Sean McGowen Explains the PCA General Assembly 2021

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00:12

Welcome to the conversations that matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We have with us Sean McGowan, Sean, you've been on the program before, and this is like two years ago,

00:22

I want to say, because you wrote a little booklet, actually, it's still on my shelf somewhere about St. Patrick.

00:28

We talked about St. Patrick on St. Patrick's Day. It's been a while. It's been at least,

00:35

I think, two years, but you're a Presbyterian minister. Westminster, Tallahassee is where you pastor, and people can find you on Facebook.

00:45

You've written the booklet I just mentioned about St. Patrick, as well as a booklet on false teachings on baptism, so I kid.

00:55

I want to talk to you, though, because I'm not a Presbyterian, and I know there's some people who listen who are, and you're a

01:03

Presbyterian pastor. You were just at the General Assembly, which took place the week after, I think it was a week after, two weeks after the

01:08

Southern Baptist Convention, and some significant things happened, so I appreciate it.

01:13

Thanks for being willing to talk with me, taking some time out of your vacation to talk with me. It's very kind of you to do that.

01:21

Yeah, thanks, John. I enjoyed being on here. You've grown quite a bit since we've been on last, I must say, your platform has at least, so congrats.

01:31

For a minute, yeah, I was like, what, did I gain a lot of weight? Yes, no, the platform has gotten slightly bigger, and yeah, praise

01:40

God. It's just God is the one that brings the increase. So, you know, we're just trying to preach the truth, spread the word, and bring some discernment to bear on some of the things that are happening because they're not all good.

01:53

But there are some things good going on in the PCA, from what I understand, and my information is limited, but could you just start out, just kind of give us the vibe of the

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General Assembly meeting that you were just at? I mean, when you look at what happened to the Southern Baptist Convention, does the

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PCA feel pessimistic going in a hard left direction?

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Or does the PCA seem like it's on a better track? Yeah, well,

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I guess that depends on who you ask, but I know circles that I run in and even my own thinking going into the

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General Assembly. I think the trajectory was a positive one.

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You know, no one really knew what to think going in. I mean, this was the, of course, nothing compared to the

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Southern Baptist Convention, but this was the highest turnout for commissioners.

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Commissioners are basically those who are registered elders to vote in the General Assembly.

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And I think the last count, we had about 2 ,100, which two years ago, 2019, was the last one.

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We had about 1 ,650, I think, were the commissioners. So this jumped up to 2 ,100, a record breaking.

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The General Assembly, I'm sure you know, and maybe some of your listeners do, it's the highest court of our denomination.

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Presbyterians and particularly the PCA, we have three courts of elders, basically, where you have the local court, which is the session or the local elder board.

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And then we have the regional court, which is the elders in the presbytery. And then you have the national court, which is the

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General Assembly. And that's when all the elders and elders that represent particular churches gather together to do the business of the church.

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So this was the highest number of elders gathered in the history of the

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PCA to deal with these particular matters. So, you know, knowing that going in, there's always a question of, is this a good thing or a bad thing?

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Another, maybe another tidbit is, you know, in the PCA and Presbyterianism in general, you have two orders of the office of elder.

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You have the teaching elder and the ruling elder. The teaching elders, you know, you think of it like the main pastor in a church.

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And then if you have lay elders or something like that on your elder board, the teaching elder is the pastor and the ruling elder are, they're not in ordained ministry, but they're not pastors.

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They have jobs elsewhere, but they have the same exact authority in the church. The tendency has always been that the teaching elders, there's a wide chasm between the teaching elders that are there and the ruling elders.

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You know, even this year, you had, I think it was about 600 ruling elders and 1500 teaching elders.

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Now, if you know the history of Presbyterianism, you can make the case that the teaching elder were the ones that drove the denominations, particularly the mainline denomination, liberal.

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It was always the ruling elders that were the conservatives that tried to keep the denomination from going that route.

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So even when the PCA was formed, you know, the ruling elder played a vital role in that.

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So there's always been, you know, just a just kind of sad situation where the disparity is just so wide between the teaching and the ruling elder.

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But even even at this particular assembly where that disparity was still there, I mean, the highest record turnout of ruling elders came.

