1/ The pastor referenced here is a Presbyterian Church in America pastor. I know I will never be able to do enough to repent and make restitution for my 35+ years in the PCA and the part I played to grow and expand a system built on a foundation of racism and misogyny.
2/ But one thing I can do is pray for & appeal to the brothers and sisters of good faith still in that denomination.
3/ The PCA pastors that welcomed me in and helped train me for ministry either are (I know because I have talked to them) or would be (I am confident in saying, though they have passed into glory) ASHAMED of who the #pcaga has become.
4/ We all make mistakes, and the Lord (and my friends and family) know how often I am senseless or unkind. The pastor who interacted with @Nelba_MG is a good man. I too think this is a moment that the Lord can use for good for white male Presbyterian evangelical pastors like me.
5/ Robin describes me here. Lord, have mercy. I am trying to repent. I am thankful for fields of green where I am free to and encouraged to repent of my own racism and misogyny.
6/ The PCA I entered into, while limiting ordination to men, otherwise empowered women for ministry.
The *current* PCA banned their women missionaries from serving in any leadership role, and will soon be considering a ban upon any woman reading Scripture publicly in worship.
7/ The PCA I entered into cheered when George H. W. Bush resigned his membership from the NRA.
In the *current* PCA, powers that be are in bed with the NRA, or at best silently complicit.
10/ The PCA I entered into was (rightly) aghast at President Clinton’s betrayal of his marriage vows.
The *current* PCA is full of pastors and leaders who condone, play the corrupt “what about” game, or remain complicity silent in the face of Donald Trump’s multiple betrayals.
11/ The PCA I entered into had signatories of The Lausanne Covenant, which has powerful words committing us to the pursuit of Social Justice.
The *current* PCA is full of white male pastors and elders who use the words “social justice” as a slur. lausanne.org/content/covena…
12/ The PCA I entered into was a faithful, supportive, & participating member of the @NAEvangelicals.
The *current* PCA voiced its hostility towards the NAE’s support of racial justice & environmental stewardship; and voted to dissolve its relationship with the NAE last Summer.
13/ I entered into the PCA because of amazing men like this, who took a Junior Officer like me under his wing and modeled godliness, both on our deployments together and as an elder in the first PCA church I joined. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Timoth…
14/ Meanwhile, the *current* PCA is full of men like the White Christian Nationalist Stephen Wolfe, who are regularly promoted and platformed, with “thoughtful theologians” like Kevin DeYoung “engaging with him respectfully.”
15/ The PCA I was first exposed to held Rev. MLK Jr. and his Principles of Nonviolence in the highest regard. (I was dumbfounded when I later learned of the hostility towards the Civil Rights movement that characterized so many of the PCA’s founders.) faithfullymagazine.com/church-leaders…
16/ Meanwhile, the *current* PCA voted, by an 80%-20% margin last Summer, to REFUSE TO CONDEMN THE USE OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE.
17/ Read this article; how is it possible that so few present day PCA pastors and elders share the moral & theological HORROR that PCA pastor David Coffin gives voice to, as he grieves the failure of that wise and critically necessary overture. christianitytoday.com/news/2022/nove…
18/ Here’s an example of the two very different PCA’s playing out in real time. One godly and reasonable pastor, the other not so much. #ThereAreTwoPCAs
1/ When the Southern Poverty Law Center reported on our efforts to root out racism, some in the PCA were furious with us; but that Summer Tim Keller sought me out at General Assembly and publicly thanked me for the part I played. splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…
2/ Three years later, when our daughter was offered a scholarship to be a year-round resident student at The School of American Ballet in NYC, one of the reasons we could say yes, sending our 13 year-old to live at the Lincoln Center, was the presence of Tim Keller and Redeemer.
3/ Tim helped us connect our daughter with members of Redeemer who were students at SAB or even dancers with the New York City Ballet itself. Nearly every Sunday for 5 years our daughter would walk a few blocks with a group of her fellow dancers to worship the Lord at Redeemer.
1/ Niche Presbyterian 🧵:
After 35 yrs in the @PCAByFaith, and 35 yrs of reading a beautifully clear passage like Gal 3:28 through the lens of a difficult passage like 1 Tim 2:12, I finally learned to follow the wisdom of our Westminster Confession of Faith.
2/ “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture is the Scripture itself: and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any Scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it must be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly” (I.IX).
3/ For me, this now means allowing beautiful & clear passages like Gal 3:28 (in Christ there is neither male nor female) to guide my understanding of a difficult passage like 1 Tim 2:12 (“I don’t permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man”), rather than vice versa.
1/5 This appears to be the #pcaga's new normal, what many in the PCA now appear to accept and support as the reasonable middle. Self-righteously positioning oneself in between the "two main culprits." And then identifying those culprits as:
2/5 Culprit #1: “Sort of Wilsonite, jaded, red-pilled men, sort of more toward hyper-patriarchy, priests of their family. We have this side.”
Culprit #2: "And then we have the other side.”
💯% agree with @BrentNeas when he says, “The church is no place for men to try to obtain power for their own desires.” He misunderstands a few things, though:
1. I’ve almost certainly spent as much if not more time considering the details (incl. documents, etc.) of this case as any man on the SJC as I have been tracking it and praying about it for close to 2.5 years.
2. I’ve been living and working in the real world my whole adult life, including a deployment into a combat zone.
🧵 1/ As a former member of the Presbyterian Church in America’s Standing Judicial Commission (“Supreme Court”) and longtime pastor in the PCA, I need to speak out against the vile miscarriage of justice in the #pcaga ruling in the Dan Herron trial.
2/ I am not able (and never will be) to say all that needs to be said. I will be adding to this thread for the foreseeable future. But I want to say three things upfront:
3/ * I resigned my membership in the PCA 2 yrs ago in part because of the rampant & growing misogyny I was experiencing. My effigy was subsequently excommunicated for leaving in ☮️ (cf. this other 🧵); so I write this as a former “insider”/now “outsider” twitter.com/jdhutch64/stat…
Excommunicating an Effigy: A Ponderously Overlong Niche Twitter 🧵 With Receipts
(This time more competently formatted as an ACTUAL THREAD for your reading pleasure 🫤)
1/x
Now that my former Presbytery, the Southern New England Presbytery (SNEP) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) has excommunicated my effigy I have a few thoughts.
2/x
I am thankful for my 35 years as a member and minister in the PCA and want God to bless her people, her churches, her ministers, etc.;
3/x