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What Went Down at The PCA General Assembly · CrossPolitic Show

• Hey y'all welcome to Cross-Politik 101 with the Water Boys. Good to be with you. Very excited about this show. I got a kind of a panel of guests. We're going to talk about P.S.K. General Assembly. Denomination meetings. It's going to be a fun show. Trust me. It's not going to be dry. It's not going to be boring. Maybe, maybe Presbyterian. And maybe boring in that way. I don't know. We'll find out. But very grateful to be able to kind of give you guys an update on what happened on P.C.A. General Assembly the week of June 22nd. But before I get into that, every dollar you spend supports either your values or works against them. With Patriot Mobile America's only Christian conservative wireless provider, you can make a difference without sacrificing quality Patriot Mobile offers exceptional NACOI coverage by utilizing all three major networks. So guys, make sure you check that out. When you go to Patreon, we'll go to patreonmobile.com for it's last Cross-Politik to join them. Or if you just call them to Cross-Politik, Sydney, they'll take really good care of you. The customer service is American based. They've been awesome for Cross-Politik. And I just, they're a Christian company. They're solid. I know the CEO, Glenn Story, good dude. A lot of good folks there. Take your cell phone away from Verizon, Pastor Corey, and take your cell phone away from AT&T and all the other work with Christians. Do it. Go to patreonmobile.com for it's last Cross-Politik. Love those guys over there. Make sure you support them because they support us, of course. Also, do you listen to Cross-Politik? Do you listen to Cross-Politik because you care about seeing Christ's Lordship over every area of life, including the civil realm, but establishing righteous laws and adjust the side that requires money. That's right. Or is my guys would say resources. That's where Dominion Wills strategy just comes in. They're not just here to help you survive in a broken system. 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Let's prepare for that future together and build one of the, excuse me, and build one of the means to make it happen. Book your free consultation at reform.money. Those who are tuning in from the PCA General Assembly today reformed up money from Baptist to burial. Dominions got you covered. So book your free consultation at reform.money today. And thank you for supporting them. Obviously they support us too. So like I said, I want to bring my guys in because I'm going to have them give an update or actually give their own bios because I don't have each bio in my in my teleprompter. But bring each guy in here all three of them. Bring into the show and Pastor Corey since you're driving, I'm going to start with you. Who are you? What's your church you represent? And then we'll move to to Pastor Josh. And then lastly to our good and faithful Presbyterian Baptist Josiah. Go ahead and start Pastor Corey. And Pastor Corey is already having cell phone coverage problems. So we'll move on to you Pastor Josh. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. Appreciate you having me on. Gabe, like I told you I've been home for about 15 minutes from the PCAGA. So grateful to be on. Yeah, my name is Josh Howard. I serve as senior pastor at a new covenant. We're a church in Monroeville, which is one of the boroughs of Pittsburgh. So if you're ever in the Pittsburgh area, we'd love to have you come and worship with us. I also teach as an adjunct professor at a warm Presbyterian theological seminary. BTS is a seminary here in Pittsburgh. And again, if you are looking toward ministry, you're looking to bolster your theological education. Come study with us. It's a rigorous educational program, but it's also won this key toward the local church and emphasizes the pastor it. So that's pretty much me. Oh, that's very cool. Pastor, not Pastor Josiah. I'm sorry. So besides not a pastor, but he is one of our corporate partners with Dominion Wealth reformed up money. So Pastor Josiah, just real quick. Tell a little about yourself. And and as a Baptist, tell us why you're at the PCA general assembly. Right. Right. So yeah, my name is Josiah Stowe. I'm one of the partners and co-founders at Dominion Walls strategist, the only distinctly reformed financial consulting firm on the planet here to serve the distinctly reformed church. So even as a Baptist, I am a reconstructionist. So the Baptist and the two Presbyterian for them and the Presbyterian think I'm two Baptist for them. So I like to fall in the nice middle ground between the SPC and the PCA, but I'm here to serve both. Right. Really anyone who would fall under the Calvinist covenantal confessional banner and a few Lutherans besides when they have some assets for our sister go. Anyway, here to put more money in the hands of the church regardless of the distinctive doctrinal play for their own. So I was at the PCA as a vendor, which means I was largely attached to my booth since it was just my myself this year. But I did get to poke my head into the assembly as often as I could recently since when all the guys were in their voting, not a whole lot of people pass them by the booth. Right. So I'm happy to stick my head in and get to see Roberts rules masterfully handled by a denomination who is steeped in a history of constitutional procedure, we might say. It was a wonderful to wash and very interesting to see what went down. Okay. Well, looking forward to your perspective, and what you have to say from kind of a vendor slipping in and out of the voting areas, very good. Pastor Corey, can you just introduce yourself? Who are you? What's your church? So forth. Sure. My name's Corey Wang of the pastoral and current sheer friends of the church and more as well as North Carolina, which to get in to as few PCA weeds as possible. I'm a ruling elder under care. I'm going to be standing for ordination as a teaching elder next May most likely. And so I'm on pastoral staff and I preach once a month, I've done funerals and all the stuff. So functionally, I work as a pastor every day full time. And yeah, so that's what I do. Yeah. Well, thank you. Well, just kind of a little quick summary here that this is the 53rd General Assembly of the PCA. It was held basically in Louisville as you guys have already mentioned July. Excuse me. Keep saying to lie June 22nd, the week of June 22nd. And I one of the I think coming to some of the results immediately. Mel Duncan was elected, elected as the moderator. And Fred Greco was elected as a state clerk. So that's kind of some of the outcomes that happen here at PCA, General Assembly. But every time I think about like presbyteries or even the SPC meeting, because the SPC is basically a press material. Let's be honest. It's a denomination at some level. But whenever I think about like when a denomination meets, I think of acts chapter five, acceptor. Oh my goodness, 15, not five. Acts chapter 15, when denominations come together and they make decisions and they rule and they decide and they they sort through things. And I think God uses