just my ranting
:
It seems to me that it is being implied that the PCA is apostate or very close to it, without anyone wanting to explicitly say this. In other words it seems to be deep down feelings that are afraid to be directly stated in clear yes or no fashion. (just guessing) By others leaving I take this as an explicit form of saying "yes, the PCA IS apostate."
As a young reformed believer this leaves me in quite a dilemma. The only reformed churches in the area are PCA. Do I not join because the leaven of liberalism is spreading? This leaves me with the only other option of having "church" by myself in my own home. Obviously not a legitimate option.
It has been my experience in my short life as a reformed believer, that from the moment I came to this theology/circle, there has been little if any emphasis on discipling, making learners and followers of Christ, growing in teaching and application, experimental piety, etc. Rather, I am being thrown into the newest debate, or heresy discovery, or critique of a movement and then having to report whose side I am on, usually with issues that are so philosophical and nuanced it would take me years to understand, but feel like I have to decide on now so that I may have assurance of my salvation through finding acceptance with those who are on the "right" side. This is not to say that these things aren't immensely important, but it seems to me that as the liberals have tried to keep Christ while denying his truth, my reformed experience has shown me that others are so focused on Christ's teachings that they forget Him whose teachings they are. I want Christ's truth because I want Christ Himself. To divorce these two, or to reverse this order seems to me to be the heart of many errors today.
As for the women thing, it's really confusing. I see women like JE Tada speaking to men at a Ligonier conference. And that's acceptable because it wasn't a sermon and it wasn't during Sunday worship. Yet others think, I assume, that even this is unacceptable. Liberalism at Ligonier than too. In my limited experience, the criticism about this women participation issue and the PCA seems to be misconstrued. I am all for excommunicating those who allow women to preach from the pulpit or lead a church in worship, etc. Out with liberalism, completely, please. But the criticism seems to go further than this. ANY women's roles are seen as liberalism by those I have talked with. The irony in this for me is that those who have personally said this to me were on the domineering/chauvinistic extreme right. I consider myself a complemetarian as do well known solidly reformed leaders in the Council for Biblical Man and Womanhood. In my experience even complementarians are considered liberals and therefore Covenant Seminary is liberal. If there are true egalitarians in the PCA, then lets correct them in discipline or move them out. In the PCA churches I have been in, there isn't even a hint of egalitarianism. Yet my old church, which was heavily on the domineering extreme right considers them to be so. I see this as the equivalent a hyper-calvinist saying we shouldn't evagelize at all, because if we do then it is a slippery slope towards arminianism. God's truth is thus confused with those who blur the truth, and thereby denied altogether. I think the art of distinguishing the truth of an issue from the abuse or misapplication of that truth, has been lost in so much of our thinking, mine included. When we settle this on a number of issues, I believe who is truly an apostate liberal, who is truly an apostate ultra-conservative pharisee, and who is balanced biblically and sytematically in God's entire counsel of His truth will be made more clear.
I have been labled non-reformed because I am not a presuppositionalist, Clarkian, or supralapsarian. My being a classicist, and infralapsarian is considered liberal/arminian/hypo-calvinist. It seems some would consider those who aren't psalms only singers to be flirting with liberalism, while I would disagree, and believe the contemporary "worship and praise" choruses to be liberal worldliness. I don't bring up these points for debate, but simply to express how the terms liberal and conservative seem to get thrown about without any solid and objective definitions, depending on who you talk to. And the changing meanings of words for each individual is postmodern liberalism. So maybe we could come up with an agreed upon unchanging definition of liberalism, and thereby avoid our own liberalism when accusing everyone else of liberalism.
So again, if it would help for the sake of clarity I would like to know on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being complete purity in doctrine, 1 being apostate, where would everyone rank Covenant Seminary? RTS, GPTS, WTSPA, WTSCA, etc.? THE PCA, OPC, URCNA, SBC, etc.? (if need be, maybe this would be an interesting anonymous poll)
[None of the above is meant as a challenge to anyone, just a general fleshing out of some of my thoughts and observations in personally trying to understand God's truth for my life and decisions I have to make relatively soon]
[Fred said]
Your PCA experience is a bit limited, and limited to its most conservative area - Mississippi. The things described above are happening.
My PCA experience is limited also. What about the St. Louis area and the PCA? Where are they on the liberal-conservative chart?
I'm feeling intellectually 
*disregard any comments in this post that have just previously been answered in above posts;they were posted during my writing of this post.
[Edited on 4-21-2005 by RAS]
[Edited on 4-21-2005 by RAS]
. But I stand (sadly) corrected.
