logos redux

“The ‘big name’ pastors, as we sometimes call them, thanks to the Christian conference circuit, book publishing, the internet, and so on, tempt many evangelicals to cannibalize each other in the spirit of following ‘Paul’ or ‘Apollos.’ In today’s terms, these could be men like John Piper, Tim Keller, Mark Dever, C.J. Mahaney, Mark Driscoll, Rob Bell, R.C. Sproul, Tony Evans, or whomever people would rather download and listen to instead of their own pastor…

Quarrels, dissension, and divisions are plastered all over the internet as Jesus followers poke passive insults at each other in the name of whatever peripheral minutiae we determine as ‘getting the gospel right.’ For example, not being Reformed enough, or not ‘traditional’ enough, or too traditional, or too literal, or too involved in social issues, or not evangelistic enough, and so on.”

Anthony Bradley, “Celebrity Pastor Worship,” Worldmag blog

A statement from Steve Wilkins, pastor of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church, can be found here regarding the church’s decision to leave the PCA and seek membership in the CREC.

There’s also a PDF here.

I wonder what the odds are that this could happen with regard to LA Presbytery:

FORM OF GOVERNMENT 15-5 15-5. a. In the cases committed to it, the Standing Judicial Commission shall have the judicial powers and be governed by the judicial procedures of the General Assembly. The decision of the Standing Judicial Commission shall be the final decision of the General Assembly except as set forth below, to which there may be no complaint or appeal. Members of the Standing Judicial Commission may file concurring or dissenting opinions, or a minority report as set forth in (c) below. The General Assembly may direct the Standing Judicial Commission to retry a case if upon the review of its minutes exceptions are taken with respect to that case.

b. In each case the Standing Judicial Commission shall issue a summary of the facts, a statement of the issues, its judgment and its reasoning, together with any concurring or dissenting opinions, all of which shall be entered on the minutes of the General Assembly and shall be reported by the Stated Clerk to the next General Assembly. The judgment shall be effective from the time of its announcement to the parties.

c.(1) If, within twenty-four (24) hours of the time of adjournment of a Standing Judicial Commission meeting at which a final decision was rendered in a case, at least one-third (1/3) of the voting members of the Standing Judicial Commission file written notice of their intention to file a minority decision with the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, and within twenty (20) days from the adjournment do file such a minority decision, such minority decision shall be considered a minority report and shall be referred, with the report of the Standing Judicial Commission, to the General Assembly. Continue Reading…

Here is a link to the indictment, issued by the Standing Judicial Committee of the Presbyterian Church in America, of the Louisiana Presbytery regarding their handling of accusations brought against Teaching Elder Steve Wilkins with regard to his conformity to the Westminster Standards.

It’s a sad day when, in a presbyterian denomination, a handful of men on a committee functioning at the national level can overrule the judgement of an entire presbytery and make decisions regarding doctrine and practice that could lead to the discipline or even dismissal of that presbytery with no evidence other than simple disagreement. If you look closely at this document, the real force of the argument is, ‘we asked you to look into X, you came to certain conclusions about X that we disagree with, therefore you obviously are unwilling or unable to look into X competently.’ Or to make it very simple, ‘we disagree so you’re grossly incompetent.’

And to make things worse they have decided to act unilaterally as the determinative body with no recourse for appeal, even to the denomination broadly or the floor of GA. This sure doesn’t look like historic presbyterianism to me. In fact it looks like a hierarchical system in which power is concentrated in the hands of the few.

Talk about a recipe for politically motivated wrangling. By the way, here is LA Presbytery’s rationale for exonerating Steve Wilkins, and here is the text of SJC’s Citation of the LA Presbytery to enter a plea by February 1st and some discussion of possible consequences of different responses to that citation.