denomination meetings in a in a particular way. This is why every time almost every time the SPC meets, they're on the front page of New York Times or something like the the unbelieving world knows when when churches meet things happen. And and I think and I think we actually as Christians need to take kind of denomination meetings like the PCA like the SPC is you know, God moving God working God bringing kind of the unity together to be able to make decisions to help the church thrive moving forward. And so these are actually more important than probably we realize that when denomination meets things are happening. So I'm very grateful when the PCA General Assembly meets I get excited when the SPC meets it's it's it's really I think good and also could be for our our detriment to would denomination meet like this and everything. So you know real quick past record I'll start with you on this question real quick kind of what you know, generally speaking was the General Assembly was a lot of positive outcomes with some good things. You know, I know over the past number of years I've been concerned and I don't feel like the General Assembly maybe his heads were stronger results than as I would have liked to see. But also I haven't been in person in at the GA in the past five years or whatever. So could you kind of maybe give us your perspective on what happened this GA. Overall I'm saying it was it was positive. We we got a lot of outcomes we wanted and I would put myself probably on the 20% of the right most conservative most whatever your years would you know, voltage they would prefer. I would put myself on a 20% fringe on that side. So I mean I'm I'm about on this consumer news PCA you guys going to be though we are a large denomination probably approaching half a million because the official numbers say 400 some 1000 but not everybody reports right. So we're probably half a million you get to that large and there's a wide breadth of people. So even on the far right which I would be I was pretty pleased. Now does everything go our way. No but the guys on the other side would say the same thing right. So so all in all I was pretty pleased with how things go I think we're in like what the SPC just went through because I grew up much you grew up in the PCA. I know that from your backstory I grew up in the SPC. So like you are concerned with what goes on at our General Assembly I'm always concerned to know how the SPC's annual meeting went to. A lot of family mind is still in it and they just had a great convention but it took years for them to fight some of those battles to have a great convention and I think we're in a similar mode where we've taken ground especially from the side B and some of that stuff a few years back and we've got some more fights ahead of us most assuredly but I see us kind of clawing away at it and we're in a I think in the next 10 years you're going to see more and more confessional biblical faithfulness from the PCA. Interesting okay and then so Pastor Josh one of the I think there's a couple flash points or a couple I don't know how hot topics and one of them was the women deaconess issue. I think there was something like 10 overtures or around that kind of being bad at around. I think one made it to again correct me here I wasn't there but one made it to the floor in in a requesting or asking or or the overture was proposing excuse me that's probably the better language to use that women could serve as deacons give us more detail about that overture and then what happened. Yeah no and now I would just echo what Corey said as well having a meld Duncan who is just a proficient and funny moderator he he poleted the meeting so effectively having Fred Greco serve as the clerk Fred Greco for those who don't know is one of those guys that will text you back within seconds of you texting him and he has a lot of churches to oversee so really thankful for some of the leadership that's been serving and that that served this year at the GA. Yeah so when overture 37 came through overture 37 angling the PCA toward allowing for female deacons you could use the term deaconess is a lot of those terms are sort of up for debate at times but overture 37 was roundly defeated for those who were there on the floor it was not particularly close. I think one of the things that's been difficult for a lot of people to see is how these things actually come out on the GA floor GA is large you you've got somewhere around 2,400 I think registered voters that we had this year so a lot of these discussions are done in committee there's committees that meet extensively before the GA ever comes about the overtures committee obviously is one of the committees that does the heavy lifting on many of these overtures and sort of weighed through the related issues before they ever make it to the GA floor and part of that's just a preserve time on the floor this was I think this was the most overtures that ever made it to a GA floor if I recollect somewhere around 90 plus so many people were just concerned whether or not you could even make it through the process and so that that inevitably resulted in many overtures going back to presbyteriors are being referred back for future study and coming back possibly to GA in later years but overture 37 came to the floor it was defeated and to say it was roundly defeated it's kind of an understatement there was almost no support for this overture it was it was clear not only by the vote but also just the tenor of the room and the conversations around the topic there is there was zero desire for the PCA to move in any sort of direction of ordaining women to the to the office of deacon so that was massively encouraging what then led from that was there were several related overtures that the especially overtures committee deemed were to be answered in regard to overture 37 whether you agree with that decision or not essentially what they said was these other overtures what they are seeking to answer as it relates to females in the office of the D'Ackinit have already been answered by our roundhouse rejection of overture 37 so those were not and not essentially dismissed but regarded as having been answered because of the way overture 37 came out right and so I wonder this is more of a process question actually then I'm getting out here um it for if the overture is clearly not biblical um can the committee just kick it out like just no this is not biblical the we aren't even proposing this swearing let this make it to the floor is that question that was for me yes sir Josh sure yeah um and Cory feel free to jump in but my understanding yeah is that overtures committee part of their task is to screen certain things as they are coming through the the process so the way an overture has to come up to the general assembly level is either it's ratified through a press battery or the session of a church can try to advance it but all of them work their way through the overtures committee many of them are addressed at that level but if something is just clearly biblically aberrant um it doesn't make it to the general assembly floor necessarily now when you come to something like overture 