It happened.
The whole case got bollixed up with the question of theonomy and Old School Presbyterian “spirituality of the church” views. The end result is that Rev. Lee Irons chose to leave the OPC, his church disbanded, and Irons eventually ended up in the PCA as a layman (I think he's now a ruling elder).
While Rev. Lee Irons and Misty Irons were personally run out of the OPC, their ideas were not, and the underlying issues did not get solved. As to persons, Lee and Misty Irons are now the PCA’s problem. However, their ideas did not leave the OPC when they left.
There continue to be significant numbers of Reformed people in the OPC and PCA who believe that general revelation and natural law, not Scripture, are to determine what is right and wrong in politics. Most won't go anywhere near as far as Misty Irons — as she said to the Gay Christian Network conference, her advocacy created space for less radical people to be viewed as moderates in the OPC — but the key issue of the role of the law in the civil sphere remains.
I get the point that nobody wants to say that Dabney and Thornwell were heretics, and nobody wants to co-opt the gospel with politics. I really do get it — Gardiner Spring resolutions are bad and have no place in Reformed assemblies.
However, this has to be addressed. It does us no good to be valiant in all the battles of the world except the one where our chief enemy is currently fighting.
If someone is a solid five-point Calvinist and subscribes without reservation to all the articles and points of doctrine of the Heidelberg Catechism, Belgic Confession and Canons of Dordt, or without exception to the system of doctrine contained in the Westminster Standards, but then proceeds to argue that we can ignore the culture war because it is “mere politics” and go AWOL in the middle of the homosexual assault on marriage in America, I fail to see how such a person is obeying God at this time when what is left of Christianity is under direct attack in the civil sphere.
...but then proceeds to argue that we can ignore the culture war because it is “mere politics” and go AWOL in the middle of the homosexual assault on marriage in America, I fail to see how such a person is obeying God at this time when what is left of Christianity is under direct attack in the civil sphere.
My thought's exactly. The following (attributed to Luther, but apparently apocryphal) quote is (none-the-less)true:
"If I profess, with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition, every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christianity.
Where the battle rages the loyalty of the soldier is proved; and to be steady on all the battle-field besides is mere flight and disgrace to him if he flinches at that one point."