APPENDIX V

REPORT OF THE AD INTERIM COMMITTEE

ON RACIAL AND ETHNIC RECONCILIATION
TO THE FORTY-SIXTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY
OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN AMERICA
Introduction
The 44th General Assembly, in response to a Overture 45 from Potomac
Presbytery, established an ad interim committee to study issues related to
Racial Reconciliation. Our committee had a four-part mandate. First, the
committee was charged to “assess the current situation in the PCA concerning
racial and ethnic reconciliation.” Next, we were to “identify specific problems
the PCA needs to address to promote racial reconciliation and ethnic
diversity.” In addition, the committee was to “develop constructive guidelines
and suggest concrete steps for the use of the PCA, including all presbyteries
and sessions in order to make progress toward the work of racial
reconciliation.” Finally, the committee was to “report to the 45th General
Assembly” (M44GA, p. 84).
Over the past two years, the committee has made strides toward fulfilling this
mandate. The 45th General Assembly assisted the committee significantly by
approving our plan to utilize LifeWay Research Services in order to survey
current attitudes on issues of race among our teaching and ruling elders.
Working with LifeWay has allowed us to collect significant data that will
allow us to assess the current situation, identify specific problems that our
denomination needs to address, and offer concrete steps to make progress on
this issue. We also recommend further assessment in order to provide
longitudinal study to determine change and progress over time.
As the committee has worked, we have been conscious that we are building on
previous work done by preceding Assemblies. We remember that the 30th
General Assembly (2002) pledged itself to “strive, in a manner consistent with
the Gospel imperatives, for the encouragement of racial reconciliation, the
establishment of urban congregations, and the enhancement of existing
ministries of mercy in our cities, among the poor, and across all social, racial,
and economic boundaries to the glory of God” (M30GA, p. 262).
We have worked within the definitions and direction of the Pastoral Letter on
Racism approved by the 32nd (2004) General Assembly (M32GA, pp. 427-457;

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p. 121). And so, we have presumed the definitions of race and racism contained
in that document:
 Race
The word “race,” as used in this pastoral letter, is not a
scientific classification; rather, in the language of one
author, the term “race” is used to denote “a social
phenomenon with a biological component” (Sowell, Race
and Culture). That is, the term “race” not only pertains to
the color of skin and other biological factors, but also may
include the cultural factors, associations, and assumptions
that we attach to certain races as well (M32GA, p. 436).
 Racism
Racism is an explicit or implicit belief or practice that
qualitatively distinguishes or values one race over other
races. Racism includes the social exclusion or judgment,
or the segregating, of an individual or group of individuals
based on racial differences, which always include
physical appearance and its underlying genetic structure
that are hereditary and unalterable (M32GA, p. 435).
While we recognize the good biblical-theological work offered by the Pastoral
Letter, in our report we return to some of that ground in order to provide the
necessary biblical-theological framework for reflecting upon the data received
from LifeWay Research Services as well as to consider our analysis and
suggestions for moving forward.
Of course, we have also been mindful of the recent action of the 44 th General
Assembly (2016), which acted to “recognize, confess, condemn, and repent of
corporate and historical sins, including those committed during the Civil
Rights era, and continuing racial sins of ourselves and our fathers…[and] of
past failures to love brothers and sisters from minority cultures in accordance
with what the Gospel requires, as well as failures to lovingly confront our
brothers and sisters concerning racial sins and personal bigotry…” (M44GA,
p. 70, p. 76). That Assembly also recommitted “itself to the gospel task of
racial reconciliation, diligently seeking effective courses of action to further
that goal, with humility, sincerity and zeal, for the glory of God and the
furtherance of the Gospel” (p. 76).
These Assembly actions have served as frameworks for this committee’s study
and recommendations. However, we also know that from the very beginning