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And again, you just didn't know what to expect going in to that. But from the very first big decision that we made at the assembly,

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I mean, I think everybody looked around and said, there's a trajectory here and it's leaning heavily conservative.

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And we were all, you know, at least me, I was very hesitant, very reserved. I'm like, well, this is one vote, you know, on a big matter and, you know, we'll see where it goes.

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But even, you know, when we have nominations for permanent committees at the assembly -wide, the national -wide denomination, you know, those permanent committees of the denomination, even those nominations, the conservative men, for the most part, were elected to those.

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And that trajectory just continued. It continued. And yeah,

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I mean, I think overall people were pleased with the way that it went.

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You know, there's always gonna be some people that would say, well, there could have been more done or, you know, but, you know, we have particular things that we can't really deal with.

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It just depends on what is on the docket and we deal with those things.

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And, you know, some of the main issues of business were the overtures that dealt with same -sex attraction, human sexuality, all those things.

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And I think even those went in a very positive direction. So I was very much pleased with the way it went.

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I didn't really watch much of the SBC, but from what I heard, it probably went the opposite direction of where we went.

07:22

Yeah. To put it mildly. Real quick, your microphone,

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I think, is rubbing against your shirt a little bit and it's creating a little bit of static or not static, but just like a sound.

07:35

Yeah, thanks. What you just said about the trajectory is surprising to me and I haven't been paying as close attention to the

07:45

PCA. I don't know all the names. I mean, I know some, I know like Harry Reader, right? Because I've listened to some of his sermons and stuff seems conservative, right?

07:54

And then you have obviously Tim Keller. I've spent a lot of time studying Tim Keller and he's certainly on the opposite end of the spectrum.

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I don't know a lot of the other names in the denomination that are viewed as leaders.

08:08

What are some of the names? Kind of give us a tour of where do people kind of line up?

08:14

Who are the big names and what directions, other than Tim Keller, what progressives are trying to kind of pull the liberal direction in the denomination?

08:26

Yeah. Well, I would say there's one group, it's called the

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Gospel Reformation Network, and they've really tried to cultivate and maintain the confessionalism, conservativism of the

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PCA. And guys that would really be in maybe the conservative end would be folks like John Payne of Christ Church Presbyterian in Charleston, South Carolina.

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You have Rick Phillips of Second Pres in Greenville. And then you mentioned

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Harry Reader in Briarwood in Birmingham. And I think people would put

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Kevin DeYoung in that same group as well. And there's others.

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I'm missing probably a whole bunch of people, but there's a lot of people that are well known and have platforms that would go in that particular camp.

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As opposed to the other side that are more missional minded, they would say, and trying to keep the denomination as a big tent kind of denomination.

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I think you would probably put people like Brian Chappell, who was just elected as our state clerk of the denomination.

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Probably some other people that might not be as well known. Well, that depends on who you talk to.

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So I got to ask this then, because when I think of SBC, when people say, okay, who are the more conservative theologically people in the

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SBC? You're talking about people in this day and age, in the current moment we're in, who reject social justice ethics, egalitarianism.

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They reject standpoint of epistemology and postmodernism. Those are the kinds of things we're talking about.

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And same sex attracted Christianity. It doesn't sound to me like that maybe it's the same barometer that's being used in the

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PCA, or it's a little different than if Lincoln Duncan would be considered. Because in my mind,

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Lincoln Duncan would be totally on the social justice bandwagon, but he's still considered a conservative in the PCA. Well, yeah,

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I guess it depends on what issue you're referring to. Lincoln Duncan is, I can't speak for him completely personally, but he's certainly not on the same sex attracted side.

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He is not in that camp. He is a part of the GRN Council, the

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Gospel Reformation Network Council. So he is a part of maintaining this confessionalism, this conservativism in the

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PCA. Now, when it comes to the social justice issues, obviously, there's been things that he's said and books that he's endorsed and things like that, that would put a big question mark around where he stands on that issue.

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I think Lincoln Duncan, he certainly would be on that side when it comes to the social justice issues.

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But when it comes to the revoice, if you're familiar with that, or the same sex attracted

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Christian and all of those things, he is not in that camp. So it really just depends on maybe what issue we're talking about at that point.

