Reed DePace, TE
Pastor, First Pres Montgomery, AL
August 29, 2022
A fellow PCA elder, a brother in Christ whom I am indeed grateful for, asked for my reaction to some arguments he was going to make before his session, urging them at their upcoming presbytery meeting to vote against Overture 15. In keeping with the best of biblical (i.e., presbyterian) practice, he asked for the reactions of someone he knows would most likely be opposed to his reasoning. (Well done, brother, well done.)
PCA presbyteries are now taking up this overture, with the first one to vote on it passing it (8/27/22, Central Carolina, 41-11-1). O15 is considered a long shot for receiving the two-thirds majority yes votes from our presbyteries. Accordingly, appreciating this brother’s integrity, and disagreeing with his reasoning for a “no” vote on O15, I thought I might edit my comments to him, and post them for consideration by others. My goal (as a faith-exercise of my calling as an officer in the PCA) is to see the Spirit use these admittedly imperfect arguments to persuade other PCA elders to support O15’s passage.
Here is O15, as passed by the PCA 49th GA (Birmingham Al, ’22):
“Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.”
I want to offer two arguments for why this overture should be passed:
1) It avoids the identity language equivocation trap, and
2) It provides a simple and straightforward way of applying the above reproach standard.
The Equivocation Trap
Almost all the arguments I’ve seen against O15 anchor themselves on a reason for the failure of overtures 23 and 37 from the previous GA (48th, St. Louis). The main argument against them (persuasive in about forty percent of our presbyteries) was that the language of identity was problematic. Particularly, they noted that the teaching elder exemplar in view (i.e., the “poster child” prompting these overtures, no denigration intended) maintains that in his use of identity language (e.g., a homosexual pastor, a Christian who struggles with same-sex attraction as much as he did the first day he was saved) is nothing more than apologetic-ordered language intended to help in ministering to those struggling with the sins of same-sex attraction. The opponents to these overtures also noted that the TE in question also affirms his agreement with the biblical doctrine of new identity in Christ. The same arguments are being raised against passage of O15: such men are not identifying as homosexuals; instead they are identifying with those struggling with same-sex attraction.
Inside and Outside Definitions
I agree that the exemplar TE’s description of himself in terms of a believer who struggles with homosexuality fits both the inside and outside the PCA. He is able to do so not because he uses the same description inside that he does outside. Instead, he is able to do so because he uses the post-modern technique of equivocation. In the most egregious examples, this brother uses the same language inside and outside, qualifying his usage with descriptions fitted to each context’s own meaning of identity. This is equivocation. Using this technique, this brother can use self-descriptive language as a same-sex attracted pastor, in two diametrically opposed contexts, and affirm that he is consistent with the doctrine of both.
The Equivocation Trap
To push this a bit more, consider the self-description this brother offers in both contexts. His inside self-description as a homosexual pastor is more or less consistent with the Bible (as summarized in the Westminster Standards). The brother maintains he is merely “identifying” himself with besetting sins that he nevertheless biblically describes and seeks to biblically deal with.
In this brother’s outside self-identification, both in the context of his local PCA church ministry and his broader (at-large) ministry within the public sphere, he adopts the language AND the reasoning of the culture’s understanding of such identification. In this, the contemporary public realm, his identification is entirely infused with ontological (nature of being) considerations. When dinged by some of his fellow PCA officers for this blatantly anti-gospel identification, he switches from the outside explanation to the inside one. That is he equivocates, and the unprepared are snagged by the trap.
In short, he affirms that he is not identifying with his sin in such a way that it contradicts his affirmation of faith in Christ. Nevertheless, he affirms the culture’s understanding of identity, namely that such characteristics are of the essence of the person’s sense of self, characteristics that cannot be removed from the person without threatening the person’s very existence.
Avoid the Trap
This is the essence of the equivocation trap that, in hindsight, appears to have snagged GA48’s overtures 23 and 37. In simple terms, enough elders missed the descriptive identity equivocation such that they voted “no” on these overtures. They heard him affirm his belief in the biblical doctrine of ontological identity in Christ. But they missed that he also affirmed the (unbelieving) broader culture’s doctrine of ontological identity in one’s sins, a belief that is fundamentally an avowed, implacable, and unappeasable gospel-killing enemy. Being snagged in this trap led some to vote against overtures 23 and 37.
