EPC: Speeding Down "PCUSA Road" as Fast as They Can?

I found the sequence of headlines on The Aquila Report this evening interesting. This headline:

Evangelical Presbyterian Church Clears Way for Women to Serve as Pastors

Was followed by this headline:

Will Presbyterian Church USA Redefine Marriage?

And then this one:

PCUSA Net Membership Loss for 2009 Totals 63,000 Members, Another 3%

Does anyone in the EPC realize that one thing leads to another, the end result being the death (spiritual followed by numerical) of your denomination?

I realize that there are a number of churches leaving the PCUSA to go into the EPC, but I wonder if the EPC realizes just how much of the PCUSA they are welcoming into the EPC?

Ron Numbers On Dabney

I glanced at a copy of Ron Numbers' The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design today. I was curious to see if he had anything to say about Robert Dabney. He does, on pages 26 and 30. Here is what he writes on page 26 [emphasis added]:

Even Princeton Seminary's rock-ribbed Charles Hodge (1797-1878), who concluded that Darwinism was atheism because it banished God from the world and enabled one "to account for design without referring it to the purpose or agency of God," conceded the great antiquity of the earth and gave his imprimatur to Guyot's and Dana's interpretation of the days of Genesis as geological epochs. And his disciple Robert Lewis Dabney (1820-1898), the scourge of evolutionists in the Presbyterian church of the South, withheld judgment on the question of geological ages and a pre-Adamite earth.

Now, to call Dabney Hodge's disciple is simply hyperbole, but that really isn't the biggest mistake Numbers makes. Dabney wrote a paper entitled "Geology and the Bible," in which he makes it clear that geologists have no right to make claims concerning the age of the earth or the doctrine of creation:

“[Geology] is virtually a theory of cosmogony; and cosmogony is intimately connected with the doctrine of creation, which is one of the modes by which God reveals himself to man, and one of the prime articles of every theology.” ("Geology and the Bible," in Discussions, vol. 3, 129)

“For, creation is not only a physical fact; it is a theological doctrine.” ("Geology and the Bible," 133)

Dabney went on to say this about theologians who compromised with the "latest findings of science" (which at the time of his writing would have been the latest findings of geology):

[Those theologians who had thus compromised] had “adopted on half-evidence some new-fangled hypothesis of scientific fact, and then invented, on grounds equally insecure, some new-fangled explanations to twist God’s word into seeming agreement with the hypothesis.” ("Geology and the Bible," 130)

Does that sound to you like Dabney "withheld judgment on the question of geological ages and a Pre-Adamite earth"? Hardly; which makes me question the accuracy of other Reformed theologians that Numbers cites in The Creationists.

Why I am Excited About my Church

Often, when I invite people to my church they ask me what makes my church different, and I tell them three things:

1. We have a pastor who faithfully preaches the Word of God. If you come to Communion Presbyterian, you will hear the Bible expounded.

2. We have elders who are genuinely concerned for the spiritual well-being of the congregation. Our Elders do not take a distant "Board of Directors" approach to governing/shepherding the church. They care about the people at Communion Presbyterian.

3. We have kind, outgoing, hospitable members. One of the first things my wife and I noticed the first time we visited Communion was how friendly everyone was. Communion was not the first church we visited when we moved to the area, but it was by far the most friendly.

There are a lot of other things to be excited about at Communion Presbyterian, but these are the three I tell people about when they ask me about my church. Of course, I invite them to "Come and see" the many other things our church has to offer.

Miracle: The Second Definition

Mostly because of this article written a couple of months ago by Dr. William Evans, I have been paying a bit closer attention to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) than I previously had. I'll save most of my comments about the EPC for a future post (posts?), but I couldn't pass up this article, posted to The Layman Online yesterday:

A Miracle in the Making: Women as Teaching Elders in the EPC

For those of you unfamiliar with The Layman Online, here is point 1 of their Objectives:

1. To provide reliable information and resources concerning significant issues confronting the PCUSA and the Church Universal, thereby equipping and empowering faithful congregations and leaders in the PCUSA and other denominations to fulfill the Great Commission in the 21st century.

