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General Assembly Rejects Deaconess Study Committee

June 2008

On Wednesday, the PCA’s General Assembly voted to reject an overture that recommended forming a study committee to discuss the issue of women deacons.

“This is not a new area of study,” said Fred Greco (pictured left), who served as the chair of the Overtures Committee, which recommended that the General Assembly dismiss the deaconess overture. “There is plenty of existing material on the subject, and our Book of Church Order is clear [that ordained church officers are to be men].”

Greco also expressed concern that further study of this issue would polarize advocates on either side—causing deepening division in the church.

Bryan Chapell, who presented the minority report on this issue, disagreed.

“We have to listen to one another,” said Chapell, who serves as president of Covenant Theological Seminary. “We have to be willing to talk about difficult things without fear of demoralizing the church. We must get people together in the same room to talk about [difficult issues] in an atmosphere that’s not highly charged.”

The minority report recommended that a committee comprised of theologians on both sides of the issue—including Tim Keller, Phil Ryken, Ligon Duncan, and Jimmy Agan—meet together over the coming year to come to a Scriptural understanding of deaconesses. After an hour of debate and multiple motions from the floor, the minority report was eventually defeated.

Fred Greco urged continued discussion about this issue, but at the local level. “We recommend that the church address these issues constitutionally, through presbyteries working in a local context and raising up amendments for General Assembly. There are venues for this discussion to take place in a less confrontational, more grassroots way.”

Affirming the Minority

During the debate on the floor, a number of commissioners spoke to those in the minority, especially the rising generation of PCA leaders.

“We need to celebrate the young men who want to dive into the PCA and study these issues,” said Mike Khandijan of Chapelgate Presbyterian in Maryland.

“It’s not the issue before us, but how we deal with the issue before us,” said Joe Novenson, of Lookout Mountain Presbyterian in Tennessee. “That’s part of the Reformed tradition, and how we have addressed issues in the past.”

And another pastor spoke directly to women. “There’s much we need to do—we’re failing to love fully half of the body of Christ,” said Jonathan Inman, pastor of Grace and Peace PCA in Asheville, N.C. “I’m sorry for the ways the church has offended women and often been unaware of it.”

In the end, a majority of the Assembly voted to follow the recommendation of the Overtures Committee, comprised of 80 ruling and teaching elders, who debated the overture for five and a half hours on Tuesday before making their recommendation to answer Overture 9 in the negative.

(Overture 9, submitted by the Philadelphia Presbytery, recommended that the General Assembly “erect a study committee on deaconesses” to determine whether the election of women to the office of deacon is contrary to the Book of Church Order, and to determine more clearly the role of women in diaconal ministry.)