The liberalization of the PCA
- Thread starter A.Joseph
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Do you mean here in the podcast (they are all CREC people which is Doug Wilson's denomination). If you mean here on PB, there are a lot of PCA people. Summarize what it is you want to know. Don't just post a video and expect folks to look at it and try to figure out what it is.
A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
Sorry, I mean the PCA members here on PB. It seems like liberal activism and political agendas which run counter to the denomination’s confessions and standards is overwhelming the PCA. Social justice, sexuality, MLK50, women in leadership, Covenant Seminary, etc..... it’s difficult to pin it all down since it’s all very subtle, but hard to ignore (or at least should be)
Yes; it is a big problem that has been simmering but broken out the last several years. I would pay attention to the faithful PCA guys. We'll know more this summer if the opposition is strong enough against these things.
I'm not in the PCA, but in listening to this podcast (I love Cross Politic, by the way), I fear a lot of the same things are happening at my alma mater, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. I experienced a lot of the same things that is apparently going on at Covenant Theological Seminary.
A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
There are no checks in place to prevent such shifts/drifts? Seminaries shouldn’t be evolving. Maybe we are not maintaining enough separation. Not just certain institutions but the individual Christian as well. Plenty of snares and seductions offered by the community at large. It’s a battle, for sure.... wondering if there are agenda driven change agents infiltrating these institutions ? Or if there are money trails that could shed a light on these matters
Well, TEDS is the seminary of a Free Church denomination, which is a loosely-connected set of congregational churches. The denomination has, as far as I am aware, no authority at TEDS.
Covenant Seminary, being Presbyterian, is a different matter.
augustacarguy
Puritan Board Freshman
Yes. I’m very concerned, especially at what happening at Covenant and the St Louis presbytery, think Revoice and South City Church. My own church, in Augusta, has been headed towards social justice. Our last preacher, who has recently left for an EPC church, was the moderator of GA two years ago. It remains to be seen where our new pastor will take us.
Ryan&Amber2013
Puritan Board Graduate
3 of our local PCA churches in south Florida are extremely sound and honorable. We are in the Gulf Stream Presbytery. Faithful ministers of the Scriptures they are.
JTB.SDG
Puritan Board Junior
I'm a TE in the PCA. I think there are things that are concerning but Paul says in Acts 20 it's always going to be that way. There's never going to be some "solid denomination" that doesn't have people trying to be Christ or lead it astray; or any "solid church" for that matter. Paul told these elders on the beach not only that wolves would arise in general, but wolves would arise even from among them. Scripture would call us to be faithful to fight for purity in whatever imperfect church or denomination we find ourselves.
Can you clarify how interacting with social justice issues runs against the Westminster standards? Can you clarify how Covenant Seminary as an entire institution is bad or liberal? As far as I understand, the troubling conference that took place in St. Louis is being dealt with in the appropriate manner.
Can you clarify how interacting with social justice issues runs against the Westminster standards? Can you clarify how Covenant Seminary as an entire institution is bad or liberal? As far as I understand, the troubling conference that took place in St. Louis is being dealt with in the appropriate manner.
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Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
Trick question: What do you think about Covenant Seminary's Systematic Theology Department?
A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
Im going to have to turn that around on you and ask how anything resembling SJ is a church mandate and how should that look?
I think SJ is a humanistic prideful phenomenon that is centered on leveling playing fields....there is a power element to it and an almost hidden ideology that is grounded in uprooting the statusquo.....
I also think there is a pride element meant to puff up man in pursuit of righting wrongs..... at least here in the States. So not sure this is what Jesus had in mind. Not sure Jesus wants to work through political systems to produce equitable outcomes... because the state sees the church as a means to fulfill a humanitarian and ultimately dehumanizing sustainability agenda that is ultimately gnostic at its core.....
So folks like Rockefellers and Soros would like to use Social Justice to remove Christ from Christianity and make the churches a pagan extension of the state.... I will stand by my belief of this no matter how I am criticized for it....but this is what has happened to many once faithful and now fallen denominations.... think PCUSA
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Polanus1561
Puritan Board Senior
I see Pipa, Benjamin Shaw (GPTS) as the bastions of conservatism in the PCA.
