What Covenant Presbytery has wisely done is encourage parties to reconcile. This is always the goal anyhow: to agree in the Lord, to dwell in unity and peace. The resolution adopted by Covenant Presbytery exhorts everyone to do so while acknowledging that “mistakes were made,” which provides an opportunity for repentance and reconciliation. The decision of the SJC identifies some of the specific errors that were made by Church Courts in this case, which would be a good starting point for reconciliation.
The case of the Jonesboro 7 was a travesty of ecclesiastical justice. So much so the Standing Judicial Commission of the PCA even noted the process was “abused.” I’ve written about the Jonesboro 7 somewhat extensively here and on PCA Polity.1 Others have written about it too (here and here).
As such, I planned to write no more on this subject. I thought further analysis would only distract from the good work of a thriving church plant in Jonesboro.
But there has been a new development in reference to the case, something that – according to one former General Assembly Moderator – is unprecedented.
At its February 2024 meeting, Covenant Presbytery considered an overture from the Session of Christ Covenant PCA in Hernando, Missippi. The Overture urged reconciliation between the men known as the Jonesboro 7 and Covenant Presbytery, which sustained their wrongful conviction. The Moderator of Covenant Presbytery is RE David Caldwell, but he – as a member of the previous Temporary Session – has relinquished the chair on all Jonesboro 7 matters (according to a confidential source within Covenant Presbytery).
After some debate, the overture was referred to the Presbytery’s Church Care Committee (CCC). On May 21, 2024 Covenant Presbytery – meeting at the Independent Presbyterian Church of Memphis – overwhelmingly adopted seven recommendations from the CCC.
You can find all seven recommendations here. I’m going to focus on four things Covenant Presbytery did in adopting these recommendations.
Recognize
The Presbytery unequivocally and without qualification recognized that “mistakes were made” in the judicial case. But the Presbytery went further and apologized and expressed regret specifically for not following “the process laid out in BCO 32-5.”
This is nothing short of remarkable. And it is what the gospel enables people to do; to apologize when they have done wrong. Here a whole church court has recognized its failure to uphold proper procedure and not only apologized, but expressed its regret.
As part of this recognition, the Presbytery urged its members to “read all SJC decisions, especially those that pertain to cases in which our Presbytery or our members were involved.” The SJC decision and concurring opinion clearly identify where there were failures of procedure by the Presbytery and Session in this case.
Covenant Presbytery is to be commended for not seeking to conceal its past oversights and mistakes, but to learn from them for the future and to direct the people to the SJC Report where those oversights and mistakes were catalogued.
Remind
The Presbytery honed in on the specific issue that was such a grievous oversight by the Temporary Session (largely consisting of elders from IPC Memphis, the host church for the May 21, 2024 Presbytery meeting): the lack of specificity in the indictment.
The men were told they violated the Fifth and Ninth Commandments in the indictment. The indictment quoted from the PCA Constitution regarding those Commandments, but there were no specifics regarding when, where, and how the Law of God was (allegedly) breached by their conduct.
This left the Jonesboro 7 wholly unable to prepare a defense, since they weren’t told how they sinned only that they did. In fact when the Jonesboro 7 pleaded with their Session to tell them what they were accused of, TE Jeff Wreyford – their pastor at the time – wrote them: “it seems disingenuous for you to continue to insist that you do not know what you are being charged with.”2
This curious interpretation of what an indictment requires (or doesn’t require) was embraced by Covenant Presbytery when she denied the appeal of the Jonesboro 7.
The Presbytery Representatives, including a nationally-renowned lawyer from Arkansas, defended the defective indictments even before the SJC.