They are good are speaking by implication instead of honesty.

The PCA has put out its ‘interim report’ on Christian Nationalism. Now, being both CN-adjacent and Reformed, as well as currently attending a PCA church, I have an interest in what they say here. And, first impressions, I did not expect them to include endorsements of mass immigration, women in politics, or outright statements that John Calvin would be unsuited to holding office in the modern PCA (the first point is debatable; the others are straight fact). What I did not expect, because it did not occur to me, but which is entirely unsurprising, is this: the report reads like a politician wrote it.

Nobody thought this report would be friendly to Christian Nationalism. The PCA is a small-l liberal institution, overtaken with men who have imbibed the modern worldview, though they still repudiate its more recent permutations (mostly. Tim Keller was a socialist.).But the report is so cunningly crafted that, inveterate theonomist (in the Rushdoony or Bahnsen mode) that I am, I could technically adhere to its Affirmations and Denials, if I chose the right understanding of each term (whether I could do the same for its discussion of the Westminster Confession, I have not investigated; I suspect that, with some flexible thought, I could). I could also be subjected to counselling and excluded from the leadership- an aim manifestly more congenial to the tone of the report.

The primary methods of obfuscation are non-definition and omission. For the first one, the report fails to define nearly all of its critical terms, the ones that lie on the junctions of credible argument (they’re happy to define Kinism and similar disreputables). For the second, the report happily omits to include in its Affirmations and Denials any real discussion of what theonomists believe, and barely anything on what CN adherents like Sephen Wolfe believe (a man who, though wrong, is a serious contender in this field). This, despite the purpose of the section being meant to “summarize what we consider to be the scope and range of scripturally and constitutionally acceptable opinion(s) in a way that we trust will be useful and clarifying to the church.

But, you ask, what did they define Christian Nationalism as? Well, they don’t really give a straight answer. They do acknowledge (perhaps because it makes their position much harder to assail) that ‘Christian Nationalism’ is not a monolith and includes many people who hold to exactly what the Westminster Confession of Faith says. (In point of fact, I hold to the American revision, same as the PCA…. but I also hold to the theonomist position they say is not allowable in a church officer. The WCF is not objectionable to a theonomist. It is objectionable to the consistent Radical Two Kingdoms proponent; I wonder when the PCA will get around to excluding those guys. If page 27 is any indication, they’re not in a hurry.)

The point I’ll close with for today is this: the report is remarkably insubstantial. It nudges up against many, many issues, but it does not provide robust, positive statement of doctrine. It just condemns the easily condemned, throws implications in the direct of Christian Nationalism (which apparently is largely problematic because it’s racist or misogynist), ignores how Two-Kingdoms theology goes wrong, and dips out. They have the graciousness, at least, to admit that a “member who hotels views associated with Christian Nationalism is not necessarily in spiritual danger any more than a member who holds strongly progressive political views” (32) so at least we’re only on-par with Communists, Trans-rights activists, and Pro-abortion advocates.

God bless.