Last Saturday, December 9, the Louisiana Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church in America had a called meeting for the purpose of examining the Rev. Steve Wilkins, Senior Pastor of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, LA. This examination was required by the PCA’s Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) when they found the previous examination did not fulfill requirements. This is part of the developing controversy over Federal Vision Theology which I summarized in an earlier post.
The examination was in two parts: there were both written and oral responses. The written responses to questions are available from both the church and the presbytery web sites. At the time of this writing, Auburn Avenue PC has made MP3’s of the oral exam available on their church web site, look for the links at the bottom of the main page. The required examination is now completed. The committee is expected to issue its report in January.
More interesting is the response to the examination. I have seen no mention of the examination yet in “conventional” news coverage but the blogosphere has lit up. I will mention two blogs that provide more light than heat. (No pun intended on the first one.)
First, the blog Post Tenebras Lux has a helpful post on this examination titled “A quick review of some Presbyterian politics.” The author has included some extra details on this specific situation which I had not paid attention to before, such as the fact that Rev. Wilkins’ first examination was completely voluntary and that the SJC asked the presbytery to redo the examination on the technical grounds that proper records were not kept while the blog author says that the requested records are not required for a committee report.
The second blog is Barlow Farms, a blog I mentioned previously in connection with this topic. He has posted two entries, the first on Dec. 13 with excerpts from Rev. Wilkins’ written answers, and the second the next day with a discussion of some of the extended discussion that has since arose about this examination.
I should probably mention the blog “Blog and Mablog” written by Douglas Wilson who is another significant proponent of Federal Vision Theology. In an entry on Dec. 14 he gives his take on the current developments. There is a lot of good information and good discussion in the comments on that post. Included in there is a comment by Mr. Milton Dale Peacock who is the clerk for both Auburn Ave. PC and Louiasiana Presbytery. He says that the committee will report back to the regular presbytery meeting on January 20 and then the report will be sent to the SJC. The comments then get into a heavy discussion on a couple of the fine points of the theology but not the polity.