37 I think you could ask that question and say why did they ever come to the general assembly floor but again I think the I think the voice of the denomination was encouraging the way they responded pastor Cory I would please ask please out to that just a little bit please um what I what I would say is because of the grassroots nature of the PCA one of the again one of the features and again I know oftentimes by people outside looking at it looks like a bug but this is an actual feature of who we are we want to hash these out we want to talk through these things because it is important that the men in the room and by extension the the particularized churches that we came to represent because our churches send us to represent them that they hear what everyone in the denomination that came to GA is thanking so sometimes they'll let things like side B or in this case this come through so that we can engage from the floor are we sick is that I mean is the help of the denomination really a play you know is there something systemic that's happening or is this an aberrant kind of tentacle of the denomination that that needs to be um and again the theory would be agiticated but here's the other issue that I think we it's important to get out there so if you get with me for another minute that the BCO we call the book of church order is whatever guiding documents and of course scripture being the ultimate guiding document and then the Westminster standards and then our constitutionality so the BCO and things like that the BCO is it is never going to be a document that could completely eliminate this kind of thing because we have the Bible and sadly for some of these men the Bible doesn't eliminate these things so the BCO is certainly underneath the Bibles of the wordy and if they're not deterred by scripture then there's no BCO amendment that we could ever do it's going to deter someone who does not want to hold to subscriptionism so the way we route that out functionally and this is what functional female officers there's nothing we could write which is why they referred everything back to 37 there's nothing we could write that they couldn't ignore so then that has to be dealt with in the lower courts which means we have to do Matthew 18 which is hard work we have to go to men in our presbyteries approach them one-on-one giving their faces as gently and as kindly and as deeply Christianly as we can but firmly and say you're outside of the court of scripture and our standards and then when if and when they don't listen then we rise that up to a judicial case yeah so do you think because I think it was like seven people were on a signature authority on the on the overture something like that 14 people something like that I mean are they going to lead the nomination or like what is going to happen with those who proposed it there were 14 people that voted for it so which were speaking of over to 37 the most I call the most direct or the most vanilla hey we want female beacons there were 14 people that voted for it one of them being the guy that authored it who also defended it from the floor and 13 supporters of his we may know the names of all of them we may not there are there is a way in in the PCA Josh do you want to maybe pick that up a little bit and add to it yeah I would I would just kind of emphasize what what Corey was was saying as far as the grassroots every every GA there's a sort of push and pull a sort of tension that's kind of built into the system between some sort of centralized authority and then the grassroots nature of the denomination you hear it whether people use the verbiage every year and I think that's a that's a healthy feature like Corey said and not a bug so a lot of these things you do want to hear from the presbyteries and I think what you heard a lot of this year was again a hesitancy to over litigate something from the from the centralized level when it came to something that they felt that the standards already addressed which again you may disagree with that but it was at least the opinion of the floor that this is already sufficiently dealt with within our standards that we don't need further explanation and you know maybe a list of titles one may or may not be able to use and so then the really the task then falls to the presbyteries and so much of presbyterianism fault rises and falls on the strength of the presbyteries the local presbyteries if those presbyteries hold to our subscription standards and they enforce those things which again that doesn't happen all the time obviously there's there's many errors that creep into the system but what the local presbyteries ought to do then is if they see a church acting waywardly they address that local church the presbyterie can and should address that local church if the church won't listen there is there is a court system which then is built into to our appeals process that you can then appeal to to try to to address an error in church so that's the way it's supposed to function when you come to the 14 members they're frequently people that are dissatisfied with the direction of the domination and they may move over to another denomination that may allow for females in ordination they may look to the EPC or some other related organization whether that happens with these 14 I'm not sure but I think you see those movements almost every year where where somebody within the PCA will move that that direction even as others come in because of the conservative nature yeah and so you're you're basically saying because my question was basically like should they leave or are they going to leave or should they be forced out kind of thinking you're basically saying if first of all if they're truly let's say they've truly tried to or have ordained women deacons which is clearly out of the BCO kind of thing away from the BCO against the BCO you're saying basically a Matthew 18 process is what would happen to either remove that church or they leave themselves kind of thing essentially yeah that would that would be what happens every every Presbyterian can and does weigh weigh differences to the standards within their Presbyteries so somebody could have a stated difference to the standards and then appeal to their Presbyteria for an exception exceptions aren't something that's just given by right that's something you have to appeal to your Presbyteria for as long as those things don't strike at the vitals of the faith to the best to the best judgment of that Presbyteria they may offer an exception to that but you can never practice against nor teach against the standards the standards are quite simply the standards so if somebody was teaching or installing officers for example in a way that was out of accordance with the standards somebody from that Presbyteria should step in now there's also built in processes within our sort of judicial system because again Presbyterians are very judicially minded and there's a lot of there's a lot of good processes you know you come for the theology you stay for the polity is the is the kind of catchphrase but there's ways at which another Presbyteria could reach out and ask a higher court to investigate