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of the PCA’s existence, the biblical-theological framework was present to deal

with issues of racial sin and to seek racial reconciliation and justice. Not only
did the Advisory Convention of the Continuing Presbyterian Church, meeting
in August 1973, declare that our church would “welcome fellow believers in
Christ regardless of race” (Minutes of the Advisory Convention of the
Continuing Presbyterian Church, Asheville, North Carolina, August 7-9,
1973, p. 27). In addition, at the first General Assembly, O. Palmer Robertson
gave an address that provided the necessary theological framework for moving
forward on this issue.
Robertson declared that the continuing church movement that gave birth to the
PCA was committed to searching out “the implications of Scripture for the
totality of human life.” Far from a narrowing fundamentalism, the PCA’s
theological commitment was to determine how “the faith” related to spiritual
and social issues, which had to include racial reconciliation, justice, and
diversity. Indeed, “it is to the faith of Christianity in its fullness, as it relates to
the whole of creation, that the Continuing Church commits itself,” he said.
“May the hallmark of the lifestyle of its members be an awareness that Christ
came preaching the Kingdom of God.”1 As the Bible teaches over and over,
this saving rule of God would extend to the nations, to a multi-racial, multi-
ethnic people.
In other words, the committee was not starting from scratch in offering its
report. Rather, we are building upon biblical-theological insights and pastoral
reflection that has been present in the PCA since before her founding in
December 1973. Our report opens with a series of affirmations and rejections
that the committee adopted at the beginning of its work as guiding principles
for our study. From there, we offer three sections of biblical-theological,
confessional, and pastoral-mission reflections that frame the work of racial
reconciliation. We move then to report in summary fashion the research data
collected by LifeWay Research Services with specific suggestions for
advancing the cause of racial reconciliation in church planting, mono-ethnic
congregations, presbyteries, and academic institutions. The report concludes
with recommendations for the 46th General Assembly to consider that will
extend this committee’s work in a longitudinal manner and create an on-going
assessment process for our church as it engages in this work. Our great hope
is that this report will offer a pathway for our church to reflect the
eschatological body of Revelation 7, drawn “from every nation, from all tribes
and peoples and languages” (Rev. 7:9).

1 O. Palmer Robertson, “The Continuing Church and the Faith Once Delivered,”
Addresses Delivered During the First General Assembly (Birmingham, AL:
Continuing Presbyterian Church, 1973), 20.

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Guiding Principles: Affirmations and Denials

Affirmations
We affirm the Bible as “God breathed” – infallible and inerrant.
We affirm the vision of the redeemed in Revelation 7:9-11, where all nations
and ethnicities are fulfilled in Christ.
We affirm the image of God reflected in all people.
We affirm the image of Christ reflected in His body.
We affirm that for the Christian, all human identities must be subordinate to
identity in Christ.
We affirm that biblical righteousness has dimensions of both piety and justice.
We affirm the Westminster Standards.
Denials
We reject theological liberalism – defined by J. Gresham Machen in
Christianity and Liberalism as a “different gospel” from the Scriptural gospel.
We reject Marxism and Socialism, and all ideologies based on either one or
both.
We reject racism in all its forms; ontological, cultural, systemic, et al.
We reject as aberrant and anti-biblical any theological formulations
incorporating racism or racial superiority (e.g., Kinism).2
We reject “intersectionality” not solely based on biblical norms.3
We reject human identities that demand precedence over identity in Christ.
We reject human identities based on unbiblical lifestyles or behaviors.
We reject the notion that God’s people are designated by anything other than
God’s sovereign election.

2 Kinism is “based on the concept of living with one’s own kind or kin.” Typically,
Kinists claim to believe standard Christian doctrine while affirming white supremacy.
See Anti-Defamation League, “Kinism: A Racist and Anti-Semitic Religious Movement”
(2013): https://www.adl.org/sites/default/files/ documents/assets/pdf/combating-hate/
Kinism-Racist-and-Anti-Semitic-Religionfinal2.pdf.
3 Intersectionality is the idea that individuals do not have “a single, easily stated,
unitary identity”: Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, Critical Race Theory: An
Introduction, 3rd edition (New York: New York University Press, 2017), 10-11.