JTB.SDG
Puritan Board Junior
I don't think it's on me to defend any position. You are the one who said it. I'm simply asking you to defend your statement.
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A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
Individual acts of mercy, charity, dignity and respect for all human beings as made in the image of God, secondary to a sharing of the Gospel message, is a vital part of what it means to be a Christian. I don’t see the loaded term ‘social justice’ anywhere in my Bible so I don’t entertain it, nor abide by it.... if it intersects and overlaps in certain areas with Christian charity and/or missions that’s fine, but that is not my concern, nor should be a concern of the church
Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
There are several Eds around this place, but from context, I'll assume you are asking me in relation to the question I asked you.
Covenant Seminary did away with their Systematic Theology department several years ago. They still have some ST courses in their new Missional Theology department. But priorities are priorities.
JTB.SDG
Puritan Board Junior
Wow, really? I did not know that.
Bill Duncan
Puritan Board Freshman
Amen, Jon.
A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
https://warhornmedia.com/2019/01/15/covenant-theological-seminary-and-the-decline-of-the-pca/Let’s rehearse the path of Covenant’s decline.
We start with longtime theology professor at Covenant, David Jones. In an interview published in the October 4, 1999 issue of “Christianity Today,” Professor Jones called for the repeal of sodomy laws. Shocked by his declaration during their interview of him, CT asked Jones if he was going on record as opposing sodomy statutes? Jones responded, “Yes. I don’t think they’re necessary.”
Jones here called for the repeal of laws against sodomy that then were on the books of most of the states of our country. It was astounding, particularly coming from a theology professor at the PCA’s seminary.
We wrote Jones asking him to reconsider his position. We carbon-copied CTS president Bryan Chapell, but the letter was dismissed by both Jones and Chapell (see archives).
Note carefully that Jones was not calling for the passage of sodomy laws, but their repeal. Prof. Jones was a prophet for the next twenty years of rebellion against God’s Moral Law that sped across our nation, culminating in the Supreme Court’s Obergefell ruling sixteen years later. As a CTS professor of theology paid by the Presbyterian Church in America, Prof. Jones softened the church up for the Supreme Court’s rebellion against God.
Next we turn to Covenant’s Old Testament Professor C. John “Jack” Collins. His book Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? was praised by Dr. Peter Enns for “attempting to bring under one roof the truth of evolution as the proper paradigm for explaining human origins and the biblical story of Adam and Eve.”
This is the PCA’s in-house Old Testament professor who trains our pastors being commended by Enns for, again, showing that the truth of evolution is the proper paradigm for explaining the biblical “story” of Adam and Eve.
This same Peter Enns was forced out of Westminster Theological Seminary a few years ago, and since departing Westminster has given himself to subverting the authority and inspiration of Scripture.
Around the time he issued his book, Collins published an article countenancing the denial of the Biblical revelation of the first man Adam. Collins posited Adam as the descendant of an early tribe of hominids. Here’s what he wrote. Notice the “if,” the “someone,” the “shoulds” and “woulds.” So very coy:
If someone should decide that there were, in fact, more human beings than just Adam and Eve at the beginning of humankind, then, in order to maintain good sense, he or she should envision these humans as a single tribe. Adam would then be the chieftain of this tribe (preferably produced before the others), and Eve would be his wife. This tribe “fell” under the leadership of Adam and Eve.
Again, we have warned the PCA against Collins’s mincing denials of Scripture’s historicity. Read more about Collins here.
Next we turn to Covenant’s Professor of Theology Dan Doriani who was a contributor to Biblical Foundations for Manhood and Womanhood published by Crossway. (A previous version of this article mistakenly said that Doriani contributed to the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood’s Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.) It was back in the early 2000s that Doriani left Covenant to take the senior pastorate of St. Louis’s Central Presbyterian Church—the tallest Presbyterian steeple in the city. Central holds membership in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a denomination whose reason to exist from its inception has always been permitting the ordination of women pastors and elders.
