If the SJC is saying the LAP did not follow the approved methodology provided in the BCO and the LAP is protesting that yes, it certainly did (especially as there are other presbyteries who perform examinations in the same way as the LAP), then this would seem to be a conflict needing to be resolved for the benefit of the PCA as a whole.
I'm awful with names, so most likely you're right.
Sometimes it's situations such as this one that brings to light existing weaknesses, such as the fact that the handy guide within the BCO concerning precisely how such examinations are to be conducted isn't being followed by some presbyteries.
And it's been my experience that if two groups of people - such as the LAP and that other presbytery - are doing something wrong, the overwhelming odds are others are doing it wrong, too.
What do you want to bet additional presbyteries have read the LAP's examination and gulped, realizing it bears a strong resemblance to the last one they conducted?
Oopsie-doopsie.
think you're dead wrong on some things you are doing or believing, but I really do care about you and want to help you. 
I think this is an aspect of church discipline that many of the debaters here are missing. Debaters discuss these issues in the abstract. But these are real people on both sides, with budgets to meet, and families to support. And my experience with church discipine over the past 39 years I've been a Christian has been that it must be done in the context of John 13:35 -- brother, I care about you although I
That is more than "sympathy."
Taking heterodoxy lighly, for any reason, was not the implication of my post responded to above.
I simply cited an example of a context in the LaP in which the LaP was both hardening its position on FV, in its dealings on the Wilkins matter, and showing charity by a $6,500 donation to another FV advocate who just went through a job change.
In the same context, one influential commissioner pointedly said, while looking directly at the $6,500 donee -- those who continue to advocate the FV in the PCA, their days are numbered.
This context is not subject to the charge -- being soft on heterodoxy.
Accuse LaP of wasting the Lord's resources on heretics, maybe. And you'd be differing with our actual position.
I wouldn't agree with that assessment, but we could discuss it.
But "being soft on heterodoxy" is not an appropriate inference from the context I saw and reported on from the Feb. 9 LaP meeting.
I didn't mean to poke you in the eye with it but I simply don't agree that discipline of a Pastor's teaching should factor in budgets and family support if that was what was intended by the comment. In other words, I interpreted you as stating that the LaP initially didn't sanction Wilkins because of the "budgets to meet, families to support" factor and I was stating that this is not something that should be factored in to soften or modify one's ruling. It seems I misunderstood what you were trying to imply.HaigLaw said:
E.g., #4 thinks I'm an FV sympathizer and finds my comments "quite disturbing."
This happens in written comm unfortunately.Otoh, my comments here on Puritanboard are getting misconstrued.
Yes, I noticed this. I didn't pounce on that idea per se.
I'm sorry but that wasn't clear to me. The way I read the issue of Church discipline was in reference to the original decision to give Wilkins a pass after his examination. I assumed the "budgets and families" reference was to that as you admit above you speculated love toward their brother plaid into this.It was not until comment #35 that I introduced the interplay of "charity" towards FV supporters, juxtaposed with the new firmness of the LaP against FV theology. There is no hint in #35 of going soft on heterodoxy due to financial considerations; in fact, quite the converse is the precise point. That is, to make church discipline work, one must add charity to firmness for truth. John 13:35. To repeat the language I used in #35, saying to the offender, "I think you're dead wrong on some things you are doing or believing," certainly does not leave room for softness on heterodoxy.
Thank you. I do appreciate the clarification.
Some of these churches have building programs, where they are deciding to place a substantial portion of their life savings in a presbyterian church, which all of a sudden may become an independent church. I know people, myself included, who have already wasted a lot of time and energy on independent churches, where a PCA church was not available to them. 
Aye, aye, captain! i don't have any quarrel with your points about Exxon Valdeez or Haditha.
The thing is -- the FV ringleaders are no longer there, for the most part. They have removed themselves -- excommunicated themselves, if you will. The ultimate censure of church discipline has already been imposed.
What you are dealing with is a shifting majority. I too have asked -- how could anyone read what he wrote and not see it's out of line? The most credible answer I've gotten -- and I can't give you a link -- is that out of friendship, probably, certain commissioners just couldn't believe he meant just exactly what he said. I don't think any who previously gave him "a pass," as you aptly call it, did so conciously thinking they were letting him continue in his comfortable lifestyle at the expense of truth and sacrificing the sheep.
But the point is -- the thinking of a bare majority has crystalized to believe that his views were out of line.
So you, or more precisely, the SJC, is faced with deciding an appropriate punishment for a corporate body whose majority has shifted. The current majority agrees LaP was wrong all along to give him a pass.
Should you kick a presbytery out of the PCA when the current leadership agrees something is wrong, was wrong all along, and has already substantially purged itself of the error?
That is the sanction the SJC threatened in the indictment.
If you do, then you have the issue of men and families who've devoted their lives to advancing the Reformed Faith, opposing error, and will need somewhere else to go if they remain in the PCA. You have their churches that are structured very much around being presbyterian, which all of a sudden, by a stroke of the SJC pen, would no longer be presbyterian, and they would be in limbo for a year or more until some other presbytery took them in.
These are some of the considerations the SJC has before it.
Hope this helps.
Aye, aye, captain! i don't have any quarrel with your points about Exxon Valdeez or Haditha.
The thing is -- the FV ringleaders are no longer there, for the most part. They have removed themselves -- excommunicated themselves, if you will. The ultimate censure of church discipline has already been imposed.
What you are dealing with is a shifting majority. I too have asked -- how could anyone read what he wrote and not see it's out of line? The most credible answer I've gotten -- and I can't give you a link -- is that out of friendship, probably, certain commissioners just couldn't believe he meant just exactly what he said. I don't think any who previously gave him "a pass," as you aptly call it, did so conciously thinking they were letting him continue in his comfortable lifestyle at the expense of truth and sacrificing the sheep.
But the point is -- the thinking of a bare majority has crystalized to believe that his views were out of line.
So you, or more precisely, the SJC, is faced with deciding an appropriate punishment for a corporate body whose majority has shifted. The current majority agrees LaP was wrong all along to give him a pass.
Should you kick a presbytery out of the PCA when the current leadership agrees something is wrong, was wrong all along, and has already substantially purged itself of the error?
That is the sanction the SJC threatened in the indictment.
If you do, then you have the issue of men and families who've devoted their lives to advancing the Reformed Faith, opposing error, and will need somewhere else to go if they remain in the PCA. You have their churches that are structured very much around being presbyterian, which all of a sudden, by a stroke of the SJC pen, would no longer be presbyterian, and they would be in limbo for a year or more until some other presbytery took them in.
These are some of the considerations the SJC has before it.
Hope this helps.
We can't know the motivations for sure. One possibility is that the SJC indictment itself crystalized some elders' thinking. Maybe they previously thought it was a liberty of conscience issue on FV; that is -- I don't buy into this, but maybe it's OK as someone else's cup of tea. But when faced with being kicked out of the PCA over it, they took a second look and had to agree it was wrong. I think that is more likely than the speculation you had earlier that they were knowingly being soft on error out of financial considerations. There is only one commander at each level. I don't think the PCA has any mechanism for relieving an elder of his position at the Presbytery level for participating in a bad decision. They just reverse the decision itself at the higher level. Apart from heresy or immorality on an individual elder's part, there is no punishing them other than reversal of the decision, for people voting the wrong way on a bad decision. And I think that is the way it must be, otherwise, you'd never have an end to litigation. 
But there have been times here I wondered whether I was making myself clear. Either unclear, or some readers may have been slow to get it. Just as some commissioners to the LaP were slow to get it, on the implications of FV.
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