Tonight, at the PCA’s 38th General Assembly, Ligon Duncan, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Miss., and Tim Keller, senior pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, will discuss The PCA—A Way Forward: What We Can All Agree On and Why We Should Stay Together. The two pastors will discuss current tensions and debates in the PCA. They will also describe the commonalities we share, “and the potential that God has graciously granted to us.”

Prior to the seminar, byFaith spoke with the Rev. Ligon Duncan and asked about his thoughts on these issues. Here’s a summary of that conversation.

The title of the seminar suggests that forces are pulling our denomination apart. What are they? 

“I think most folks would list doctrinal and ecclesiastical issues,” Duncan began, “like women in diaconal ministry, generational outlook, subscription, paedocommunion, Federal Vision, creation, worship—those are things we've debated in the past that have been disunifying.”

As important as the issues are, Duncan sees a more menacing threat: the mindset that’s often behind the debate. He points to two specific factors: First, he says, the PCA’s polity, history, and present practice allow us to be independent of one another. “We can admit people into our presbyteries,” Duncan says, “but we never have to cooperate with them; we never have to work shoulder-to-shoulder with them.” As a result there’s no cause to think about other churches and pastors until we become suspicious of their opinions or their approach to ministry.

A second factor, Duncan says, is that, “We don’t realize how hard it is to cultivate unity.” We work hard at doctrinal fidelity and missional focus. But not at cultivating unity. Unity doesn’t just happen, Duncan says. It has to be intentionally nurtured. “And that's something the PCA has lacked.”

There are, Duncan believes, signs of encouragement. “I see more of a concern for unity than I’ve seen in the last 15 to 20 years,” he told byFaith. But unity requires a personal investment. You’ve got to get to know people, and there’s not time for that, he said. But, “I’ve found that it’s hard to think the worst of somebody you like.” We need to know one another, Duncan believes. “Then we’d like one another, and I think even our disagreements would be more profitable.” We’d engage the tough issues “in an iron-sharpening-iron way …” rather than slinging mud.

More people in the PCA, especially teaching elders and ruling elders, must cultivate unity the same way they cultivate doctrinal fidelity. Otherwise, Ligon Duncan believes, we're going to have trouble with every difficult issue.

How do you relate the PCA’s value of connectionalism to the idea of Scriptural unity? 

On the one hand, Duncan sees a growing desire for connectionalism in the PCA. On the other, he believes there’s an historical ethos or culture that discourages it.

“It’s how we set up the polity of the church at the beginning,” he explains. Our founders were concerned about the centralization of power in the old Southern church. The brethren who were in the RPCES, when they joined the PCA in the early 1980s … had experienced the same kind of centralization of power in the Northern Presbyterian Church, he says. They were concerned, then, to make sure that didn't happen again.

Unfortunately, according to Duncan, we didn't realize we were creating an environment that allowed people to be a part of the PCA who didn't have to work together. “We were happy for them to come in, and then ignore everybody else and do their own thing. It's hard to cultivate connectionalism in an environment like that.”

While Duncan is pleased by a growing desire for connectionalism, he notes that we don’t have a legacy to follow in that regard. As a result, we don’t have the tools—or even the impetus—to cultivate true connectionalism.

“Here is one obvious illustration,” he says. “You've got, what, 1,700 churches in the PCA? Fifty percent of them don't give anything to the work of the General Assembly. And 25 percent of them don't give much. They're PCA—they're just as PCA as my congregation is—but they don't feel a need to invest themselves in the cooperative work of the denomination. That's the lack of connectionalism that has existed for a long time in the PCA.”

We’re all Christians, and we’re all Reformed. How can this be so hard?

One of the things that has made it difficult for the PCA to resolve differences, Duncan believes, is that they’re often argued by those on the extreme ends of the spectrum rather than by the “rank-and-file” middle. Take the women's issue as one example, he says. We've had some high-profile departures over women in ministry. “And many of those who’ve left have ended up in egalitarian bodies.” But, Duncan emphasizes, the PCA—in its convictions and confession—is overwhelmingly complementarian. “That doesn’t mean we all agree about how that complementarianism ought to be expressed at the local church level; that’s a legitimate discussion that needs to be carried out, and is being carried out.” But, he says, the discussion is often distorted. On one end of the spectrum there are “folks who genuinely are not complementarian.” They're relatively few, Duncan says, but fear of them animates those on the other end of the spectrum—“folks who don't want to see different approaches or any diversity because they fear an encroaching egalitarianism.”

The hard discussions, Duncan says, need to occur among those in the broad middle. That’s where we need to work at knowing and liking one another. That’s where it would be such a help if we understood one another. “Let’s face it,” Duncan says, “if you've got a brother who genuinely believes that barring women from office is an affront to God, that it's a chauvinistic assault on the female person, that it inhibits us from reaching our culture—you can't be nice enough to him. He’ll never be happy in a complementarian denomination. But that's not where most of our debates occur. That’s why we need to respect one another. That way, as we enter into those debates, we’d find out that we actually have more in common than we might have guessed.”

How might we get to know one another better?