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Well, this is a question I have then. So this Presbyterian, the PCA, is the same sex attracted stuff a bigger issue in a

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PCA then? Because in the SBC, the abuse issue and then sort of like the

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Me Too stuff and Church Too stuff, and then the social justice BLM stuff, those are the big talking matters that people are talking about.

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But in the PCA, is it more this you can have a same sex attracted orientation of some kind and still be a

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Christian? It seems to be much bigger. Well, yeah. I think the emphasis right now is on that because we have a pastor serving in our denomination that says he's same sex attracted, his orientation is that and he can't change.

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So that is definitely the emphasis. I think if you watch the General Assembly, you will see that there's also an emphasis on a lot of that social justice

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CRT, things like that. So I would argue that that is an issue that needs to be dealt with too.

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It's just not maybe on the front burner of a lot of people's minds. But it is an issue.

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It is being talked about. It is something that we need to deal with.

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But again, I think the trajectory is in that direction. I mean, you had two, the

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General Assembly, there was two overtures sent up to the General Assembly. And if you think of overture, you think of they're ordinarily requests from the presbyteries for the

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General Assembly to take action on something or to consider something. Two of those overtures were a desire to form study committees to study white supremacy.

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And then the other one was critical race theory. Now, I know a little bit of the backroom dealing on that.

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And the critical race theory desire to form that study committee to study that issue was actually from a conservative that wanted to basically repudiate it.

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But I think a lot of people have study report fatigue in the

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PCA. They're tired of just forming committees to study something. Because study reports aren't binding on the churches.

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They're just recommendations and things like that. But they're not binding upon the local church. So they would just be an expression of the

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PCA speaking into an issue, basically. But both of those recommendations, or both of those overtures were actually recommended to vote them in the negative.

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And they were both voted down. So there are issues like that.

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Is that a positive thing? Or is that conservative saying we don't want to pursue?

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What's the significance of that? I think those are positive. I mean, you know, especially the white supremacy one.

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I mean, I think we know where that was coming from. And in 2021, they want to study white supremacy.

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That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they voted that down.

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They had no desire to form a study committee to study those things. But to your original question, it is something that needs to be dealt with.

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And I think, again, you know, this is just one General Assembly that we've had, but I think the trajectory is there, that that will be dealt with.

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It's only a matter of time. But right now, I think the greater emphasis is on this revoice, same -sex attracted

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Christian, because it's an urgent issue that we're dealing with right now in our midst.

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Okay. And of course, that issue, this is the big takeaway from the convention that everyone

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I think is talking about who is talking about the General Assembly. There was a resolution brought up to bar and it was binding.

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Basically, it's not like the SBC with their resolutions. Did I say resolution? It's not. Sorry. Yeah. Overture. Overture.

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See, I got SBC stuff in my head. It's not a resolution. It's a binding overture to prohibit those who would identify,

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I guess, as a gay Christian or same -sex attracted Christian, et cetera, from serving as pastors in the denomination.

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That's what I understand. We had Dewey Roberts on who he's not in the PCA anymore.

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And he had talked about, you know, wow, there's some language in it. But the language, as far as I understand it has actually, it changed and it tightened up.

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It actually was pretty definitive if I'm not mistaken. There really isn't a lot of wiggle room.

16:41

Is that correct? Yeah. Let me give you a little bit of background, if I may, John. Please do so, yeah. Just to follow up on this, you know, there was a lot of things that led up to this particular issue.

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You know, if you go back to 2018, the Revoice Conference was first hosted and it was hosted by or at Memorial Presbyterian Church in St.

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Louis. It's a PCA church. It was not a PCA conference, but it was hosted at a

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PCA church. And there were a lot of PCA folks that were involved in it, basically.

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The lead pastor of the church, Greg Johnson, he kind of, I'd never really heard of him before.

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And he kind of came to the forefront in an attempt to defend having the conference there. I don't know if you remember before the conference even began, he was on CrossPolitik and the guys at CrossPolitik interviewed him.

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Yeah, they really cross -examined him and it was kind of embarrassing. Yeah, they did. I mean, and if you remember that, there were some things even there that he said were very concerning.

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I think one of the things he said was, now I'm flabbergasted that you all think that the fallen condition is sin in and of itself and things like that.

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So there was a lot of things he said that were very concerning then and have just continued to confuse the church.