another Presbyteria or church and say listen they're doing things the county over they're not within our purview but they're within a higher courts purview and we want you to investigate this that's helpful you know just I like what was I mean obviously your vendor you weren't voting on the floor that kind of thing what was your take in kind of watching especially over to 37 I mean obviously this is a big SPC issue in a lot of ways it is yeah so looking at the well from the beginning when we bring a motion of the floor in the SPC it's like one issue or what we're going to vote on this one thing are we going to amend the constitution to include this specific language which Albert Muller put to the floor does not affirm a point or endorse a woman serving in the office or function of a pastor elder overseer such as preaching to the assemble congregation that passed with flying colors this year it also has to pass next year or did actually get installed into the constitution right but for overture 37 it was the overtures committee seemed to omnibus package a bunch of other overtures under it and say whatever 37 does we're going to assume falls under the rest of these overtures probably just to save time but there's a lot of nuance in those sort of subordinate overtures that wanted like we should have discussed or what when I say we I mean the PCA wanted to discuss it in fact specifically like overture 36 14 48 52 have very similar language to the molar amendment where it's like you aren't appointing deacons or deaconesses per se but you're allowing them to function in the office it's a functional office you're adding shepherds as a auxiliary title and having ceremonies that are very similar to appointing these women and you probably ought not do that at least that's why the particular overtures were brought to where we're intended to be brought to the floor and instead we're not allowed to be brought to the floor and discussed so for the liberals I could see this being like a minor defeat okay we're not getting the big victory that we wanted but for the conservatives it's also a little frustrating because they wanted the clarity and they were not allowed to get the clarity on the floor so for this particular not allowed to get clarity because they turned down they voted down overture 37 they did and did not allow the again the related overtures to come to the floor so the overtures committee did not allow any discussion on those sort of subservient or subordinate overtures just due to the again I think it was intended just to speed up the process hey these are all about female deaconesses we're gonna vote them all together yeah they'll stand or fall together but I don't think they were all about exactly the same thing so the the fact that they didn't get to come to the floor for discussion you didn't get to hear the pros the cons the speakers for or against was a little bit of a disappointment for the conservatives they wanted the clarity and we're not allowed the opportunity to get it but Josh it seems like you take a little different angle on that I don't know if it's a different angle I sympathize with everything Josiah is pointing out I think the thing that I what I caught from the floor and what we heard in the overtures committee which I was not on but we sat in on it was a desire to see this worked out in the courts as opposed to seeing something something ratified constitutionally that addressed those issues again whether one agrees with that or not there was a lot of disagreement or over whether that was effective but if you're looking to add lists of you know specific titles or specific functions that are prohibited or not prohibited I think what they're asking the presbyteries to do is the work of the presbyterry level which is if you see a church within your presbyterry that is mimicking the office of elder and yet attaching a substitute title do the work of presbyterianism and actually address that errant church if you saw enough of those actually work their way up through the courts I think the overtures committee and the general assembly at large would be far more apt to listen to such overtures again I would have loved to have heard more floor debate on a lot of those overtures we didn't hear that obviously because of the way this this rolled through and I sympathize with with people trying to do that in a timely fashion yet at the same time I think they're relying on the presbyteries to do the work at the local level so kind of related to this kind of women deacon deaconess debate maybe the Danvers statement was included in this I don't know but I saw a tweet earlier from from someone who's at the general assembly and he yeah I'm a paraphrasing a little but he basically was arguing or saying that there were strong words for like performative masculinity as he put in quotes performative masculinity but little against little condemnation or a little against functional female officers so even though overture 37 got shot down he still seemed to think that was like there's maybe it's a rhetoric issue or I don't know but he seemed to think there's some sort of imbalance between like man we went hard after performance masculinity and didn't really go that hard after women deacons and kind of that kind of thing I'm Cory if you can hear me I want to start with you on that unmute Cory yeah yes I can hear you okay so I would I would say that that is certainly true of his opinion but but I again don't want to be slippery so let me answer his direct ways I can I think that one of the things about Presbyterianism and the PCA in general is it is the old Southern Presbyterian church you know that's what that's where our roots lie so there is a lot of gentleness you know a very gentile Southern spirit of and again whether that's good bad or indifferent that's a hold debate to be had right but the idea that everyone in the PCA and I would agree with this if we're saying a scale of one to ten right where one is an absolute pagan and and ten is perfect theology which none of us have then I would say the PCA is probably nines and above but there's a lot of shift in nine and above and so as we're talking about these men in the room as I said earlier in my first answer I'm probably on the 20% of the right side I think there's a 20% on the left side which means there's 60% better in the squishy middle and those squishy middle guys who I love who I serve with I think there are a lot of them especially the older ones in our denomination they cannot come to grips with bad actors they just they they really don't understand the world that's shifting around them and the ground that's kind of shifting beneath them and it's taking time for them to to understand that the young men at PCA uh general assembly this year and this is my fourth year in a row of going and every year I see more young participation and so as more and more young men join the PCA get involved whether the ruling elder level or certainly the teaching elder level I am bullish for these young guys because they see the writing on the wall you know they see what's happening in our society they see what's happening even within our denomination and the