Transcription
Among American Presbyterian denominations, this is seen as the liberal one, and these are seen as the conservative ones. So, you'd think if you're conservative, you should join one of these. But actually, if you want to follow traditional Presbyterianism, you got to join this one.
This may sound insane and shocking, and I can already hear people typing up objections in the comments, but these will all be answered, so please watch the whole video before commenting. So, while the PCUSA is the more liberal denomination, it's also the original historic Presbyterian denomination. It's what we call a mainline church because it's the first Presbyterian denomination in America and it's never split from anything else. All the other Presbyterian denominations are offshoots that split from the PCUSA at various points due to the PCUSA getting more theologically liberal. And each time one of these churches split off, it just accelerated the PCUSA's drift into liberalism.
Okay, why does that matter? Why shouldn't we be in one of the conservative offshoots? Well, all the offshoots split off because they thought the PCUSA was getting too liberal, which they saw as an error. Fair enough. But according to traditional Presbyterian theology, error in the church doesn't justify separation from the church, no matter how bad the error is, as long as the error is not required for everyone to believe.
Because when I said the PCSA is liberal, that's only partly true. It's true that some of the most extreme cases of liberalism imaginable exist in the denomination like same-sex marriage, protrans ideology, and in extreme cases, formal heresy, denial of the nyine creed, and denial of scripture itself. However, while all of these are permitted, at least in practice, none of them are required. You can be a PCUSA member or pastor or church and reject all of them. That's why a substantial minority of PCUSA churches, and the majority of PCUSA members are still conservative. There are hundreds of conservative PCUSA churches that teach the Bible is infallible, that don't do same-sex marriages, and reject progressive politics and abortion. However, because conservatives keep leaving the denomination, and because the existing conservatives don't get involved, they're not represented at the higher up levels of the denomination, creating the illusion that the entire denomination is radically progressive. But if conservatives were to come back and the existing conservatives were to get more involved, that could very quickly change.
That means by traditional Presbyterian standards, these separations were all unjustified, which is the sin of schism. That makes these offshoot denominations and everyone in them schismatics. And while most modern evangelicals don't see schism as a real sin, the church fathers and the Presbyterians who wrote the Westminster Confession saw schism as one of the worst sins. Because of this, we can make an airtight logical argument as to why all traditional Presbyterians in this country should be in the PCUSA. The conclusion follows naturally from the premises, but both of these premises are somewhat controversial and people will dispute them. So, we're going to explain why they're true based on scripture and the Presbyterian tradition.
But first, only a small percentage of people who watch my videos are actually subscribed. So, if you want to see more, consider subscribing. It's free and you can always change your mind. If you like the video, make sure to click the like button. And if you didn't, make sure to click the dislike button twice.
So, like I said, the first two premises are the most controversial. So, to prove all Presbyterians must be PCUSA, we have to prove both of these premises. Matthew Everheart, a good friend of mine and the biggest PCA pastor on YouTube, recently made a video criticizing my view of schism, in which he denied the first premise and didn't exactly deny the second premise, but focused on the doctrinal aspect of schism more so than the institutional aspect of schism. In this video, Pastor Matt rightly pointed out that the Greek word schisma in the New Testament often refers to those who separate from true doctrine and preach false doctrine. Pastor Matt's argument is with this logic, it's the PCUSA that's schismatic for drifting from traditional Presbyterian beliefs and the PCA that has continuity for holding to traditional Presbyterian beliefs. This would be true if schism were just about doctrine, but it's not. There is doctrinal schism and institutional schism. So, if the PCA separated for an unjust reason, then it's guilty of external institutional schism. It is true that individuals in the PCUSA who deny the confessions commit internal doctrinal schism. But like I said, you do not have to affirm any liberal theology to be in the PCUSA. So those in the PC USA who stay faithful to the Westminster confession, of which there are many, are guilty neither of doctrinal schism or institutional schism.
Luckily, Pastor Matt already agrees that schism can refer to creating any unwarranted divisions in the visible church, whether doctrinal or institutional. And here what we see is a literal usage of the term. And basically the word schism or schisma literally means to tear something or to rip something. And that can of course be in a violent manner as one tears an object. Okay. So we do have something of a violent word of rending, tearing or causing division.
>> So like he said, schism can refer to any tearing apart of the visible body of Christ. Luckily, when I debated him on the PCA last year, he admitted that schism can refer to making an unwarranted separation from a visible church. Yeah. So, Pastor Matt, I want to know how you would define schism.
>> Uh, schism is the sin of leaving an ecclesiastical body for unjustified reasons.
