I have been a member of two PCA churches, both of which ignored the FV situation when it appeared in the Central Florida presbytery. One of the two has a staff member who embraces it, and who has introduced a lot of Eastern Orthodox tradition to the worship services. Asked about it, both pastors pretended it was a non-issue, out of their jurisdiction, saying it was limited to to a small number of distant presbyteries, and of no concern because those presbyteries can handle the problem. "They don't need outsiders jumping jurisdictional boundaries and hauling their teaching elders to 'illegal' trials outside of their own presbyteries."

Wherever there were those who did "jump jurisdictional boundaries," the concern was more about procedure and protecting turf than about a damnable heresy promoted by people who "win" the argument" by changing the definition of common theological terms without saying they've changed the definitions. Theological terms such as imputation, faith, means-of-grace, covenant, and even the definition of Christian.

While FV pretends to biblically address some of the inconsistencies of traditional Presbyterian doctrine (like baptizing infants - admitting them into the visible church as members - yet keeping them from the Lord's Table, not as a matter of discipline, but of "protection from taking the Supper unworthily" until they are able to articulate faith in Christ in an adult manner; or saying the New Testament interprets the Old while bringing the Old into the New with "deduction by good and necessary consequence" which creates confusion or at very least lack of clarity concerning church membership in both the visible and invisible Church, and concerning the Sacraments Ordinances of baptism and the Lord's Supper; and claiming the Regulative Principle of Worship while violating it in common practice), it is essentially a call back to Rome! Yet they can "support" their positions using the Westminster Confession of Faith as well as the time-honored practices of Protestant orthodoxy going all the way back to the Reformation.

Because of the way the courts of the denomination work, several "illegal jumps over jurisdictional boundaries" had to occur to even get FV to the floor of the General Assembly for consideration even to appoint a committee just to study it. The committee being composed of seminary-trained "teaching" elders, of course, because "mere ruling elders" wouldn't understand it (another common Presbyterian inconsistency in my opinion). So it continues and grows, even in the PCA's only denomination-owned seminary.

It's seen as being "beyond the understanding" of mere, untrained ordinary lay folk, and that's just how both of the PCA churches I served in treated it. It was like, "leave the theological debate to the professionals and don't concern yourself with such things." That lack of respect for the people they supposedly serve is one of the professional clergy's greatest failings. But when Eastern Orthodox Tradition made it's way into the worship services at my last PCA church, I determined then to look for a new church - outside that denomination.

-R