American church at large and they're showing up for the fight so so I do think there's a bit of a cultural and generational divide and again because the bible is very clear about honoring your fathers I don't want to demon or downplay our Christian church fathers that these are good men faithful men they fought the fights of the 70s and the 80s and and they fought them diligently but I think many of them don't fully appreciate or understand what is happening so when they see again hyper masculinity as as they may have called it and some of the things that have happened even recently in in our denomination and others they're they're disturbed by that right when maybe functional female off female officers and this type of thing seems like a problem they they disagree with but a problem they can wrap their mind around they can understand oh that's helpful yeah no very good Josh Pessar Josh yeah I think I think might take away from that there's a desire and a need within our denomination within every denomination but within ours included is that we need we need courageous young men not crass young men I think that would be the positive take away from this that's not to deny now gay by I suspect you're a fan of the serrated edge and and there's times to speak boldly and there's times to speak pointedly I don't think those things are out of bound whatsoever I do think that there are young men whose speech is just simply intemperate and a bit crass in a way that's not helpful to their cause a lot of that gets blown up by online discourse I think I think a lot of what you heard on the the floor was not necessarily what people are experiencing within their churches but maybe what they've heard online from bad actors at least that's been my subjective experience from where I am I don't I don't see that problem within our church I do hear it online from time to time but what you need is courageous young men who are willing to stand up to something that at at various times very unpopular for you to do to stand up against for example a church that is air in within your Presbyterry who is essentially installing functional PML officers and to stand up run the risk of looking massage and mystic or you know somehow hateful toward women also looking intemperate to those elders but standing up with courage minding your minding your tongue and respecting your elders but at the same time standing up and confronting those things we have a desperate need for courage within the PCA and I think we have courageous young men who know how to speak boldly but also to speak temporarily and I I'm hoping and praying and I'm confident that we're going to see some of those young men step up wherever those things are cropping up we have to address them so apparently cheeseburgers became a thing at PCA I someone in a tweet said something about cheeseburger maybe as you pass your judge I can't remember and I was burger patriotism there we go there we go it was you then and so I had to google cheeseburger patriot because of you I saw it in the thread and everything so let's roll this video brief teaching how to jackson link of the Presbyterry I rise for the recommendation as a Taiwanese when I was five years old I have my very first unhealthy yet delicious cheeseburger in Taiwan after I finished I told my mom mother whichever country came up with this I'm moving there 25 years later I humbly and gratefully became a citizen of this cheeseburger and freedom loving country certainly these united states of America like it cheeseburger have their unhealthy parts many parts have been deeply sinful their wickedness rises to heaven that we ought to be repentant of however I'm also reminded of the delicious parts growing up in Taiwan I was able to freely go to church and worship the true god partly because of our constitution which was modeled after the US constitution and its Presbyterian branches of government and partly because a tyrannical communist empire next to us was kept at bay because of the US armed forces and now I'm a teaching elder in these united states because an American family first embraced me as a foreigner and as an immigrant and American share the gospel with me and American mentored me and American is married to me I have to mention that and the Presbyterian church in America ordained me should we not be thankful to the Lord for such a common grace that exists in this nation should we not give honor to whom honor is old and that is the Lord note that this overture is giving thanks to the Lord not to the US I'm not asking us to fly to American flag or sing the national anthem when I first became a minister in southern Mississippi I told my congregation I will not have God bless America and the handbook I will not have the national anthem I will not allow the American flag to be flown in my sanctuary because this is the Lord sanctuary but this overture is giving thanks to the Lord do we not owe the Lord our thank for us for being able to sit here partly because he gave this nation 250 years while we don't deserve a day so let's give thanks to the Lord for these united states of America love for the recommendations thank you so apparently there was a overture was that an overture I was recommended to kind of basically celebrate America's 250th birthday you have an official gift thanks for it yeah over to 66 yeah over to 66 that's what it was and did it did it pass it did it overwhelmingly yes it should have been 76 but yeah Josiah just say how come this didn't happen at the SPC or did it yeah I don't think it happened at the SPC there's no formal recommendation for SPC churches to recognize and celebrate and thankfulness for 250 years of the this great country that we live in for whatever reason just and give brought up but I'm happy you got brought up at the PCA so we can affirm it there yeah very very grateful for that very very nice I wanted to use that kind of really to turn into the kind of Christian nationalism committee report and and maybe if we have time I don't know if I'll much time but maybe get into the AI stuff but just kind of wanted to you know get your guys' thoughts let's say Pastor Josiah will start with you on this but kind of get your thoughts on the kind of Christian nationals report you know kind of what were some of the discussions and and maybe kind of for the listeners what's the difference between overture and report being submitted stuff like that maybe kind of getting to the the the governmental process that's going on and what it's for yeah yeah I'm so glad you guys played that video that was the high point I think I think that was the only time I think Mel Duncan actually said that this was his one lapse in moderating the meeting because I think that's the first time I've heard a room full of Presbyterians unanimously applaud it was just it was a glorious moment but um yeah so the CN the CN had an ad interim study committee which they appointed last year and set some men aside who were appointed to study Christian nationalism um it's kind of bounds there there was a pastoral letter included um the committee came back this year with an incomplete as it as of yet incomplete or at least partial as the