American Features of the PCA: A Critique (Presbyterianism, Pt. 7)

No matter that certain principles are held in common, all Presbyterian churches do not practice precisely the same church government, and some of these differences are substantial. These distinctive features derive from the different history of the churches, as well as their different political and social environments.

Editor's Note: This article is part seven of a series adapted from talks given to Faith Presbyterian Church in Tacoma, a congregation of our denomination (PCA) and presbytery (Pacific Northwest Presbytery). We have retained specific references to that congregation to keep intact the flow of thought. 

In this part of our series on Presbyterianism we are considering some features of our church government in the Presbyterian Church in America that bear the marks of our American experience and culture. No matter that certain principles are held in common, all Presbyterian churches do not practice precisely the same church government, and some of these differences are substantial. These distinctive features derive from the different history of the churches, as well as their different political and social environments. Scottish, Dutch, and American Presbyterian churches have quite different histories and have lived long in quite different cultures; and so, their Presbyterianism is different as well. No doubt this is also true of burgeoning Presbyterian churches in Africa, India, and other parts of the world. Previously, we pointed out that the popularity in American Presbyterian churches of the so-called two-office Presbyterianism owed much to the democratic and anti-clerical spirit of American popular culture. But there are other articles of our church government that also reflect our particular circumstances as an American Presbyterian church. Some of these are more consequential than others.

Wisely or not, effectively or not, our church government was designed with a view of making less likely what happened in the mother church from which we sprang.

The PCA was born in travail, beginning as it did as a protest movement against theological liberalism in both the Northern (1936) and the Southern (1973) Presbyterian churches. Some of the features of our polity were shaped by the bitter experience of our founders who were forced to endure a liberal General Assembly running roughshod over more conservative Presbyteries and churches. In formulating the articles of our church government, an effort was made to ensure that the same thing would not happen again. Take one example. In the PCA, with a few exceptions, members of the various General Assembly committees (effectively, the boards of trustees of ministries such as Mission to North America and Mission to the World; and of service agencies such as The Administrative Committee and Christian Education and Publications) can serve only a single four-year term. They are not eligible for re-election until a year has elapsed since the end of their last term of service. Nor can any individual serve at one time on more than one General Assembly committee or agency. In this way, a constant stream of different men exercise control over the General Assembly’s work. These provisions were designed to prevent entrenched circles of power in the General Assembly from directing the church irrespective of the wishes of the people. That is what had happened before. Whether such provisions actually serve their intended purposes is another question. It has been argued that boards with constantly changing membership are weaker in the nature of the case and this, in turn, makes the General Assembly bureaucracy stronger and less accountable—the opposite result of what was intended. By the time a man feels he knows what is going on in the ministry that he has been elected to supervise, his time is up and he is replaced by someone else. But there is no doubt that provisions requiring the rotation of many different men through the supervising committees were intended to prevent a concentration of power in General Assembly boards and agencies. Many of the original framers of our Book of Church Order are still alive, and they themselves describe these articles of our church government as a response to our history. Wisely or not, effectively or not, our church government was designed with a view of making less likely what happened in the mother church from which we sprang.

There are, no doubt, many in our church who regard these distinctly American features of our Presbyterianism an improvement. I am not one of them.

Much more consequential, the government of the Presbyterian Church in America is a very congregational variety of Presbyterianism, perhaps as congregational as any Presbyterian church has ever been. In PCA circles, one often hears our church being described as a “grass-roots” church, or a “bottom-up” church. At several key points in the Book of Church Order, the rights of individual congregations against interference by higher courts are explicitly protected. When a point is made of the fact that the PCA is a Presbyterian church, it is usually made by speaking of our “connectionalism,” a vague description of uncertain meaning. Even Southern Baptist churches, which pride themselves on their congregational independence, are “connected” to one another in certain ways. It would be hard to deny that this highly congregational character of PCA polity owes much to the individualistic, independent, and anti-authoritarian tendencies of American culture. The Church of Scotland never described itself as a grass-roots church! It should come as no surprise to an American that independent churches have thrived in the United States and episcopal churches have struggled. Even the Roman Catholic Church, though very large, maintains its membership here in the United States in large part because the authority of the bishops remains more a theory than a fact. Roman Catholics don’t actually have to do what the bishops say in order to remain in good standing in the church. Many loyal Roman Catholics would also admit—usually to their disappointment and frustration—that their American church is as highly individualistic and independent-minded as any Roman Catholic church in the world.

One important illustration of the PCA’s individualistic and independent character is our method of managing ministerial transfers. As is now typical of American Protestant Christianity, pastorates in the PCA are generally comparatively short, though there are exceptions. A PCA pastor may well serve four, five, or more congregations in his lifetime. In bygone days, pastoral changes were closely overseen by Presbyteries. A man was not free to accept another call unless the Presbytery gave him leave to do so. The Presbytery considered the greater good of individual congregations and of the church as a whole when considering what was then quaintly called “the transportation of ministers.”  Nowadays, vacant congregations usually troll for their ministers among men already serving sister congregations, and often without the sister congregation being aware of the fact that their minister is being courted by another church. Ministers then make up their own minds, and Presbyteries—usually faced with a fait accompli—can do little more than acquiesce in a decision independently taken by the minister of one of its congregations and a church in some other presbytery. Too often, the welfare of the church that is now to be bereft of its minister and forced to find another is seriously considered by no one. An effort to rein in this practice, a practice that far too often both makes a mockery of our doctrine of the divine calling of ministers and leaves the suddenly deserted church troubled and confused, was soundly defeated at the most recent PCA General Assembly. Our practice is not Presbyterianism, at least in any historical sense of the term, but it is most definitely American! It is not a theoretical issue only. Perhaps nothing leaves so many of our churches weak as the constant circulation of ministers through them and the failure of the larger church to insist that the welfare of congregations, rather than of ministers, be the first priority when considering a change of pastors.

There are, no doubt, many in our church who regard these distinctly American features of our Presbyterianism an improvement. I am not one of them. Not one of these features is, in my judgment, an antidote to the evils that have appeared in other Presbyterian churches; and they amount, taken together, to a weakening of the church’s unity and of her ability to act—as did the apostolic church in Acts 15—as a single institution with a common purpose. If the church’s oneness or unity is the first principle of Presbyterian polity, these American changes make for a church government that is less Presbyterian at the key point. Time will tell what becomes of Presbyterianism under the twin pressures of individualism and democracy, but I fear that the more American it becomes, the less Biblical it will be, and so the less useful and fruitful. Freedom from control is a principle neither of Presbyterianism nor of Christianity.