Dewey Roberts on the PCA

Welcome to another edition of the Conversations That Matter podcast. My name is John Harris. We have a guest with us today who's going to help explain what's happening in the

PCA. His name is Dr. Dewey Roberts, and he is a pastor. And I'm going to read through some of this because I'm actually on your website right now,

Dr. Roberts, and you have quite the story here. Not only are you a

PCA pastor, but you also served as an Army Reserve chaplain for 24 years.

So thank you for your service. You also served as a member of the Standing Judicial Commission for 15 years and were a secretary and assistant secretary for five of those years, which took you on 30 missions trips to Russia and Uganda and India and Myanmar.

And so you've been all over the place. And now I know your church has recently left the

PCA. You've also written two books, I should mention this, Historic Christianity and the Federal Vision and Samuel Davies Apostle to Virginia, which you can find on Amazon and or go to your website, which is

CornerstoneDestined .com. Thank you for joining me, Dr. Dewey Roberts.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much, John. And I'm very happy to be here with you today. Happy to meet you.

Yeah, well, this is our first time talking. I know you weren't as familiar with this podcast, but I was recommended you were recommended to me as someone to interview and talk to about this because you've been following the trajectory of the

PCA. And I have many people who listen to me who are in the PCA and some of them wonder what's going on with my denomination.

Why am I all of a sudden hearing all these social justice things? Same sex attracted Christianity, women in leadership, et cetera, or pastor, pastoral office,

I guess. I'm not as familiar with the PCA. So I guess the first question is, since some of these things led to your church leaving, what were those things that you saw happening?

And tell me a little bit about yourself. What's been your level of involvement and what have you seen?

Okay, first of all, let me just give you some background. I was in the PCA from its very inception. In fact,

I can remember reading very attentively about the problems of the old

PCUS and how it fell in the formation of the

PCA. But I was a member of the PCA from the beginning. And I was ordained two and a half years after the first General Assembly.

And so I was in the PCA from the very beginning and for over 40 years.

And it was a heartbreaking decision on our part to have to leave, but there were a number of different things that happened along the way.

One thing that I think that a lot of times people overlook is the fact that somewhere around in the 1980s, evangelism and evangelistic services became irrelevant and unimportant in most churches throughout the

United States, and I think that that has been a big mistake. And that helped to define what the

PCA later became because they moved away from evangelism as the model to start churches into more of a business model where they were, if you throw enough money at it and you use these business principles, then you can start churches.

But, you know, they start churches that are modeled after the world rather than according to the scripture.

There have been things that have attacked the doctrinal integrity of the

PCA, and one of those was the whole matter of creation that came up in the early 2000s where the

General Assembly permitted four different views of creation, whereas in the new denomination that we are starting,

Vanguard Presbytery, we believe that the scripture is correct when it says that God created all things in the space of six days.

On the first day he did this, the second day he did that, and it's the language of a day. There was evening and there was morning one day, and so that's important to us.

That kind of opened everything up because it was a hermeneutic, that is that you could go to the scripture and put your hermeneutical interpretation upon it and come up with something that would not tend to make sense from the scripture.

And so that has changed a lot of things. And so then you have, a few years later, this adoption of what is called a good faith subscription to the

Westminster Confession of Faith. I know that you mostly hold to the 1689,

I guess that's the London Confession of Faith. Is that right? I'd be in general agreement with a lot of what's in the 1689

London Baptist Confession. Okay, yes. And we hold to the 1648

Westminster Confession of Faith. Well, there are a few changes that were made to it relative to American society that was in the late 1700s, and we hold to that version of it.

But at the same time, the whole matter of confession and whether or not we're really subscribing to it became a big issue.

And the number of exceptions to the Confession of Faith has proliferated over the last 20, even less than 20 years since good faith subscription came in.