So, Pastor Matt and I would probably agree on premise two and just disagree on premise one. But just in case somebody disagrees with Pastor Matt and does not think institutional schism is a sin according to the Bible, we're going to look at what the Bible says about that. We're also going to look at how the church has historically interpreted what the Bible says about schism. The text that the church has historically interpreted as warning against schism is Kora's rebellion in Numbers 16. Some evangelicals will say that true Christians can't be accused of separating from the church because they are the church. But that's exactly the argument that Kora made against Moses when he separated from the church of Moses, saying the whole community is holy. This is similar to when evangelicals appealed to the invisible church to justify separation from the visible church. So God told all the faithful to separate from Kora's rebels and then had the ground swallow them alive. This shows two things. Number one, that separation from a legitimate church structure is a grave sin. and number two that God commands all the faithful to separate from separatist churches.
The church fathers are very clear about the sin of schism. Ignatius of Antioch who was taught by the apostle John said schismatics will not inherit the kingdom of God. John Chrisostum said schism is just as bad as heresy and Augustine clarified that schism is not just about doctrine because there are some people who are schismatics even though they have perfect doctrine. And the reformation didn't change this doctrine. Church of England theologian Henry Hemmond said schism was as bad as heresy. and worse than murder. And by schism, he meant anyone who left the Church of England. In fact, it was normal for Protestant state churches to believe everyone in that country had to be part of that church or they were guilty of sin. Obviously, America doesn't have a state church, but it shows that Protestants historically defined schism institutionally.
So, hopefully all Presbyterians can agree that unjustified separation from a church is sin. But the big question is, what justifies separation? While Matthew Everheart spent a lot of time defining schism, he did not address the specifics of when a separation is necessary or warranted. Because unjustified separation is such a serious sin, it's important to have very clear guidelines about what does justify separation. And for that, we go to the scriptures. You might think heresy in the church justifies schism, but that happened in the Galatian church where they were preaching a false gospel and Paul doesn't tell anyone to separate. You might think blasphemy of the sacraments and serious sexual immorality justifies schism, but that happened in the Corinthian church and Paul didn't tell anyone to separate. You might think serious scandal and corruption justifies schism, but that happened in Leodysia and John didn't tell anyone to separate. Okay, what if the leaders of the church are literally sacrificing children to pagan demons? Surely that justifies separation, right? Except no, that happened in the Old Testament temple and none of the prophets ever separated and formed a parallel temple. The only thing according to scripture that justifies leaving the established church and starting a new parallel church is if the faithful are wrongly excommunicated. And that's what happened to the apostles in the book of Acts after they were kicked out of the temple for preaching the gospel. Because then it's not the faithful who made the schism, but the people who wrongly excommunicated them. And by the way, I'm not the first person to interpret these passages that way. All these examples come from Robert Bailey who is one of the Scottish Presbyterian Westminster divines whose ecclesiology or theology of the church was dogmatized at the Westminster assembly for all Presbyterians. He wrote this in his treatise against separatism where he says what to Moses and the prophets was not a sufficient cause for separation from the churches of their time is not a sufficient cause for us to separate from the churches in our times. Remember, in the days of Moses and the prophets, the church sometimes fell to institutional pagan demon worship. So to show that separation from the PCUSA is justified, you're going to have to show that the PCUSA has done something worse than that. In the Old Testament church, its leaders sacrificed children to pagan demons and did more evil than the Canaanites that the Lord drove out. But the solution was never to split off. The solution was always to reform the temple and reform the church, which happened many times.
Now, some will object that the rules were different back then because everyone was bound to the temple. But Bailey anticipates that objection and refutes it by appealing to Presbyterian covenant theology because according to covenant theology, the church in the days of Moses and the prophets was one and the same with the church of our days. So whatever moral evil doth defiled the church now and is a just cause of ejection or separation, that must be so at all times, especially under the Old Testament. Then Bailey says something that's utterly damning to every modern conservative Presbyterian offshoot. He says, "In first Corinthians, fundamental errors, open idolatry, grievous scandal, bitter contentions, profanation of the Lord's table. In Galatians, such errors as destroyed grace and made Christ of no effect. In the church of Ephesus, of Leodysia, and the other golden candlesticks, diverse members were so evidently faulty that the candlestick is threatened to be removed. Yet from none of these churches did any of the apostles ever separate, nor gave they the least warrant to any of their disciples to make a separation from any of them. Listen to this. Bailey is saying that churches which have fallen to heresy are still churches from which separation is not warranted.