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We reject as inadequate any analysis of racism that does not recognize sin and
the fall of mankind as its root.
Biblical and Theological Foundations
The Bible does not begin with the fall; it begins with creation. Actually, it
begins with God, the majestic sovereign creator of the universe. Genesis 1:1
says, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” The Hebrew
word that is translated “create” is “bara.” This particular form of the verb
always refers to divine activity. It is used to show that God is the one who took
the initiative to create. He took the initiative to bring into existence something
that never existed before — the heavens and the earth. He created them out of
nothing by the word of his power. He did so in a space of six days. Repeatedly,
as God creates, the first chapter of the Bible tells us that “God saw that it was
good.” God shaped and fashioned his creation into a good and beautiful place.
His creative works were excellent; as Augustine noted, “Therefore, because
He is all-powerful and good, He made everything exceedingly good.”4 And
God’s creative works display his glory, so much so that Calvin would observe
that the creation is the “theater of God’s glory.”5
Why is it important to know that God is creator in a document about racial
reconciliation? Because if God is the creator, that means he has authority over
all his creative works. As the Psalmist will later reflect, “The earth is the Lord’s
and the fullness thereof; the world and those who dwell therein” (Ps. 24:1-2).
This world belongs to God and those who dwell in this world belong to God
as well. Further, God has structured his world so that it will operate and
function as he intended. Some of these structures include responsibility, roles,
rules, freedom, university, limits; another divine structure is diversity. There
was diversity present in the beginning; diversity was not added later, after the
fall, during the Enlightenment, or in some other time. Diversity was present in
creation from the beginning by divine design. And it is good—exceedingly
good.
In the very first verses of the creation account, there was no diversity. As Dr.
Douglas Kelly observed, “Genesis 1:2 clearly indicates that the original,
created elements of verse 1 were not yet differentiated, separated, and

4 Augustine, The Literal Meaning of Genesis, vol. 1, ed. John Hammond Taylor
(Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), 122
5 John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. J. T. McNeill (Philadelphia:
Westminster Press, 1960), 1.5.8 (p. 61), 2.6.1 (p. 341).

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organized.”6 The newly created earth was without form and empty, desolate
and waste. Darkness was over the face of the deep; the Spirit of God brooded
over the waters. However, when God created, he entered into an artistic
process whereby he gave shape, substance, and light to the newly created earth.
This process turned chaos into cosmos and brought differentiation,
organization, and distinction to God’s world. Indeed, God’s work during the
six days of creation in Genesis 1-2 brought divine diversity.
We can see diversity being brought to the earth during the first four days of
creation. The Lord made distinctions in creation and distinguished the creation.
On the first day of creation, God distinguished the light from darkness and
called the light day and the darkness night. On the second, the sky was
distinguished from the waters; on the third day the seas were distinguished
from the dry land. Kelly noted that these distinctions “were the great divine
works of the third day, preparing the world for the introduction of animal life,
and finally, all would be ready for mankind: the crown of God’s creation.”7
Another distinction made on the fourth day further displays divine diversity.
God distinguished the daytime from night-time by creating two great lights in
the expanse of the heavens. He fashioned and made the sun to rule over the
day and the moon to rule over the night.
Creation is not a picture of uniformity. Rather, from the inception of creation,
there is diversity. And in the continuing divine work of creation, God
continued to foster diversity. In the creation of plant life and animal life, we
have the repeated phrase “according to its/their kind.” God did not create a
homogeneous plant and animal life. God created plants and animals according
to various kinds, not according to the same kind. God created different kinds
of plants and fruit trees. He created different kinds of sea creatures and birds.
He created different kinds of livestock, creeping things and beasts of the earth.
As Abraham Kuyper declared,
Raise your eyes, look up at the starry heavens, and you will
see not just a single beam of light but an undulating,
scintillating sea of light coming from myriads of bright-
shining stars, each of which the Lord calls ‘by name’ for
the simple reason that each has a name, a nature, and a
substance of its own. They all differ in the speed of the
light they emit and each of them sparked along its own

6 Douglas Kelly, Creation and Change: Genesis 1.1-2.4 in the Light of Changing
Scientific Paradigms (Ross-shire, UK: Christian Focus, 1997), 81
7 Ibid., 189.

