The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Heretics in the PCA?

John C -

I have been in 8 PCA churches in my life, when visiting upon travel or when looking for churches.

Of these 8, 2 were Charismatic.
Of the 6 non-Charismatic PCA churches, 2 were Dispensational (which would be music to my ears but would hardly fit with what the PCA is to hold theologically).

So now we are left with four churches. Of those four, two had preaching that clearly taught faith + works. It was not my ears mishearing Lordship salvation, but a clear faith + works.

Thus, of the 8, two seemed to potentially fit into what the PCA is 'supposed' to teach. And I only went to these churches once or twice. Remember - you can determine error upon 1 visit, but it takes a long time to determine if a church is 'correct'. And, with 1 or 2 visits, I was able to determine 6 of 8 churches were preaching contrary to official PCA doctrine. I detected nothing contrary to official PCA doctrine in 2 churches, but I only went to these once, maybe twice.

Granted my sample size is limited. It is limited to 8 Churches. Being a Statistician by trade, 8 is not enough of a sample size to extrapolate to the entire denomination. But remember, I said 6 of 8 were teaching contrary to PCA doctrine, and that works out to be 75%. Thus, I allowed for some deviation, and made the generous claim of 50%.

If others had not reported of problems with the PCA, I would have written off my 6 of 8 experience to 'bad luck' or isolated incidents (even though these 8 churches were across 4 times zones).

As an aside, I have been in 9 Anglican/Episcopal Churches in my day in the United States. Of these, 3 taught proper doctrine when compared to the 39 Articles (1 Reformed Episcopal, 1 Anglican Province of Christ the King, 2 Episcopal Church USA). Of the 5 that did not, 1 was Reformed Episcopal, and the other 4 were Episcopal Church USA.