And one person in one presbytery has taken 55 different exceptions to the

Confession of Faith. I believe this, except for that. So that has destroyed the doctrinal integrity of the

PCA. Wait, let me just get this straight. You just said that there's someone who's in the PCA in good standing, so they're still involved, and they don't actually, they've taken, did you say 55 exceptions?

I think it's 55. It might be 53, but it's in the 50s. Oh, my goodness.

So you don't actually have to believe the confession to be in the PCA then.

If you take 55 or 53 exceptions, you don't believe it. I knew of one man in a presbytery where I formerly was.

He took an exception to the first short of catechism question and answer.

That catechism question is, what is the chief end of man? And his exception was this.

The answer is man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And he took an exception to enjoying

God forever. He said that that's not a scriptural position, which, of course, is contrary to so much of what you read in the

Bible about the joy that we have in the Lord. Well, this is news to me. I haven't heard this before.

So this sounds like such a deep rooted issue that you have people that are influencing the denomination, don't actually believe what the denomination believes.

OK, I wasn't expecting you to say that, but because I hear about the social justice and not even that as much with the

PCA, I hear more about like the revoiced theology. So same sex attracted Christianity and the issue of women in certain levels of leadership and stuff, these being the

Achilles heels that are damaging the PCA. But what you're telling me right now sounds to me like it's a lot more fundamental than that.

Yes, it is. OK, yes, it is. Well, what's happened? Can you give us a little history then of what's happened?

What's happened? Because you're talking about how there are four acceptable views a long time ago,

I think you said in the 80s. But since then, what are the steps that have taken place? And maybe you could attach some names to those,

I don't know, people who have compromised that have kind of led the PCA to where it is today. Well, I think obviously one of the huge names relative to this is

Tim Keller. He went up to start Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. And New York City is a very liberal place.

And so I think that he must have at some point along the way decided that he needed to pare back some of what he believes in order to make it palatable to New Yorkers.

And so he came up with this idea of basically,

I'm losing the word, but basically contextualizing. That's it.

Contextualizing the scripture. And so he then finds a sharp distinction between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.

And he contextualizes that so that this is more of a parable about creation.

It's more of a poetic look at it, but it's not really factual and historical.

And so you can pour into that your various ideas about creation. And it can be a billion years, tens of millions of years, whatever.

It doesn't matter to them because they've contextualized creation. Well, you left the

PCA, and it sounds like you started another denomination, Vanguard, last year. Is that correct?

That is correct. So you stayed in for a while. Tim Keller's been promoting the view that you just described for years.

I mean, I think he's always held that view, if I'm not mistaken, or it's been a long time. But there was something or a series of things that made you, last year, say, and your church say, we're leaving.

What were those things? Well, my stomach really started turning when

I was on the standing judicial commission, and I finally just ended up resigning because I couldn't stand the way that they were doing things anymore.

When I first started on the standing judicial commission in the late 1980s,

I forget exactly what day it was. I think it was 88 that I was elected. But when

I started on it, the SJC, standing judicial commission, that's the initials it is known by, they were very close to just wanting to be according to our constitution.

And so they would, first of all, apply the constitution to the case.

And whatever the constitution says, that was it. Things flipped at some point along the way.

And so I saw it happening at SJC meetings, where people would try to, they would first of all, decide what they wanted to do.

And then they would try to find some way to bootstrap it to the constitution.

And so one avenue would be shot down, and then they would search for another avenue to bootstrap it to the constitution.

So they weren't really trying to make sure that they were governing according to the polity and the standards of the denomination.

They were just, they would decide, well, we know what we want to do. Let's just find a way to do it.

And then that becomes very subjective. Yeah, well, that is a sort of pragmatic and just unprincipled approach.

And it reminds me of what's happening in the Southern Baptist Convention to some extent. And I think it's happening in all of society,

John. Yeah, yeah. I think you're probably right about that. What can you tell me about Revoice Theology?

Because that's been making the headlines, so to speak, not in secular media, but in Christian blogs and so forth.