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path. Uniformity in God’s creation! No, rather infinite

diversity, an inexhaustible profusion of variations that
strikes and fascinates you in every domain of nature, in the
ever-varying shape of a snowflake as well as in the
endlessly differentiated form of flower and leaf. Where in
God’s entire creation do you encounter life that does not
display the unmistakable hallmark of life precisely in the
multiplicity of its colors and dimensions, in the
capriciousness of its ever-changing forms?8
These words are true not simply for animate and inanimate creation; these
words are also true for the crown of God’s creation, humanity. Humanity is
the most excellent of all God’s creative works. In Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let
us make man in our image, after our likeness.” God created male and female
together to be the crown of his creation. Adam and Eve as the fountainhead of
humanity are made in the image of God and all of their progeny bear that
image as well. In addition, Adam and Eve as the fountainhead of humanity
represent all races in themselves; while they are not identifiable by race or
ethnicity, they contain all races and ethnicities. And those races and ethnicities
that spring from our first parents bear God’s image. Hence, racism or
ethnocentrism—which presumes that one’s race or ethnicity is superior to
another—is a denial that all people have been created in the image of God.
Thus, all humanity has in common the image of God. And yet, what diversity
springs from the fountainhead! As Adam and Eve fulfill the creation
mandate—“Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over
every living thing that moves on the earth” (Gen. 1:28)—and as that creation
mandate is restated to Noah and his sons (Gen. 9:1, 7), the diversity found in
the table of nations (Gen. 10) is the result: “their clans, their languages, their
lands, and their nations” (10:5, 20, 31). This diversity was not a mistake,
mishap, or miscalculation. Rather, diversity was by divine design. Indeed, man
did not create diversity, but God did.
Of course, Adam and Eve’s fall into sin happened. And that means that not
only is every race contained in Adam and so created in the image of God; every
race is contained in Adam and so experiences the effects of the fall (Gen 3).
The fountainhead was poisoned at the beginning, affecting all people and every
people. We all participate in the sin of our first parents; we all carry the

8 Abraham Kuyper, “Uniformity: The Curse of Modern Life,” in Abraham Kuyper: A

Centennial Reader, ed. James D. Bratt (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 34.

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contagion with us. Hence, no race or ethnicity is more sinful than another;
whites are not more sinful than blacks, Asians not more sinful than Latinos,
Irish not more sinful than Italians. We all have sinned and fallen short of God’s
glory (Rom 3:23).
Further, the fall has affected the creation mandate. The result means that image
bearers will abuse and misuse the mandate to exercise dominion over other
image bearers through oppression, abuse, and presupposed superiority. Human
nature is now embedded with a sinful desire to dominate other people. Cain's
murder of his brother Abel was the first example of one image bearer misusing
dominion over another. Cain did not value his brother’s life, so he took it. He
was not his brother’s keeper.
From that moment to this, human history is filled with examples of image
bearers not being keepers of one another. Throughout the history of the world,
nations and ethnic groups have made claims of superiority over other nations
and ethnic groups. These claims and beliefs in some self-crowned superiority
are lived out in how these nations and ethnic groups treat other people whom
they deem inferior. We see it in other sins as well: murder, abortion, slavery,
abuse, sex-trading, oppression, injustice. We see it in the presumption that one
culture is superior and demands that all other cultures must assimilate. The
sinful desire to have dominion over others cripples the various ethnicities from
understanding and lovingly embracing their differences and diversity. This
dominion over others, both intentional and unintentional, is at times
manifested in misuses and abuses by men in positions of power, leading to the
voicelessness and broken fellowship of brothers from minority groups. Indeed,
all men struggle with power. We struggle with the power of lordship of our
very lives, but Jesus came to re-orient relationships of power, and we submit
and surrender to the power of the Holy Spirit. We seek to see others as greater
than ourselves.
In the midst of all of this sin and sinning, God responds. He elects and he
covenants. He chooses Abraham, a pagan from Ur, an Aramean from Chaldea;
and he gives Abraham an amazing set of promises that connects to God’s
larger purpose to bless all of his created peoples. God promises, “I will make
you a great nation…and in all you all the families of the earth will be blessed”
(Gen. 12:1-3). The word for “families” shows up repeatedly in Genesis 10,
most often translated “clans” (Gen. 10:5, 20, 31, and 10:18, 32). How is God
going to deal with the problem of sin that has affected the vast diversity of his
peoples, affected them to such a degree that they falsely claim authority over
each other and oppress one another? Through Abraham’s offspring, the vast
diversity of peoples, ethnicities, races will be blessed.