Prof. Doriani’s move from Covenant and the PCA into the environs of EPC’s feminist egalitarianism was seamless. There was no alarm. No talk of women pastors and elders being a confessional issue. It was the same years later when Sr. Pastor Doriani decided he wanted to return to Covenant and the PCA. No muss, no fuss. So that now Dr. Doriani has taken up duties as Covenant’s “Vice President of Strategic Academic Projects and Professor of Theology.” For more on VP Doriani, see here…
Next we turn to Covenant’s Professor of Homiletics, Zack Eswine. Currently Director of Homiletics and Scholar-in-Residence at the Francis Schaeffer Institute, as Doriani had before him, Eswine moved seamlessly from serving as a professor at Covenant and a teaching elder of the PCA into a pastorate in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church—then back again to Covenant a few years later.
Eswine began as a PCA pastor in our Great Lakes Presbytery where Covenant’s president, Mark Dalbey, was also serving in the pastorate. After Dalbey moved over to Covenant, Bryan Chapell invited Eswine to come to Covenant to serve as the seminary’s homiletics professor. Later, Eswine left the seminary to serve as lead pastor of Riverside Church, another St. Louis congregation in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. More recently, Eswine has returned to Covenant while continuing his pastorate at Riverside. His legacy is evident on Riverside’s “serve” page:
REACH OUT TO OPPOSITE-SEX AND SAME-SEX ATTRACTED NEIGHBORS
At Riverside, neighbors from varying points of view attend. We imperfectly seek to cultivate the robust and rich life of companionship and friendship that Jesus teaches and offers. We also seek to dignify the attractions and desires that each human being must wrestle with and name. At Riverside, when we talk about the good gift of sexuality as a whole, we are often viewed as too traditional by some of our LGBTQ friends and too liberal by some of our Evangelical colleagues. The two sermons below given by Dr. Eswine are on the occasion of the Supreme Court Decision regarding same-sex marriage and in response to the Orlando Massacre of 2016. These messages will enable you to gain a sense of how we imperfectly but sincerely approach this tender topic together as a Riverside community.
In the early 2000s, one of us was a student in Eswine’s homiletics course and heard him preach many times in Covenant’s chapel. His preaching was marked by raw emotions and an uncanny ability to capitalize on his own victimhood.
Next we turn to Covenant Professor Jerram Barrs. Barr’s feminism has never been hidden, nor even nuanced. Complementarianism is his enemy. As one of us publicly reported from his student days at Covenant, “Covenant’s resident feminist professor Jerram Barrs …taught us that the complementarian tome, Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood, was ‘demeaning to women.'”
Those were Barrs’ words condemning a book that is most notable for its restraint in everything it says. In a meeting with Covenant’s then-president Bryan Chapell over a decade ago, one of us called Bryan to remove Barr from his faculty. Ironically, Chapell himself was the one to leave and Barrs’ feminism continues its very soft corruption of Covenant’s students.
Next we turn to Covenant’s Professor of NT and Archaeology David Chapman whose wife serves in various capacities within Covenant’s administration. Both are getting paychecks from the PCA, yet Chapman had no fear of any correction by Covenant’s administration or General Assembly’s oversight committee when he contradicted the PCA Assembly’s condemnation of gender-neutered translations.
Now let us turn to the recent unpleasantness that’s been going down in St. Louis.
We’ve spilled a lot of pixelsdocumenting and critiquing Covenant’s involvement in Revoice. Note particularly our “Itching Ears” pieces published before the event last June. We spoke personally of our concerns in a meeting with Mark Dalbey at the 2018 PCA GA Committee of Commissioners meeting and were underwhelmed by his response. Then we responded to him.
The conclusions we came to in that piece only begin to express our concern over the corrupting influence of Covenant within the PCA. We wrote:
No faithful soul pursuing the call to pastoral ministry wants to be trained by men whose principal gift is moderating God’s truth towards cultural palatability.
Since last year when we and others exposed Revoice, what has gone down at Covenant, within Missouri Presbytery, and across the PCA?
Let us turn to Covenant’s Dean of Students, Professor Mike Higgins. In addition to his job leading the students at Covenant, Higgins is the pastor of a PCA congregation which employs his daughter, Michelle, as their director of worship.
