How to Prepare for Travis' Visit

From Stuff Christians Like, your guide for getting ready for a pastoral visit.

Excellent Article on the New York Evolution Case

Anyone who knows me well knows that I'm not one of those who spends a great deal of time banging the drum about biblical creationism. I'd rather talk about the cross and the kingdom of God. But that being said, the cross assumes a real historical Adam. Adam sinned for us all, as our representative, and plunged humanity into guilt and sin. Jesus, the New Adam, died for us, as our representative, so that we might be rescued from the plight of Adam. When you introduce evolution into this mix, the entire edifice begins to tremble. When you remove the historical Adam, it crumbles to the ground.

A Reformed pastor at the Pastor of Print blog has written an excellent article about the consequences of evolutionary teaching. As background, this article is about PCA pastor, Choong, who is teaching evolution in the New York Metro Presbytery. Choong was noticed by the Aquila Report a week or so ago, and gave the information to the local Presbytery. If New York Metro doesn't handle this, there will be numerous presbyteries clamoring for original jurisdiction.

Pastor of Print's excellent article can be found here.

Evolution Case May Hit New York Metro Presbytery

The "Piltdown Man" - now known to be a hoax (though I'm sure I've ridden a bus with this guy)

The Aquila Report has a fascinating (and troubling) article about a PCA teaching elder in New York City publicly teaching theistic evolution. According to the Aquila Report, our Standing Judicial Commission has previously ruled that not only can a Teaching Elder not believe in Theistic Evolution, but neither can Ruling Elders, Deacons or Sunday School teachers. It will be interesting to see how the NY Metro Presbytery handles this. Read more here.

The End of the Assembly Summarized

The 38th General Assembly ended with most of the Strategic Plan adopted (at least this stage of it adopted) with vigorous protest of a large part of the Assembly on some of the Plan. One of the PCAs remaining founders, Don Clements (the Aquila Report), expressed his concern in an article. Likening this to calling a pastor he posed a rhetorical question, "Who would take a call as a pastor with so many people dissenting?" Don is afraid that the Administrative Committee and other denominational functionaries (with a few prominent pastors thrown in) have won the battle of implementation but are in danger of losing the war for trust. Another founding pastor, Bill Iverson (also perhaps the greatest living evangelist in the PCA) delivered a stirring speech which seemed to be a condemnation of the worldliness of the whole thing and a call to return to faithfulness in advancing the Gospel.

The PCA issued a letter on homosexuality and the possible (likely?) repeal of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy. The PCA has a large, influential, and active chaplains corps and our chaplains are very concerned. The statement adopted by the PCA was made stronger on the floor of the Assembly and it was reported to us that the chaplains were VERY encouraged. Before the ink was dry on the statement it was communicated in substance to the Pentagon at a high level meeting. The PCA is often very loathe to speak on matters of politics but sounded a clear prophetic call on this one.

Without the expected debate on the "deaconess issue", the Assembly basically affirmed that is was not inappropriate for churches to have "deaconesses" or "diaconal assistants". It was also affirmed that ordination was only appropriate for men. This leaves many churches' practices in place and agrees with the practice of our Korean presbyteries, which have a position called a "kwonsa" which corresponds to this. This practice has some roots in older presbyterianism as well.

I plan on blogging more details about the Assembly and some thoughts on our denomination as well as some confessions and oddities. Coming soon: Travis gets nabbed by the po-po, Dan mostly redeems himself from cowarding, the Assembly finds truth out of order and yours truly fails to condemn blasphemy - along with one or two Nashville tips.

Signs of a Possible Turning of the Tide...

After an embarrassing argument justifying the lack of Scriptural support and a growing sense of the near inevitability of the passage of the whole Strategic Plan, the tone of the Assembly seems to be changing as two of the recommendations have been defeated in a row with a third passing by ten votes. The men seem more somber and engaged and the "powers that be" are huddling and whispering to one another in the front of the room.

Assembly decides that no committee or other body of the PCA can function without Bryan Chapell

Not really, but it is starting to look that way. Bryan Chapell, who is the president of Covenant Seminary (the head of a committee) and on the committee which develops and administrates the Strategic Plan, and who takes part in almost all of the informal decisions about our denomination (and I don't know what else), was elected to serve on the Standing Judicial Commission. Not a hair on his head is out of place at 4:30 in the afternoon.

Grinding Through the Strategic Plan

The Strategic Plan is moving forward slowly. Passage is probably inevitable but the majority is successfully moving it forward despite the relentless objections of the minority. The minority are arguing that there is too much confusion and no explicit Scriptural support for the Plan. The majority is arguing that the biblical work was done previously and that the details of the plan will become plain as we put them into action.

Two pastors gave beautiful exhortations about grace and trusting the Lord. No one has countered the assertion that the analysis contained in the analysis is mostly sociological. One commissioner pointed out that there is actually no sociological analysis, simply sociological assertions.

The Assembly has already approved the parts of the plan which require that churches give a certain percentage of their offerings to the Administrative Committee or not be able to vote at General Assembly. This is called a "pay to play provision." Churches which do not pay accumulate debt that must be paid or negotiated with the Administrative Committee. Provisions will be made for "hardship cases."