Volume 4 Issue 2
Page 2

August 1999

RANDOM THOUGHTS

E C. Case, Editor

Not every aspect of the Assembly was negative, of course. The sermon preached on Thursday night by Dr. Albert Mohler, President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, was as good as one might hope to hear in any forum. On the down side, however, his message was bracketed by a 'worship' (or, as we were later informed, an 'inspirational') service which caused one of our friends to comment that he felt like he needed to make another pass through Bob Jones University to cleanse himself of the feeling that he had just fallen back into his old bar-hopping days.

The new Stated Clerk of the Assembly, Dr. L. Roy Taylor, was conspicuous mostly by being inconspicuous. Dr. Taylor appears to view the role of the Stated Clerk as being one of service to the Assembly, rather than one of leadership. Certainly he does not seem to view himself as a sort of 'first elder' of the Assembly. We have also noted, in matters not related to the meeting of the Assembly itself, that Dr. Taylor is determined to serve all parts and precincts of the church. Our hope is that this pattern will continue to be evident in his handling of his new position. We also hope the fact that we have felt led to say a few kind words about him does not get him into any sort of difficulty.

In one of the few semi-decisive actions taken, the Assembly adopted, with some modifications, a personal resolution which was offered by Dr. Joseph Pipa, the President of Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. This resolution, which affirms the historicity, self-consistency, and truth of the creation account in Genesis chapters one and two, as well as the divine creation of the universe and of Adam and Eve as progenitors of the human race, and which denies macro evolution, was evidently put forth in the attempt to take these items off the table, so to speak, in connection with the work of the study committee on creation, which asked for more time to do their work. The final form of the resolution as adopted by the Assembly incorporated language from the creation study committee's report to the Assembly.

The matter of the meaning of the word 'day' in the creation account is still on the table, and presumably the committee will be focusing on that issue. It will be interesting, to say the least, to see how the committee is going to be able to come to the Assembly with a unified report.

The Assembly did act decisively in one significant area having to do with an overture from Evangel Presbytery which would have had the effect of undermining and ultimately destroying the authority of the Constitutional Documents (The Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, and the Book of Church Order) in judicial cases. The guise under which this subversion has been, and is being peddled, is a superficially noble sounding perversion of the teaching of the Confession of Faith itself that Scripture is 'the supreme judge by which all controversies of religion are to be determined' (WCF 1.10). As far as we know, no one who genuinely subscribes to and takes seriously their subscription to the Confession of Faith, disputes the fact that Scripture is to be the final authority-the final court of appeal, if you will-in all controversies of religion.

The problem that arises, of course, is that Scripture has been interpreted differently, not only by different individuals, but also by different bodies with more or less valid claims of being the Church.

In adopting the Confession, the Catechisms, and the BCO, the Presbyterian Church in America has not taken the position that these documents are superior or even equal to Scripture in terms of final authority. What we have said, in adopting these documents, however, is that these documents teach what we, as the Presbyterian Church in America, have come together in agreement on concerning the doctrines of Holy Scripture.

Having said this, then, we have further agreed that in controversies arising within the body, decisions are to be rendered on the basis of the common confession and agreement of the church as reflected in her constitutional documents. This, ideally, provides every member and office-bearer in the church the assurance that judicial cases which may affect them personally will not be adjudicated based upon the whim of a simple majority of individuals (whether in a Session, on the Presbytery level, or in the little general assembly that is called the Standing Judicial Commission) who may take it upon themselves to decide that the constitutional documents are incorrect at a given point.

To be sure, this simple majority of individuals may piously declare that they have rendered a decision according to their own best judgment as to the teaching of Scripture; but what they will have done is put themselves and their judgment in place of the historic collective wisdom of the church. The practical effect of this individualistic arrogance is that the parties in judicial cases tried before a court of the church (or its delegated commission) are deprived of any reasonable hope that their cases will be decided on the basis of a commonly agreed upon and unified set of standards. Instead, these parties are at the mercy of whatever the majority of the court in question may decide, on its own authority, is the teaching of Scripture. Nor are we impressed with the claim that this approach need not be inconsistent with a very high regard given to the place of the constitutional documents in this process.

The fact is that the situation will quickly become one in which, there being no king in the land-no unified point of authority-every man does that which is right in his own eyes. The result is chaos and spiritual anarchy. The Southern Baptists have discovered this, with their peculiar perversion of the doctrine of the priesthood of believers. The modernists in the SBC have, in fact, attempted to make this notion of 'soul competency,' as it is sometimes referred to, their city of refuge in the face of the conservative takeover in that denomination. Thus the strange spectacle of Scripture becoming the last refuge of scoundrels who are committed to undermining and destroying the authority of Scripture.

The Assembly Committee on Constitutional Business weighed in with its opinion that the Evangel Overture would correct 'a constitutional deficiency in the language of RAO (Rules of Assembly Operations) 15-1, as amended by the 24th General Assembly.' This is utter nonsense. What is evident, rather, is that we have at least one Presbytery and an Assembly committee, as well as a number of individuals, who are either ignorant of the place and role of creeds and such in the life of the Church, or else are consciously seeking to undermine the authority of our constitutional documents. Thankfully we note that the Assembly was not persuaded.

Perhaps the most hotly debated issue before the Assembly was the question of whether to adopt the report of the special study committee on women in combat, which report concluded that women should not be subject to the draft nor be put into combat situations. The Assembly ended up receiving the report as advice to the churches, and continued the committee, with three additional members to be added, to perfect the report for presentation at the 28th Assembly. We are sympathetic to the argument of those who take the principled position that this is not an issue which is properly before the Assembly; but we have the uneasy feeling that the reason the Assembly was reluctant to adopt the report was fear of what those whose opinion should really count for nothing with us might think-armed forces brass, feminists, the news media, etc.

Ever since the debate over the women's work at the first Assembly, the PCA has been wishy-washy on the role of women in the church. This lack of resolve in the face of mounting egalitarian pressures from society at large and from certain quarters in the church was demonstrated at this most recent Assembly, not only in regard to the question of women in combat (which, as we have noted, is at least subject to principled opposition from those who think that this is not a proper issue for consideration by a church court), nor only from the fact that the report of the Committee on Christian Education and Publications given on the floor of the Assembly left us with the impression that the ladies are pretty much running the show in some aspects of the work of that committee, but also in connection with a couple of overtures which sought to address the real and present problem of women reading/teaching/preaching in the pulpit. One of these overtures was denied on the pretext that such issues should first be addressed by the lower courts. The other was denied with the excuse that there was an insufficient exegetical basis provided for what was requested in the overture. Lord willing, in a future issue, the matter of public preaching and teaching by women and other unordained persons will be addressed more fully, and more will be said about these two overtures and the way in which the Assembly handled them.

When the PCA finally gets around to approving the ordination of women to the pulpit ministry it will just be the final touch in the on-going feminization of the church. When that finally takes place, however, the only substantial difference will be that the ladies in the pulpit will be wearing skirts instead of suits. As Douglas Wilson pointed out in a recent issue of CREDENDA/AGENDA, the evangelical church really will not be able to say too much about having pretty women in the pulpits, since these same pulpits have been filled by pretty men for years.