I suspect that some elders may again miss this equivocation trap. Reading GA49’s O15 as nothing more than a boiled down version of GA48’s overtures 23 and 37, they may vote “no” on O15. But, recognizing that equivocation is being used, we can avoid this trap, and vote in favor of O15.
The Above Reproach Standard
It seems to me that reckoning with the equivocation trap should be enough to persuade elders to vote for O15. Yet, there is even a better reason to pass O15. Remember that this year’s overtures committee tweaked the originating presbytery’s original language. Specifically, the OC replaced identity language with description language. While not knowing all the reasons behind this tweak, I grow increasingly persuaded that it is providentially fortuitous.
Description Broader the Identification
Many vocal opponents of O15 argue as if “identifies” is synonymous with “describes.” But that is simply not the case. To be sure, the description language encompasses the identity language. Yet the description language is broader, allowing further considerations to come into view. (A key one for me is the increasingly clear flaws in this brother’s understanding and practice of sanctification. See the recent book review of Still Time to Care, by our brothers in Ascension Presbytery: https://1ar.s3.amazonaws.com/2022/08/Ascension-2022-July-Report-of-AIC-Still-Time-to-Care.pdf).
Avoiding Measurement Weeds
Even more fundamentally, the description language in O15 pushes this whole question (if/when is a man with same-sex attraction qualified to hold office in Christ’s church?) back into the only clear biblical qualification assessment point, namely the question of whether/when such a man is above reproach. Debates over “what does identification really mean anyway?” push this question into the weeds where only worldly considerations apply. Even the otherwise helpful debates over the nature of same-sex desire and when it becomes an actionable sin are responded to with broader evangelical (re: Arminian, self-powered) measurement questions of when is same-sex attraction a problem: how much same-sex desire is allowable; how do we measure this: quantity of events, degree of intensity, frequency of presence, etc.?
The tweaked O15 description language denies all these measuring weeds. For men equipped with the keys to some of the most sacredly precious positions in the Kingdom of Christ, O15 simplifies the decision-making on our version of the broader homosexual clergy question. Is the man describing himself (present tense) as a homosexual, all equivocations aside? If so, as this means he is NOT above reproach, we can be sure that the Spirit has not called him to sacred office in the Church.
The Simple Self-Description
Think about this from the opposite perspective. Imagine you’re examining a man coming for ordination, or one seeking to transfer into your presbytery. In his paperwork submitted for the process, he notes issues of same-sex attraction in his life. Consider what we’d want to hear from him. We do not want some convoluted explanation that seems more wrapped up in the world’s ontological realities than in the gospel’s. This man needs to feed the sheep, correct the sheep, shelter the sheep, protect the sheep, and equip the sheep with the gospel weapons of spiritual warfare in an increasingly re-Sodomizing and Gomorrahizing land.
Instead of confusing language that compels us to spend time (years now) asking whether this is a problem or not, imagine that the brother offered simple and clear expressions describing himself and the remnants of his same-sex attraction in this manner: “No, I’m not a homosexual, nor am I describable by my former lusts to which I was enslaved. To be sure, the old man, who revelingly wallowed in those cesspools of the soul, is still zombie-like scratching at the coffin lid that Jesus has bolted him shut in. But no, I’m not a homosexual. I’m not rightly described by my former same-sex attraction lusts, if even only the lingering memory of them. I am a new man in Christ; the old is gone.”
I think we would all agree that it is this simple: a man needs to see and express that his same-sex attraction was properly descriptive of his former self, before regeneration. He now needs to see and express that his same-sex attraction is effectively dead, not as in not present, but so dormant that even the mildest and most infrequent of stirrings are met with a vigorous resort to Spirit-based mortification. This needs to be so much the man’s experience, that, knowing that unbelief always presents the equivocation trap, he wisely refuses to engage in the use of this technique.
Let’s Pass Overture 15
To be sure, the Enemy will continue to attack us, offering further equivocations that some of us may get tripped up by. But, at least at this point in the battle, until Christ’s already victory is realized once and for all, O15 makes it simple for us to make such judgment calls.
Fathers and brothers, let’s pass Overture 15.
Reed DePace, TE
Pastor, First Pres Montgomery, AL
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