Indictment of the PCA Standing Judicial Commission | Exhibit 12
The Book of Church Order of the Presbyterian Church in America
Part I: Form of Government
Chapter 1: The Doctrine of Church Government.
1-1. The scriptural form of church government, which is representative or presbyterian, is comprehended under five heads: a. The Church; b. Its members; c. Its officers; d. Its courts; e. Its orders.
1-4. The officers of the Church, by whom all its powers are administered, are, according to the Scriptures, teaching and ruling elders and deacons.
1-5. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is not a several, but a joint power, to be exercised by presbyters in courts. These courts may have jurisdiction over one or many churches, but they sustain such mutual relations as to realize the idea of the unity of the Church.
Chapter 3: The Nature and Extent of Church Power
3-6. The exercise of ecclesiastical power, whether joint or several, has the divine sanction when in conformity with the statutes enacted by Christ, the Lawgiver, and when put forth by courts or by officers appointed thereunto in His Word.
Part II: The Rules of Discipline
Chapter 27: Discipline – Its Nature, Subjects and Ends
27-4. … Discipline is systematic training under the authority of God’s Scripture. No communing or non-communing member of the Church should be allowed to stray from the Scripture’s discipline. Therefore, teaching elders must:
a. instruct the officers in discipline,
b. instruct the congregation in discipline,
c. jointly practice it in the context of the congregation and church Courts.
Part I: Form of Government
Chapter 21: The Ordination and Installation of Ministers
21-5. Questions for Ordination.
- Do you approve of the form of government and discipline of the Presbyterian Church in America, in conformity with the general principles of Biblical polity?
Chapter 13: The Presbytery
13-7. The Presbytery shall cause to be transcribed, in some convenient part of the book of records, the obligations required of ministers at their ordination, which shall be subscribed by all admitted to membership, in the following form:
I, _______________, do sincerely receive and subscribe to the above obligation as a just and true exhibition of my faith and principles, and do resolve and promise to exercise my ministry in conformity thereunto.
“Ryle supported appeals to the law.”
— J.C. Ryle: Prepared to Stand Alone, Iain H. Murray, p. 118
“Our simple aim in suits has been not to persecute persons, but to establish principles. After all what saith the Scripture? Would St Paul have gone to law? I reply by another question, Would St Paul have tolerated false teachers and not recommended discipline? Would he recommend us not to interfere with heretics?”
— Church Association Monthly Intelligencer, XIV, 1880, J.C. Ryle, p. 22
“I was very angry when I heard their outcry and these words. I took counsel with myself, and I brought charges against the nobles and the officials. … And I held a great assembly against them and said to them, ‘We, as far as we are able, have bought back our Jewish brothers who have been sold to the nations, but you even sell your brothers that they may be sold to us!’ They were silent and could not find a word to say. So I said, ‘The thing that you are doing is not good. Ought you not to walk in the fear of our God to prevent the taunts of the nations our enemies?’ … Then they said, ‘We will restore these and require nothing from them. We will do as you say.’ And I called the priests and made them swear to do as they had promised. I also shook out the fold of my garment and said, ‘So may God shake out every man from his house and from his labor who does not keep this promise. So may he be shaken out and emptied.’ And all the assembly said ‘Amen’ and praised the LORD. And the people did as they had promised. …
I also persevered in the work … Now what was prepared at my expense … Remember for my good, O my God, all that I have done for this people.”
— Nehemiah 5:6-9, 12-13, 16, 18-19
“Mr. Thompson, in his answer to these charges, says, with respect to the complaint, ‘concerning the low state of religion and experimental godliness, and the influence which the negligence and remissness of ministers in the duties of their office have upon the same, I acknowledge that I believe there is too much ground for it, and that it is just matter of mourning and lamentation to all who have the welfare of Zion and the prosperity of souls at heart; yea, I am firmly persuaded that our barrenness and fruitlessness under the means of grace, the decay of vital godliness in both ministers and people, our too great contentedness with a lifeless lukewarm orthodoxy of profession, is one principal evil whereby our God hath been provoked against us, to suffer us to fall into such divisions and confusions as we are visibly involved in.’”