Michelle Higgins has been making a name for herself for several years, now. Her coming out party was preaching to Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship’s Urbana missions conference. Ms. Higgins is angry—that’s the word listeners use. Note Ms. Higgins trash talking those who deny her any ordination:
What does that word mean? What does the word ordainable mean? It literally means possesses a penis. It does not mean is currently in seminary, has graduated with an M.Div and has gone before a licensure committee. Ordainable means that the person is able to be set to the practice of potentially becoming a church leader. And specifically in some denominations church leaders may only be male and therefore when you whittle it all down that word is how we live out a theology that we have proof- texted to death, to twist and to turn, in order to re- erect a wall that God, I believe, tore down in his flesh. Jesus, in his male body, tore down a dividing wall that now allows me to be just as complete as a woman, and yet in my own context no one will hear me unless maybe I develop and design a penis -shaped microphone cause if all you need to have is a penis in order to be heard then maybe we should have a line of penis microphones. Because it is all that you need to have to pass out communion, to take up the offering, to shake hands with the visitors when they come in.
Excuse the graphic language. This is the way she speaks—this daughter of Covenant’s Dean of Students, worship director at his church, Inter-Varsity Urbana preacher, and M.Div. graduate of Covenant Theological Seminary.
Ms. Higgins is an advocate of Black Lives Matters. During her sermon at Urbana ’15, she bashed pro-lifers. Her contributions to the “Truth’s Table” podcast are infamous, including the above profane mockery.
Preaching to his South City Church (PCA) congregation1, Ms. Higgins’s father commends his daughter’s Truth’s Table for their demonstration of the Gospel. He says it “looks like Jesus”:
All I’m saying is that the church has got to actually demonstrate the Gospel. …it may mean that you actually are going to have to be seen doing something that looks like Jesus. I don’t know what it’s going to be. It may be Truth’s Table or supporting Truth’s Table.2
Despite her opposition to the doctrine of Scripture, Covenant Theological Seminary invited Ms. Higgins to speak at a ministry lunch for students as a representative of Leadership Development Resource (LDR)—an organization promoted by the PCA’s church planting arm, Mission to North America.
Nobody should be surprised at the sectarian and schismatic fruit of Faith for Justice which she co-founded in 2015. Recently, Faith for Justice announced their Martin Luther King conference would be hosted at her father’s church. When tweets went out across the country documenting that one of the speakers was a self-affirming lesbian and her topic was gay advocacy, South City’s session responded to the outrage issuing a statement saying:
In the past few days, the session and pastoral staff of South City Church became aware of details concerning an event that was to be hosted on its property on January 20th, 2019 sponsored and organized by Faith for Justice, a Christian advocacy and social justice organization. Upon being informed of the details of the event, the session and pastoral staff met and determined that some of the planned elements within this particular event appeared to be inconsistent with South City Church’s theological convictions. …At no point was the event a South City Church event or part of a South City Church worship service.
Duly noted.
Note their mincing “upon being informed” and their precious “appeared to be.” Then note that, in spite of their work to distance the church leadership from this event, Pastor Michael Higgins is one of three board members of Faith for Justice.
Why was the public outraged? What had been announced as part of Faith for Justice’s Reclaim MLK 2019 conference at this PCA congregation served by Covenant’s Dean of Students?
Ms. Higgin’s organization publicized the upcoming contribution of their conference speaker Jay-Marie Hill on Faith for Justice’s FB page:
On Sunday, January 20th at 4 pm at South City Church, we welcome Jay-Marie Hill of Music Freedom Dreams as they teach us how to not only mourn the tragic deaths of trans folx, but learn to celebrate their lives and humanity.
Hill serves the Missouri chapter of the ACLU as a “Transgender Education and Advocacy Program Coordinator.” Their website explains: “Jay-Marie Hill (they/them) is an activist, musician, and educator who lives a life designed to help our world ascend beyond gendered and racialized norms.” She is also open about her lesbian relationship.
South City Church (PCA) pastored by Covenant’s Dean of Students Michael Higgins has had Ms. Hill serving on the music leadership team alongside Higgins’s daughter, Michelle, as part of LDR’s worship (far right saxophone player) September 3, 2017, as well as during Faith for Justice’s worship night May 27, 2018.
This documentation has become tiresome to us, and we’re sure to our readers, also.
Covenant Theological Seminary has grown so odious to members of the PCA that one Southern presbytery has now called for Covenant to be cut off from the denomination. The overture will come to General Assembly this year.