The first step, Duncan believes, is to recognize that we’re all narrower than we think. “If we’re coming from a traditional, Reformed, confessional, ordinary-means kind of direction,” he says, “we may be suspicious of, or even discount the ministry of a brother who has a different theology of ministry or who might have a different approach to engaging culture or maybe has a different set of hot-button issues than we do.” In that circumstance, he says, we need to recognize that our evaluation is too narrow. “There's obviously room for that guy in the denomination,” Duncan continues, “because one of our presbyteries ordained him, he’s answered the hard questions, he’s ministering in the church. I don't think we ever say to ourselves, ‘Okay, my own outlook on this, however principled it is, however biblical it is, does not reflect the sole, acceptable outlook for the whole of the PCA.’”

Others, he points out—those who might be more missional in their ecclesiology—might think: “Those traditionalist guys are too wound up about doctrinal issues.” The tendency then, Duncan says, is to conclude that “They just don't get it from the standpoint of cultural engagement.” Which leads to the perspective that “I’m broader than they are.” But actually, Duncan says, they’re narrower than they think. They've just decided that the issues where they’re strong are the only issues that matter.

We all have a different set of “you don't get it” issues, Duncan believes. That's why it's helpful, for the sake of unity, to recognize that we are all narrower than we think.

But the solution isn’t to act like differences don’t exist. We can’t sweep them under the carpet, Duncan says. We need to recognize that “I really do differ from that guy… . And I really do think my way is right and his way is wrong … .” We can’t cultivate unity until we’ve identified our differences. But we have to respect each other “before we can take real steps forward in working together.”

Duncan encourages pastors and PCA members to work outside the denomination more often. It would help, he says, if more of us saw “the problems that are out there. It can … help us be happier with the problems in here.” Without that broader perspective, he says, issues “can get pretty personal, especially at the presbytery level.” 

It would also help, Duncan believes, if we were better losers. We need to recognize that “if I lose a vote, that doesn’t constitute a crisis in the unity of the PCA,” he says. “We need to accept defeat more graciously. If the majority of the brethren doesn’t agree with me on an issue, the sun will still rise, the world won’t come to an end, the four horsemen of the apocalypse aren’t storming toward us, and I can still preach the gospel just like I could the day before.”

Duncan’s not sure we “have the mental, emotional, and psychological tools to lose votes like we ought to.” But it is, he thinks, important for unity. We need to be willing to submit and commit to something that we’re not in charge of, he says. He points to General Assembly. The highlights are the disagreements, he says, and that’s because we don’t cooperate with one another. As a denomination, there’s not much of a positive, cooperative effort that we can celebrate. It’s as if the mindset going in to each assembly is: “Oh great, I get to disagree with everybody … for the next 36 hours.”

There’s not nearly as much energy on the things we’ve cooperated on. “That’s because half the denomination hasn’t given a dime towards those cooperative ministries. …We haven’t had to put our money where our mouth is.”

How do you see the PCA’s role in the broader North American church? What are we bringing that is important, and that would be good reasons to be a part of this denomination?

Duncan turns to the denomination’s motto, saying that from its very beginning it’s been an underutilized and underappreciated rallying point: “True to the Bible, to the Reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission … .” That, Duncan believes, has always reflected the distinctive values of the PCA. We’ve always had an unwavering commitment to biblical inerrancy and that, he believes, gives the PCA access to the now-emerging generation.

Young people today, according to Duncan, are looking for somebody who can articulate truth, who can do so intelligently and in context of the world they see around them. Our view of doctrine and the authority of Scripture is the perfect lure for those yearnings. These young people have grown up in a culture, Duncan says, where relativism has wreaked havoc. “They’re looking for something that’s intelligent, but they’re also looking for … strong anchored commitments.”

When we’re true to the Reformed faith, Duncan explains, we offer a theology of grace “that is uniquely suited to the crying needs of this generation.” Young people have seen the larger social problems in our country. They’ve seen the economic struggles and the crumbling of the home. It deeply impacts them. What’s more, he says, this generation struggles with sin issues that would have terrified their grandparents. The old approaches don’t work, Duncan says. “The ‘Seven Steps to Finding a Better Friend’ approaches—everybody now knows they’re impotent. … But when you come along with a robust theology of grace, they’re suddenly asking: ‘Where has this been all my life?’

“We’re willing to tell these folks that they can’t change their own lives, that only the grace of the Holy Spirit can do that, that God has acted decisively in His Son, that He’s sovereign and loving and gracious and good.” Kids who’ve come from a legalistic or moralistic background, Duncan says, when they come into contact with a robust, Reformed teaching on grace—they’re captivated by it.

And then, he says, there’s the PCA’s missionary impulse. “We’ve never said, ‘Hey we’re Reformed and we’re going to build a big moat around ourselves.’” From the very beginning we’ve been evangelistic. We’ve planted churches. We’ve been missionary-oriented.” That, Duncan says, is key.

He warns that this emphasis can be difficult to sustain, especially in a denomination like ours where “you’re striving to recover doctrinal commitments.” There have been other Reformed bodies who have resisted liberalism, he points out. Many of them “turned in on themselves.” They stagnated. They became entrenched or retrenched; they were all about preservation and they lost that outward, missionary thrust. “The PCA’s founding fathers had that missionary drive,” Duncan explains. “I think we’ve still got that.”

All these things, according to Ligon Duncan, still preach today. And they speak powerfully to this generation.