— The Constitutional History of the Presbyterian Church in The United States of America, Part II, Charles Hodge, D.D., pp. 17-18
“Character
Genesis 19:14
Lot was clearly a compromiser – so much so that he had no credibility in the eyes of his sons-in-law. When a leader’s character is inconsistent, others will have a hard time believing him when he is actually being honest. …
1 Samuel 8:1-5
There is no credibility without character. Samuel’s sons Joel and Abijah rebelled against the God of their father, and this rebellion manifested itself in greed and injustice. Little wonder that the people of Israel refused to submit to their leadership.
1 Samuel 18:5-11
After he had disqualified himself from spiritual leadership because of his refusal to trust and obey God, Saul began a downward spiral of growing selfishness, jealousy and paranoia (see 18:15, 21, 25, 28-29; 19:1, 9-10). As a result, his leadership style became increasingly erratic and ineffective. …
Isaiah 26:7-11
The contrast between God’s dealings with the righteous (vv. 7-9) and the wicked (vv. 10-11) is a strong incentive for the leader to build strong personal character.
Isaiah 32:1-8
What a contrast! Take a moment to list the differences in outcome when a righteous or noble leader rules (vv. 1-5, 8) or when a fool or scoundrel leads (vv. 6-7). Leadership makes a difference in outcomes, and character makes a difference in leadership.”
— Handbook to Leadership: Leadership in the Image of God, Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell and Bill Perkins, pp. 530-531
12/19/2021: Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Saint Andrew’s Chapel teaching elders publish in their weekly worship bulletin that a man has been excommunicated “for pursuing an unbiblical divorce.” As a congregant of a non-PCA church, as with previous members whom the pastors ferreted out of Saint Andrew’s’ fellowship through excommunication, this man does not have standing to appeal his disciplinary ruling to his own pastors’ Presbytery of membership. They carry out this “excommunication” even after hundreds of pages of formal Complaints just the previous year, demonstrating to Presbytery with replete evidence the unconstitutionality and unethical character of Presbyterian ministers inflicting the power of ecclesiastical censure on people outside PCA jurisdiction who principally do not have appellate rights. James Bannerman describes this extrajudicial overreach of Presbyterian authority as “lordly … caprice and arbitrary encroachment of the office-bearers” and John Calvin describes it as “making sport of censures.”
(Saint Andrew’s Chapel morning worship bulletin, print version compared to public web version)
Alleged violations (errors and/or delinquencies) by the Saint Andrew’s Chapel Senior Pastor, et al.
Primary standards: Exodus 20:7,16, II Chronicles 7:14, Psalms 11:3, 24:3-4, 50:16-17,19-23, 76:11, 78:72, Proverbs 15:8, 20:25, 28:9,13, Ecclesiastes 5:1-6, Isaiah 29:15-16, Jeremiah 21:12, 44:25-26, Zechariah 1:2-6, 8:16, Malachi 1:6-14, 2:7, Matthew 3:8, 7:12, Luke 19:14,27, Acts 20:27-28, Romans 2:1-3,17-21,23-24, I Corinthians 4:1-2, 5:12-13, II Corinthians 6:3-8, Ephesians 4:25, Colossians 3:9, I Timothy 3:2,15, 5:19-25, Hebrews 12:15, James 1:22-25, 3:1,17-18, I Peter 5:1-4
Secondary standards: WCF 15.6; 20.2,4; 22.1-6; 30.1; 31.1-3; WLC Q.99.6-8, 111-114, 130, 143-145, 151; WSC Q.14, 76-78; BCO Preface I, II.1-7, III; 1-1,-4,-5; 3-2,-3,-5,-6; 8-1,-2,-3; 13-7; 21-4.2-7; 27-1,-2,-3,-4,-5; 29-1; 30-4; 31-3,-4; 32-3; 36-6
02/23/2022: Making another attempt to obtain public records of the Church as a PCA member through another avenue, Benyola inquires with the PCA Historical Center why links to Presbytery records are broken at pcahistory.org, and asks for the Central Florida Presbytery stated meeting minutes from 1997 to be emailed instead. The director replies that he will research these gaps.
