PCA Macro Trends - American Reformer

A Brief Reflection and Typology

Two weeks ago, the 52nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America convened in Chattanooga to conduct the business of the denomination. Because the PCA is the largest theologically conservative Presbyterian and Reformed denomination in the country, its proceedings are significant in their own right. Already many pastors and elders, as is custom, have published some good recaps of what transpired. What interests me, and I suspect is true for most spectators, are macro-level trends which continue to point to an ongoing political realignment gaining ground in the highest court of the denomination.

The PCA is on its present trajectory because of a controversy that began at the inaugural Revoice Conference in 2018 and culminated in then-PCA pastor Greg Johnson’s floor speech at the 47th General Assembly in Dallas. Suddenly, many elders in the PCA felt as if the LGTBQ+ ideology which they had faithfully resisted even while it consumed their mainline counterpart had found a foothold in their church.

However, it would be a mistake to remember the Revoice controversy as primarily a theological one. It wasn’t. After all, the PCA’s Human Sexuality Report, which clearly articulated a faithful understanding of the Bible’s teaching on sexuality, passed with near unanimous support at the 48th General Assembly. Rather, the true legacy of Revoice is a renegotiation of the political consensus that governs church business.

For many years, that consensus was formed by a particular understanding of “grassroots Presbyterianism.” Those who came together to form the PCA in 1973 took special umbrage at the kind of centralized church power they had experienced in the mainline which they believed had facilitated theological drift. Since then, the PCA’s commitment to federalization of church power between local sessions, regional presbyteries, and a national assembly has occupied the core of the PCA’s self-understanding and animates all its policies and procedures.

However, when lower courts were unable (or unwilling) to properly discipline a man who professed a “gay Christian” identity in clear violation of Scripture and the PCA’s confessional standards, a reassessment of grassroots, federalist Presbyterianism was necessary. As Anton Chigurh would say, if the rule brought us to this, of what use was the rule?

Even when Johnson and his church left the denomination in 2022, many, both ordained and laymen alike, felt as if their trust in the former iteration of grassroots Presbyterianism had been shattered. It became imperative that officers address the underlying structural problems that made the controversy possible in the first place.

This history is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is that it curiously mirrors political fissures in the broader culture. Asking “What does it mean to be a grassroots Presbyterian?” is not principally different from asking “What does it mean to be an American?”

Both are questions of first principles and contingent on a particular conception of history, tradition, and ethos applied to real events. This is, at its most basic level, a political issue and explains why the present debates within the denomination mirror the intensity and intractability of those in our nation’s politics. Why else would pastors spend precious hours debating how a particular exception is recorded in the minutes of a committee meeting? Because it is, under the surface, a battle for the very soul of the denomination: what kind of grassroots Presbyterianism will we have?

As I listened to debates on the floor, and in remarks by elders at para-assembly events, I heard two distinct visions of the PCA’s core identity. There are Presbyterian Evangelicals and then there are Evangelical Presbyterians.

The first, and what I argue was the consensus prior to the Revoice controversy, is Presbyterian Evangelicalism. This vision is wedded to the modern evangelical movement, particularly that which grew out of the more cosmopolitan flavor of the Young, Restless, and Reformed Movement of the late 90’s and early 00’s. Their champion remains the late Tim Keller who was a faithful churchman in the PCA, but no doubt rubbed against the tradition in his own unique way.

The Presbyterian Evangelicals only want as much review and control from the General Assembly as is absolutely necessary in order to maximize autonomy at the presbytery level. Their vision for grassroots Presbyterianism offers the space that churches need in order to follow Keller’s model of contextualization and the freedom to deemphasize, even transgress, certain aspects of the tradition for the sake of the greater evangelistic mission. While Keller, of course, never denounced the Westminster Standards, the publication of his New City Catechism illustrates the relationship between Presbyterian Evangelicals and the tradition. It is not stark departure, but neither is it dogged fealty to inherited confessional or denominational forms. The Keller model was generally cosmopolitan in ethos and urban in context, but the appeal of his ministerial success extended beyond city centers.