That's the hot topic, right? To what extent has that influenced the

PCA? Or is that influencing the PCA? I think it's more insidious than a lot of people give it credit for.

I know that they know about the situation with Greg Johnson, but there are other presbyteries where the same -sex attraction is acceptable to presbyteries.

I say that from my first -hand conversations with people in many different presbyteries across the

PCA, as there would be various people who would come before the various presbyteries and they would say, well,

I'm kind of attracted to men and I struggle with that.

And the presbytery, if someone stood up against that, they would say, you know, you are being unchristian.

You're being unkind. Just let this man deal with his problems. There's more of an acceptance in a lot of different presbyteries of that position.

It's not just Greg Johnson and Missouri Presbytery. That's what people try to boil it down to.

It's just one presbytery, one man. There are many other places where this is happening.

Well, there is, and it hasn't been brought to the floor yet, but there is a, I don't know what they call them.

They call them motions. I don't know what they call them. It would be an overture. An overture. So there is an overture coming.

It says this, men, and it's 023, that's 0 -23. Men who would hold office in the

Presbyterian Church in America must be above reproach in their walk and Christ -like in their character. Those who adopt an identity 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 suitable for ordained ministry.

I know someone who, I don't know if they were involved in crafting it, but I think it's coming from, they're involved somehow with the effort to get this passed in the

PCA. Do you think, two questions, will that pass, do you think?

And if it, let's say it doesn't, what would your encouragement be for churches still in the

PCA? Sounds like probably to get out, but I'd like to hear it in your own words. Well, first of all, the language suitable,

I forget what the original language was, but it was much stronger than that. And suitable was a language that was put in by the committee,

I think, to, I don't know which way that's going to go, because that language, suitable, still is a little subjective and allows some freedom for people to, for different presbyteries to make their own determination whether or not that person is suitable, because it doesn't say that he cannot be ordained.

It just says he's not suitable. That's a little different twist there. And it opens the door a little bit there for interpretation by the court.

And so I think actually that that change in the language works in the favor of the progressives in the

PCA, though I don't think that they will like that.

And I don't think it's going to be acceptable to most conservatives in the

PCA either to use that language. So I don't know how it's going to go. It could be that that is completely voted down, which then would leave everything where it originally was.

And so you still have the same confusion on this. What about women serving in ministry, in missions?

And I'm not fully, I don't understand this issue fully, but I've been told that's the other big issue this time around.

Can you explain that issue? What is that about? And what's the trajectory of the PCA? Are they adopting egalitarian principles or what?

I think they are adopting egalitarian principles. And so that's a concern.

Now, I will say that from my own conviction, I began to see a number of years ago that mission to the world of the

PCA, this was a great concern of mine. They function like an

Episcopalian form of government from the top down. The PCA is supposed to be from the bottom up.

It's not in reality. But they function from the top down where you have your people over you who tell you what to do.

Whereas in the Presbyterian church, it's supposed to be the court, the body of the whole gives you instruction.

And they give oversight to you, the missions. And I know that you being a

Baptist, you may not. I hope you can follow what I'm saying. But what it does is that it separates everything so that this mission board, they have full autonomous authority.

And then they have the coordinator who tells everybody below him what to do. And then they come down from there.

And so what they're doing is that they're putting women in positions where they are leading men and helping to make the decisions and telling men below them what they are supposed to do.

And so that becomes a problem because then you've got female leadership in the denomination.

And it's been brought in through the back door. Because they're not technically pastors. They're administrative positions.

OK, well, that makes sense then. And that is actually very similar to what's happening in the Southern Baptist Convention, too.

It's almost like they're running on a parallel track. Now, social justice, broadly speaking, we mentioned this.

You mentioned this before we started recording. You just think that critical race theory is wrecking the denomination as well.

Where do you see that happening? Because I'm familiar in the Southern Baptist world and I am somewhat familiar with Tim Keller.

But there's there's a gentleman on YouTube. I don't know. Or maybe it's a female.

