13 comments

1. Please consider how unusual this situation is and pray for all the parties involved:

   For the TEs in the Mo Pres, who are still feeling personal and professional fallout from Revoice; that the Lord would give them clarity, courage, and conviction.

   For the RE who is taking the Presbytery to the SJC; that the Lord would give him humility, wisdom, and perseverance.

   And for the particular TE who, after completing grad school and years of pastoral internship, is now having his ordination examination called into question; that the Lord would make his path straight.

   Reply ↓

   • Amen, “Joe in St. Louis.” Am I correct that you are a member of the Missouri Presbytery of the PCA, or the OPC? If you have specific on-the-ground information, now is the time to act.

     A key question is this specific homosexual minister. If we are dealing with a man who is a new Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, i.e., a clearly and obviously converted ex-gay person who is clearly and obviously confessionally Reformed, that’s one thing. But the reports are indicating we are dealing with a problematic examination and that hard questions need to be asked that were not asked in the presbytery exam.

     Here is a (lightly edited) version of something I posted last night on the Puritan Board.

     First, I am not advocating that people in confessionally Reformed denominations join the ECO or CRC. Decisions like that need to be made on the basis of specific situations in local churches, and what other options are available — and in significant parts of the United States, there may be no other option at all, let alone a better option. In the St. Louis area, there is an OPC and there are several churches of smaller conservative Reformed denominations.

     What I **AM** saying is that for someone leaving the PC(USA), the Missouri Presbytery may not be a good choice. (I’d cite at least two exceptions of PCA churches in that presbytery with solid pastors and there are probably others.)

     But to say the CRC and ECO may be a better option should not be something I can say about a PCA presbytery.

     To be fair, a church leaving the PC(USA) is going to have women elders, and the ECO or CRC may be viewed as an option for that reason, as well as their stances against homosexual ordination. It’s pretty hard to tell a PC(USA) church that they need to get rid of their women elders but have to tolerate a same-sex attracted pastor. Most of us would say homosexual ministers are a worse problem than women ministers.

     The PCA needs to act on this.

     But second, what happens if the PCA doesn’t? And what happens short term for people in metro St. Louis if this turns into a long delay? This is the Missouri Presbytery, after all, and its problems are not new and are widely known.

     People need to give their own denomination a fair try before walking. For frustrated Anglo conservatives in the PCA’s Missouri Presbytery who live in the St. Louis area, you may want to look at the Korean churches in the PCA.

     No, I am not kidding. Calvinism and kimchi are not an unknown combination, and there are far more Korean Calvinists than there are in every confessionally Reformed denomination in the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, and Britan — combined. You guys in St. Louis may have options you never considered, right in your own back yard.

     A lot of things are not public, even three decades later, about my role in the Korean secession from the Christian Reformed Church, but what **IS** public is that I am the one who convinced Dr. John E. Kim, pastor of what was then the second-largest church in the CRC, of what was going on with Rev. Jim Lucas and homosexuality in the CRC. It did not hurt that I was able to give specific and detailed information about daughters of Korean CRC ministers who went to Calvin and had become liberal.

     The Koreans joined the CRC precisely because it was an immigrant ethnic denomination and they thought it would help them Americanize, not liberalize. Homosexuality was a step too far, and that is what caused the CRC to lose all but one of their large Korean churches, and many of their medium-to-smaller churches. A lot of them eventually ended up in the PCA.

     Oh, and a not irrelevant side point — Dr. Kim conducted the marriage for me and my wife after he become the president of Chongshin Seminary (and its attached college) in Seoul.

     If the PCA wants to have a near-guarantee of conservative votes, working with the Korean presbyteries to actually show up at GA could pay big dividends.

     But what about the PCA people stuck in metro St. Louis with the Missouri Presbytery?

     I suppose I could suggest they go to English-language services in Korean PCAs in St. Louis, services intended for second-generation Koreans in churches that are usually members of the PCA’s Korean Central Presbytery, not the Missouri Presbytery. THERE ARE REASONS THE KOREANS ARE NOT IN THE MISSOURI PRESBYTERY! But I know Korean Presbyterianism pretty well, and it’s not what most PCA conservatives are used to. You’ll either get used to daily dawn prayer meetings and Friday overnight prayer meetings and women deacons (yes, in virtually every Korean church in the PCA, and the denomination has known it from day one) and what are often “contemporary worship” services for the English-language young people because the churches have wrongly been taught by the PCA that “young people hate traditional worship,” or you’ll be looking elsewhere for a church that looks like “normal” Anglo-American conservatism.

     The OPC or the Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) congregation in St. Louis are probably the two best places for confessionally Reformed people in metro St. Louis to attend, but it may be too much of a jump for people to leave the PCA and go there, and even more of a problem for people in the EPC to go to the OPC or the FCS.

     For PCA conservatives reading this: You guys in the PCA need to take care of this. It’s your problem, and problems like this are what presbyteries and General Assemblies are for. If the CRC conservatives could win their battle on homosexuality, under much more difficult circumstances, you should be able to fight, too.

     But those things take time at the General Assembly level and that doesn’t solve the problem faced right now by people in metro St. Louis.

     If the Presbyterians don’t, can’t, or won’t, somebody else will. The Particular Baptists and the Federal Visionists, both of which groups have a number of churches in metro St. Louis, can be expected to step in and provide a home for frustrated PCA conservatives.

     It’s about a two-hour drive for me, and I am probably the closest non-NAPARC, non-Federal Vision, and non-Baptist confessionally Reformed person to St. Louis, which means I don’t have to deal with NAPARC’s “Golden Rule of Comity.”

