The Forming of the PCA: Part 13

Read Part 1.
Read Part 2.
Read Part 3.
Read Part 4.
Read Part 5.
Read Part 6.
Read Part 7.
Read Part 8.
Read Part 9.
Read Part 10.
Read Part 11.

Read Part 12.

There are many questions circulating out there by some elders of the PCA concerning the future of our denomination. Since this is a Pastoral blog, I believe it a good thing to look back at some of the writings of the fathers of our denomination as they were nearing the end of the PCUS and considering themselves what was to become of their own denomination, which in the end led to the formation of the PCA.  I believe we can learn from them, and so the following is Part 13 of this little series looking back to 'the fathers of the PCA.'  Please take time to read the entirety though it is long for a blog.  Trust me this is crucial.  

Forward to Dr. John E. Richards' book 

"The Historical Birth of the Presbyterian Church in America"

Entitled "The PCA: Another Tapestry"

In her recent book, The Tapestry, Edith Schaeffer speaks of history as a tapestry being woven by God. The threads in the tapestry are individual people and events used by God to work out the design of history. 

Mrs. Schaeffer points out that, as our lives are interwoven with the lives of others, we affect one another's ideas, understanding and attitudes and at the same time we are affecting history.

We do matter; our decisions and choices matter in history. As Mrs. Schaeffer says, "History is different because you have lived, because I have lived." Every thread is important in the design, there is no insignificant person or event in God's plan.

In one of his sermons on providence, C. H. Spurgeon said, "God guides the speck of dust blowing in the wind just as surely as He guides the meteor through space. He is in the glimmer of a firefly just as much as He is in the flash of a falling star."

I have a friend who does beautifully detailed a petitpoint tapestries. She purchases a canvas on which the design is stamped and being an artist she selects her threads carefully, sometimes using six, eight or ten shades of the same color to get the desired effect. When she has completed a tapestry and hung it in her home, everyone who sees it marvels at her skill and artistic ability.

Keep this in mind as we think of history. Before God created time, He had a design for all of time. We read, "In the beginning God...." In the beginning of what? In the beginning of measurable time. Time, as we know it, had a beginning and it will have an end.

When time is no more, when God's tapestry is complete, we will marvel throughout all eternity at the details of light and color, of life and beauty that He has brought about in all of history. 

Now we can only see small portions of history and the details are not always clear, sometimes it looks to us as though the threads are hopelessly tangled, but in eternity we will see the perfect harmony of the whole.

In this article, I want to take a glimpse at one small portion of history. I want to focus on the beginnings of the Presbyterian Church in America. It is wonderful to see how God has interwoven many lives and events in bringing this church into being. Let's look at some of the individual threads.

In the 1940's, Dr. L. Nelson Bell and a board of strong men began to publish the Southern Presbyterian Journal (now the Presbyterian Journal). These men were deeply concerned that there was little opportunity for the conservative voice to be heard within the Presbyterian Church US. This publication faithfully and Biblically addressed issues within the church for 30 years before the PCA was born.

In 1958, the Rev. William E. Hill Jr. left his pastorate in Hopewell, Va., to become a full-time evangelist. Soon other men joined him and formed the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship for the purpose of holding evangelistic meetings in any church that requested them.

In 1964, Kenneth S. Keyes was asked to head a new organization known as Concerned Presbyterians. Through writing and speaking, this group of men encouraged laymen throughout the church to become interested and informed about issues in the denomination.

Over the years, conservative ministers grew increasingly concerned about the direction the PCUS was taking. Many of these men began to meet together to pray for revival in the denomination. These prayer groups grew into an organization called Presbyterian Churchmen United.

The Rev. John E. Richards and the Rev. Donald B. Patterson led this group to publish a Declaration of Commitment in 1969. This statement of commitment to the Word of God and to the Reformed Faith ended by saying: "That, should the basic theology or polity of the Church be altered or diluted, we shall be prepared to take actions as may be necessary to fulfill the obligations imposed by our ordination vows, to maintain our Presbyterian faith."

The Declaration, signed by more than 500 ministers, was published in over 30 major newspapers.

These four groups affected the ideas and attitudes of many people in the church and so affected the history of the church. The prayers and efforts of all four of these groups were directed at bringing revival of spiritual life and Biblical commitment to the PCUS. They worked and prayed hard for years but their efforts had little effect on the leadership or direction of the denomination, until 1971 when the General Assembly met in Massanetta Springs, Va.

At that Assembly, the conservative groups working together put in nomination the names of leading Bible-believing people for every General Assembly committee; they failed to get even one elected. Because of this and other events that took place at the Assembly, many men speak of it as the time when their thoughts began to turn to a new church.

In the summer of 1971, representatives of these four groups (The Presbyterian Journal Board, Concerned Presbyterians, Presbyterian Churchmen United, and Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship) met and formed a "Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church." This was announced at the Journal Day meeting of 1971. At this point several men who had been active in these groups dropped out of the movement.

During the next year, Paul Settle, John Richards, Kenneth Keyes, Jack Williamson and several other men traveled and spoke in many churches where they were invited to present the issues before the church or to debate more moderate or liberal spokesmen.

At this time the PCUS and the UPC-USA had joint committees working on a plan of union. There was talk of writing into the plan an "escape clause" that would allow any church that chose not to go into the union to withdraw and keep its property. The committees had promised to bring such a plan to the General Assembly for a vote in 1973. 

Jack Williamson, a member of the PCUS committee assigned to draft the plan of union, was also a member of the Steering Committee for a Continuing Church. In February, 1973, Mr. Williamson reported to the Steering Committee that the "escape clause" had been scrapped. The Steering Committee met with the four executive committees to discuss taking immediate steps to form a new church.

Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer was another thread woven into this part of the tapestry. He was speaking to the National Presbyterian and Reformed Fellowship in Atlanta near the place where the Steering Committee was meeting at the time. Many members of the committee heard him as he urged that when disagreement is necessary it must be done in a spirit of love and meekness. Some of these men have said that Dr. Schaeffer's talk made them consider even more carefully and prayerfully the decision which soon would be made.

The vote to begin a new church was preceded by a time of prayer with many of these men on their knees and some of them weeping openly. It was not a decision they took lightly. Jack Williamson recently spoke to me of his thankfulness that he has never heard the men involved in this movement express any bitterness or resentment toward those who disagreed with them.

In February, 1973, the Steering Committee called for a Convocation of Sessions to be held in May, 1973, at the Westminster Church in Atlanta. Letters were sent to all the churches that had expressed interest in the movement, inviting them to send representatives of their sessions to the meeting.

At the Convocation, and Organizing Committee of 40 men was chosen to draft plans for the structure of the new denomination, and an Advisory Convention was called to meet in August, 1973, in Asheville, N.C.

At the Advisory Convention, held at Asheville's Grove Park Inn, the organizational plans were discussed and returned to the organizing committee for further refinement; and the first General Assembly was called to meet in December, 1973, in Birmingham, Ala., at the Briarwood Presbyterian Church. The date selected, December 4, coincided with the original date of formation of the PCUS in Augusta, Ga., in 1861.

That General Assembly in Birmingham adopted the Westminster Standards as the doctrinal statement of the church and a Book of Church Order as the standard of government. The First General Assembly also chose the name, National Presbyterian Church, and established permanent committees for Administration, Christian Education and Publications, Mission to the World and Mission to the United States.

An "Address to All Churches" of Jesus Christ through the world was adopted and signed by 338 commissioners. Mr. Jack Williamson was the very able moderator of this Assembly.

It was the Second General Assembly in Macon, Ga., that the name of the denomination changed to Presbyterian Church in America, because the National Presbyterian Church of Washington, D.C., had protested the use of that name. Dr. Francis Schaeffer spoke to this Assembly, and again he urged that there be maintained a strong testimony of love toward those from whom these church had separated.

God's tapestry of history is not woven with inanimate threads but with living, thinking individuals. There were times in the history of this movement when men went to a Steering Committee or General Assembly meeting wondering how strong-minded men who held strong convictions on different sides of an issue could come to agreement. Many times in the midst of hot debate someone would say, "Brothers, let's stop and pray about this." Prayer has kept us together.

During the past 10 years many outside have watched expectantly for this group to become hopelessly divided. Providentially, there never has been one dominant personality leading this movement, but a group of humble men who have sincerely sought to honor the Lord in their decisions. The Lord, in turn, has honored this and His Spirit has repeatedly overruled to bring unity and harmony out of disagreement. Many pray that the Presbyterian Church in America will always be led by humble men who seek to honor the Lord and are controlled by His Holy Spirit.

I recently asked Jack Williamson what he considered the greatest need of the PCA at this time. He replied: "A consciousness that God has called us into this denomination to work together in trust and confidence to fulfill His will, rather than to build isolated individual kingdoms which will certainly dissipate in their influence when the dynamic individual which leads them is called to glory. We need, in my judgment, a sense of togetherness, of unity, about what God is doing through us as a group."

Mr. Williamson explained that because many churches could not tolerate the organizational structure of the PCUS, they early began to operate to all practical purposes as independent churches. Therefore it now is difficult for them to grasp that the true concept of Presbyterianism is working together through Christ in a unified effort to make a greater witness. Mr. Williamson concluded, "It's that growing consciousness that we work together in trust and confidence that we need more than anything else."

Today the PCA is not just a group of churches separated from the PCUS. From the North, the Midwest, the West -- into Alaska and out to Hawaii -- churches have come, or have been organized, to join in a varicolored fabric that includes black, white, hispanic, Korean and Chinese churches. They are large, small, suburban, inner city, rural and collegiate.

"To whom much is given of him shall much be required." We have been given much in the PCA; much in the way of instruction, much in the way of opportunity, and much in the way of heritage. The godly men who worked to begin this denomination, did so at great cost.

Some of them were officially charged with heresy by PCUS courts and some were even stripped of their ordination. Some have had doors of ministry closed against them. Laymen, as well as ministers, gave many hours to this work, hours that had to be taken away from business or family. Many of these men were rejected by close friends or family members because of their stand.

Some congregations were turned out of sanctuaries where they had worshipped for generations.

Those who have been involved in this denomination from the beginning will never forget what it cost, but they don't want their children to forget that they were willing to pay any cost to insure that their children could worship in a church that would be "true to the Bible, to the Reformed Faith, and obedient to the Great Commission."

History is different because of the Presbyterian Church in America! Our choices do matter in the design of history. The early history of the PCA was affected not only by those who were a part of it, but also by those who chose not to be a part of it. 

It was also affected by the prayers of many people. For example, during the First General Assembly, there were people in local churches who prayed every hour the Assembly was in session. Spurgeon called prayer a very effective wheel in the machinery of Providence. He said, "It is such an essential part of the design that we find that whenever God delivers His people, His people have been praying for deliverance."

You can make a choice that will affect history. You can determine now that you will pray faithfully for the leaders of the PCA. This is another momentus year in our church. The 10th General Assembly will meet in Grand Rapids, Mich. in June. Will you pray that the Holy Spirit will rule in every debate and every decision of that meeting? Will you pray that these men will work together in trust and unity and thus bear a greater witness to Christ?

Will you pray that the Assembly will be characterized by a spirit of love as well as an unfaltering faithfulness to the Word of God?