On March 6 trial was held by the Standing Judicial Commission of the Presbyterian Church in America in the case of Louisiana Presbytery and their examination of TE Steven Wilkins.  In a moment the results of that trial…

But to cover the bases I want to get caught up on the prosecutor situation since my last post on February 11.  As I mentioned at the end of that post, RE Sam Duncan had announced his intention to resign as the prosecutor in the case.  Upon his resignation TE Dewey Roberts was named as the prosecutor.  Our thanks to Rev. Lane Keister at Green Baggins for posting RE Duncan’s resignation letter.

Well, after trial on Thursday and deliberations that evening, the SJC returned their verdict on Friday morning.  In count 1, a technical count about classifying declared departures that Louisiana Presbytery pleaded “not guilty” to, the charge was dismissed.  In count 2, that the presbytery did not conduct the examination of TE Wilkins to properly find a “presumption of guilt,” to which the presbytery pleaded “guilty,” the SJC “admonished” the presbytery, the lowest form of correction.

Now, I am not going to try to reinvent the wheel here because there is a good summary post at Reformed Musings about the proceedings, and if you want the details from a ruling elder close to the situation in Louisiana Presbytery you must check out HaigLaw’s post about the decision.

Looking forward it is tempting to say that the PCA has sent a message that Federal Vision Theology is not compatible with their doctrinal standards and that remaining leaders and churches who hold to the Federal Vision will flee or quickly be chased away to the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).  But it is important to point out that this whole case was more about examinations regarding the theology than about the theology itself.  And there is not one unified Federal Vision Theology but several varying approaches leaving some aspects doctrinally untested.  So the controversy may continue until a clear declaration regrading doctrinal standards is made by the SJC.  Or, the PCA might take this as a good point to take a break and get distracted by its next controversy.

But it will be interesting to see what sort of “legs” this topic has because it has clearly “got the attention,” “struck a nerve,” “rattled the cages,” (fill in your favorite cliché here) of the various proponents and opponents to this theological controversy.  And, with out going into details here, note that it deals with the nature of the covenant community, a topic at the core of Reformed theology.  But one post on Green Baggins currently has 707 comments to it and there is a thread on Puritan Board that has developed quite a discussion as well (4239 posts to date). So at least at the moment the topic has momentum in the blogosphere.  We will see what happens next and what happens to the momentum.