January 28, 2015

The PCA: Happy Birthday!

Stephen Nichols
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The PCA: Happy Birthday!

Transcript

Dr. Stephen Nichols (SN): On this program, we talk about church history throughout the centuries, but I always enjoy when we bring church history a little bit forward and talk about the things that have happened a little bit closer to our time. So we are going to do that today, and joining us on our program this morning is my friend Dr. Sean Michael Lucas. We're going to talk to him about a moment in contemporary church history, an event that happened forty years ago. This is an event that is very special to you Dr. Lucas. You've been working on a book on this for over a decade, and it's finally going to see the light of day. First of all, welcome to the show.

Dr. Sean Michael Lucas (SL): Thank you for having me.

SN: And what event are we talking about forty years ago?

SL: On December 4, 1973, the Presbyterian Church in America was formed at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Ala. It represented a forty-year journey of conservative Presbyterians in the old Southern Presbyterian church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States—a forty-year journey of their trying to bring about reformation in their church, and then, failing that, seeking to have a continuing Presbyterian church in the South.

SN: Now this expression, "a continuing Presbyterian church"—we hear that a lot in PCA circles. What does that mean? Why was it important to them to frame it that way—"a continuing Presbyterian church"?

SL: There's a doctrinal piece to that, but there's also a more aspirational piece. The doctrinal piece is summed up in the motto "Faithful to the Scriptures, True to the Reformed Faith, Obedient to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ." As Southern Presbyterian conservatives looked at the mainline Presbyterian church in the South, they felt that the church had gotten away from those key doctrinal emphases: the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible's being paramount, the winsome Calvinism of the Westminster Confession of Faith, and particularly passion for evangelism and missions. So a continuing Presbyterian church was meant to continue those doctrinal emphases, but there was also a more aspirational emphasis as well. I argue in this forthcoming book that the desire to continue a mainline presence for the Presbyterian church in the South explains why the PCA still has a sense of cultural custodianship, if you will. Why there is a desire to engage our culture in a variety of ways, whether it's from Francis Schaeffer on the one side to Tim Keller in our present day—a sense of Christ and culture has always been at the heart of the PCA. That's because of this sense of wanting to continue a conservative mainline Presbyterian church in our country.

SN: So, we have a denomination that is committed to a doctrinal foundation, and then from that doctrinal foundation, committed to the preaching of the Word, and then from that, committed to engaging the world in which they live.

SL: Yes, exactly. And, I think that's part of why the PCA has continued to grow from its original foundations with about 120,000 communicant members to now about 400,000 communicant members in North America.

SN: This statistic is interesting because what we're also seeing is decline in the mainline denominations. So while they're declining, the PCA is on the increase. Is that right?

SL: Yes, it's been a very striking thing. In many years, the PCA's growth appeared small, but the PCA has been a growing denomination over its forty-year history. There have been very few years where we've simply remained static. And it's been because our identity is a doctrinal one, but there is a passion for evangelism, missions, and engagement of culture that gives people a reason not just to believe in Christ, but to be part of the church and then to advance the kingdom of God in their workplaces and culture.

SN: Thank you for being here. Thank you for informing us about this denomination and for writing that book. We really look forward to seeing it. Often, we look at institutions and we tend to see them decline over the generations, and it's just a sad thing. And so, when we see a denomination like this, we not only need to celebrate that it's here; we also need to pray that it remains faithful and true to those ideals and those doctrinal beliefs upon which it was founded and which gave it its initial life and birth.