Pastor Matt tries to appeal to Westminster which says some churches degenerate so much they stop being churches of Christ. And this is true, but we should interpret Westminster according to people like Robert Bailey who actually helped write it. And according to Bailey, churches which permit heresy to be taught have not necessarily become false churches because he calls such churches true churches from which separation is not warranted. Now, as we're about to see, there are some things churches can do that make them stop being true churches, but simply permitting heresy is not one of them. Samuel Rutherford, the chief Scottish Westminster divine, is very helpful on this point. He explains why heresy in the church doesn't justify separation, but separation is justified if the faithful are wrongly excommunicated. He explains that despite the fact that the Pharisees were an extremely corrupt church, Jesus still told people to submit to the Pharisees and forbade anyone to separate from their church. Remember, even after the leaders of the temple literally kill God, the apostles stay in the church run by the Pharisees. They do not separate on account of the Pharisees preaching a false gospel or rejecting true doctrine. They only separate when they are forcibly excommunicated from the temple for preaching the gospel. So there is indeed a time to separate, but it's not when the church embraces false doctrine. It's when the church kicks you out for believing the true doctrine. Only in this case is it listenit to start a parallel church. If the church binds you to sin, meaning you must sin or affirm false teaching to be a member, then you're commanded to separate because we must obey God rather than men. But if the mainstream church merely permits sin or heresy but doesn't mandate it, then you're forbidden to separate because that would be the sin of schism. Instead, you must stay and purify the church, which is what the prophets did many times.
This is why the Reformation was justified. Medieval Catholicism had all sorts of serious errors, but there were still voices within the church that were able to stay and advocate for reform. But eventually, when Yon Hus preached prototestant doctrines, like the fact that we should give people the body and the blood of Christ in communion, because the Roman Catholic Church was only giving people the body, he was burned at the stake, and anyone who agreed with his prototestant doctrines was automatically excommunicated. From this point on, it became impossible to be a member of the Roman Catholic Church without affirming their false teachings. And this is why the reformers were justified in creating a parallel church which we call Protestantism. Rutherford also distinguishes between a negative separation where you separate from false doctrine within the church and a positive separation where you actually make a new parallel visible church. He said before the time of Luther certain prototestant groups rightly made a negative separation but until the reformers were expelled they did not make a positive separation by forming a new visible church. He says even fundamental errors like rejecting Christ do not necessarily justify a positive separation. Rutherford explains why the Protestant reformers were not guilty of schism by saying there's a difference between forced separation and voluntary separation. The reformers didn't commit a voluntary separation because they were forcibly excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for refusing to sin. And he says separation is only justified if you have to sin to stay in the church. When Rutherford lists the reasons why the Reformation was justified, he says it's because people were ejected rather than departers on foot and horse and that there was a necessity of professing fundamental errors.
Now, let's apply this to the PCUSA. While there are tons of errors within it that we should make a negative separation from, none of those errors are required for anyone, not even pastors. Now, if hypothetically the PCUSA said you must become LGBTQ affirming to be a member, then it would become a false church and separation would absolutely be warranted. But until then, as Rutherford says, all the faithful do well to separate from the churches of the separatists, which means all members of PCA, ECO, OPC, and EPC must immediately separate and join the PCUSA. Wait, so I can't separate from the PCUSA, but I must separate from the PCA. Well, like we said, schism and heresy are both equally bad sins. And no denomination is without sin. But the sins of the PCUSA, like the heresies inside it, are not essential to the PCUSA because you can be in the PCUSA without participating in those sins. You can be in the PCUSA without affirming any of the heresies. But the sin of the PCA, namely schism, is essential to it because everyone in the PCA is schismatic simply by virtue of being in the PCA. which is why Rutherford says to separate from all separatist churches. Just like how the sin of Roman Catholicism is also essential to it because you cannot be Roman Catholic without affirming what Protestants believe to be false teachings. That's why from a Presbyterian perspective, separation from both of these groups is absolutely warranted. And by the way, being PCUSA doesn't mean being okay with the heresies in it. It means we should do everything we can to reform the PCUSA.
This is how Christians have historically responded when the church was full of heresy. For example, in the early church after the council of Nika, not all the bishops followed the council of Nika and many embraced the Aryan heresy which denied that Jesus is God. It got so bad that as Jerome said, the world grown to find itself Aryan and only a few bishops still believed Jesus was God. The faithful trinitarian bishops weren't exactly kicked out, but neither were the heretical Aryan bishops. It was kind of like the PCUSA is today. People like Mason would have said to split from the mainstream church and start a new one. and Gaffcon might have said to plant parallel trinitarian bishops in places that had Aryan bishops, but both those solutions were rejected by the trinitarian bishops as the sin of schism. The only solution was, no pun intended, for the bishops to keep playing institutional chess until somebody won. Athanasius was one of the last few trinitarian bishops and people told him the world was against him. But he said, "Then I am against the world." and he kept using debate and argument and the scriptures to convert more and more people back to the trinitarian faith until aranism was basically banished from the church.
