Some Thoughts On Overture 22 - Gospel Reformation Network

Introduction

The Book of Church Order affords communicant members not under particular censure “all the rights and privileges of the Church” (BCO 6-4). Those who have been admitted to the Lord’s Supper, therefore, have the right to vote for church officers in congregational elections. No congregation has Constitutional authority to abridge this right (see BCO 25-7). This was the conclusion of the Standing Judicial Commission in a recent Decision, Psiaki v. PNW (Case 2023-11). (1)

Overture 22 seeks to amend the Constitution to permit a congregation to “establish a rule setting a minimum voting age.” The effect of this amendment would be to permit sessions to admit young persons to the Lord’s Supper and then to prevent them from voting on ecclesiastical matters in congregational elections. Accompanying Overture 22 is a lengthy rationale that advances many arguments in support of the proposed amendment. These arguments fall in two basic categories – biblical and constitutional-historical.

In my judgment, Overture 22 fails to make the case that the Constitution should be amended at this point. (2) In what follows, we will respond to some of the leading arguments advanced by the Overture.

Biblical Arguments

The Equivalency Argument

The Overture responds to what it calls “the Discernment Equivalency Assertion or DEA,” namely, “if a child has the discernment necessary to be admitted to the Lord’s Supper, he thereby has the discernment necessary to vote on any church matter” (p.2, ll. 33, 31-32, emphasis original). But, the Overture reasons, even if a young person can “make a genuine profession of faith in [Jesus]” and is “sufficiently discerning to partake of sacramental meals” (p.3, ll.3, 5-6), it does not follow that they are competent to choose church officers (p.3, l.31). In fact, the selection of church officers is said to require “a greater level of discernment” than it does “to receive Christ as Savior” (p.3, l.30, cf. ll. 32,34).

Part of the difficulty with this claim is that the Overture does not spell out its understanding of the criteria requisite for the admission of a covenant child to the Lord’s Supper. It assumes a lesser degree of discernment required to come to the Lord’s Supper than that required for the selection of church officers. But this supposition requires argument, and it is just such an argument that is lacking in the Overture. Given the high Confessional standard that is set for a right participation in the Lord’s Supper (see WLC 170-5), one would have expected the Overture to advance some argument in support of its claim. For this reason, the Overture’s claim here fails to persuade.

The Undue Influence Argument

The Overture furthermore expresses the concern that parents exercise undue influence over their children when it comes to voting at church meetings (p.4, ll.13-18). But this concern is a hypothetical one. The Overture has not produced examples from congregational meetings where this has happened. Nor does it follow from the Fifth Commandment that parents may lawfully exercise the kind of influence that concerns the Overture.

The Old Covenant Franchise Argument

The Overture also argues that, under the Old Covenant, “the only unambiguous parties involved in formally selecting … eeclesiastical and civil leaders were adults,” correlate with these persons’ “responsibility to support, materially, both the ministry and the civil government” (p.4, ll.42-43-p.5, l.1; p.5, ll.3-4). Since that responsibility continues under the NT, and “no passage requires that minors be granted voting privileges, it is reasonable for churches to follow the only Biblical pattern [and] confine voting to those adults who may generally be expected to underwrite the ministry” (p.5, ll. 6-8).

But, even if one were to grant the premise of the Overture’s argument, and even if one were to grant the Overture’s claim that this particular detail of Israel’s polity is intended to serve as a normative rule for the church, the argument proves too much. If the point is that we must follow the Old Covenant pattern, then that pattern would demand that churches limit the franchise to persons who financially support the church. But this is not what the Overture is advocating.

Constitutional-Historical Arguments

Much of the Overture is dedicated to showing that the limitation sought by the Overture is “part of what was, and is, meant by ‘regular’ standing” in the Constitution of the PCA and its predecessor denominations (p.1, ll.29-30). Furthermore, the Overture argues that limiting the franchise within communicant membership was “historically … common in American Presbyterianism” (p.1, ll.28-29).

“Good and Regular Standing”

The phrase “good and regular standing” appears twice in the BCO – BCO 20-3, 24-3. The Overture contends that the adjective “good” refers to a member’s right to the Lord’s Supper (p.5, ll.39-40), while “regular” refers to the right of a member in his home congregation “to exercise congregation-specific privileges exercised according to the rules of that congregation” (p.6, ll.2-3,5, emphasis original).

