Apparantly some have misunderstood my If I were to be invited to my trial post.

The “trial” here is the voting on a committee report that condemns an alleged body of thought or “movement” (i.e. “The Federal Vison and/or “the New Perspective”) and attaches the names of ministers in good standing to that condemnation. In Presbyterianism, one is supposed to be protected from attacks on one’s doctrinal orthodoxy. Of course, there is a way of dealing with people who teach erroneous doctrine–it is called a trial. In a trial one is forbidden to “circularize.” In other words, one is forbidden from declaring a minister in good standing to be doctrinally aberrant on one’s website in order to dirty the jury pool so that, after years of campaigning, one has generated enough hysteria to perhaps win in a trial. In a trial, the accused is permitted to speak in their own defense and to confront their accusers. In a trial, the accusers can themselves be disciplined if it is discovered that they are making wild accusations.

The “committee report” is a trial in that ministers who have been examined and received and ordained by the church are declared heterodox in their teaching, without having any of the court procedures allowed to them. A phone call would have been nice. Furthermore, even though the committee won’t actually defrock anyone, people will feel free to treat these men (assuming any are left who aren’t issuing such treatment) as if the outcome of a trial is a foregone conclusion and that the verdict has been given ahead of time by the committee. In other words, the committee itself is circularizing.

By the way, I should not that the Missourri Presbytery committee reported on these manners in a way that did not participate in these injustices. It stuck to the actual issues and laid down some helpful guidelines. It stands out in that respect.

Finally, we have an interesting situation here. I keep hearing of people who confidently say that the PCA has a group of people who deny sola fide or some other essential doctrine. So this is what we are to believe? That everyone knows this and yet in presbytery after presbytery (eighty-five churches remember) these men are received and allowed to serve while teaching these obvious attacks on Christian orthodoxy and somehow, never even get brought to trial, and yet this issue is quite clear to a number of committees whose methodology involves careful non-interaction with any of the people they wish to condemn? What’s going on?

Is this how Presbyterianism is supposed to work? Are ministers supposed to confidently relay second-hand reports about those people–you know, the “miscreants: and “aberrants” outed in conference speeches and on church websites–while completely ignoring the fact that these men are under authority and have never been tried?