I'm not sure who put this out there. The Rooster Report, though, and it's the symbol is John Wayne or something.

So I thought it was a guy. But but it's anonymous. And they put out all these videos of different PCA pastors saying some of the most insane things that they sound like they're straight out of a secular critical race theory lecture at a university somewhere.

Duke Quan was one of these individuals. I can't remember all the names. I know Jamar Tisby, I think, has had some, you know, relationship there.

I know Lincoln Duncan, Eric, and he endorsed Eric Mason's book, Wrote the Forward. So I'm a little familiar.

But what can you tell us to kind of fill that in? What do you see from where you're sitting? There used to be a series of eight

YouTube videos that were out there that showed various meetings that had a number of PCA people in them, including former moderators of the

PCA. One of them is the.

I've forgotten his name. He's a Korean from out in California. He was three or four years ago.

But anyway, where they come straight out and say that they are critical race theorists.

And this former moderator even laughed at the fact that someone would call it

Marxism. Interestingly enough, those videos have been deleted and they are no longer able to be found on YouTube.

And I think one reason why is because they'd really they want to continue to infiltrate the

PCA with critical race theory, but they don't want it to be an issue where videos can be passed around and people can see very clearly about this.

There were people that I saw on that video. One man had come to a presbytery where I served and he was teaching the critical race theory.

He was teaching about the oppressor and the oppressed. The whites have been in the privileged class and they need to be put down and the blacks elevated, etc.

And all this does in the end is promote racism. But as we were talking about, this is something that has been going on for a long time in the

American churches. One thing I didn't tell you before we started is, of course, you mentioned that I've made a number of mission trips to Russia.

I've actually been there more than 30 times alone, as well as other mission trips

I've made. But I've been a buff on reading Russian history for all my life and keeping up with KGB spy stories and different things like that.

I've just really been interested in that. Well, I've got two books in the library here that were written by Christopher Andrew and a

Russian former KGB agent named Vasily Mitrokhin. Vasily Mitrokhin was the archivist for the

KGB and he defected from there and he took with him a lot of those files.

And in those files, it proves that in 1960 or 1961, the

KGB came up with a plan to destroy Western civilization and infiltrate the

Christian churches and destroy their message by bringing social justice in as the message that should be preached rather than the gospel.

And thus far, they've been very effective. And so what we're saying then,

John, is that what is happening in the churches is the gospel is being thrown out into the streets and trampled on.

And at the front door, pastors are welcoming into their church

Mr. Karl Marx to be the lecturer for that day. And so by preaching social justice, they are preaching the message of Marx.

And that has happened in almost every denomination in America as well as the

PCA. It's scary for a lot of laymen sitting in the pew because they don't know how to make sense sometimes of what is happening from their pulpit.

Why do my pastors start emphasizing racial justice and promoting, you know, having discussions?

This happened in a lot of churches with a member of their church who's a minority of some kind and without even going into scripture, just what's your experience?

What's how do you see the world? What's the oppression that you experience like? And making this the

Sunday sermon, essentially, they don't know how to make sense of it when it happens. And so my question for you is, since you're helping to make sense of some of this, you're sounds like you're in leadership and starting this new denomination.

How do you guard against that in Vanguard? Is it Vanguard Presbyterian Church or?

Good question. Can I turn around and get a book? I want to get this book that I. Yeah, sure. Go for it. And then

I'll be right back. There are two books.

One of them is Sword and Shield. This one is, I'll have to hold it back a little bit. The world was going our way.

The KGB and the battle for the third world. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin.

And so I would encourage anybody. It's a big read, but it's well documented and he has everything in there.

But it's important to realize what is happening in our society. And so now you've asked a good question here relative to how do you keep this kind of stuff from happening?

It comes down really to two things that are vitally important.

You have to guard the front door and you have to use the back door. And what

I mean by that is in the very beginning, you have to make sure that the people that are coming in are not critical race theorists.