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I think Revoice and Johnson himself has brought great confusion to the church and in the language of PCA has disrupted the peace of the church in many ways.

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You know, they've utilized the language of disorientation. You know, an orientation that scripture says is against nature and is, you know, it's dishonorable passions and things like that.

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And there's also been this consistent theme I think we've seen where people have almost come out and, well, they have come out and said those who struggle with this attraction and are seeking to put to death this attraction, they are brave and courageous.

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You know, these words like you are brave to fight this and you are courageous, and it's always been curious to me because I don't think we do that with any other sin.

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I mean, you know, when we struggle against lust and we have victory over it, I don't consider that brave and courageous.

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I consider that as simply doing what we are called to do as new preachers. You know, to pick the sin of the day or the perceived sin that's out there, white supremacy, that's such a problem in the left's mind.

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You know, you wouldn't say that to a Klansman or something like, well, you know, they left their Klansman ways and they're not part of it anymore, but they're still a racist, right?

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They're a racist Christian and we respect how brave they are in not acting out their racism or cannibalism or, you know, any other sin.

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We wouldn't do it. Yeah. And that's, yeah. We carve out exceptions. You're right. And that's the problem.

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You know, you, when you try to take this language and apply it to any other sin, it just, it just doesn't seem right or it doesn't sound right.

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And there's been much discussion about, you know, those who struggle with what we, what we call SSA or same sex attraction.

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They can't change, right. Their orientation will always be this way. And then, and then after, you know, going back to the

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Revoice conference and all of that, there eventually was a Christianity Today article that Greg Johnson wrote.

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I don't know if you've read that, where he confessed, he actually essentially came out and said,

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I've been, I'm gay. I mean, before that, no one knew. Oh yeah. At least he didn't say he was gay.

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I think even, I think Chocolate Knox on CrossPolitik asked him point blank, if I recall, and he didn't answer the question.

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He just kind of started talking about something else. But it was in that Christianity Today article that he came out and said,

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I'm, I'm gay. Jesus did not make me straight or change his orientation. He even,

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I think if I recall, he even described himself, he was referring to not feeling like an average Joe, right.

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I'm not, I'm not an average Joe because of my SSA. And he compared that to feeling like a unicorn among horses.

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And it was just this, this strange language that he was using and, and then eventually on the floor of General Assembly in 2019, he compared his

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SSA to paraplegia. And I think I remember that being a sticking point for a lot of people.

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And, you know, you're, you're comparing your, your same sex attraction to, to a paraplegic, which, which made me ask the question, how is that comparable, right?

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You either have to deny the sinfulness of SSA, same sex attraction, or argue that paraplegia is somehow sinful.

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I don't know how those are, those can be compared. And I don't think, I don't, you know, and to just be clear,

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I don't believe Greg Johnson says the, the, the attraction is not sinful. I don't think he,

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I don't think he says that, but when he does things like that, when he compares those two, it's hard to, it's hard to not see that you're at least insinuating that or insinuating that paraplegia is somehow sinful.

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I've never seen him attempt to explain that statement, but that was what he said on the floor of the 2019

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General Assembly. So, so the issue that was, that we kind of had now is that we have a

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PCA teaching elder or pastor that identifies as gay as in his orientation and there's, and there's others like him as well.

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So, so some are, basically what they're doing is they're arguing that the orientation itself is not something that needs to be mortified, right?

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The, the, the lusts that come from it and any action that arise out of the orientation, yes, we must put them to death, but the orientation itself is not sin.

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It might be of sin, it's of the fall, it's a product of the fall, but, but it's not sinful in itself.

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So, so anyway, that's what really led up to these overtures to the

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General Assembly. And I'll put my cards on the table. Overture 23, which is the one you were referring to, that actually came from, from the session in my church before I got here.

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So it came from my session. It was, it was passed by the presbytery, the regional body that our church is a member of.

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And it was sent up to the General Assembly. So we had a vested interest in, in, in listening to this and seeing it play out.

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And basically what happens in, in the assembly is before the assembly meets, you have these committee of commissioners and they're basically elders from different presbyteries that are sent up to really serve the, the assembly, basically, in dealing with some of the business before it gets to the floor.