way it is phrased a partial report now the difference between that and an overture overture is seek to actually change the constitution in some form or fashion so those um have again at the speed of Presbyterianism they have a lengthy process it has to go through um and there's Florida Bates and then you come back to it the next year um a study report is something that is given it's non binding to the churches but it's intended to give good helpful advice from the denomination to the churches so it's not as if it doesn't matter but it's not binding in the same way the constitution is it's something that's given to study a specific issue and sort of give guidance on that and people can and have disagreed with parts of these ad interim study committees this is not the first one that's been written there's been several that have been imminently helpful through the years there've been a few that have been in my opinion less helpful but in any case they're they're trying to engage an issue and to give a report on it so this one was chaired by Dr. David strain this came out this came again as a partial report this year and what the committee asked for and was granted was one additional year to not only work through the report more but also to supplement the report with significant sort of sort of their work they want to show their work show their sources all the ends and outs of of what they've worked through in the different categories that they've been working with so when you when the when the proposal came to the floor I really appreciated Dr. strain there's been a lot of discussion on the report which again it only came out a few weeks prior to the general assembly but he was very gracious and recognizing that it was incomplete I'm trying to remember the exact words he used but he said that the report not only had a few errors in it but that there was that there was a few things that needed to be worked through because of its incomplete nature and so he very graciously asked for one additional year to speak to more people to shape up the things in there that may be either confusing or even contradictory whatever he was referring to that was erroneous and that it presented a completed report next year that would then come before the assembly and the assembly would vote to adopt it or or to not adopt it so one of our friends in fact that that that's over on eschatology matters with matters with us George Sayer he proposed an amendment to it which was just to send out the pastoral pastoral letter to the churches as opposed to the incomplete report because it is it is a bit confusing or at least it's a bit it's a bit difficult to work through the reception of an or report that is as yet incomplete and I think we've seen some of that in the way social media has reacted to it but it was the will of the assembly to go ahead and send out what was here even it even in its incomplete state and then to come back next year and to have a full discussion on the completed report. You know a little bit pastricory this report in some sense it's a little unfair in the sense that I don't know to me the the federal vision report kind of has the same problem there's so many different views within that name and there's shades of views within that name and then there's problematic views within that name and there's I think acceptable views within the name and same thing for Christian nationalism I feel like it's almost kind of the same you know it's like almost like the the committee if if they don't cover everything it's a it's a loose-lose situation in some sense almost for the report and and at the same time if they aren't fair to I think the size they should be fair to and I don't know uh pastricory what's your what's your thought about the C&R report? Well I mean considering I run a channel called civically minded it's something I'm pretty you know I'm pretty passionate about civil engagement and and how Christians live practically and live well within their cultural context political context so I think it is an exceedingly important thing to study to look into and to your point there is a pretty broad swath of differing opinions that's absolutely true there are a number of men on the committee officially that that were named to the study committee but that doesn't limit the it's not like they can't talk to men outside of themselves you know so so however many men are on the committee then they start to pull in people from outside as well who may hold a broader scope of view and they're they're certainly well within the bounds and they often do talk to a broader context of people on this particular topic in this case Christian nationalism um and and I think even uh you know pastor Doug Wilson himself you know out in your world has oftentimes said who gets defined terms you know whether we're talking Christian nationalism or terms in general right uh Doug Dickens you know who gets to define what that means and and so we we're always struggling as as Christians uh whether that's our denomination or just the church at large to control to some degree measurable what the lexicon we're going to use means yeah you know so biblical fidelity what does that mean in erancy what does that mean and this is just another attempt by our denomination to say what are the the parts of Christian nationalism that may be helpful but may be useful that may be acceptable within our confessionalism and what are parts that just are beyond the pale you know and and I think again any of us there's certainly the four of us on this call because I follow each of us on x and other social media um we're all pretty plugged in so we have seen great examples um like might my dear friend dr or James Baird uh who wrote King of Kings recently which is a phenomenal book about just Christian responsibility in government and and a very simple syllogism about how the government is mandated through Romans 13 and other places to be supportive of Christianity because it is the one true religion yeah but we've also seen the ugly stuff you know that the stuff that is not only unhelpful but just un-Christian entirely and should have no place within the church in general but certainly not within men who would call themselves ministers the gospel yeah yeah you know so I I agree with what you said there and I was actually talking to an elder from g-a today as he was driving flying home and he he was just asking me is you know you know why did you start cross-politic he didn't know much about me and everything and I'm uh and so I was just kind of one of the reasons why I started I grew up in the PCA as we already mentioned on the show earlier pastor Josh um I was uh uh there I was part of a PCA church in Texas I was part of PCA church in New Mexico as part of a PCA member by part and I was a member as a member of the PCA church also in Oregon and so I basically left the PCA when I went to play college basketball down in California um only because I couldn't find a PCA church in my region it wasn't I wasn't leaving I just I moved and there's no PCA church within an hour of my drive oh drive um and so by 18 by 18 years old uh I ended up in an evangelical church and then