WHY THE PCA IS NOT A DULY CONSTITUTED CHURCH Why Faithful Christians Should Separate From This

Cronos I think you are barking up the wrong tree here. PCA and OPC were formed as a reaction to the creeping (or in many cases not so creeping but speedy) advancement of heterodox modernism within the PCUSA. This is the true corruption that was besetting that church and led to such things as denial of the Virgin Birth, advocating for homosexual unions and abortion. The PCUSA as many other mainline Protestant denomination had seen the Zeitgeist and declared it good. Not only good but the new gospel.

That some members reflect very badly on these denominations should not be held against these bodies. We do not agree with their theology but they are truer in their faith statements and practice to historic Reformed teaching than the current leadership of PCUSA. That is the standard they should be judged upon.

For the writer of the article suggest they are corrupt because they allow the playing of musical instruments shows a degree of legalism that makes a mockery of Agape love. Indeed it raises my suspicions that there is more to the story. More as in “non flattering to the author”.

yes, the author of this DOES say

PCA are the true separatists and schismatics...

The elders' hypocrisy in their commanding us to address our grievances in their church courts, while themselves failing to proceed judicially against the numerous sins tolerated and practiced in the PCA

PCA are actually the schismatics and separatists. PCA "unchurched" because they fail to work for the truth, not against it.

PCA has remnants of the reformed faith taught and practiced in her, but she is nonetheless unduly constituted because she is flagrantly and habitually working to undermine the truth.

And then they ask that
The rejecting of the celebration or recognition of any so-called holy-days, and the instruction and subsequent discipline of any members who refuse to cease recognizing them. This means, among other things, that your congregation's Christ-mass evening candlelight communion service would be abolished.

Strange people, eh?

A lot of this seems the natural outcome of being in a denomination that seeks only to constantly spread hate

First, I'm not sure where the author's words end and your words begin (metaphorically), so forgive me if I accidentally attribute an idea to the wrong place.

Second, while I cannot speak for the totality of churches under the PCA and OPC umbrella, I can say that in none of my dealings with ANY PCA or OPC church or presbytery, and in my dealings with the predecessor "reformed presbyterian" organization, did I ever perceive any of those groups to be "a deonomination that seeks only to spread hate". In fact, that seems almost opposite of how I would describe their work.

Third, I simply could not figure out whether the perceived problem was an overly strict interpretation of scripture, or a failure to adhere to someone else's overly strict interpretation.

I know for example that there were OPC churches who strictly adhered to the "no musical instruments" rule, but also that no PCA/reformed church I have attended ever did -- is that a problem, or not? Are we damned if we use instruments, or damned for not? I think the author damns us for using them -- but was that your point as well?

One of the great strengths of the PCA denomination is that it allows for significant differentiation in practice for the "lesser" scriptural admonitions. This allows an individual congregation in many instances, and individual presbyteries in others, to adopt a view of scripture that seems most accurate to them, without creating schisms in a body that has a large commonality of belief.

So for example my particular PCA church does not support images of Jesus. There are no images in any of our sunday school materials, and the elders discourage people from going to movies like "The Passion of the Christ", or supporting the Jesus Movement (I disagree with their opinion on this matter, and have told them so, but it does not rise to the level of issue for me or them; while I watch movies with Jesus, I don't feel like the bible compells us to, so I don't mind the church NOT doing so).

On the other hand, we use musical instruments, and in fact in a former incarnation of our church (which has gone through some changes as we were itinerant, our pastor left because he became charasmatic, and we have since merged with another church), we had a praise band which included guitars, base, keyboards, and the occasional drum set.

We also have christmas eve service -- for a while we didn't, and now we do, I don't think it was ever a theological issue, but I'm glad we do. And my father's PCA church has always, so long as I can remember, had one (they also don't have a problem with images of Jesus). (I will note my father is an elder there; also he joined the PCA separately after I did, I was raised Lutheran).

I will say that most of the PCA churches I am familiar with are strong on church discipline; and none would have tolerated members deciding on their own not to attend service. However, especially in matters such as raised in this posting, they would have encouraged the member to find another church, being as the dispute was over matters for which the PCA does not hold a single-minded view.

BTW, while our church uses musical instruments and singing, we do also sing a good number of psalms. And as we have changed over the years, we no longer sing praise songs, but sing out of a hymnal for our non-psalter praise music.

As to the rejection of any so-called holy-days -- obviously we don't, as we have a christmas eve service. We also celebrate reformation Sunday, and even have a reformation day festival where we invite the community for an outreach. We also celebrate advent, and easter. (However, we no longer have a christmas tree -- I don't know if that's because we can't afford one, or we made a decision, as we used to have one, and then the church we met at for a long time had one and we didn't hide it like we hid their pictures of Jesus).

I will say that I've learned something here -- I had never heard of the "Federal Vision" before I read this thread. Which I guess would suggest that, at least in my neck of the woods, it isn't really something adopted within our organization. It also means (since they apparently formally addressed this in 2007 in our general assembly), that I have not been paying attention to the recent goings-on of our assembly; I have thought I watched closely for signs of faltering in what I see as the major issues of gay marriage, gay and female pastors, and the like, but obviously not enough to see anything about the Federal View, which I now know a little about by reading wikipedia.

I did recognize a few of the names thrown about. I read some of Van Till and Rushdooney when I was younger, provided by my pastor, but I never figured out why I was reading it, and I'm not sure I ever really understood what they were getting at.

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