Tuesday, May 3, 2016, The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley – PCA (PMV) unanimously adopted the following overture to the PCA General Assembly, entitled “Confession of the Sin of Racism, and Commitment to Christian Unity,” as well as an official correspondence to the churches of the Presbytery entitled “A Pastoral Letter on Racism and the Gospel.” This is not an “official” version of the overture, the Clerk will release that soon, but it is pretty close, if not exact.
I post it here because so many from all over have been asking to read it.
1 OVERTURE from The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley
2 “Confession of the Sin of Racism, and Commitment to Christian Unity”
3 Whereas, the 43rd General Assembly considered a personal resolution on Civil Rights
4 Remembrance and deferred action on it until the 44th General Assembly in Mobile, Alabama;
5 and
6 Whereas, in the 1973 “Message to All the Churches,” the founding generation of the
7 Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) expressly declared our denomination to be the
8 “continuing church” of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), saying, “We have
9 called ourselves ‘Continuing’ Presbyterians because we seek to continue the faith of the founding
10 fathers of that Church”; and
11 Whereas, as a “continuing church,” we rightly own the good Gospel legacy of the movement of
12 Bible-believing, Reformed Christians who brought us into being, and recognize our indebtedness
13 to them, while we also acknowledge the sins and failures of our movement and denomination,
14 including in those areas that have ongoing and significant negative ramifications for the unity,
15 ministry and witness of the church today; and
16 Whereas, as Calvinists who wholeheartedly believe in the Bible’s teaching on sin and grace, we
17 are unsurprised by serious sin in even our greatest human heroes (because If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves
19 and the truth is not in us. 1 John 1:8), we are also unafraid of confessing it (because of God’s
20 great mercy to us, in Christ, Ephesians 2:4-5) and thus we own and acknowledge both the good
21 and the bad in the Bible-believing movement that brought us into being, and in our own
22 denomination’s history, and with both gratitude and sorrow remember different parts of that
23 history and legacy; and
24 Whereas, we rejoice and give thanks that our founding fathers officially, explicitly, and tangibly
25 rejected racism and segregation as motives for or aims of the formation of the PCA, further, we
26 recognize that our founding fathers did not intend the PCA to be racist or to tolerate racism as
27 they understood it, and indeed many of them during the Civil Rights era increasingly longed for,
28 prayed for, wrote for, preached for and worked for a Gospel solution to unbiblical segregation
29 and discrimination in church and society; and
30 Whereas, we grieve and lament that we have become increasingly aware that during the Civil
31 Rights era, many of those who became our founding denominational leaders, churches and
32 members failed to live up to their and our own Confession’s Biblical doctrine of man, that all
33 mankind is created by God “after His own image” (Genesis 1:27, Acts 17:24-28, WCF 4.2) by
34 not only refusing to support, but also, both congregationally and individually, actively working
35 against racial equality (the unqualified acknowledgment in belief and practice that African
36 Americans are fully human and made in the image of God, that no ethnicity is inherently superior
37 to another, and that the Bible provides no grounds for the enforced segregation of ethnicities) in
38 both church and society, through sins of omission and commission including: barring African
39 Americans from worship services; misusing and twisting the Bible to support racial segregation;
40 participating in and defending white supremacist organizations; failing to speak out against state-
41 supported segregation, not supporting efforts to secure African Americans access to basic human
42 and civil rights, and neglecting to show solidarity with and support for African American
43 brothers and sisters in Christ, as they endured various kinds of discrimination and duress in the
44 Civil Rights era; and
45 Whereas, the 30th General Assembly adopted a resolution on racial reconciliation that
46 confessed “covenantal, generational, heinous sins” connected with unbiblical forms of servitude,
47 but did not deal specifically with the heinous sins committed during the much more recent Civil
48 Rights era, which betrayed the visible unity of all believers in Christ (Ephesians 2:11-22), the
49 command to love our neighbor as ourselves (Mark 12:31), and the image of God in all people
50 (Genesis 1:27); and
51 Whereas, the 32nd General Assembly adopted a pastoral letter on “the Gospel and Race,” but in
52 doing so, adopted a statement that did not directly acknowledge our sins against African
53 Americans that many of our founding leaders, churches and members displayed during the Civil
54 Rights era; and
55 Whereas, an unwillingness to acknowledge, confess and repudiate these sins, and to
56 speak openly and contritely of them, significantly hinders our present-day witness and unity, our