Rightfully so. Covenant is doing damage to the churches and souls of the PCA, as well as the broader Reformed church of our nation and Reformed fellowships around the world.
Yet Covenant remains unperturbed.
Covenant’s president and trustees have even had the audacity to suggest to presbyteries the nominees they would prefer be sent up to the General Assembly’s Nominations Committee. (One of us has firsthand knowledge of this through his work on his own presbytery’s Nominations Committee).
What is required for the reform of Covenant Theological Seminary?
Disband the board of trustees and other administrative boards of the seminary. Then build a new board and agencies from the ground up.
President Mark Dalbey has been on watch over Covenant’s faculty and students’ abandonment of Scripture and the Confessions. He must be removed.
What is happening in the PCA is tragic, but there’s a silver lining to the cloud. The conflict and division will prove who God approves (1 Cor. 11:19).
New works, new denominations, new pastoral training schools, and new life will spring up like infant vegetation after a wildfire.
It is our prayer that, accompanying this new life, celebrity Christianity, ministries that heal the wounds of the people superficially (particularly those purporting to serve homosexuals and racial minorities), and good-old-boy networks bragging about their behind-the-scenes negotiations will come to be despised.
The PCA is on life support and Covenant’s GA oversight committees, trustees, presidents, and faculty bear the blame. May our Lord, the Head of His Church, be pleased to bless the new works. May we not be presumptuous. May He prosper the work of our hands.
May no one despise the day of small things.
Also the word of the LORD came to me, saying, “The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house, and his hands will finish it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. For who has despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4:8-10a).
Churches and associations of churches (denominations) are communities of faith, which is to say communities united in their confession of Biblical doctrine. When churches turn away from defending the doctrines of Scripture to evading and abandoning those doctrines, focussing rather on making their trademark more palatable to their culture, they have lost their reason to exist.
D
Deleted member 6112
Guest
It's because the PCA allows exceptions to its confessional standards and doesn't enforce its constitution.
The discussion in the video is ironic because the CREC isn't much stronger constitutionally than the PCA. There's no reason to think the same thing won't happen there over the next generation or two.
Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
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One of the marks of a true church is proper administration of discipline. Some courts of the PCA do a good job, others notably not. And the higher courts seem to take a "hands off" position at times, using narrow procedural technicalities to avoid safeguarding the purity of the church. The only reason that they ever did anything about the situation in Monroe is that an entire presbytery threatened to depart and split the denomination.
A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
What was the situation in Monroe?
I found this placing blame on the “poison of a "strict old school confessionalism"
but couldn’t figure out the jist of the controversy https://johnharmstrong.typepad.com/john_h_armstrong_/2008/01/the-pca-divided.html
I also came across this....
https://dougwils.com/books-and-culture/s7-engaging-the-culture/pca-r-i-p-.html
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JTB.SDG
Puritan Board Junior
I stand corrected. Sorry brother, I though you were being nit-picky. I've been out of the loop; you miss some things serving overseas.
There is indeed a lot disconcerting. Prayers for the seminary and for the proposal to bring it out of the PCA at the next GA.
Edward
Puritanboard Commissioner
Very short and simplified version. Others on the board with greater involvement or better records and memories may diverge or enlarge:
Steve Wilkins was a leading proponent of the Federal Vision theology and was senior pastor at Auburn Avenue PCA in Monroe. At the time FV was known by several names including Auburn Avenue Theology. Louisiana Presbytery repeatedly refused to act on the matter, and Westminster Presbytery forced the issue. When the Presbytery's hand was finally forced, Auburn Avenue and its pastor decamped from the PCA, leaving those who had stood with him at the presbytery level holding the bag. In the end, the presbytery was abolished, and the remnants split among three other Presbyteries.
If it had been dealt with properly by the court of original jurisdiction, it never would have turned into nearly as big of a mess that it did. And the situation would have continued to fester if the usual 'go along, get along' folks hadn't been painted into a corner.
Bill Duncan
Puritan Board Freshman
Time to start from Scratch. Its the New School/Old School 2.0 or 3.0 depending where you start counting. Even if you start today, kicking Covenant out in the street, there is not enough grass roots among particular Churches to change course. After a year of trying to persuade my own Session of the problems in the PCA and how that puts our congregation susceptible to the contagion, they hang all hope of remaining sound on God's providential care in situating them in an insular, non-connectional, independent relationship to their affiliation. Don't participate in Presbytery or General Assembly, keep the congregation in the dark, and whistle while you work, and all will be well.
