay friend for marrying a woman a...

By: Thomas F. Booher Due to my lack of time, this will either be the last chapter I review for a while, or I will begin reviewing the other chapters in a much briefer format. At any rate, this chapter by Alexander Jun is going to still be a lengthy review, as it is the longest chapter by far and will be met with some of my strongest disagreement. In case you were unaware, Alexander Jun (the author of this chapter) was elected as the moderator last year of the PCA General Assembly. Per the bio on each author, he is "a TEDx speaker and Professor of Higher Education at Azusa Pacific University’s School of Behavior and Applied Sciences. He has published on issues of postsecondary access for historically underrepresented students in underserved areas and conducts research on equity, justice, and diversity issues in higher education. He is author of From Here to University: Access, Mobility, and Resilience Among Urban Latino Youth and White Out: Understanding White Privilege ...

By: Thomas F. Booher I have decided to write chapter-by-chapter reviews of the book All Are Welcome: Toward a Multi-Everything Church, which is edited by Leon Brown. (Find parts two , three , four , and five of my review here). Each chapter is written by a different author, not a few of whom are in the PCA, my own denomination. From the book's introduction we find that:  "Within these pages you will hear from men and women, African Americans, an Indian American, a Hispanic, and those of mixed-ethnic heritage. Their insights are valuable. Their perspectives—like yours—have been shaped by their cultures, ethnic heritages, histories, and financial standings." This book comes with endorsements from some real heavy hitters in the Reformed world, including Michael Horton, Derek Thomas, D. Clair Davis, and others. The exhortation from Horton and others is to let non-whites/ethnic minorities do more talking concerning racial reconciliation. Horton also adds that...

By: Thomas F. Booher NOTE: I posted what's below to Facebook on this day, December 6, 2016. I wanted to post this here for record keeping and so that it can have a more visible and permanent viewership for those concerned or wishing to be more informed about the PCA.  I would like to explain my love for and grave concerns within the PCA (Presbyterian Church in America), the denomination in which I am currently a member and have served as a ruling elder. The state of the PCA is, in my estimation, not a consistently conservative, orthodox, and confessional one. I believe it is in the midst of much compromise, and I do not think that the average lay person is aware of it. It grieves me to say these things. I wish they were not true. I grew up in the PCA, and until several years ago I was still under the delusion that all was well in this denomination, that it was, by and large, holding fast to the Word of God. I still believe that there are many...

By: Thomas F. Booher             How is the Gold Become Dim chronicles the decline of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., from its original intention to be faithful to the Westminster Standards and Reformed faith. The book was first published when many conservatives in the denomination were enacting measures to form a Continuing Presbyterian Church, which would become known as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). At its founding the Southern Presbyterian Church was committed to the spirituality of the church, but over time and due to war, it began to leave its true calling for a social gospel and political agenda which consequently lead the denomination away from its Constitution and the Word of God.             By the mid 1930’s the PCUS began to seriously depart from its distinctives (22). The Hay Watson Smith case of 1929 opened doors for the denomination to beco...