But this is not the meaning of “good and regular standing.” As the SJC noted in an extended exposition of this phrase, “good and regular standing,” the BCO uses “good standing” to mean that one is not under censure (BCO 58-4, 14-2, 19-1, 24-7, 25-2, 38-3, 43-1, 43-5, 46-7), (3) and it uses “regular” in the sense of “‘according to rule,’ that is, the rules and standards of the Constitution” (cf. BCO 10-1, 13-3, 19-1, 21-4a, 24-7, 42-2). (4) Nothing in the context of BCO 20-3 or 24-3 suggests that the addition of “regular” to “good” is intended to change the meaning of “good standing,” to delimit “good standing” with respect to age, or to allow local congregational rules to determine the meaning of “good standing.”

That “good and regular standing” means simply “not under censure” is the historically accepted interpretation of this Constitutional phrase. F. P. Ramsay, commenting on the 1879 PCUS Book of Church Order understood the phrase in this way; subsequent actions of the PCUS General Assembly understood the phrase in this way; the first Stated Clerk of the PCA’s General Assembly, Morton Smith, understood the phrase in this way; the Twelfth General Assembly of the PCA understood the phrase in this way; and the third Stated Clerk of the PCA’s General Assembly, L. Roy Taylor, understood the phrase in this way. (5)

Adopting this Overture, therefore, would have the effect of codifying a meaning of a Constitutional phrase (“good and regular standing”) that has neither textual support nor historical precedent. Adopting this Overture, furthermore, would create a conflict with the Constitutional phrase, “good and regular standing.”

American Presbyterian Practice

The Overture mounts numerous historical examples of American churches limiting the franchise of certain communicant members. But these limitations were of various kinds and did not admit of a single, evident, underlying principle. Surveying the American church, Charles Hodge observed in 1863 that some churches restricted voting to “only the male members;” others to “heads of families, and they only, whether communicants or not;” others to “adult members of the congregation.” Other congregations extended the franchise to “all communicants, male and female, adults and minors, and all contributors.” (6) Hodge concluded that this “diversity of practice betrays great confusion of ideas. There is no one clearly recognized theory by which the practical question is controlled.” (7)

The Overture’s historical examples are certainly interesting and instructive in their own right. But they do not offer support for the Overture’s proposed amendment. Presbyterians have indeed historically limited the franchise within its non-communicant membership. But they have done so in many ways and for many reasons. There is no discernible theological nor Constitutional principle governing those various limitations.

More important than the testimony of history is, of course, the testimony of the Church’s Constitution. And, as we have seen, the PCA’s Constitution, read in its textual and historical context, does not allow for the meaning of “good and regular standing” that the Overture seeks to assign to that phrase.

Conclusion

The authors of the Overture are to be commended for the thoroughness and diligence of their labors and for their desire to see the PCA conform to a single, principled Constitutional standard regarding the franchise. The Overture bears the burden of showing why the PCA’s Constitution must be changed to permit sessions to admit young persons to the Lord’s Supper and to prevent them from voting in the congregational election of church officers. The Overture has not met this burden. Neither the biblical nor the constitutional-historical arguments proposed in the Overture are persuasive. The PCA should therefore retain its Constitutional standard of voting – every communicant member, not under censure, is entitled to vote in the congregational election of church officers. (8)

(1) M51GA (2024), 867-78.

(2) With the understanding that the Rationale is distinguishable from the Overture, I will address the whole as the “Overture” because both are coming together before the Assembly and because the Overture seeks to distribute to Presbyteries the Rationale along with any form of this Overture that the General Assembly may adopt (p.1, ll. 22-24).

(3) M51GA (2024), 871-2.

(4) M51GA (2024), 872.

(5) M51GA (2024), 872-6.

(6) So Charles Hodge, “Who May Vote in the Election of Pastor,” in The Church and Its Polity (New York: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1879), 244.

(7) Ibid.

(8) Author’s Note: I am a member of the Standing Judicial Commission of the General Assembly. According to the requirements of the “Operating Manual of the Standing Judicial Commission” (OMSJC), I am committed to “perform the duties of [my] office with impartiality and shall be diligent to maintain the impartiality of the Commission” (OMSJC 2.10). Thus, I am not permitted to make “any public or private statement that might reasonably be expected to affect the outcome of a pending matter or impending matter in any court of the church” (OMSJC 2.5). That notwithstanding, I am permitted to “make public or private statements in the course of [my] duties as a presbyter . . . with respect to biblical teaching, confessional interpretation, the principles of the form of government and discipline. . . .” (OMSJC 2.6). Nothing I have said in this essay is intended to intimate, hint, or suggest which party should prevail in any case that might come before me.