A few months ago my Session approved a women's group study book. When my daughter brought it home I read some of it. I got no farther than the introduction and my "Spidey" senses went on alert. First the author says that national Israel was saved by their "trust in the Lord" and "heartfelt obedience to the law." Then later she goes on say that the last day will be a day of final salvation judgment. She may have meant well by this but in today's climate those can be dangerous statements with out more explanation. My dispensational and Federal vision friends would both be pleased however. Whether she meant the interpretation I concluded or not , these are not good terms just to through out in a group study without clarification. When I asked the Session to please take another look at the book, the response was that it was reccommended by the PCA so it would be fine. Wow how trusting!
So that's an example of the danger of staying put and trusting that your particular church can remain sound just by talking a good talk but not putting your money where your mouth is.
Just to make sure my statement here remains in the framework of this thread, the author if this book I mentioned is married to a former Covenant President and is the granddaughter of J. Oliver Buswell, another former president of Covenant.
A few months ago my Session approved a women's group study book. When my daughter brought it home I read some of it. I got no farther than the introduction and my "Spidey" senses went on alert. First the author says that national Israel was saved by their "trust in the Lord" and "heartfelt obedience to the law." Then later she goes on say that the last day will be a day of final salvation judgment. She may have meant well by this but in today's climate those can be dangerous statements with out more explanation. My dispensational and Federal vision friends would both be pleased however. Whether she meant the interpretation I concluded or not , these are not good terms just to through out in a group study without clarification. When I asked the Session to please take another look at the book, the response was that it was reccommended by the PCA so it would be fine. Wow how trusting!
So that's an example of the danger of staying put and trusting that your particular church can remain sound just by talking a good talk but not putting your money where your mouth is.
Just to make sure my statement here remains in the framework of this thread, the author if this book I mentioned is married to a former Covenant President and is the granddaughter of J. Oliver Buswell, another former president of Covenant.
TheOldCourse
Puritan Board Sophomore
Perhaps, but those microdenominations like the CREC tend to keep their identity longer simply because they define themselves against those outside of them. More likely is a slow death due to membership loss rather than due to liberalism. That said, as many problems as the PCA has I'd rather be there than the CREC since I would at least have some confidence in the PCA that they are getting justification (mostly) right.
D
Deleted member 6112
Guest
I agree with you for the most part, but the CREC is a larger denomination with a greater breadth of views than many people realize. Also, they have a commitment to ecumenicism that will leave them vulnerable to many of these social justice/sexuality issues. Right now they're very conservative on family issues, etc., but I don't see any good reason to think that will last--just look at their friendliness to ETS and to guys like N. T. Wright. Some of them seem to be very self-conscious regarding their Southern Presbyterian and Reconstructionist roots. Their backtracking on those things will weaken them significantly on many issues. All the while, they don't have the constitutional safeguards to check that slide.
I don't know the future--I only know what I observed when I was in the CREC, and what I've observed as an outsider since then.
A.Joseph
Puritan Board Senior
Thanks, very telling....
TheOldCourse
Puritan Board Sophomore
To my view, and I'm less familiar with them than you are, their being conservative on family and social issues (indeed, hyperconservative even) is their one true "distinctive." Sure, many are FV and "high church" ecumenical (both of which ties them closely to a guy like Wright), but it's hard to see them existing or having much appeal to their membership without that social conservatism. Most of Doug Wilson's followers aren't even aware of his theological aberrations. They just like his views on beards and what he makes up about the early Republic.
In any case, to return to the OP, the first step of theological liberalism has never been to deny orthodox doctrines, it has always been driven by moderates who wish primarily to make a cultural impact and see disputes over doctrine as a hindrance to that mission. It's a result of otherwise orthodox men for whom orthodoxy isn't of first importance. The true liberals, a significant minority in the early days, didn't kill the PCUSA, it was the masses of moderates who didn't take the issues seriously enough to do anything about it because it was more important to be united together in the work of sharing the gospel (something not precisely defined) and reforming the culture. I fear that the PCA is treading a very similar path.
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