I moved to Colorado and then I ended up in a C.R.E.C. plant there and then I moved to Moscow Idaho obviously which is which is pastoral since church and so I'm a C.R.E.C. I've been in C.R.E.C. church basically since 2002 so half my spiritual life in the PCA um uh and more now more than half my life in the C.R.E.C. I grew up in PCA but um what the reason why it started cross-bought to come 2016 with pastor Toby and and Knox was really because I I had a deficiency I mean I felt it when I went to university of Idaho in 2002 I got on a secular college campus and even when I played basketball down in California I was on a secular college campus and I remember getting into the classroom and like I don't have a good theological answer for this so you're a good biblical answer for this or um when I got in the college ministry at University of Idaho I was dealing with evolution in the classroom I was dealing with uh politics on campus I was dealing with you know I was part of a student ministry you know I was dealing with all this like political stuff and kind of realizing how short I came to having kind of a good theological worldview or even Bible verse answers for some of the things I was bumping into and this is you know the pastor obviously he studies he preaches you know he's he's working and he's counseling he's doing all these things but his sheep is kind of going out into the world his sheep is going to work for intel Texas instruments you know Microsoft Facebook all this stuff and and they're and the sheep are constantly bumping into like political issues um and so I guess I'm just paying the picture of that I don't think I was actually discipled well on how to apply the Bible to politics and then and so that's why you know when I was uh man how well 30 something that was 35 or whatever when I started cross-paltry in 2016 because um I I had this deficit and I was like man if I had this deficit I know other people have this problem too uh and so that's why cross-paltry started so I think a little bit of the report to me by the PCA on Christian nationalism uh felt a little disingenuous in the same way if the SPC did a report just because I think the this is a generalization that I think is fair um Corey and Pastor Josh you can correct me here but I think generally speaking the previous leadership in the church in the PCA or SPC um they they did not teach us and I don't want to do this and like you Corey like I do not want to dishonor my previous generation I do not want to call the baby boomers all idiots and all that dumb stuff I think that's very dishonoring but it's also not maybe point out some things that we need to learn from and discuss too and and I think this is one of them where I think the previous shepherd generation church generation church leadership generation didn't really teach our generation on how to apply the Bible to every area of life and particularly as I'm talking here politics and so when I see a CNN report from a denomination that I love I'm a little like okay now you're starting to weigh in on this when maybe we should have been talking about this 20 years ago um and having over church 20 years ago or having reports 30 years ago to be like hey guys we got a problem we have not been applying the Bible to everybody every area of life in the church and we need to correct that um you know please I'm not correct me here Josh I'll start with you pastor Josh on this you know correct anything here um but that I guess that was kind of like it was like a little bit of a bad taste of my mouth that were a finally gonna like you know do a report on this when we should have been talking about this 30 years ago yeah it's when you look at Presbyterian and I I agree with the the deficiency I don't think there's many people within the PCA that would say that we have not had a deficiency in political theology through in the church in recent years everybody coming out of COVID recognized that we had a deficiency I came out of the SPC I know that's that's been some of your backgrounds as well um that many denominations including the PCA and that this was part of the CNN report they noted that they were thankful for and I don't think they were being disingenuous with this they said they were thankful for the retrieval of political theology among the younger generation and I think that's true a lot of us have realized um Galisby witherspoon Althusiast there there are such stalwarts in our faith um in our tradition that we just haven't haven't simply been applying again I'm a pastor many of you guys are pastors I have a lot of grace with other pastors because again how much can you do with the time that we're given and so there's always these felt deficiencies um I I can identify a couple other areas that I think we're just kind of deficient for no good reason other than we've kind of forgotten to emphasize these teachings of of our faith but when you look at something like like political theology I think one of the things that um that this report is sort of reflecting and again I'm very hopeful and prayerful for the completed report at the end of next year I think that's where we'll really see um sort of the meat of what the the committee has been working through and hopefully some good category distinctions and and sort of maybe boundaries set of like here is good ways of engaging political discourse even within disagreement within a big tent denomination but I think one of the things the report reflects is simply a desire to shepherd in a way that guards against an excess um so it's not as if I want to use the word reactionary but it's almost as if a correction to a perceived excess on this on the parts of some and again I think a lot of this comes from online spheres and social media influencers for influences um that they're trying to say look there are certain things out of bounds that's why they they let off with certain affirmations and denials many of which I think we're we're very plain to many of us and yet many of which struck against some of those excesses and they're trying to kind of guide it back into that so whether it came to later or not I totally understand the point you're making because again this has been noted within our Presbyteria within our denomination there was a deficiency of teaching in this area in many of our spheres um and covid was really a great revealer of that within the church so I don't think that's even something that's debatable um whether it's a reaction too little too late at least it's a reaction now that is that is I think trying to faithfully kind of guide the church back into into correct political discourse and I would just say from there as well engage those authors if you're a Presbyterian read witherspoon uh read Galispie read out those you read these um these men who have we don't have to reinvent the wheel in many ways we need to learn again fifth command but we need to learn from the faith of our fathers and and see what's already been worked through within the church so um I'm hoping that's the way that the report will go very good pacicory I agree yeah I mean there's there's a ton of stuff to recover I think recovery is a great word I take a