PCA HISTORICAL CENTER
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Studies & Actions
of the General Assembly of A DECLARATION OF CONSCIENCE ON [21st General Assembly (1993), 21-56, III, Item 12, p. 129.] Mr. President, in this Declaration the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America humbly declares its conscience concerning the moral legitimacy of homosexuality. God has spoken without equivocation through His Word declaring homosexuality to be a perversion of His created order, His moral law, and the foundations of society. This General Assembly is the highest
governmental unit of the Presbyterian Church in America, a denomination
representing 242,560 members and 2,239 ministers. Though founded
by 250 congregations in 1973, the PCA traces its ancestry to the
first American Presbyterians who organized themselves on these shores
in 1789, and it now has some 1,086 congregations throughout the
United States and Canada. It is not the regular practice of the
General Assembly to address matters before the civil In particular, we feel compelled of conscience to speak because of the slanderous way in which truth has been portrayed, as if opposition to homosexual practice is merely a matter of prejudice against a minority. Please be informed that to act on this basis is to misjudge the issue entirely. This is a question of moral principle, striking at the very root of God's authority, man's created nature, and the structure and preservation of human society. We do not act out of a hateful prejudice which rejects the rights of minority peoples and seeks to exclude them from our communities. On the contrary, we affirm and rejoice in the God-created differences among the peoples of the world and we condemn prejudice as contrary to the heart of the gospel by which we live: that Jesus Christ is by His grace making of various peoples one community of love and fellowship. As His disciples we are called to judge, not by appearances, but to judge righteous judgment (John 7:24). The God we serve has made it plain that with Him there is no partiality, and that in this we must be like Him (Romans 2:11, James 2:1-9). As citizens we support the recognition and protection of the civil rights of all peoples. And yet in perfect consistency with
this commitment we stand resolutely opposed to homosexual practice
as incompatible with the temporal good of our nation and the eternal
good of its people. As a part of the Church of Jesus Christ, the
Presbyterian Church in America has a primary concern for the spiritual
well-being of women and men created in the image of God. Responsibility
to such a calling will thrust us into irreconcilable conflict with
any government policy ostensibly approving a way of life under its
sphere of responsibility which is contrary to the eternal good of
its citizens. Further, such approval would be a grievous violation
of the governments own God-ordained calling (Romans 13:1-4).
Together a man and a woman, united
outwardly in the institution of marriage, united inwardly in love
and affection, and united physically in sexual relations, are the
means of transmitting and nurturing life, and that life, growing
and flourishing in families, is the necessary foundation of all
society. Homosexuality is a violation of these creation ordinances:
it is a perversion of human nature, the gift of sexuality and the
social order.
Here nature itself, the land personified,
is portrayed as revolted by homosexuality as a perversion of God's
purposes. Lest this be thought of as an outmoded and unenlightened
perspective, the New Testament affirms this same truth with even
greater clarity when it excludes, not merely from the land of Israel,
but from the eternal Kingdom of God, those who pursue homosexual
practice.
Please note: in condemning
homosexual practice we claim no self- righteousness. The Bible
we cite also teaches that all particular sins flow from one rebellious
disposition of heart, a disposition of heart that belongs to all
(Ephesians 2:13). If we have been preserved from this perversion,
it is only by God's mercy. And that mercy in Jesus Christ is so broad and free that may extend even to those caught up in
homosexual practice, freeing them from its bondage. In the same
passage we cited above the Apostle reminds the Corinthian believers,
And such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were
sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.
In the understanding of the New Testament,
moral darkness has descended over a people who, though perhaps not
given to such perversions themselves, nevertheless, give approval
to those who practice them (v. 32). [For a PDF version of this report, click here.] |