(Presbytery Records, https://pcahistory.org/rg/organic/pca/presbyteriesAM/pbyAMindex.html)
02/25/2022: Benyola receives an email advertisement from a favorite Reformed publishing house that offers yet another new book on Presbyterian polity, targeted to laypeople, authored by one of the PCA SJC commissioners. So, finally, Benyola emails this professor at Reformed Theological Seminary as well as expert on ecclesiology and polity, and inquires why this SJC member keeps writing books on church government targeted to laypeople, while he doesn’t appear to support the laypeople in his own denomination who send real, on-the-ground cases of serious polity problems to the highest Court of the Church for redress. Benyola reasonably and respectfully asks why the commissioner voted to concur with the rest of the SJC to toss out his cases not just once, but twice (SJC 2020-1,-13), and what he hopes to accomplish by writing and publishing these polity books to educate people on Presbyterianism and orderly, properly functioning church government: when the evidence accrues that we do not seem to be “well ordered, living well,” and our attempts to accomplish exactly that order are repeatedly dismissed out of hand. The SJC commissioner never responds. At this time, Benyola has no Complaints being adjudicated in any Church court, so, this SJC member should not be bound by OMSJC 2.5, “A member of the Commission shall not 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.” Ruling out the possibility that discussion is forbidden, there must be some other reason for this inquiry being ignored.
03/05/2022: Benyola follows up with the PCA Historical Center Director, who in the interim, evidently has reached out to the Stated Clerk of Central Florida Presbytery, and then declines to release the records of Presbytery even to a communing member of the Church in good standing. In light of the fact that the Director has contacted the Stated Clerk, Benyola divulges at this point that formal charges are currently being adjudicated with the Presbytery concerning demonstrable dishonesty about the Presbytery records, and cautions against accepting subornation/inducement from a Presbytery Stated Clerk in a substantive Church scandal. The Director never responds.
03/15/2022: Nothing says decorum quite like ordained Presbyterian ministers abusing the keys of the kingdom to excommunicate a church member who doesn’t even have appellate rights at their own Presbytery — on the Sunday morning before Christmas. So, Benyola files a second Credible Report with the Central Florida Presbytery, with corroborative evidence that four out-of-bounds ministers have violated their ordination vows, recommending judicial process versus all four PCA teaching elders at Saint Andrew’s. The Presbytery Stated Clerk acknowledges receipt the same day.
03/15/2022: Written concurrently with the second Credible Report, the same day, Benyola submits to three presbyteries in Georgia a formal proposal to amend the PCA Book of Church Order with the goal of firming up the statutory language on what are presbyteries’ legitimate out-of-bounds calls for teaching elders — this, in an effort to help the PCA to avoid these kinds of ecclesiastical entanglements and screw-ups in the future. It is submitted to three presbyteries because these presbyteries are historically connected to the issue at hand. As a Church member, Benyola has the right to submit an overture under the PCA Rules of Assembly Operations and it is orderly submitted. None of the three stated clerks of those presbyteries ever communicates that the proposal has been brought to the floors of their presbyteries for consideration at meetings.
(Proposal Recommending an Overture to Amend the PCA Constitution)
“Esther 4:9-17
Queen Esther knew that she would have to take the life-threatening risk of appealing to the king on behalf of her people. Mordecai argued that if she failed to take this risk, she would face the certainty of eventual execution along with the rest of the Jews. Though His name is not mentioned, this passage stresses the fact that God is in control of human events; His sovereign purposes will always prevail. …
Esther 3:2-4
Mordecai was a man of conviction, and he courageously refused to follow the king’s edict to kneel down in deference to Haman. He recognized the personal risk involved, but he regarded faithfulness to his convictions to be worth the danger.”
— Handbook to Leadership: Leadership in the Image of God, Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell and Bill Perkins, pp. 539, 576
“There comes a time when the risk of doing nothing becomes the greatest risk of all.”