slightly different um view to how to answer your question and and that being progressive sanctification right so even in the life of a personal Christian when you come to faith in Christ you're a house on fire I know I was and so that houses on fire and the Holy Spirit of God begins to do the whittling away of you and and that'll be a continuation project until you're called home to glory or until you die whichever comes whichever comes first right and so if you come to Christ as you know someone steeped in sexual sin or in in pornography or substance abuse or whatever else the the spirit of the Lord is most likely going to start with those huge egregious issues and then go to begin whittling away as the years go by in smaller and smaller sins that that are not really small sins but they seem to be smaller sins because the house was on fire so when I think about the decades that we've existed as a denomination and are just obviously we're our 53rd General Assembly so 53 years when the men were coming across the aisle from the old PCUS to to form what is now the PCA the house was on fire you know I mean that their biblical inerrancy was under question you know you can't have political theology you can't have practical theology you can't even have biblical theology when biblical inerrancy is under the gun so our founding fathers of the PCA I mean we're fighting real battles against things like biblical inerrancy and and and mean potato issues of are we going to be a faithful Christian denomination at all you know can we call ourselves a Christian denomination the reformers were very clear about the three things that make up a real church are we even going to do those you know and then as the years went and those men continue to fight those battles and I would argue by and large winning them never perfectly I mean never perfectly but but winning them then either you get busy doing the the business of ministry you know just the every day visiting hospitals doing the stuff you know doing what it means to what while also being a father and husband and all the things that ministers are are called to do and it is easy to miss the the sparks you know you put you quell the fire but there's still embers there's still sparks that are flying right and and you're right some caught some of those sparks caught and we probably did not respond as quickly as some of us would like myself included again this is passionate for me I'm this is the topic I'm super passionate on but to Josh's point there is a part of Presbyterianism that takes James's sage like counsel to heart and be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to anger you know so so Presbyterians are we do everything or we try to do everything decently and in order and and that's again that that is easy to look at and kind of go in your seersucker suits and your bow ties you guys look silly and oh fair enough I mean GGA is a is kind of half fashion show and half a class reunion and and and half theological ecclesiological working you know so so it's it there's no doubt we we are some of those things but I'm encouraged that we did catch it and we are trying to correct the ship and and I don't want to step on this your show but I know we did the AI thing I thought we were quicker I mean again we're probably a year too late on that because AI is pretty good at this point but but I think we were quicker in responding to that emerging threat and you know so so I I do think that there's there's much to be bullish about about where we're at as a devomination I'm super excited you know I think we have pieces in place that we're going to be we already are but I think that we will continue to be the strongest reformed expression expression of Christianity in America for the next hundred years yeah very good and I know you got on your way home from GA or just got home from GA I want to end here and kind of give Josiah really the last word on this you're you're younger than us kind of the the I would say I'd say the youngest generation represented or a part of or whatever um what's your thoughts on this this whole Christian nationalism uh discussion that went on with GA yeah at the GA uh it seemed to me to be more of a a bounding issue where they're they're trying to carefully and precisely define the terms uh since Christian nationalism is such a big ten and includes folks like me on the theanomic reconstructionism side and folks on the like total Aristotelian natural law side so what constitutes like good uh what views can you hold under that tent that would allow you to serve in the office and function of a officer within the PCA that that's really the question that they're dealing with not whether it's good theology at theology just what in that big tent can you hold to and trying to hearfully define the terms so I don't think they're they're coming down hard on any particular judgments they're not saying like use Aristotel in this way not in this way or let's listen to Gary North and Rush Duney here and I hear they're just saying like what what is the PCA going to define as the left and right limits for for Christian nationalism that you can hold to and what behaviors can you distinctly not engage in uh from from the unclean speech and the harsh rhetoric and the disrespectful comments or um video edits that you can or cannot make uh while still being in good order and being a good moral Presbyterian yeah um so I don't see this as being anything more than um a defining moment it's uh trying to settle or they're not even trying to settle the issue it's just uh where can we operate as as good Presbyterians and uh slow as malasses in the winter um they're they're gonna take their time and I think they are gonna do it right uh they have a distinct advantage over Baptists in this arena because our tent is so big and it has to stay so big um that they would allow a far greater range of movement so to speak uh whereas the PCA can say no this is not constitutional this is not not just whether or not it's biblical is it Presbyterian and rather specifically is a PCA Presbyterian so that was the question that was brought to the floor they decided they did not have a substantial enough answer quite yet that it required more time so they extended it out for another year and hopefully by uh this time next year we'll have a clearer definition as to what constitutes good Presbyterian Christian nationals any closing thoughts fellas all right thank you Gabe thank you I want to say thank you for uh letting us come on and and and and kind of say I absolutely appreciate that very much yeah thanks for a guy's time especially right after getting home appreciate your time and thank you and uh we'll show out as fast possible because that means very relevant so people are gonna want to hear this discussion so thank you guys for joining cross-palted 101 stay tuned and hope you guys uh and enjoy the show pastor Josh and uh he's part of espacitallia matters pastor uh Corey you know he already talked about his civic engagement podcast Joseph brother Josiah uh of uh reform dot money make sure you guys check them all out thank you for guys joining cross-palted 101 we'll see you next week