Focus on fidelity

On Tuesday night, former administrator Bryan Chapell addressed the Presbyterian Church in America’s annual leaders’ gathering, culminating weeks of public apologies for remarks he made on a podcast in May. He addressed the PCA General Assembly not only to apologize but also to counter what he referred to as “internet imaginings” to affirm his “malice for none, and love for all.” John Bise, an elder from Huntsville, Ala., is serving as provisional stated clerk for this General Assembly. A new permanent stated clerk will be elected next year.

Chapell’s resignation from the role of stated clerk, the highest administrative role in the denomination, is one of several controversies that either have reached a flashpoint or are nearing one in the PCA. No single cause connects the varying debates, but all of them illustrate the challenges the denomination faces in reconciling leaders’ diverging views on how to maintain Biblical orthodoxy.

The General Assembly runs through Friday in Chattanooga, Tenn. Here are some of the contentious debates that have arisen at the meeting so far:

Missions and leadership

The assembly voted 1,210-738 in favor of retaining Irwyn Ince as the coordinator for the Mission to North America agency for another year. MNA has drawn criticism this year for some of its communication to immigrants and for Ince’s participation in a racially exclusive church event. Assembly voting members, called commissioners, also raised concerns about MNA finances and its church-planting operations. MNA had a nearly $2 million unbudgeted deficit for the previous year.

“I rise as someone whose church is very invested in the work of MNA,” pastor Sean Lucas said during the debate. “I can say without equivocation that Irwyn Ince’s leadership has been instrumental in raising up leaders in my own congregation. … He has turned the focus of MNA back to church planting.”

Others disagreed, saying that they respected Ince but weren’t sure of his administrative capability. “Some years ago, the current leadership of MNA set a goal that the PCA would raise to 3,000 churches, or double our congregations,” said pastor Ryan Biese. “The number of church plants has steadily declined since 2020. In 2020 there were 350 church plants. In 2024 there were less than 300 church plants. I believe new leadership is needed at MNA.”

Child communion

In the PCA, groups of elders known as “sessions” govern individual churches. The sessions are grouped by regions into a presbytery, whose members meet several times a year. Presbyteries keep records of any declarations by pastors of disagreement with the church’s stated doctrines, and the General Assembly reviews those records annually.

“[The General Assembly] requires presbyteries to be transparent in the actions they take,” said pastor Dominic Aquila, a former moderator of the PCA. “The General Assembly reviews encourage the presbyteries to remain faithful to the confessional standards.”

PCA doctrinal standards, known as the Westminster Standards, do not allow very young children to take communion, and the majority of PCA pastors agree. The assembly has allowed some pastors to take exception to the doctrine, but not without sparking intense debate.

“The practice of paedocommunion is, in my view, a grave error. It’s an error which, if practiced, leads little ones into sin, by encouraging them to take the Lord’s Supper without being able to rightly discern it,” said ruling elder Matt Fender, who was on this year’s Review of Presbytery Records committee.

The committee ruled this year that a presbytery had improperly handled a pastor’s request for a doctrinal exception because of his beliefs about giving communion to children. That presbytery must now review its decision and take caution in allowing further exceptions to the doctrine. The PCA officially does not allow ministers to put their doctrinal exceptions into practice.

Ecumenical transfers

The committee that reviews presbytery records also admonished the Nashville presbytery for allowing a minister to leave the PCA and take a call in the Episcopal Church. The Episcopal Church was one of the first churches to accept LGBTQ leaders, appointing the first openly gay bishop in the United States in 2003. “The Episcopal Church is arguably the most liberal of the mainline denominations,” lay elder Brad Isbell said during the floor debate. “We aren’t talking about a regular church member, but an ordained pastor. In short, he should know better.”

In its report, the committee said the presbytery erred because it “judged the Episcopal Church as another branch of the visible church.”

“Our belief was that the presbytery erred by not warning [the pastor] about the situation,” said pastor Steve Tipton, the chairman of the presbytery review committee. The debate centered on whether to rebuke the presbytery because no clear directive states that the PCA does not accept the Episcopal Church as part of the visible church.

“In the past we have allowed PCA churches and presbyteries to evaluate local churches, presbyteries, and dioceses in the [Presbyterian Church U.S.A.] and the Episcopal Church on a case-by-case basis when transferring members and officers as to the question of their status as ‘true branches of the Church of Jesus Christ,’” said pastor Jared Nelson. “As more and more are being found unsound, we seem to be viewing the whole of those denominations as not qualifying as true branches of the Church. I was concerned that we need to be clear if we are ready to do this consistently.”

Up next: A Presbyterian all-nighter?

On Thursday, the assembly is considering a record 50 overtures, or proposals, many of which would amend the PCA’s constitution. Many are expecting to go late into the night and perhaps into Friday morning. “I sure hope we don’t, but you never know,” said one elder. “I would rather stay late into the night than come back to business at 8 a.m. on Friday.”

Pastor Fred Greco, who moderated the PCA’s 50th General Assembly two years ago and who was on the Overtures Committee this year, told WORLD that he doesn’t expect to go late. “I expect us to be done by dinnertime,” he said. “The reason why is because I trust the committee chairman to present the items well, and because we did good work in the committee to revise the overtures and make it easier for them to be passed in groups. I’m confident that the work we did in the Overtures Committee will make it a much smoother day than you’d think.”