What exceptions to the WCF are significant enough to constitute disqualifying a man from service as an officer in the PCA? Would for example, a man that denied a limited atonement be disqualified? How about total depravity? What about a man that affirmed the entire Arminian system? Are those questions as to suitability left to each presbytery to decide?

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Steve
PCA
Dallas, TX

No, the Bowen case is currently the standard in the PCA. A man who denies limited atonement cannot be an Elder or Deacon. Some Presbyteries like the Northern California Presbytery have ignored this rule, but if a member files a complaint the local Session has to enforce it.

I recently forced our church to stop ordaining Baptists and Arminians even though the Session disagreed with me.

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Tim Vaughan, 48 years old, member PCA church but currently attending EV Free church. San Luis Obispo County, California.

Oh, how I love our NorCal Presbytery


Adam

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Adam Brink, Grace Church of Pleasanton, PCA, Pleasanton, California

"Mark you this, Bassanio, The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.
An evil soul producing holy witness Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,
A goodly apple rotten at the heart: O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!"

Antonio - The Merchant of Venice (Act 1, Scene 3)

I'm surprised that someone who denied LA would even be considered as a candidate for elder.

What is the Bowen case referred to above?

What of exceptions to 6 day creationism or exclusive psalmody, for example, or heterodox views on the Sabbath? What does the PCA regard as automatically disqualifying?

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T W Hopper
Member, Presbyterian Reformed Church
Currently between churches since PRC closed here - attending Crossroads Christian Church.
Canberra, Australia.

You can get it emailed you by the Stated Clerk's office in Atlanta.

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No.

Actually for some Presbyteries in the PCA 6-day creationism is required. I know of several churches that have put it on their Pastor Search form as a requirement.

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Benjamin P. Glaser
Pittsburgh, PA
Fairmount ARP Church

Student of Theology
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary
Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary
My Blog

I think, though I don't know for sure, that exceptions on the Sabbath are tolerated. Exceptions on TULIP generally are not.

Why would an Arminian want to serve? There are Arminian churches, after all.

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The man who is disposed to think of his sin as a great calamity, rather than as a heinous crime, is not likely either to reverence God or to respect His law. - John Kennedy, 1873
Meg
Blog
Member, Intown Presbyterian Church,PCA, Portland, OR

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

Good question, Meg. And also why a particular Session would want them as well.

Hi Benjamin

Individual Sessions can be more picky than the denominational minimum standards. For instance, a Session may not allow theonomists as officers, even though the denomination as a whole allows them. A good reference for things like that is the PCA historical section, which has an area for position papers. The position papers for Creationism are good reading:

PCA Historical Center: Index to the Position Papers of the Presbyterian Church in America

Quote: What of exceptions to 6 day creationism or exclusive psalmody, for example, or heterodox views on the Sabbath? What does the PCA regard as automatically disqualifying?

Exclusive singing psalms is not generally viewed as required by the WCF or the Bible in either the PCA or OPC.

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JWithnell
Member Bethel OPC
Virginia

This is left up to each individual presbytery to decide what man is fit for the office by deciding what is and what is not the FUNDAMENTALS of the Westminster Standards.

NOTE: Good faith subscription is the worst thing that has happened, oh how I abhor it!

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Andrew
Husband to Dena
Candidate of the MVP in the PCA
MDiv graduate from Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, MS
Pastor (elect) of Tchula Presbyterian Church, Tchula, MS

"What do you think about when you are not thinking about anything else? This is what you worship!"

That's actually not true. Case like the Bowen case serve as denominational standards. No Baptist or denier of limited atonement can hold office in the PCA. Those ordained for whatever reason otherwise are termed "officers out of conformity" and it's left to the individual Session and Presbytery to decide how to handle the case.

That's why you get the "unordained Deacon" position, so Baptists, women and Arminians can be officers but not officers.

Yes, they should require a minister to hold to this.

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Stephen Welch
PCA Teaching Elder
Nova Scotia

Yes you are right. A candidate cannot take an exception to the system or vitals of the faith. As a PCA elder I subscribe to full subscription. I find the PCA system subscription problematic and it opens the door for these kinds of exceptions.