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Through the rest of the Old Testament, we can trace this thread of how God
will bless the nations, how God will include them in his people, and how God
intends to do this through a son of Abraham. God speaks through a grandson
of Abraham, who promises his own son Judah that a ruler will come from his
line to whom “shall be the obedience of the peoples” (Gen. 49:10). God makes
provision for the “foreigners” who joined Israel in the Exodus, creating a
pathway of inclusion in the people of God (Ex. 12:38, 43-51). God meets
Rahab, a Canaanite, so that she is ready to forsake her people to join Israel
(Josh. 2) and he meets Ruth, a Moabite, so that she finds rest under Yahweh’s
wings (Ruth 1:16-17, 2:12).
And especially in the promises made to David, we see God pursuing this
intention to bring unity once again out of the diversity, redeeming the nations
and bringing them under the rule of a forever king in a forever kingdom (2
Sam. 7:12-17). Over and over in the Psalms, the Davidic king is promised the
nations. For example, in Psalm 2:8, God urges his the Anointed One
established in Zion, “Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the
ends of the earth your possession.” In Psalm 22, after the redemptive suffering
of God’s Messiah, we hear the declaration, “All the ends of the earth will
remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow
down before him, for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the
nations.” Of course, in Psalm 67, we have a grand vision of God as the God of
all peoples and nations; and in Psalm 87, those from Philistia, Tyre, and Cush,
“born” in Zion, are part of God’s people. This is part of what the Davidic King
does—he rules over the entire world (“from sea to sea, and from the River to
the ends of the earth”) so that people from every point on the compass belong
to his people (Ps. 72:8-11). This is what the son of David will do—effect
redemption and bring the nations into God’s own people so that there will be
diversity within the unity of God’s people.
Isaiah looked forward to this as well. As J. Daniel Hays noted, “The book of
Isaiah advances the concept of equal salvation for all peoples and nations more
than any other prophetic book. The prophet paints an eschatological picture of
people from all nations blending together with the remnant of Israel as the true
people of Yahweh.”9 And the diversity of races and ethnicities are brought
under God’s rule through his Davidic King.
And so, for example, Isaiah 2 envisions a day when “all the nations shall flow”
to Mount Zion, to be ruled by the Lord. All ungodly oppression, injustice,

9 J. Daniel Hays, From Every People and Nation: A Biblical Theology of Race
(Downers Grove: Intervarsity, 2003), 106.

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superiority, violence will come to an end: “They shall beat their swords into
plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword
against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore” (Is. 2:4). In Isaiah 11, as
the Davidic Branch, the Root of Jesse, “stands as a signal for the peoples—of
him the nations inquire,” he gathers people from Assyria, Egypt, Pathros,
Cush, Elam, Shinar, Hamath, from the coastlands (Is. 11:10-11). The nations
come into God’s people under the rule of the Davidic king. Isaiah 42 looks
forward to the Servant who will be “a covenant for the people and a light for
the nations” (Is. 42:6; cf. 49:6; Acts 13:47). And Isaiah closes with a vision of
the new creation coming in which God will gather people from “all nations
and languages,” some of whom will be priests and Levites” (Is. 66:18-21;
1 Pet. 2:9-10).
By the time one gets to the end of the Old Testament, the expectation is set.
How is God going to bless all the families of the earth—all the diverse races
and ethnicities that have filled the earth? God is going to bless them through a
son of Abraham, a son of David; somehow this individual, this King, will
redeem diverse men and women, bringing them into his people, and he will
restore his image-bearers. He will honor their particularity even as he redeems
it and enfolds it. He does not do away with our ethnic particularity in this
world; rather, he honors us as the “nations” even as he includes us in his
“people.” He will rule over us in his kingdom, the Kingdom of God.
When one turns the page to read the first words of the New Testament, that
reader finds pages filled with import: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus
Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (Matt 1:1). With these words,
the Gospel writers tell us that the promised Davidic King, the promised family-
blesser—here he is. Here is the one who will redeem us as individuals: “He
will save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21). Here is the one who will
include the diversity of the nations among his people—as evidenced even by
his own genealogy, which includes Canaanites and Moabites, enemies of God,
racial others.
And Jesus does this through the cross. Through the cross, he deals with the sin
that poisons us, the sin that convicts us before a holy God. His cross reconciles
us to God because on the cross he who knew no sin became sin for us so that
we might become the righteousness of God through him (2 Cor. 5:21).
Through the cross, Christ made propitiation for our sins; he was our atoning
sacrifice that satiated God’s wrath and satisfied God’s justice (Rom. 3:24;
1 John 4:9-10).
But it is also through the cross of Jesus that God pulls down the dividing wall
of hostility that alienates races and ethnicities from one another. In Ephesians

