Apparently some people are not getting why this is wrong. Many are waving wildly about with their assurances that “FV” is really really Voldemort-level evil and therefore it doesn’t matter.

They’re not getting it.

1. It is wrong to stack a committee to produce a predetermined verdict because it corrupts the process of investigation. You cannot say, “The committee report demonstrates the FV is heretical” and at the same time say, “The FV is heretical and thus could not be allowed on the committee.” If you already knew the FV is heretical on some sort of assured grounds, then the honest thing to do would be to simply act and not appoint a stacked committee. If you appoint a committee you are saying that there is something to be investigated through processes. So either you need to dispense with the committee or you need to appoint one that is not corrupted by a preconceived notion of guilt. The verdict comes after the trial, not before it, see?
2. As far as the claim that the committee is somehow biased because it didn’t contain FV advocates, let us not get ahead of ourselves! All the evidence we see is that the committee is biased because it contained nothing but anti-FV crusaders! Are we seriously now trying to propose that a major theological committee involving perspectivalism in theology must not have John Frame or Vern Poythress as a member? Are we all supposed to not laugh at the thought of a committee on the Reformed view of the covenant that does not bother to use Peter Lillback? Come on, people! Don’t add insult to injury, please. Aren’t Reggie Kidd and Frank Thielman and Nick Perrin all known NT scholars in the PCA with known expertise on the New Perspective? (Thielman never even gets a footnote). Or how about a professor at the denominational seminary who actually teaches covenant theology?
3. But what about having one of the minions of Satan actually present? The Counsel of Nicea had Arians present and the Synod of Dordt allowed the Remonstrants to speak for themselves, so what is so much worse about the Federal Visionists that the ad interim Study Committee had to practice such a stricter hygeine? But for those who don’t care about such precedents, let me offer the rationale: you don’t put a man on trial without summoning him to appear. You allow him defense counsel, you allow him to answer charges, and you allow him to cross-examine witnesses against him. For that very reason, attacks on the orthodoxy of ministers in the PCA have been restricted to areas that are not under those obligations, and this committee is just one of those many EZ-Verdict alternatives. V-4 in the report basically directs presbyteries to pass sentence. It is a verdict. It is a verdict passed on PCA ministers in good standing. It is a verdict passed by a process from which they were excluded from the outset. It is a verdict passed by a process from which they were excluded because the verdict had already been decided upon.

If it really takes this much effort and engineering to defend the Gospel in the PCA, then I think it is the majority of the denomination that is being condemned by this committee. John Frame, Vern Poythress, Reggie Kidd (well we knew this already from the way shots were invited at byfaithonline.com; Can you imagine an article by Lig Duncan being published in that format?), Peter Lillback, the theology and NT faculty of CTS, the list of those not pure enough to be trusted goes on and on.