You can’t take the sky from me

I was ordained in 1998. I was in seminary from 1995 to 1998. I was in the PCA as a member from 1989 onward.

I loved the PCA. I was so excited about the Reformed Faith and about the PCA as a place for it that I recommended it to friends and family. I was happy when a former college roommate joined a PCA church. I was thrilled when my fiancee told me that my brother had told her that he had become a TULIP calvinist and that “It wasn’t because of him.” True younger brother spirit, that; but I knew that the borg was winning and it made me happy. He has since become a ruling elder and is raising his children in the PCA. My parents also joined and became members of the PCA as the result of my evangelism.

By the way, it was also in the PCA that I was introduced to G. K. Chesterton and Hillaire Belloc and enjoyed them without fear or recrimination. In fact, literarily and theologically I used to find the PCA a place of faithful Reformed commitment coupled with a liberality of mind and generosity of spirit. In fact, the first time that impression was ever seriously challenged was with the introduction of the internet. In all too many ways I now see I fit all to well into that different environment. I was young and loved to argue and hadn’t yet realized that email lists were merely foreplay to ecclesiastical lynchings. The Bible warns what happens when evil words spread, but foolishly expected them to be contained to cyberspace (including my own).

[Addendum sidenote: Another difference was that it was commonly understood that different eschatological views were all allowed. No one had invented the internet/conference word “transformationalist” to represent post-millennialists as beyond the pale in the Evangelical Reformed world.]

But more broadly, before the specific lessons I began to learn in seminary with my first email membership, I also knew that the PCA, being human, was a place where horrible things could happen. This again precedes the FV hysteria and is unrelated to it. I’ve never gone into details and I won’t begin to do so now. But not everything can be proven in a church court. Strangely, it never occurred to me that all my accusations should be posted in an anonymous attack blog.

When I look at the way the CREC and Doug Wilson are treated, and every story from every malcontent is repeated seriously by pastors and elders with pretentions of godliness, if makes me ill. I cannot believe this toilet bowl of gossip and tale-bearing is regularly siphoned as if it were confirmed news (a recent example). And it never ends.

Nor does such a breach of ethics stay confined to the purposes of the original pioneers. That kind of behavior will do far more damage to the “established” Reformed churches than it will to the original victims. God is not mocked.

And in the meantime, it is obvious that the “established” denominations are already under judgment. “And children shall lead them.” This blogging behavior is just another form of arrested development in the church.

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