57 efforts for solidarity and reconciliation with our African American brothers and sisters and their
58 participation in the PCA; as well as our Gospel outreach to men and women of every tribe,
59 tongue, people and nation; and
60 Whereas, The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley recognizes that the sins of racism and racial
61 injustice—not only toward African Americans, but also toward other racial minorities—are not
62 simply past sins, but continue to be sins with which our churches and congregants wrestle; and
63 Whereas, scripture enjoins the necessity of unity in the body of Christ such that when a brother
64 is thought to have something against another brother, reconciliation between them supersedes
65 even worship (Matthew 5:23,24); and
66 Whereas, God has once more given the PCA a gracious opportunity to show the beauty, grace,
67 and power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ through confession and through the fruits of repentance:
68 such as, clarity that racism is a sin requiring formative and corrective discipline; growing into
69 cultural intelligence regarding minority ethnicities; establishing interracial friendships and
70 partnerships inside and outside our denomination; renewing our church’s commitment to develop
71 minority leadership at the congregational, presbytery, and denominational levels; and
72 encouraging a denomination-wide vision for and commitment to a more racially and ethnically
73 diverse church; and
74 Whereas, we greatly rejoice that, in spite of ourselves, the Lord has graciously blessed the PCA
75 with an increasing racial and ethnic diversity, including a larger proportion of minorities (among
76 them Asians, Latinos and African Americans), than many traditionally majority white North
77 American denominations (and more than we might have expected, given our history), the Lord
78 has granted the PCA an increasing number of African American teaching and ruling elders, the
79 Lord has raised up Reformed University Fellowship (RUF) campus ministries at historic Black
80 colleges and universities (HBC/Us) and many multi-ethnic church plants in the PCA (including
81 our own Jackson State University RUF and Redeemer Church, Jackson), the Lord has this year
82 brought in the largest number and percentage of African American students in the incoming class
83 in the history of Reformed Theological Seminary, Jackson, the Lord is bringing about a
84 resurgence of the doctrines of grace in parts of the African American church, and there are more
85 presbytery overtures calling for repentance for racism and racial reconciliation submitted to the
86 44th General Assembly than for any other issue in the history of the PCA (thus showing an
87 overwhelming, denomination-wide concern and resolve to speak faithfully to this issue) – all of
88 this is the Lord’s doing, not ours, but it is marvelous in our eyes!
89 Be it therefore resolved, in the light of the continuing nature of the Presbyterian Church in
90 America, that The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley recognizes and confesses, and joins with
91 many sister presbyteries in asking the 44th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in
92 America to recognize and confess, our denomination’s history of involvement and complicity in
93 racial injustice, congregationally and/or individually, inside and outside of our churches during
94 the Civil Rights era; and
95 Be it further resolved, that The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley also confesses, and asks the
96 44th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in American to confess, our continued sins of
97 racism and failure to love brothers and sisters from minority ethnicities in accordance with
98 what the Gospel requires; and
99 Be it further resolved, that The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley recommits itself to bear
100 fruit in keeping with our repentance, seeking appropriate courses of action and reconciliation
101 humbly, sincerely, and expeditiously, for the glory of God and the furtherance of the Gospel, and
102 asks the 44th GA of the PCA to do the same; and
103 Be it further resolved, that the attached Pastoral Letter from The Presbytery of the Mississippi
104 Valley to its constituent churches be offered as an example of how a presbytery might provide
105 shepherding leadership for its churches toward racial reconciliation; and
106 Be it further resolved, that the attached “Bibliography and Resources” concerning race and
107 unity be offered to our presbyteries and churches for their use in studying, evaluating and
108 implementing their own efforts toward the goal of reconciliation with all racial minorities; and
109 Be it finally resolved, that The Presbytery of the Mississippi Valley humbly asks the General
110 Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America to urge all the congregations and presbyteries
111 of the Presbyterian Church in America to study this action as well as the PCA position paper on
112 the Gospel and Race, to confess their own particular sins and failures regarding racial injustice as
113 may be appropriate, and to seek to bring forth fruits of repentance for the Gospel’s sake within
114 their own local communities.