The Quest for Unattainable Ecclesial Purity and Why It’s a Pill of the Wrong Color for the PCA Today

by on June 26, 2026 | Comment

My friend Dr. R. Scott Clark employed the quest motif in his important defense of Reformed confessionalism. He identified two tendencies that are counter to Reformed theology, piety, and practice: the quest for illegitimate religious certainty (QIRC1) and the quest for illegitimate religious experience (QIRE2). In today’s Presbyterian Church in America, I wish to propose a term for a new quest of discontentment: the quest for unattainable ecclesial purity (QUEP).

Recent trends and results in the PCA suggest that the 53-year-old denomination, formed in the tumultuous early 70s from the liberalizing Southern mainline PCUS,³ is more Reformed in theology, piety, and practice than ever before and is moving in a good direction, not struggling to find footing on a slippery slope. Yesterday’s trouncing of proposed amendments, which would have ushered in female deacons or otherwise undermined the PCA’s existing polity, was greeted by some with alarm and gloom. Having become convinced and aware of Reformed polity and practice (“redpilled,” in the parlance of our times), a few men (some very much outside the PCA) lament that more must be done . . . now! This is the “black pill,” tending to gloom, discontent, and needless division.

The PCA is simply becoming more of what it is—a conservative, Bible-believing presbyterian denomination. There will be no female officers in the PCA, not because the PCA has a low view of women, but because the PCA believes that the Bible is true, inspired, and sufficient. Misguided efforts to contextualize polity, egalitarian tendencies, and a lack of confidence in (or understanding of) our order—these things are waning and never had majority status. The PCA is conservative and, by all appearances, is becoming more so. It is not a place (if it ever was) for those who want to innovate and deviate.

There has been and will be more attrition.⁴ Recent legislation regarding titles, offices, and ordination prompted additional proposals regarding offices. All of those proposals that would have broadened or loosened the PCA standards failed this week; most proposals that would have further tightened or micro-managed things were also rejected, and that is why we hear a faint hue and weak cry that not enough is being done fast enough to correct some real and perceived polity shenanigans.⁵ Churches change slowly, and discipline processes and cases are slow, unpleasant, and often unsatisfying.⁶ Yet, when reform is evident and movement is happening, contentment and hope are possible.

In the last several years, the PCA has gained new clarity about who she is and what she allows. “Always reforming” is always hard; it always requires patience, faith, and love for the brethren. We can “trust but verify,” and where honesty is lacking and error persists, we trust the biblical process and the ascended Christ who gave it and “all offices necessary for the edification of his Church and the perfecting of his saints” (PCA BCO Preface I). We know that the visible church will never be perfect this side of glory, yet outside of it there is “no ordinary possibility of salvation” (WCF 25.2). Therefore, we have hope.

Notes

  1. “The Quest for Illegitimate Religious Certainty has three aspects: to know things the way God knows them; this is a form of rationalism. The Reformed reject this as contrary to the Word of God. Second, it is the desire to know things that cannot be known. This desire contradicts Deuteronomy 29:29. Third, it is the desire for absolute certainty in matters about which absolute certainty is either impossible or undesirable. The Reformed confessions do not indulge in this quest.” R. Scott Clark, “Are Confessions Themselves QIRC-Y?” Heidelblog, January 2, 2021, https://heidelblog.net/2021/01/are-confessions-themselves-qirc-y/.
  2. “In (Recovering the Reformed Confession), I characterized revival(ism) and Pietism as two aspects of the QIRE: the Quest for Illegitimate Religious Experience. Fundamentally, this is the desire to have an unmediated encounter with the risen Christ. This is the irreducible core of modern evangelical theology, piety, and practice. It is not theology, nor was it the practice of the Reformed churches in the 16th and 17th centuries. They certainly wanted believers to have a vital religious experience, but their confession and practice focused on God’s grace in salvation and the consequent fruits of the Spirit as they flow from God’s grace to his redeemed people. Experience is fleeting. It is not the ground of assurance, nor is it to be sought as a good in itself. What is to be sought is Christ. Our confidence is in his work for us and his promises to us.” Clark, “Anti-Scholasticism, Revival(ism), Pietism, or the Reformed Theology, Piety, and Practice? Or Why I Wrote Recovering the Reformed Confession,” January 10, 2018, https://heidelblog.net/2018/01/anti-scholasticism-revivalism-pietism-or-the-reformed-theology-piety-and-practice-1/.
  3. That is, the Presbyterian Church in the United States, which was in 1973 (by way of “union presbyteries” already melding with the even more liberal northern UPCUSA. The merger of the two mainline bodies became formal in 1983, when the PCUSA became a sad and decaying reality.
  4. There are a number of denominations or polities to the “left” of the PCA, yet still short of liberalism and unbelief, which would provide good homes for those convinced that the PCA is too narrow or strict.
  5. See action on overtures 36 and 72 here. All referenced overtures may be found here.
  6. There may certainly need to be disciplinary cases against sessions or presbyteries that spurn the PCA’s polity, yet we are persuaded that the PCA will ultimately land in the right spot and that the new clarity will have good effects.

©Brad Isbell. All Rights Reserved.

Editor’s Note: This essay was originally published on Presbycast Pravda and appears here by permission of the author.

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