Now, let's answer some common objections. The first is people might think there's no hope for the peacea, especially given some of the radically progressive things general assembly has recently said, but a fact that exists in all the mainline denominations is that the conservative congregations within them tend to survive and the progressive congregations within them tend to rapidly die out. This is because progressive churches don't really give anyone a reason to go to church because they don't preach any different message than the rest of the world. So, if we just strengthen the conservative congregations in 20 years or so, they're probably going to be the majority. Statistically, these denominations probably won't exist in about 30 or 40 years, unless we inject a bunch of conservatives right now. And if you wait 30 years, they're going to be the only ones left. So, this is entirely possible if people are just willing to do it.
The second objection is people don't want to take their kids to a liberal church. Now, respectfully, this is an appeal to emotion fallacy. If what I've said about schism is true, then no amount of pragmatism justifies doing otherwise. But also, in most cases, you can find a conservative or moderate PCUSA church where nobody's going to be exposed to any explicit heresy or false teaching. But in the rare case where the only mainline church of any kind you can find is one that's quite progressive, remember that the prophets had kids, too. And to them that was not an excuse to separate from the temple even when its leaders were sacrificing babies to pagan demons. But also Proverbs says if you train a child up in the way he should go, he will not depart from it when he is old. If you are a competent father who catechizes your wife and kids, they're going to be okay.
The third objection is that Presbyterians schism from Anglicans. This is just historically not true. Presbyterians come from the Church of Scotland. Anglicans come from the church of England and they settled different parts of America respectively. A core Protestant principle is one church per nation. Now there were some English Presbyterians who separated from the church of England but obviously not all Presbyterians are in the same group.
Some people say Mason and Kenyon were kicked out of the PCUSA for being conservative. These are the founders of the OPC and EPC respectively. Now Mason wasn't fired for being conservative. He was fired for going rogue and breaking the rules in the name of being conservative. Many other conservatives of his time, like your hardest boss, were allowed to stay in the PCUSA and never got fired. Win Kenyon was fired for refusing to ordain a woman, but that was an isolated incident. Many pastors since then have been ordained in the PCUSA despite not being willing to ordain women. Regardless, neither of them were excommunicated. They were defrocked, which means fired, but they were still allowed to be members of the church, even if just as ley. Defrocking does not justify separation, only unjust excommunication. Rutherford was also defrocked for not supporting bishops, but he didn't schism. He stayed and successfully reformed the Church of Scotland.
People point out that the Bible says to separate from false teachers and unrepentant sinners. It does say that, but it says you're supposed to kick them out of the church, not kick yourself out of the church on account of them and let them shepherd the sheep and have all the church's property. If that is how you interpret the passage, then the apostles directly disobeyed their own advice because they stayed in the church when it was run by the Pharisees, some of the worst false teachers. But if it means you kick them out and you stay in the church, then that actually lines up with the rest of what scripture says. The Bible spends a lot of time warning about false teachers. But the solution is never to leave the church on account of them and set up a parallel church.
Some people argue the PCUSA doesn't have the marks of the church and therefore it's not a true church. The marks being the pure preaching of the word, the pure administration of the sacraments, and the proper exercise of church discipline. But the Westminster confession says no church has any of the marks perfectly. Every church is more or less pure based on having more or less of the marks. So it might be true that PCUSA is nearly devoid of the marks, but it still has all these marks to some extent. There is still some pure preaching of the word in the PCUSA. There's still some pure administration of the sacraments. There's still some proper exercise of church discipline. So as long as the marks exist to some extent, you can call the PCUSA a true church. It would only become completely devoid of the marks if it was forbidden to believe the truth or properly administer the sacraments within the PCUSA.
Lastly, people will complain about female pastors, and this is honestly not even an argument. Either they're valid or they're not. If they're valid, then deal with it. If they're not, then a church with a female pastor is just a church with a pastoral vacancy, and you just got to wait until you get a male pastor. Pastoral vacancies do not justify schism.
Because of this, if you're in one of the offshoot Presbyterian denominations, I hope you'll join the PCUSA. In addition to being the only non-sinful Presbyterian church to be in, it has an amazing rich heritage that's utterly irreplaceable. And while reforming the PCUSA is really hard work, it's also really fun work, and there's nothing else I'd rather be doing with my life. The nonprofit I started to reform the denomination, Presbyterians for the Kingdom, has already made a big impact in the denomination after just two years of existing and is already posing a serious challenge to the progressive hedgeimonyy. If you want to join the PCUSA, you can join our nonprofit so that you won't be alone in the denomination. In the description of this video will be a map of conservative and moderate PCUSA churches so you can be in the PCSA without being in a liberal church. And a few of these churches are actually officially affiliated with PFTK and many more are coming. If you're still skeptical of the arguments for being PCUSA, watch the debates I had with Matthew Everheart and Doug Wilson about their respective denominations and whether they're schismatic. I know my arguments may sound crazy and unfamiliar, but please prayerfully consider what I have said. There's nothing wrong with just visiting a PCUSA church to see what it's