— Syril Karn, Deputy Inspector, Preox-Morlana
“‘May fail but must try it.’
[R.C. Sproul in a lecture notebook (no title/date). This outline sketch is most likely from 1975 or 1976.]
… He [Sproul] also valued conviction and courage.”
— R. C. Sproul: A Life, Stephen J. Nichols, pp. 123, 285
“A particular provision of King Jesus to the church in His Word is the church’s government. … Christ, moreover, has provided the church with a system of discipline that is uniquely hers. As King, He pledges to oversee the exercise of discipline in His church (Matt. 18:15–20). One of the purposes of church discipline is to help Christians order their lives according to the Word. …
As Christians, it is both our duty and delight to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ (Rom. 10:9). … It also means that we honor our vows of membership. For most churches, including my own (the Presbyterian Church in America), these vows include a commitment to live godly lives, to participate in and support the ‘worship and work’ of the church, and to ‘submit … to the church’s government and discipline.’
Resolving to submit to the church’s government and discipline is difficult and countercultural. But it is also necessary. How can we live under Christ’s lordship in this way? Those who are called to be elders in the church should remember that they serve under the authority of Christ. They are servants, not lords. They are ultimately accountable to Christ for all that they teach and do in the church. But theirs is an important office. Through their labors, Christ is visibly governing His church.
Christians obey their leaders in the church because Christ has commanded them to do so. But Christian obedience is never blind. Like the Bereans, we measure everything our leaders say against the standard of God’s Word. God alone is Lord of the conscience. For government to work properly in the church, Christians must know their Bibles well and develop the capacity to discern biblically all that they hear and see in the church. It is in this way that Christ is glorified in His church’s government.
King Jesus often does extraordinary things through ordinary means. The church’s life and government are no exception. How does your involvement in the church put on display the reign of Jesus Christ?”
— “The Head of the Church,” Tabletalk, Sept. 2016, Vol. 40, No. 9, Guy Prentiss Waters
“Integrity – character – ethics – morality. We tend to use these words interchangeably and consequently blur some essential distinctives. Just what is integrity? How is it different from ethics or morality? Jesus provided clarity with regard to these critical concepts in Matthew 23:1-39. … Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites seven times in this sermon (vv. 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27, 29). His language reveals His anger. Notice that each verse that includes the word hypocrite begins with the words: Woe to you. In this passage Jesus chided the Pharisees for saying one thing and doing another. … integrity – the direct opposite quality of hypocrisy – is the quality that people want most to see in a leader. The Pharisees didn’t live up to that standard. When we talk about integrity today, we generally use other, closely related terms such as ethics and morality. But a clear understanding of the concept of integrity requires clear thinking about all three words. Each has a distinct meaning. When properly used, they bring clarity to a crucial but often misunderstood leadership essential:
Ethics refers to a defined standard of right and strong; good and evil. It’s what the Pharisees said they believed was right.
Morality is a lived standard of right and wrong, good and evil. It’s what the Pharisees actually did.
Integrity means ‘sound, complete, integrated.’
To the extent that a person’s ethic and morality are integrated, that person has integrity. To the extent that a person’s ethics and morality are not integrated, that person lacks integrity. … You can have a high or low ethic. You can be moral or immoral. But if you want to have integrity, you must choose your ethic and live to match it. Leaders should let prospective followers know what they are getting into.
A person who claims to be a Christian makes an ethical statement and has committed to a certain morality. For that person to have integrity, then, he or she must live by the biblical ethic. Jesus makes it unequivocally clear that the worst choice is the hypocritical one. …
It’s self-evident that a hypocrite is unqualified to guide others toward attaining higher character. No one respects someone who talks a good game but fails to play by the rules. What a leader does will have a greater impact on those he or she wishes to lead than what the leader says. A person may forget ninety percent of what a leader says, but he or she will never forget how the leader lives.”
— Handbook to Leadership: Leadership in the Image of God, Kenneth Boa, Sid Buzzell and Bill Perkins, pp. 83-85