Over on the PuritanBoard there has been an active discussion about the Edwards v. Pittsburgh Presbytery PJC Decision. But one of the contributors to the discussion, Tim Vaughn, brought up a Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) case from Tennessee where an interpretation of the defense, not the verdict, used the concept that since something was by definition impossible it could not have happened. As Mr. Vaughn puts it:
I read through a PCA court case from Tennessee where a pastor let a
woman preach during Sunday night service, and after being brought up on
charges his defense was that since the PCA doesn’t allow woman
preachers, and she was a woman, she couldn’t have been preaching.
Mr. Vaughn provides the link to the September-October, 2000, issue of Presbyterian & Reformed News that details the case and the judicial commission’s decision not to proceed to trial, but telling the pastor and the church at large to not let it happen again.
Part of the investigating panel’s work was to determine if the views of the pastor, Teaching Elder John Wood, were in line with the standards of the PCA. The committee found:
TE Wood stated to the panel that he holds to a view that: 1) excludes women from ordination; 2) excludes women from preaching (authoritative teaching); 3) permits women to do basically whatever unordained men can do in the church. Also, the panel found no evidence of Mr. Wood’s agitation regarding or promotion of a view that women should be ordained or that women should preach in the PCA, either locally at CSPC [Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church] or in the PCA generally.
And while the GA Standing Judicial Commission concluded from the Investigating Panel report that there was not a “strong presumption of guilt,” they did caution the church:
However, in making this determination the SJC is not endorsing the view of TE Wood that “women may do basically whatever unordained men can do in the Church,” and PCA ministers and elders are cautioned, for the peace and unity of the Church, to take great care in the teaching and implementing of views that might give the appearance of promoting a view that women may be ordained, or that women may preach the authoritative Word of God in a worship service.
Within the body of the Report of the Investigating Panel, reproduced in the newsletter, TE Wood told the panel about an earlier conversation he had with some concerned church leaders:
…he was using the word “preach” in a broad, but he believes Biblical, sense–the witness that each Christian bears before the church and the world, but he also stated that he should have been more careful to articulate his belief that women should not be ordained to the teaching or ruling eldership and that they should not be permitted to “preach” in the traditional sense of authoritative teaching from the word of God, as teaching elders are called and ordained to do.
Reacting to this in another article in the newsletter, Pastor David Coffin is reported to be the one suggesting the twisted or confusing logic:
Regarding Mr. Wood’s views, the pastor from Fairfax, Virginia, said, “Though as I understand them his views in this matter appear clearly contrary to Scripture, I don’t find myself too exercised over the possibility of such views having a great impact in the PCA. I expect that the obvious internal tensions are simply too much for most of our men to bear.” He stated that he understood Mr. Wood’s view to be that a woman by definition cannot preach because she does not hold the preaching office, even though she may perform precisely the same act in the same setting. In response, Mr. Coffin referred to the views of Jonathan Edwards, who supposed it was obvious to all that if there was an office authorized to preach then there must be some activity called preaching forbidden to those who do not hold the office.
I included the Jonathan Edwards reference since Janet Edwards, of the Edwards v. Pittsburgh case that started this discussion, is a direct descendant of his.
Interesting to see this logic as part of a very different polity and doctrine debate.