Amen, brother. This good faith position that was passed by the GA a few years ago was one of the worst rulings I have seen. I am glad to see other PCA men like myself that oppose this.

Andrew,

YOu hate it because you have functioned in MS Valley PResbytery, and are thus on the "safe" side. I don't mean you are prejudiced against it because you're in a safe presbytery. I mean that you don't see how it actually has caused loose presbyteries to become more conscientious.

Now, thanks to Don Clements and others, presbyteries who grant exceptions have to explain why they granted it, and why it doesn't strike at the vitals. Previously, all that could simply be disregarded.

It also removes the liberty of the candidate from saying, "I don't consider this an exception," and (ideally), makes him state all his differences, and then allow the presbytery to declare what are exceptions, and whether or not they can be taught.

So, good faith actually tightens subscription in many settings.

As far as not ordaining non-six-dayers. Were Warfield, MAchen, Hodge, and Augustine faithful ministers in the invisible church? What gives us the right to deny them ordination if they were to appear before our courts today?

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Kenneth A. Pierce
Senior Minister
Trinity Presbyterian Church (PCA)
5301 Old Canton Rd.
Jackson, MS 39211
(601)977-0774
www.trinitychurchpca.com

The fact that godly men have held wrong opinions should not mean that the church should be required to continue tolerating these wrong opinions as greater light is obtained. This line of reasoning would make it difficult to exclude errors from the past simply because godly men have held them (like episcopacy, for one).

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Rev. Adam King
Minister without a call (WPCUS)
Stated Supply: Reformed Presbyterian Church
Sterling, KS

I guess it leaves open the question if greater light has, necessarily, been obtained.

I have a lurking suspicion that we are still victims of thinking of time as a constant, which it is not: it is a function of relative velocity. And, certainly the timelessness of God is a factor we cannot understand. So, it may be literally true that a day is like a thousand years with the Lord.

Could the universe have been moving at such rapid speed that days themselves slowed to Millennia? Is this outside the realm of possibility?

This is why I do not like loose subscription. If something in the WCF is no longer considered essential for church officers to hold to, then the denomination should revise it. Otherwise strict subscription should be enforced.

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Daniel Ritchie
Saintfield, Northern Ireland - Queen's University, Belfast:History/Politics
Member of Dromara Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (Covenanter)

The RPCNA Testimony is the way to go IMHO. Use the 1646 edition and go from there. The Americans should have never "deleted" and "revised" sections of Westminster.

Yes, that is probably the best thing to do. A church should clearly state in an additional document which sections of the WCF it no longer adheres to and why. Strictly speaking, we cannot revise the WCF, as we are not the original authors.

If you're actually implying or stating that the PCA is a "loose" subscription denomination, then, according to the WLC, you are violating the 9th commandment.

Loose subscription would have accurately described the old Southern Presbyterian Church, where even among conservatives you had Arminians, charismatics, and dispensationalists.

The PCA achieved something astounding --to take the very diverse evangelicals in the Southern church, and meld them into a denomination that actually took the Confession seriously, particularly on matters of soteriology.

Thus, you will not find ARminians or dispensationalists in PCA pulpits today, some scant 35 years later.

The PCA is a subscriptionist denomination --every bit as subscriptionist as the OPC. But, it does allow men to hold differences with the WCF, as Professor Murray did.

LEt me ask a question: Do you believe the covenant of grace is made with believers (affirming a separate pactum salutis), or with Christ (seeing the pactum salutis as unnecessary)? To which of those positions do you subscribe? The confession says both. Which is the subscriptionist position?

Actually, this is one of the worst things to do. It is perhaps the greatest weakness of the RPCNA.

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Fredrick T. Greco
Senior Pastor, Christ Church PCA (Katy, TX)
Christ Church Blog

"The heart is the main thing in true religion...It is the hinge and turning-point in the condition of man's soul. If the heart is alive to God and quickened by the Spirit, the man is a living Christian. If the heart is dead and has not the Spirit, the man is dead before God." (J.C. Ryle)

Why do you say that Rev. Greco?