Vanguard Presbytery: Reflection

CH News Editor's Note: I so appreciate these men who have formed the Vanguard Presbytery. May God use them mightily to build His Kingdom. Amen.

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Reflection

 By Dewey Roberts - Posted at Vanguard Presbyterian:

Published January 10, 2021

Last week, The Aquila Report published there 50 most read articles for 2020. Articles that I wrote were the first, second, and tenth most read articles for the year. An article by Al Baker on his reasons for leaving the PCA was the third most read article for the year. Over the past three years, Al and I have had 6 of the top 9 most read articles (that is, the top 3 articles each year for 2018, 2019, and 2020). All of our articles have dealt with either the troubles in the PCA or our reasons for leaving that denomination and starting Vanguard Presbytery. One article, written in December of 2019, was the second most read article for 2019 and again for 2020. What that tells me is that what Al and I are doing (and all those who have joined us in Vanguard Presbytery) is timely and answering the spiritual needs of many people.

In this email, I am going to include the most read article on TAR for 2020, “My Farewell to the PCA.” Many of you have probably read it. It is a good follow-up to last week’s article, “Free Speech and the Ninth Commandment.” There were some people in my former presbytery who became angered that I so abruptly left to transfer into Vanguard Presbytery. I have seen the motions that were made. One person made a motion to prevent me from leaving (which is not their prerogative to do). Perhaps they would not have “investigated” me if I had waited to leave, but their motions at presbytery do make me feel good about that possibility. I think the 9th commandment would have quickly been raised against me. I know others in the PCA at the moment who are being accused of being breakers of the 9th commandment because they are trying to call the denomination back to Scriptural faithfulness. Some who have already left have gone through that experience. For that reason, the article I wrote nearly a year ago is timely and just as relevant as when it was first penned. As you read it, please take my sincere advice. If you are going to leave the PCA, make sure you do so before charges can be proffered against you. Presbyteries have tried to hunt ministers down after they have left in good standing (but we have rebuffed them in their unconstitutional efforts). Most of all, do not let your presbytery know what you are planning to do until you are out the door. A simple note that says, “Please remove me from your rolls as I have transferred into Vanguard Presbytery,” is all that you need to communicate with them.

So, here is the article, “My Farewell to the PCA,” from last year.

In Charity and Truth United, the Colonial Virginia Presbyterian minister Samuel Davies referred to a quote from Plato:

Whenever there arises a faithful reprover and zealous reformer of the World, he may expect to be treated like the vilest malefactor; and mankind will conspire to rid themselves of such a troublesome person.[1]

Davies reflected that when he read the above quote from Plato he immediately thought of Christ who was so mistreated by the Jews and crucified by the Romans. Yet, Davies believed that the same temperament dwells in all 0mankind, from age to age, so that every nation may justly be accused of murdering Christ just as surely as the Jews did. Jesus would have met the same fate He suffered at the hands of the Jews if He had lived in modern America or if He had ministered to a savage tribe in Africa. The desperately wicked heart of mankind is the same from age to age and from nation to nation.

Over the past several years, I have been distressed at the downfall of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) and the rise of heresy within the body through the Federal Vision teaching and immorality through the same-sex attraction movement. I have raised my voice in protest at what I have seen and read and heard. Three articles that I wrote last year for The Aquila Report were among the top eight most read articles for the year out of nearly 3,000 such articles. One of those articles, Vanguard Presbytery: A New Presbyterian Denomination, apparently has landed me in hot water with my former presbytery and has resulted in my withdrawal from the PCA on February 4, 2020.

Read more here.