Within the last couple of days the initial documents related to the Presbyterian Church in America‘s General Assembly Standing Judicial Commission case against Louisiana Presbytery related to their examination of Teaching Elder Steve Wilkins have been published on the web.  We are indebted to Bob Mattes for the documents as well as an analysis.

The story so far:  The Central Carolina Presbytery complained to the 2006 PCA GA that Louisiana Presbytery had as a member TE Steve Wilkins who held theological views that differed from the Westminster Standards.  The GA SJC ordered Louisiana Presbytery to examine TE Wilkins, which they did and the GA SJC reviewed the case in October 2006 and said that they did the examination wrong.  Over the winter of 2006-2007 Louisiana Presbytery did an exhaustive reexamination of TE Wilkins and found that his views did not differ substantially from the Standards.  The GA SJC ruled again that this time the examination process was appropriate but in judging the examination the presbytery did not properly examine the differences in theology.  The result was that the Louisiana Presbytery is going to trial concerning their examination finding.

The prosecuting team has now issued their indictment of Louisiana Presbytery and Mr. Mattes has posted it on his regular blog Reformed Musings.  Specifically, the indictment has two counts:  1)  That the presbytery “failed properly to handle TE Wilkins’s differences” with the Westminster Standards.  2) “Louisiana Presbytery failed to find a strong presumption of guilt that some of the views of TE Wilkins were out of conformity with the Constitution…”

To summarize the remaining bulk of the two counts, Louisiana Presbytery was responsible to not just examine TE Wilkins and take his word that he viewed his theology in conformity with the standards, but they also were required to critically examine what he wrote and said, and “classify the differences” according to the Rules of Assembly Operations (RAO)  16-3(e)(5) (The RAO can be found towards the end of this online PCA Book of Church Order.)  In this section the RAO has three categories of differences: semantic, not out of accord, out of accord with the Standards.  Presbyteries must assign the differences to one of these as part of the examination process.

The indictment is a long document that also lays out large pieces of TE Wilkins’ responses to support the “strong presumption of guilt.”

In addition to the indictment, there is also a citation from the PCA SJC ordering a plea to be entered by February 1, and if a “not guilty” plea is entered, ordering the trial to begin on March 5, 2008.

In addition to the indictment and citation, Bob Mattes also provides a commentary as one of the guest bloggers on the Green Bagginses blog.  This is a great discussion of the details of the case and analysis of what Louisiana Presbytery did versus what the RAO requires.  I want to highlight three of his comments.

First, regarding the significance of this case he writes: “This is a landmark case in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the likes of which one nobody wanted to see but one which has become absolutely necessary for the peace and purity of the church. As such, the SJC is being absolutely scrupulous with its procedures, following their guidance to the finest detail.”

Second, it is important to remember who is on trial, not TE Steve Wilkins, but Louisiana Presbytery.  However, Mr. Mattes points out:

Of course, TE Wilkins isn’t on trial here, Louisiana Presbytery will be if they plead “not guilty.” However, it is LAP’s incorrect handling of TE Wilkins’ examination at the core of this case, which naturally involves his views in a major way. TE Wilkins doesn’t have to be on trial for his views to play a major role in the case.

Finally, in terms of possible results if Louisiana Presbytery is found guilty, he says this:

…LAP has two options open to it:

1. LAP can repent of its errors and demonstrate this by conducting a fair and impartial trial of TE Wilkins; or

2. LAP can leave the PCA with the churches that agree with TE Wilkins’ errors.

The Federal Vision theology is being discussed in several of the conservative Presbyterian and Reformed branches in North America and how this case plays out could (will?) have far reaching consequences.

In other developments, one of the things the blogosphere has been a-buzz over is a great summary of Federal Vision Theology by Prof. R. Scott Clark at Westminster Seminary California.  It is of moderate length but does a great job not only laying out the basic structure of the Federal Vision theology but discussing its historical background.

In one other interesting development, Pastor James McDonald in his blog Family Reformation posted an article by his friend R. C. Sproul Jr.  that was originally published elsewhere.  In this reprinted article Sproul is pretty clear that his beliefs are not in line with the general tenets of Federal Vision Theology, but he is still gracious to his friends in the Federal Vision camp.  He does not clearly come out and say they are wrong, he just says that he does not accept those theological ideas.