The 2018 Revoice conference shook the PCA. It was hosted by a PCA church, whose ministries seemed to show just how far a contextual-missional emphasis could go. It did not help that the host church’s pastor became a sort of “mascot in an ascot” for the movement after publishing a controversial book on the subject. Though the pastor’s initial speech to the GA in 2019 was greeted with applause, Side B gay Christianity and its spokesman proved to be a bridge too far for the PCA middle. The pastor and church left in the middle7 of a discipline process that had moved in fits and starts—with traditional presbyterian slowness—and was never fully resolved. Things changed post-2019. The demographics of the assembly changed and so did the attitude.
The opening session drama at last week’s 51st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America may have signaled (or confirmed) a new era for the 51-year-old denomination. At issue was the final ratification of a Book of Church Order amendment to tighten up the denomination’s doctrine of office and ordination. The amendment passed the final hurdle and is now church law, but only after some emotional arguments against and startling (to some) admissions1 of ecclesial deviation, disorder, contextualization, or acts of conscience—depending on one’s perspective. More on all of this later; for now let us try to answer the question “In which era does the PCA find itself…and how did we get here?”
The First Era: Founding and Finding (1973-1993)
The PCA formed in 1973 as a mixed mini multitude of Southern cultural conservatives, evangelicals who usually baptized babies, and committed presbyterian confessionalists. They all knew they wanted out of the liberalizing Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS) which they expected would inevitably reunite with the Northern church and get even worse. One need only look at the resultant wretched rainbow that the PCUSA union denomination is in 2024 to see that the imperfect founders of the PCA did the right thing in 1973.
In 1982 the young PCA got an infusion of members and culturalist evangelical energy when the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod was received into the fold. Concern about cultural influence and size-matters angst probably motivated the RPCES to join and the PCA to receive. As the growing denomination asked the “Who are we?” question in its second decade, some leaders2 answered with visions of broader vistas and bigger tents.
The Second Era: Of Big Cities and Bigger Tents (1994-2018)
By 1994 most in the PCA had heard of Tim Keller’s work in New York City (which began in 1989), and they liked what they heard. The message was that the PCA could be sophisticated, urbane, relevant, and influential in a world that was becoming ever more confusing and that had a neutral3 (at best) view of evangelicals—a label most PCA folk still owned. In 1994 a group of PCA leaders felt so strongly about the dangers of growth-hampering, unity-destroying narrowness that they got together and tried to head it off. The informal gathering produced a non-official document which was revised and republished in 1998. The group, such as it was, was known as PCA Consensus.
The document the group produced (signed by the likes of Keller, Frank Barker, John Frame, James Boice, and Harry Reeder) assumed that there was a problem—that deleterious conflict already existed.
We believe that a good part of our denominational struggle has to do with the following:
I. A lack of clarity and definition about our identity and our fundamental commitments (thus producing unnecessary and prolonged conflicts).
II. A lack of vision and focus regarding our mission (thus producing unnecessary confusion).
III. A cumbersome structure and process, which have caused us to place our focus on the administrative, programmatic, constitutional, and judicial aspects of our life together rather than the doxological, theological, edificatory and relational aspects of our communal life (thus unnecessarily trivializing our presbyteries and assemblies).
Attempts have been made in the past by various groups in the church to address some of the issues facing us, but for various reasons, the proposals have not been widely accepted by the church. Our solution is to present to the church a consensual statement—A Statement of Identity—in order to begin addressing the first concern (I) stated above. We believe this will provide a “center of gravity” for the church and a basis for future discussions on our vision and polity (numbers II and III). We also believe that a consensus on key issues regarding our identity will create an environment where allowable diversity will strengthen rather than weaken us. (bolding mine)
The Statement of Identity was a fairly conservative and modest document, but its true aim—an “allowable diversity that (would) strengthen”—was realized in the two decades after 1998 in ways some of its signatories never envisioned. First came 2002’s General Assembly approval of “Good Faith Subscription,” the desire for which the Statement clearly telegraphed. Did the signatories imagine that GFS would make exceptions to historical interpretations of the Second and Fourth Commandments unexceptional…almost expected among PCA ministers? Maybe so, maybe not.4 GFS was supposedly “shepherded” by a new interest group that followed the PCA Consensus group, the Presbyterian Pastoral Leadership Network, whose leadership was more decidedly left of…well, if not the center, at least left of the PCA right. Diversity, reasonable latitude, and missional agility were obviously priorities for the PPLN. Again, Tim Keller was a notable leader in this group.