So, The Layman is a news outlet for "conservative" PCUSA congregations. Since the PCUSA has been losing "conservative" congregations faster than a oil out of a BP rig, and since a large number of these congregations are finding their way into the EPC, it is no surprise to find this story on The Layman.

What did surprise me was the use of the word "miracle" to describe the EPC's proposed [further] acceptance of women teaching elders. So, I turned to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia to find a definition of "miracle":

The miracle proper is a work of God (Exodus 7:3 ff; Deuteronomy 4:34-35, etc.; John 3:2; 9:32-33; 10:38; Acts 10:38, etc.); but as supernatural acts miracles are recognized as possible to evil agencies (Matthew 24:24; 2 Thessalonians 2:9; Revelation 13:14; 16:14, etc.).

So, I guess it is a miracle after all. Now, for a definition of equivocation, see the EPC's position paper on women's ordination.

A Small Milestone

This blog does not get a huge amount of traffic, but I would like to point out that sometime last night it did receive its 5,000th visit and its 2,000th unique visitor. Those are some large numbers, even if it took several months to reach them. I thought I would take a moment to break down some of the sources of that traffic.

Geography
The vast majority of my visitors have come from the United States. No surprise there, since I'm an American writing about mostly American theological issues. However, the non-United States visitors are interesting. I've had visitors from Canada (Hello, Canadian Presbytery of the ARP!), the United Kingdom, and South Korea, but also countries such as Cambodia, Bulgaria, Bahrain, and Indonesia.

Within the United States, the state that I get the most traffic from is South Carolina (home of Erskine and the headquarters of the ARP), followed by North Carolina, then California, Virginia and Georgia. I have had visitors from all 50 states, as well as the District of Columbia.

Sources
Since I began tracking statistics, I have had a fairly even split between people coming to my site after using a search engine and people being referred to my site by a link on some other site. Direct traffic is a distant third.

Search terms involving Erskine have been the most used to find my site, followed by terms involving "ruling elder" or "ruling elders."

The sites that have referred the most traffic to this blog have been Facebook (hello "Alumni for Erskine" Facebook group!), followed by the blogs of Rev. Brian Carpenter and Rev. Wes White.

Content
The most read articles on this blog have been: Erskine Alumni Associate Joins Suit against the ARP, followed by the more recent General Synod of the ARP 2010, Part 2: The Bad. Most people who come to this site read whatever is on the front page.

What does it all mean?
I love statistics, numbers and graphs, but the question is: can I learn anything from all this data? I believe so: That most of my visitors in the U.S. come from states where there are heavy concentrations of ARP congregations tells me that people in the ARP are reading what I write. That's a good thing, as I write quite a bit about the ARP and issues the denomination faces.

That my most people find my site by searching for things related to "Erskine" and that my most popular articles have been about Erskine or Erskine and the ARP tells me that Erskine has been an important issue that interests many people. I believe it will continue to be important, as well.

Here's hoping the next 5,000 visits to my site will be beneficial to all who come to this blog!

How to Discern God's Will

Last night, I lead my church's Monday night Bible study. The topic was "How to Discern God's Will." Here are my notes (based on chapter 7 of Joseph Pipa's The Westminster Confession of Faith Study Book):

How to Discern God's Will
(Remember Romans 8:28)

1. Read/know/apply your Bible! (Deut. 29:29; Psalm 119:98-100)
2. Pray (John 14:13-14; 1 John 5:14).
3. Ask God to examine you and show you your faults/selfish motives (Psalm 139:23-24).
4. Consider the consequences of your decision and weigh the pros and cons (Phil. 1:21-25).
5. Seek wise counsel (Prov. 11:14).

Edited to Add:
I did not know this until this morning, but, Renewing Your Mind (the broadcast ministry of Ligonier Ministries and Dr. R. C. Sproul) is giving away a CD series entitled "Knowing God's Will" if you make a donation of any amount to their ministry. How timely!

Post-Synod Issue of ARPTalk

Chuck Wilson has posted a post-synod issue of ARPTalk here. I encourage you to go and read it. He has, as usual, an informed perspective concerning all things ARP.