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You know, you think of like a committee in Congress, right, that, you know, they, they talk to a candidate for, a nominee for something, right, in Congress, and they deal with that nominee before they get to the floor of the

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Senate or the floor of the House. I mean, that's a, maybe a weak analogy, but it's kind of similar in some ways.

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So one committee is called the Overtures Committee. And this is a group of, of elders from all the presbyteries that come, and they basically meet before the assembly begins and they consider the overtures.

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They might, they, they debate the overtures. They might amend the overtures before they get out on the floor of the assembly.

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And once those are out on the floor, the assembly can either vote them up or down. They can't amend them or anything like that.

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So Overture 23 came from our church and through our presbytery.

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So we were, we were there the whole time, just watching the Overtures Committee work. It's like a mini General Assembly where they debate, you know, they, they, they talk about it, they might amend it, all these things.

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And it was, it was, it was really good to watch, but basically what happened is our original overture was amended twice to get to the floor.

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Now I'm going to read you the original overture. It said, Overture 23 is a motion to amend the book of church order by adding the following clause, men who identify, self -identify as a gay

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Christian, same -sex attracted Christian, homosexual Christian, or like terms shall be deemed not qualified for ordination in the

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Presbyterian church in America. That was the original. This is what the next one

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I'm going to read is what passed. This is how it was amended twice to, to get what we have now. It says officers in the

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Presbyterian church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christ -like in their character.

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Those who profess an identity, such as, but not limited to gay Christian, same -sex attracted

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Christian, homosexual Christian, or the like terms that undermines or contradicts their identity as new creations in Christ, either by denying the sinfulness of fallen desires, such as, but not limited to same -sex attraction, or by denying the reality and hope of progressive sanctification, or by failing to pursue spirit empowered victory over their sinful temptations, inclinations and actions are not qualified for ordained office.

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That was what came to the floor and that passed by a vote of 1438 to 417.

26:32

So it was an overwhelming vote. Yeah. So, so that's not the end though.

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That how we amend, you think of how we amend the constitution, how we amend the book of church order is it has to pass a majority of this assembly, which it did.

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Now it goes to the Presbyteries. There's 88 Presbyteries in the PCA. It has to pass two thirds of them.

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So it has to, it has to get 59, I believe, of the Presbyteries to approve this.

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And then if they do, then it goes back to the next year's general assembly to be voted on one more time.

27:07

And if it passes that, then it's added to our constitution. Wow. It's hard to get something.

27:14

It's harder to amend the Westminster confession. Oh, well, yeah. And you don't amend, and you don't amend the

27:21

Bible. We don't do that. I'm glad, I'm glad you haven't gotten there yet. So this is a positive thing in your mind then conservatives, at least on this issue of not only voting down the study committee on white supremacy, but also voting to affirm the resolution you just read on taking a firm stance against same -sex attracted

27:45

Christianity and ordination of people who say they experienced that as an identity.

27:53

This is something that was unexpected. At least you going into this, you didn't think that it was going to be passed in, you know, that overwhelming of a margin.

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It sounds like I didn't, I thought it was going to get voted down. So I thought it was, what do you attribute that to?

28:11

Cause in, I mean, I had this sort of a thought in the SBC. I thought, I thought there were going to be more conservatives showing up at the

28:17

SBC and the SBC is totally different, but I didn't, I just didn't think,

28:23

I thought the PCA was further down the road than the SBC on a lot of this stuff. But maybe

28:28

I'm wrong on that. Yeah. I've always, you know, and this is just me.

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I've always, you know, thought of the SBC and the PCA as, you know, you know how we're like five years behind England, you know, they say, or Europe in some, in some ways, the

28:46

PCA is about five years behind the SBC, but I don't know. I mean, yeah, yeah.

28:53

I think, I think, you know, looking at what's going on in the SBC, you know,

28:58

I just could never see the PCA saying critical theory is a good tool to use. I mean, at this point,

29:03

I just, I can't see that yet. And now I don't think I see that more.

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Let me add another thing. There was a, before this general assembly happened, there were two letters that came out from what we would call maybe the, the progressive side of the

29:20

PCA, if you think of it that way. Two letters that came out and they were signed by about 700 elders.

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And it was basically saying, you know, there's, there's unity in the PCA. There's not this, you know, we're not ordaining homosexuals.

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You know, there's this alarmist mentality that is trying to think that we're just really bad.