They are not people who are taking exceptions to the confession of faith.

We believe in full subscription in our denomination. That is that if someone is going to come in and be a

Presbyterian minister with us, they subscribe fully to the confession of faith.

Doesn't mean that they believe it's inspired or that every word is written as best as it could be or that there's no helps that could be given to it to make some things explained better.

It's just that we believe all the doctrines and we accept them without reservation.

And so that's very important. And then the other one is that you have to be willing to use the back door.

That is when someone has done something to break his vows to go contrary to his theological convictions, you have to be willing to exercise discipline of that person.

And this is one of the fundamental failures of the Christian church. You know, we can discipline people.

I always say that there are two rules that govern the modern church. I call them because my last name is

Roberts. Instead of Roberts rules, which is the formula for parliamentary procedure with the apostrophe between the

T and the S, I put the apostrophe after the S, Roberts rules.

And the two rules are these. Number one, the more serious the matter, the less serious the church takes it.

Number two, the less serious the matter, the more serious the church takes it.

That is, we will make a big deal out of little things and then somebody will have some heresy that they are promoting.

It's just like in the Southern Baptist Church with this Ed Litton, who was just recently elected the president of the

Southern Baptist Convention, and he's got all kinds of problems. You know, theological problems, plagiarism, his promotion of the homosexual agenda, similar to what the

PCA is going through. And if you can't discipline and remove somebody like that, you're never going to be able to keep a denomination in good working order.

And so just fundamentally, those are the two things we have to do. Okay. Well, what would you say, what would your message be for two groups of people?

One is pastors listening, PCA pastors who are thinking about leaving the denomination, maybe give your pitch for why they should leave.

And then for members of churches that are PCA that don't know what to do now, their church is in the PCA, what should they do?

Well, I appreciate the question. I want to say this here as a disclaimer to begin with, you know, Vanguard Presbytery does not actively recruit any churches from any denomination.

They come to us. We left because of our convictions, and we are going to be primarily focused on starting new churches in various places.

And we want to do it according to New Testament model, like the Apostle Paul did. But having said that, you know, if people are in the

PCA pastors and they want to leave, then I think that they should check out

Vanguard Presbytery. We are not going to be an elitist church.

That is, we're not going to have some people as more important than others, because that's contrary to the whole principle of the

New Testament. If Christ and the Apostle Paul and the other apostles, you have it in the book of James, do not hold to your faith in the

Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. Esteem one another as better than yourself.

So this is important to us, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, the work of evangelism, the teachings of Scripture, the preaching of the gospel.

Those things are important to us. And so I would invite somebody to at least look at Vanguard Presbytery and see how we are.

And then to church members. John, I don't know if you have, how much you've read into church history and how much,

I'll mention somebody here. And he had a big influence on American church history.

I bet it's going to be Jay Gresham Meechan, but I could be wrong. Yeah, you're wrong. I'm wrong. Okay. He did have a big influence, but I'm talking about somebody way before him.

And this is Gilbert Tennant. And Gilbert Tennant at one time preached a sermon called the dangers of an unconverted ministry.

And in that sermon, he told the people, he preached it in Nottingham, Pennsylvania.

And he told the people on that day, he said, if your preacher is not preaching the gospel, put your fingers in your ears, run out of the church and find some place where the gospel is being preached and go there.

And that became a fundamental, essential principle of American Christianity for almost 300 years.

And now we've lost it. We've gone back to the view that was in action before Tennant preached that sermon.

And that view was, well, a converted minister is a good thing, but an unconverted minister can do a lot of good.

And so don't really make any difference about whether your church is a good church or whether it's preaching the gospel or not.

You know, there can still be good things happening. And that is a principle that is against Paul in Galatians, where he talks about if any man preached to your gospel, other than that, what we have preached, even if an angel preaches it to you, let him be anathema.

It's hard. You know, the main objection that people give is their friends are there, their community is there, some kind, and, or they can't find an alternative.

