A PCA Worth Having is a PCA Worth Fighting For

by Brad Isbell – Aquila Report

“In the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed are apt to be the things that are least worth holding; the really important things are the things about which men will fight.”

These words are from the stirring opening paragraph of J. Gresham Machen’s monumental-but-brief 1923 masterwork Christianity and Liberalism. Machen was the most eloquent, erudite, and forthright defender of orthodoxy in the northern Presbyterian church during the era we now call the Presbyterian Controversy. In a sense his times could not have been more different than our own. Though controversy rages in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) today, there are no theological liberals denying such cardinal doctrines as the inerrancy of Scripture, the virgin birth of Christ, His bodily resurrection, or Christ’s substitutionary atonement.

But there are similarities between our time and the tumultuous early 20th century. For one thing, Machen’s opponents (which included moderate evangelicals) did not want a “fight”—there was much criticism of his tone, temperament, and tactics. That’s why he had to first defend the very concept of fighting. Unity, ecumenism, and shared mission were the watchwords of his day. We see much the same thing today where all but the politest dissent is disparaged. Machen’s battles were waged in pamphlets, newspaper pages (secular and religious), seminary board rooms, and ecclesial meetings. Today’s squabbles often occur online, and a recent spate of online posting of open letters and blog posts about PCA issues and the upcoming General Assembly has turned up the tension even as the posts aimed to promote unity.

A recent social media post by a PCA pastor neatly sums up both the aversion to fighting and the minimizing of meaningful differences in doctrine and practice:

“So here’s where it seems we are to my eyes: we agree on 97% of everything theologically, and probably 75% of methodology, yet there are folks ready to go Mortal Kombat at GA (General Assembly)?”

Quantifying doctrinal fidelity in percentages seems like an impossible task. The doctrinal debates in the PCA focus largely on confessional subscription. The “confessionalist” wing of the PCA is not happy with how “good faith subscription” has developed in the 20 years it has been the law of the church. This rule allows presbyteries to grant ministers’ exceptions to the Westminster standards so long as they are recorded and approved by the ministers’ presbyteries. One confessionalist complaint is the way that many common exceptions are granted in some presbyteries as a matter of course. There are also active controversies over whether presbyteries can prohibit ministers from teaching their exceptions. Even if putting a percentage on doctrinal agreement is impossible, the existence of serious disagreement is obvious.

The offhand social media post gets closer to the crux of the issue when it speaks of agreement in “75% of methodology” in the PCA. Methodology includes ecclesiology, worship, and mission. Methodology is the program (or programs) of the church and the container or channel for the message. Ecclesiology is itself doctrinal. Methodology is what we believe applied. While some write off methodological differences as the normal consequence of contextualization (adjusting methods to local situations), others view “25% disagreement” (as it were) about methodology as an unhealthy and untenable arrangement.

While Marshall McLuhan’s famous line “the medium is the message” may overstate the case, we must agree that the medium or methodology that churches use shapes the message, not just the other way around. What churches do and how they do it necessarily reflects their doctrinal convictions, not just how good or bad they are at contextualizing their message. Is 75% agreement on methodology a good thing? Can 97% doctrinal agreement produce only 75% methodological or missional agreement?

It’s clear that most of the recent cries for unity and peace in the PCA are reactions to the recent Gospel Reformation Network conference. PCA moderates, missionalists, and progressives took issue with David Strain’s confessional alarm, Jon Payne’s overview of issues, and Harry Reeder’s comparison of progressive Christianity and theological liberalism (which Machen defined as a different religion altogether). 

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