Last week, Marvin Olasky (an Elder in the PCA) wrote here about the controversial panel that was to be held at PCA’s General Assembly next month. Later that day, the panel was canceled.
I appreciated Jake Meador’s reflections about the PCA, Tim Keller’s legacy, and the controversial panel yesterday at Mere Orthodoxy. This is worth reading in full if you are interested in the PCA and related evangelical politics (Dan and I spent seven very happy years in a wonderful PCA church in Georgia before moving to Ohio last summer to a region that has no PCA churches nearby, alas).
Just highlighting in particular the section from Meador’s article on David French seminar controversy–but, again, you should read this piece in full:
First, due to the weaknesses described above in the doctrinalist bloc, it is not surprising that a rotting doctrinalism looks very like an angry, aggressive Twitter swarm. Effective denominational leadership will require ignoring such swarms. But it will also require not doing the sort of things that embolden the swarms and legitimize their concerns in the eyes of others in the church.
Second, the whiney response of many leaders more friendly to French has rather vindicated many of the concerns raised by those opposed to the seminar.
Third, regardless of what one thinks of French’s work, denominational leaders owe him an apology for what has happened over the past several weeks. Given how polarizing French himself has become, he struck me as a strange choice for the panel. But the way denominational leadership effectively threw him under the bus and then handled the decision to cancel the event was simply unprofessional.
Fourth, there is a further leadership failure here as well: This was an 8am seminar slot that no one ever goes to because it is at 8am. It is amongst the least important things that goes on at General Assembly. So denominational leaders managed to take something as trivial as a barely attended 8am seminar and turn it into a significant scissor within the church one month before we convene for our national gathering.
Fifth, as far as I can tell, basically all the plausible healthy futures for the PCA involve two key things: a) teaching and ruling elders spending far less time on Twitter and Facebook Groups, b) denominational leaders and prominent figures ending their alarming habit of vindicating online swarms through bad judgment.
Meador has previously expressed his concern over online swarms on other occasions, like here.