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2:11-22, Paul tells the Gentiles that they were alienated from God and from
God’s people; they were “alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and
strangers to the covenants of promise” (2:12). Not only were they without hope
and without God, but they were actively hostile toward one another—there
was a “dividing wall of hostility” between Jew and Gentile, that was both
religious and racial. “But now” because of our common union in Jesus and
because of the blood of Jesus, we have been brought near to God, his promises,
and his people (2:13). Christ has become our peace, our shalom, our wholeness
and well-being—and he has done this by making us “one new man,” breaking
down “in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (2:14-15). Regardless of
racial background reinforced by religious pre-commitments, now in Jesus we
have been reconciled to God “in one body through the cross” (2:16). We have
a common access to the Father by the Spirit (2:18) and we are fellow citizens
of God’s commonwealth (2:19). Whether Jew or Gentile, whether white or
black, Asian or Latino, or other races and ethnicities—through the cross of
Jesus, we have been and are being reconciled, displaying one new humanity to
the watching world.
Paul makes this same point in Colossians. As the preeminent one over creation
and new creation, through Jesus God is reconciling “to himself all things,
whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of the cross” (1:20).
“All things” includes all things that God has created through Jesus (1:15-17),
but also his church which is the body of Christ (1:18). This reconciliation
through the blood of Jesus is how we have been reconciled: “You, who once
were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in
his body of flesh by his death” (1:21-22). We have been reconciled to God
through the blood of Jesus. But we are also reconciled to one another across
racial and ethnic lines: “Here there is no Greek and Jew, circumcised and
uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all”
(3:11). The same God who fills Christ with his fullness fills us, regardless of
race, with his fullness so that we might be one new humanity, reconciled by
Christ’s blood.
This does not do away with ethnicity or race: but this one new humanity points
us in the direction of Revelation 7 in which people “from every nation, from
all tribes and peoples and languages” (cf. Gen. 10:5, 20, 31) are brought
together by the blood of Jesus to sing his praise. The particularity and
individuality of the nations, tribes, peoples, and languages is not done away
with; rather, the diversity-in-unity of the praise, each in their own language,
will redound to the splendor and praise of the God who redeemed his people
with the blood of his Son, Jesus. And even at the end of the biblical story, “the

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kings of the nations” will bring their glory into the new city—all that is good
as a result of our diversity will be present, not in a “color-blind” fashion, but
precisely in the rich diversity that God has made (Rev. 21:24-26; cf. Is. 60).
Thus, the biblical storyline shows us how God the creator purposes for
diversity and unity to cohere together. Through the work of Jesus the Messiah,
the son of Abraham, the son of David, those who are redeemed by the blood
of the cross are brought together into one body, called the church. Jesus has
not reconciled us to one another simply so we can tolerate each other. He
reconciled us together so we can love one another in humility.
Confessional Support
This biblical-theological story-line finds its place in our confessional
documents. While the word “race” is not found specifically in the Westminster
Standards, there are theological categories within our standards that shape our
approach to racial reconciliation and justice. As this report has already
demonstrated, Scripture, which sets down “all things necessary for [God’s]
own glory, man’s salvation, faith and life” (WCF 1:6), addresses a range of
issues with regard to the Gospel and race, either expressly or “by good and
necessary consequence.” We look to Scripture, as well as our confessional
documents, for guidance on this issue.
Our documents direct us to the Triune God, who is being in community,
diversity in unity (WCF 2:3); God’s image in humankind is not only displayed
in the diversity of male and female as one flesh, but also in the diversities of
races brought together into one community, the people of God. God’s image
is not restricted to one ethnicity, but is evidenced in all humanity, in each race
or ethnicity, and in each human being (WCF 4:2). We all share a common
humanity and so share a common participation in the imago dei.
We further share a common inheritance from our first parents, Adam and Eve.
Not only were they the fountainhead of humanity, but they were also the
headwaters of depravity. Hence, every race shares both God’s image and
Adam’s sin (WCF 6:3; 9:3). In addition, every race stands under God’s
providence; he governs all his creatures and all their actions (SC 11). The
development of races throughout the world stands under God’s oversight,
governance, and purpose. In each of these ways—creation, fall, providence—
we see the working out of God’s covenantal relationship with humanity
(WCF 7:1).
Even with this commonality that the diverse races share, there is a fundamental
distinction, one that cuts across all races, namely God’s electing decree
(WCF 3:6, 7). The fundamental division is not between races, but between the

