A Good Apology from the Presbyterian Church in America

Others need to follow their good example.

I will let you all know I was going to have a good rant here about the lack of apologies from churches and supposedly Christian charities for their harmful collaboration with the Regime and with the Invasion. I gave a preview of that on X:

Would it kill churches and Christian organizations to say they're sorry for promoting the likes of Russell Moore, Curtis Chang, David French and other USAID/Rockefeller/Soros funded Regime Evangelicals?

Apologies would be nice . . . and actually Christian.

The revelations about USAID money paying Christianity Today and Redeeming Babel and more to con and subvert the church in order to neuter Christian influence and elect Kamala Harris makes apologies all the more needful and urgent.

Yet I did not see any such apology out there. So I was going to wax vehement. But, providentially, I did not have much writing energy this week. And that gave time for a heartening development to intervene.

The Mission to North America (MNA) of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) had given guidance to illegals on how to evade being detained and deported. After what must have been quite some blowback, the MNA apologized. And it wasn’t one of those “We’re sorry we got caught” half-apologies, but a full and speedy one:

Recently, we posted links on our webpage to external organizations offering a wide range of recommendations and frequently asked questions on immigration. MNA’s leadership erroneously allowed the posting of content that advised undocumented persons on ways to avoid being detained by authorities. We affirm that it is our Christian duty to obey the lawful commands of the civil magistrate and be subject to their authority (WCF 23.4; Romans 13:1-4; 1 Peter 2:13-14). To counsel otherwise is a sin. We confess that we fell short of our Biblical and Confessional standard. We repent and apologize. We also apologize for causing confusion and consternation in our church. We have removed all the previously posted information from our website.

Good on them for this apology. And the rest of us should remember that while there must be accountability in the church, there must also be forgiveness.

Other church bodies would do well to follow their good example. And that includes my Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). For one thing, having Russell Moore keynote the 2019 Provincial Assembly has not aged well. One might say that his address turned out to be okay, and that’s true. One might say that we could not be expected to know what a snake he is, and that is true in part. But he was already bad enough that a number of us warned bishops and other ACNA leaders. Time has sadly proven us correct that he was not an appropriate choice to keynote our most important public meeting.

Nor was it appropriate for several dioceses to push applied critical theory, aka wokeness. I am thankful that ACNA as a whole has moved away from that. But we should not act as if it did not happen.

Are apologies forthcoming from ACNA? I doubt it, but would love to be surprised.

I’m picking on ACNA because that is my denomination. I could pick on the Southern Baptists, the National Association of Evangelicals, the Gospel Coalition, and any number of groups and people. They need to apologize as well.

But I will keep it positive and praise the PCA for giving us this good example. Churches and Christians have erred and do err. When they do, they should not pretend they have not, but should repent and apologize. Thanks to the Presbyterian Church in America for so doing and speedily.