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And the problem I have with the letter was that it actually said, you might've heard some people saying that the

29:50

PCA is ordaining homosexuals, practicing homosexuals. No, no one said that, that I know of.

29:57

We're not, we're not saying that the PCA is currently ordaining, practicing homosexuals. They're knocking down a straw man.

30:03

Yeah. I mean, now there might be some people that have said that, but again, that would be a very small minority that either one has no idea what they're talking about or two is just trying to poison the well.

30:15

But that's not what the majority of, of, I would say 90 % of the, of the conservatives were saying, obviously no, no one is doing that right now.

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So those, that letter came out and then another letter came out and it just seems strategically placed.

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And I think that kind of worked some people up to, to where you had all these people come.

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And I think what happened with Overture 23 is that people were ready to fight it and not get it, not get it voted down.

30:50

That was, that was my take of it because there were a lot of people when it came up to, to be the next overture to discuss,

30:56

I'm like, well, there was an overture similar to it that got voted down right away. And I thought, well, you know, this is it.

31:04

I mean, we'll just watch it go down in flames and you know, give credit to the, the, the man who stood up in my presbytery to defend the overture and he did a wonderful job and it just took off from there.

31:16

And yeah, so it was really good. So you're comfortable right now staying in the

31:21

PCA at least for a little while longer? I am good. Yeah, I am.

31:27

I think, I think I think there is a, like I said, a good we have good traction.

31:32

We're going in a good direction. Now, again, that don't hear me saying everything's perfect. It is not. You know, you can watch some of that video of the, of the live stream and see for yourself.

31:43

There's a lot of issues we have to deal with still. But when it comes to this, which I thought was, you know, we're just going down and this isn't going to be good.

31:54

It really, it really, you know, I really reversed course in my mind. I have a friend of mine who has been in the

32:01

PCA for a long time, probably before you and I were born. And he said, it's been a long time since I remembered a general assembly like this.

32:10

A long time. So, you know, I don't know what that means. I mean, I hope this momentum keeps up and I hope people continue to go.

32:19

Yeah. Next year's GA is in Birmingham. So it'll be interesting.

32:25

Yeah. And that's where Harry Reader's church is, right? Isn't it in Birmingham? Yes, that's right. Yeah. So his, his Presbytery is hosting it.

32:31

Now, I will say the, the Presbytery that hosted this assembly was Missouri Presbytery, which is where this whole revoice thing took place in St.

32:39

Louis. Interesting. So it was kind of on their, on their grounds. Another, another overture was 37, which was trying to basically clarifying the moral requirements for office.

32:53

And it's, it's very similar. It was amended in such a way that I, I personally had some issues with, although I was still comfortable voting for it eventually.

33:04

So this was women serving in like the missions agency, et cetera.

33:10

No, no, no, no. This was, this was along the same lines of Overture 23 about basically clarifying the moral requirements for ministry.

33:21

When it, when it, when it, when a, when a per basically a candidate for ministry, when he's up for examination, they're also going to examine the candidate's personal character, giving attention to notorious concerns like sexual immorality, homosexuality, all those things.

33:39

So there were some, it was really good originally, but it was amended in the

33:45

Overtures committee and I had problems with how it was amended. I thought it was,

33:50

I thought it was amended in such a way to kind of blow it up basically. Poison pills, huh?

33:57

Yeah. But, but it was passed again, that was past 1130 to 692. So again, that was an, an overwhelming,

34:05

I will say, you know, some are, I mean, I've heard people argue that, you know, there's, there's still a back door for people who are, identify this way to be ordained and, and, you know,

34:16

I've heard people say, we didn't really deal with everything. But again, I think we're moving in the right direction.

34:22

All of the men that I, you know, saw there and interacted with, they truly fought to get this passed because they don't want this stuff in the

34:32

PCA. So it's really, it's really positive in that respect. Well, that's great to hear.

34:38

Was there something on complementarianism, patriarchy, egalitarianism? I thought there was a measure on that.

34:46

Yeah. So there was a, there was an Overture MTW, mission to the world is basically our foreign mission, the foreign mission branch of our church.

34:56

It's not a parachurch organization. So those who are in leadership and MTW should be ordained elders, shall be.

