To borrow from the KJV, perfecting the saints is important (Ephesians 4:12). So get busy. Just don’t confuse that with fixing the denomination. When we talk about fixing the PCA, we usually have in mind making it like us. That vision looks more like a forest Weyerhaeuser replanted after a clear cut, than anything you’d hike through in a national park.
If, however, we want an organic communion; congratulations, we have one. It’s full of old growth Presbyterians making it hard for younger trees. Those younger trees respond by reaching for the canopy and deepening their roots. Some teetering giants feel unstable. Some young trees feel crowded out. They all push and strive for rain and sun because that’s what they were made to do. It seems relentlessly chaotic, but underneath and in between life flourishes despite it all, more accurately because of it. A fair reading of the New Testament, it seems to me, makes it clear God knew this would happen and did it anyway. The Church has been a tangled mess of a rainforest in every age. It’s an ecosystem, not a potted plant.
This is not a call to stop cultivating a healthier Church. The Church has a mission to its place and culture that begins with its people but cannot end there: lives are ripped from wombs, racial injustice is embedded in our history, hearts, and social structures. Debasing sexual perversion is celebrated, and the poor are indeed still with us even though most of our people are satiated by affluence. Only historic Biblical orthodoxy and street-level agape can meet those challenges.
So, if fixing the Church is a mistaken category, how can a denomination with such contrasting prescriptions for the world and Church’s ailments fulfill its mission? Sunday School answer to the rescue: by following the path Jesus gave us, of course. The Bible doesn’t mention slippery slopes and doesn’t use terms like missional or confessional in the way we do. Those are easy things to say and do, frankly. Jesus had a harder plan that neither Blue nor Red can use to excuse themselves. He told all sides to follow a trail that is straight and narrow.
That path somehow transverses Hemlocks, Douglas firs, blackberry brambles, and boulders without turning to the left or the right, without compromising. Since you know Jesus, you must know that this is no call to tepid moderation. It’s a call to fiercely follow the Shepherd whether he sounds like a Republican, a Democrat, or a Libertarian. We have no choice. He’s not elected. He’s the King.
So, make your motions, argue your point, build your ministries, but don’t clear the way by cutting down brothers whose practices or attitudes make you uncomfortable. Neither can you simply take a trail that your people and their neighbors find more relevant, or Reformed, or woke, or pure, or historic, or fill-in-the-blank. The path Christ charted runs straight and narrow through a land full of obstacles. Some of those are from the world and must be cut down. But some of the trail’s nuisances are brothers and sisters God put there to shape us and be shaped by us. After all, the straight and narrow is not only about the destination. It’s also about the love its pilgrims have for one another.
A realistic look at the New Testament leaves us with this encouraging discouragement— we still live in the 1st Century Church. Lord have mercy. It has always been like this. Like our Fathers and Mothers in the faith, let’s labor to make her more like she will be one day. By God’s grace we can beautify the Church by perfecting the saints. But, please let’s stop trying to fix her. That work is too great for us.
Next: Thoughts on Losing Votes (and something even harder)