     The historic Italian Protestant church on “The Hill” in St. Louis closed a number of years ago and was sold to a Korean church.

     I’ve already talked with my Korean wife about this. If nobody else does anything, I may decide to ask that Korean church in a historic Italian building if they would be willing to let an English-speaking Waldensian church start a preaching station in St. Louis and see what happens. I don’t happen to think pasta and predestination, or spaghetti and sovereign grace, are opposites, and the Dutch aren’t the only ethnic Reformed group out there.

     What I do think is that I’m sick and tired of the PCA’s Missouri Presbytery and its problems giving the Reformed faith a bad name here in Missouri.

     I’ve been putting up with those problems for two decades now and my patience is nearly at an end.

     Somebody needs to act to help frustrated PCA conservatives in metro St. Louis. The time to act is now. Not two or three years from now.

     Now.

     Again, if nobody in the PCA acts, someone else will step in, and I don’t think the Particular Baptists or the Federal Visionists are the right answer despite already having strong local churches right in that area.

     Reply ↓

     • A large part of the problem, as alluded to in the full article, is CTS. In the early 2000s elders of several Presbyterys I was part of expressed concern about what was being taught and the quality of ministerial candidates coming out of there. But nobody really did or said anything about it, and now, here they are . . .

       Reply ↓

       • Presbyteries . . . sorry about that Grammar Gorilla!

         Reply ↓

         • I was debating whether to say something. LOL.

2. What on earth!

   We can have a debate about whether there may be very unusual cases in which celibate homosexuals can be ordained — maybe an ex-gay ministry with a man whose repentance is absolutely clear and has been demonstrated for many years — but the full article is even more concerning than this excerpt.

   From the article: “The complaint argues that Missouri Presbytery failed to properly examine the candidate by not bringing the matter of the candidate’s same sex attraction before the floor of presbytery during the ordination examination in violation of BCO 21-4.(e) which states: ‘In the examination of the candidate’s personal character, the presbytery shall give specific attention to potential notorious concerns. Careful attention must be given to his practical struggle against sinful actions, as well as to persistent sinful desires.'”

   If this article is accurate, there’s a massive problem. This man has been an intern with Reformed University Fellowship. He has been and will be working with young people in a campus environment. If there is **ANYPLACE** where pastors — including single heterosexual male pastors attracted to women, and also married male pastors — need extra scrutiny, it is campus ministry.

   Granted, the article may be incomplete or inaccurate on key details.

   However, if it is accurate, there is a major problem that is even more serious than the question of whether it is possible for a homosexual candidate to be ordained. In the current situation at most campuses with “woke” stuff all over the place, and where gross immorality is not only the norm but celebrated and encouraged, to fail to ask hard questions of a campus minister candidate is almost unbelievable. Even for straight married men. But even more so for a candidate with a “self-description as being celibate homosexual and same sex attracted.”

   Regular readers of the Heidelblog know I live in Missouri. I’ve seen for two decades now the damage that the Missouri Presbytery is doing to the reputation of the PCA. Over and over again, I’ve had to explain that the PCA is just one of many Reformed denominations, and that some of its presbyteries are problematic, and the Missouri Presbytery does not reflect the rest of the PCA.

   There’s something badly wrong when I see people leaving the PC(USA) who think the ECO is a better option and tell me, “We spent years fighting the homosexual agenda in the PC(USA); we don’t need to do that all over again.” Obviously the ECO is not where most people reading the Heidelblog want to go, but if this article is accurate, it looks as if the Missouri Presbytery’s problems were much more than one pastor and one church.

   Who knows? Maybe some CRC conservatives need to do church planting and create more than one church in metro St. Louis. Right now, it looks like the CRC won the fight over homosexuality, and the ECO was created because of that fight, but that PCA presbytery appears to be fighting on the wrong side of one of the key issues facing the American church today.

   Reply ↓

3. I believe the mistake came as soon as they knew that they were dealing with a homosexual man, that they should not move forward at all in terms of ordination. The Bible clearly states that homosexuals will not inherit the kingdom of heaven. Why would you let them lead you in prayer or in a service? Big mistake. Homosexuals live a lie, and they know it is a lie, so they will lie to you, me and anyone else in their way.

   Reply ↓

   • Homesexuals living in Sin will not inherit*

     “Such were some of you”

     Reply ↓

     • But this dude IDENTIFIES himself by his sin!

       Reply ↓

       • Its hard to tell with these issues, since many celibate Godly people struggling with same sex attraction are often lumped in a group with those proud of their identity/unrepentant of their sin.

         So many of those who have fought these sins have been told that if “they were really a Christian” they wouldn’t still fight these temptations. We need to lovingly support those people.

         Reply ↓

         • Fighting temptation is one thing – we all do it in one sphere or another. Identifying yourself by your sinful temptations is altogether different. It’s like a married man being tempted by a woman in a bikini referring to himself as a “non-practicing adulterer.” We are not what we are tempted by. If that’s how we refer to ourselves, then our understanding of sanctification in Christ is sorely lacking.

         • Steve,

           This is a very important point. As someone else in the combox has noted, “such were some of you.”

           We are all sinners justified by grace alone, through faith alone but there are no hyphenated Christians, e.g., gay-Christian, adulterer-Christian, murderer-Christian, thief-Christian, etc.

         • It would be very normal (and Godly) for that man in your scenario to acknowledge he is a Christian who struggles with lust, and acknowledge such to other believers. Not as his identity, but as a struggle they are fighting in Christ with their community.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.