Three Brief Comments on Overture 15
By Kyle Keating, October 21, 2022.
Over the past several years the PCA has made its position on human sexuality clear through the widely accepted Ad Interim Committee on Human Sexuality (AIC) report (a committee on which I was privileged to serve) and will likely reaffirm our ordination standards through several overtures that have widespread support (O29 and O31). However, it is necessary to highlight another overture that has already caused much debate: Overture 15 (Item 1 before presbyteries). The text of the proposed amendment to the PCA’s Book of Church Order is below:
7-4. Men who describe themselves as homosexual, even those who describe themselves as homosexual and claim to practice celibacy by refraining from homosexual conduct, are disqualified from holding office in the Presbyterian Church in America.
The overture did not have the support of the majority of the overtures committee and had only a small majority of the assembly floor—it is not an overture that reflects the consensus of the denomination on the way forward on these issues for several reasons:
The language of overture 15 does not reflect the nuance of the AIC report. The report reaffirmed our standards of ordination while making clear that same-sex attracted men can be qualified for office and articulating the importance of being able to use language to be honest about one’s particular sin struggles. The committee made clear our intent was not to police language, while overture 15 is specifically concerned with the language people use to describe themselves. Which sort of self-descriptions are out of bounds? Only narrowly calling oneself “homosexual”? How about “gay”? Attaching either to the identifier “Christian”? I imagine proponents would both be opposed to such self-identifications. What about “same-sex attracted”? Is that a sufficiently disqualifying self-description? (i.e. Is it considered describing yourself as homosexual?) If so, two members of the AIC—myself included—would find ourselves disqualified. The problem is the overture doesn’t delineate between any of these self-identifications, even as some may be problematic and others necessary for being honest about one's struggles. The AIC report argues we should be primarily concerned with the meaning behind words—not creating linguistic shibboleths.
Many proponents claim O15 not targeting truly repentant SSA men, but only those that over-identify with their sin. Unfortunately, the text of the overture doesn’t say that. Instead it creates and artificial and superficial standard for measuring whether a candidate is not truly repentant: namely anyone who self-describes as homosexual (or gay? Or SSA? Or *insert whichever term you prefer*—it remains unclear how various presbyteries would apply it). Robust standards for repentance that don’t rely on contemporary terminology tests can be found in both Scripture and our Confessional Standards. We have the resources we need to do the work of being good churchmen—O15 doesn’t give us anything we don’t already have, and instead creates greater confusion about what type of self-identification is acceptable.
The effect of an overture like 15 may likely be to further encourage qualified candidates for ministry to hide their ongoing sin struggles for fear of being uniquely scrutinized and viewed through a lens of suspicion—or to simply leave the denomination (perhaps that is what some proponents of the overture want?). I fear that such suspicion already exists in our presbyteries and is communicating that the PCA is not a denomination for those who experience this particular sin struggle. I remain grateful for the honesty of ministers like Vaughan Roberts and Sam Allberry whose lives serve as public examples that faithful service to Jesus amidst the experience of SSA is both possible and desirable. I want to serve in a PCA where these kind of men can be ordained.
One of my greatest burdens in serving on the AIC and as a ruling elder in the PCA has been that we would be the kind of denomination where a fifteen year-old same-sex attracted student in our pew would know that the gospel is sufficient for even them, that there is a plausible path to a life of faithfulness to the God of the Bible, and that they can serve their Lord with their lives wherever He may call them—because that’s what I needed to hear as a fifteen year-old. That fifteen year-old needs public models of faithfulness—men who’ve walked the road before him—to follow now more than ever when our culture has lost its way so tragically in the area of sexuality. Will we be a denomination where he has a pastor or elder who has shared in his struggle, that he can look up to, and that can tell him that a life of faithfulness and holiness is both possible and even more than that—good? I pray that it would be so.
Kyle Keating is a ruling elder at Crossroads Presbyterian Fellowship in St. Louis, Missouri and served on the PCA’s Ad Interim Committee on Human Sexuality. He teaches history and theology and serves as Dean at Providence Classical Christian Academy. He and his wife Christy have a daughter and a son.