35:06

So basically what happened was there were some missionaries overseas that went back to their presbyteries and said,

35:13

Hey, we're, we're really having trouble here because some of the people in leadership over us are either, they're either women or not ordained men.

35:22

So you had situations where women had, you know, we're in, we're team leaders or something like that in, in, in these particular places where they were planting churches and ministering, they were team leaders over ordained men.

35:38

So Evangel Presbytery, which is Briarwood, Birmingham area, you know, their presbytery, they sent an

35:44

Overture up to the General Assembly saying that MTW needs to change their policy to say that all those who are in leadership shall be ordained elders.

35:57

I think MTW was, was trying to push, you know, it should, it should read, they should ordinarily be ordained elders to leave some wiggle room for, you know, certain people that wouldn't be ordained elders that can be in leadership.

36:12

That was, that was what ended up being passed was support for the

36:21

Overture from, from Evangel. So basically Evangel Presbytery's Overture that said, no, everybody in leadership shall be ordained elders was what was approved at the

36:31

General Assembly. So again, that was a win for, you know, ecclesiastical authority that it's only ordained elders that should be in leadership and in authority.

36:42

So yeah, MTW has to go back and revise their, their manual to do that.

36:48

So yeah, that's, that's very helpful for people who don't like me, who don't know the intricacies of the

36:55

PCA. And I know, you know, a few of the actors, if that's probably the, not a great word to use the few of the pastors and leaders associated that are in the denomination because, because, you know,

37:08

I'll see things online or they're just part of, you know, evangelicalism in general. So I'll, I'll hear about Duke Quan or Tim Keller or, you know,

37:17

Lincoln Duncan or whatever, but to hear the inner workings of the denomination itself and from, from an insider is really helpful.

37:26

So yeah, thank you for that. And, and I'm really glad to hear that there was some wins that we need some good news.

37:32

Like we really do. And, and so that's, that's awesome. And so people can go, they want to check your church out where you preach it's

37:40

Westminster Presbyterian Tallahassee. And then on Facebook, I think I'm friends with you. So if people are friends with me on Facebook, they can find you

37:47

Sean McGowan, Facebook, and you've written a book on St.

37:53

Patrick and baptism. And you got another one you told me about coming out as well on the imprecatory Psalms. When's that coming out?

38:00

I'm not sure when it's coming out yet. We're in the editing phase. So probably, probably the fall at some point.

38:06

So yeah, it's a song. The working title is Psalms that curse a brief primer on the imprecatory

38:12

Psalms. So really dealing with, you know, can Christians pray these today? And if so, how, how can we pray them?

38:20

Are there guiding principles to, to pray these particular prayers? So, yeah, I mean, sometimes

38:25

I just want to pray some of those. So, you know, it's good to know the answer to that, those questions and you're working with actually the same publishing company that I'm working with for my books too.

38:35

So anyway, Sean, thank you. Yeah. A good Presbyterian man. I was going to say.

38:40

Yeah. Yeah. I, it's true for all the Baptists out there. I am working with the Presbyterian to publish the next book. So yeah, there you go.

38:47

But hey, I appreciate it. And oh, I did Sean, did you know this by the way, I should just like throw this, I just throw this out, you know, if I'm with Presbyterians and of course they're always drinking.

38:55

Right. So then smoking, but I just throw out, you know, Hey, you know, I am a direct descendant of John Knox and that, that gives me some like street cred with them, even though I'm a

39:03

Baptist. Cause they're like, oh, okay. Like. Genetic. Yeah. John, I did know that. I think, I don't know if you remember, but I sent you a text a long time ago, fourth of July.

39:13

And I said, Hey, you're welcome. Cause it was a, an article saying, you know, if you like, if you like freedom, thank a

39:18

Presbyterian. And you responded and saying, well, my, my ancestor was the founder of Presbyterianism.

39:24

Okay. I don't remember. You have a good memory. I don't remember that. So yeah, you're welcome. That's right.

39:31

Yeah. So a lot of Presbyterians in my lineage as well. And so anyway, I appreciate it,

39:36

Sean and Hey, be blessed. And hopefully we'll hear from you at some other point in the future.

39:42

Maybe we'll get you on to talk about your next book. So it sounds good. Amen. Sounds good, brother. Thank you for having me. Take care. Awesome.