Those on the other side of the aisle are the Evangelical Presbyterians. They represent the evolving consensus that is far more suspicious of modern evangelicalism even as they incorporate certain elements like large para-church ministries and institutions into their ecclesiology. Since Revoice, the Evangelical Presbyterians have directed a lot of their energy toward the General Assembly, using the yearly meeting to try and steer the denomination toward greater conformity with the tradition, especially on matters related to subscription to the Westminster Standards. The Evangelical Presbyterians, while no doubt wary of ceding too much power to the denomination’s permanent committees and agencies, see greater enforcement of rules and standards by the General Assembly as an essential but underutilized mechanism of true grassroots Presbyterianism.

We saw the divide between these two sides most starkly during the debate over Overture 12, a measure that would have limited authority of distributing the Lord’s Supper to ordained officers only. Presbyterian Evangelicals spoke against the measure as top-down enforcement of a policy that likely violated the regulative principle of worship (RPW). Evangelical Presbyterians argued the opposite, using the RPW to defend the measure while also speaking to its continuity with the tradition. The vote was one of the closest of the Assembly though it ultimately failed 1080-922.

The back and forth during other debates suggested a similar divide, especially with respect to the review of exceptions of substance in presbytery records, who should have voting power on the Administrative Committee, and the duty of sessions to examine young children on their understanding of the membership vows they take before coming to the Lord’s Supper. However, none of these votes were as close as Overture 12 with both sides having their fair share of wins and losses.

So, what does that mean for the PCA going forward? The feeling of ambivalence toward the 52nd General Assembly, broadly shared by both the Evangelical Presbyterians and the Presbyterian Evangelicals, reflects the important crossroads the denomination finds itself at. While the former probably feel like they’ve managed to stave off the latest advance of the latter, demographics may have them worried.

For example, the attendance at the American Reformer event held during one of the evenings of recess was, on average, noticeably younger than that of the General Assembly as a whole. These younger Millennials and Zoomers are eager to see the PCA reach deeper into historic Presbyterianism on all matters including but not limited to political theology in ways that older Presbyterian Evangelicals would almost certainly oppose. The younger cohort is interested in confessional fidelity and is not opposed to the use of formal enforcement mechanisms to achieve it. Still, Evangelical Presbyterians have much work to do if they want to capture the imaginations of elders less invested in the internecine politics of the PCA. Like most evangelical denominations, only a fraction of elders attend the General Assembly. Even if many of them are aligned with the Evangelical Presbyterians, getting them to invest in the General Assembly is no small task. In other words, many would-be Evangelical Presbyterians are de facto or functionally Presbyterian Evangelicals.

All of this points to the reality that broader cultural trends are manifesting in and even shaping the course of the PCA. While we would certainly like to believe our sacred calling rises above the influence of the secular world, the truth is that it’s happening and for good reason. Grace does not destroy nature. Men, even Christian men, remain political creatures worthy of such noble efforts.

In fact, it may be from this political contest that a synthesis emerges powerful enough to propel the PCA into its next evolution: an identity committed to conformity with the tradition precisely because historic Presbyterianism is the best evangelistic answer to the rootlessness of postmodern culture. What younger Evangelical Presbyterians want, however, is not piecemeal conformity to the tradition, but robust, holistic embrace. Or, stated differently, while they might accept practical moderations, they reject those moderations that arise from conformity to external, worldly standards of the culture writ large.

Building trust among elders and presbyteries through clearer rules and greater accountability by the General Assembly would likely have the effect of empowering localities to focus less on what’s going on within its courts and more on advancing the mission of the church across the four corners of this land and beyond. Perhaps by recognizing we too are mixed up in a larger political conflagration happening throughout the country could the Presbyterian Church in America mature into a Presbyterian Church to America.

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