And my, I've always said, look, start an alternative. Maybe God's calling you to be that person. Maybe the community is important, but that's not the primary reason that you go to church.

And if it's not a community that's under the shepherding of a good shepherd, then it's not really a community anyway.

So those are good words. You know, one of the big question that I've had, and this is a personal question as well as an academic question in a way, but because it's hard to, you know, when you see it, but it's hard to actually come up with like a itemized abstract list of, of here's how, you know, the spirit's moving.

But the question is, where is the Holy Spirit? And I've asked this about the SBC. Remember I had someone on who was in the convention hall.

And I said, what did you sense the Holy spirit in there? And I didn't mean that in a super mystical way, but just people were praying, people were worshiping using music.

And then there was preachers, they're preaching sermons, but you know, was God moving was really my question was

God, you know, bringing about the things you'd expect when God moves repentance and, and just a softness and a humility and a real unity.

And it's, and the answer is no, this wasn't there. And I'm sensing the same in the PCA. I'm sensing the same all across this, this country, you know, bigger sort of issue here, though, though, are, are we under judgment where, where are the men, the men of faith who have the

Holy spirit can go proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ in no uncertain terms. Don't care if it offends the world.

Are, are, are we down to just a few of them? Cause some people are asking where, where's that man in my community?

I can't find him and I live in the Bible belt. Uh, any words of wisdom on that? Well, I do think that we're in the remnant church era at this point in time, you know, there's a great contraction of Christianity that has taken place.

Uh, uh, and true Christianity is now visibly much smaller than what we thought it was.

There was kind of a cultural view of Christianity where everybody went to church and they might not have taken it to heart, but now we're saying that true

Christianity is a lot smaller than what we thought it was. And people are not willing to take a stand for Christ, which is one of the most troubling things that I see in modern

Christianity is that people are not willing to stand up for him when it is necessary.

And so I think that we're going to have to be searching hard to find true

Christianity, but where true Christianity is, there's where we need to be. Now, the whole matter of the

Holy Spirit, that's so essential, John, because I think that that is the, the doctrine of the

Holy Spirit, the person and work of the Holy Spirit is a doctrine that has been so neglected and forgotten about.

In my writings, I mentioned the Holy Spirit so very much. In fact,

I had one person who was from a reformed denomination.

He asked me, he said, you mentioned the Holy Spirit so often. He says, I just have to ask you this. Are you a charismatic or perhaps a

Pentecostal? And I said, well, no, I said, but you do know that John Calvin was called the theologian of the

Holy Spirit because more than anything else, that's what he was known by. When you go to Calvin's writings, you can hardly read a couple of pages without him going into some mention of the

Holy Spirit and how the Spirit has to be working in order to bring this to pass. And I'm with you.

I've seen so many instances where the Holy Spirit was not present in things.

It was more of a formality. When we started Vanguard Presbyterian, we had a convocation in July of 2020.

COVID lockdown had just basically gotten over with in Tennessee, and we had a convocation.

And people came away from that and they said, you know, I've rarely ever been in a meeting where I felt the work of the

Holy Spirit like I did on this particular occasion. And so that's very vital and important.

Well, if anyone wants to check out Vanguard Presbytery, I'm assuming they can go look that up on a search engine.

It'll come up online. They go to VanguardPresbytery .com. That's simple enough.

And then Cornerstone Presbyterian Church where you pastor, it's CornerstoneDestined .com. And your books and blogs and you've written about the

PCA are all there. And I just appreciate you coming on and sharing some of this stuff because I'm not a

Presbyterian and I don't want to speak out of turn. But you understand this. You've been in the denomination longer and you've watched kind of the downgrade.

And I'm sorry you've had to see that. But thank you for being willing to explain it and help people sort through this because it's hard for them.

Thank you very much, John. I really enjoyed talking with you today. Yep. All right. God bless. Same to you.