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elect and the lost. God’s movement toward humanity for salvation in the
covenant of grace is not toward a single race or ethnicity, but toward all nations
(WCF 7:4, 6). Christ the Mediator came to die for sinners from every nation
and race and from every age (WCF 8:5, 6): our confessional documents speak
of reconciliation here. There is reconciliation between God and humans from
every race through the blood of Christ (WCF 8:5).
God applies his salvation by sending his Spirit to people from every race and
nation, effectually calling them and enabling them to answer his call,
embracing the grace offered to them (WCF 10:2). There is not a preference
given to one particular race over another; rather, God calls men and women
from every race, justifies them by pardoning their sins and accounting and
accepting their persons as righteous for Christ’s sake alone (WCF 11:1). God
through his Spirit adopts people from every race as his children, sanctifies
them, grants them saving faith and repentance, enables them to persevere and
produce good works. As we live out of the repentance that God’s grace grants
us, we confess our sins to each other—including sins of racism—and so are
“reconciled” to each other (WCF 15:6).
God’s Law regulates the way we as Christians live with one another (LC 97).
And especially the second table of the God’s Law urges us to “love our
neighbor as ourselves”: we honor those in every station of life, “inferiors,
superiors, and equals,” by seeking to “regard the dignity and worth of each
other, in giving honor to go one before another, and to rejoice in each other’s
gifts and advancement, as [our] own” (LC 131). We also seek to preserve the
lives of our brothers and sisters, regardless of race or ethnicity, through “a
readiness to be reconciled” as well as through a just defense of their rights.
Reconciliation and justice are embedded in the sixth commandment (LC 135).
We honor one another’s marriages, regardless of racial composition,
recognizing that “it is lawful for all sorts of people to marry, who are able with
judgment to give their consent” as long as such marriages are subject to
biblical requirements “in the Lord” (WCF 24:3). We further recognize that the
eighth commandment points us to economic justice toward others, regardless
of race—“justice in contracts and commerce between man and man; rendering
to everyone his due…[and] an endeavor, by all just and lawful means, to
procure, preserve, and further the wealth and outward estate of others, as well
as our own.” In addition, the catechism also calls us to the “restitution of goods
unlawfully detained from the right owners thereof”; and so, restitution is
necessary to reconciliation and justice (LC 141). As we seek legal justice for
those who do not have voice in our society, we keep the ninth commandment

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(LC 145). And finally, we desire to live charitably with all, especially those of
the household of faith (LC 147).
In each of these ways, we love our neighbor through faithfulness and justice—
and we do this especially within the church, which “consists of all those
throughout the world that profess the true religion, and of their children” (WCF
25:2). Peoples from various nationalities and races are to be part of God’s
church; they are saints “bound to maintain a holy fellowship and communion
in the worship of God.” But they are also saints who must render spiritual
services and mutual edification through sharing “outward things, according to
their several abilities and necessities” (WCF 26:2). Hence, our communion
with each other involves sharing our financial resources with each other.
The preeminent way we share in this communion of the saints is through
common worship around Word and sacrament. The sacraments “put a visible
difference” between the church and the rest of the world—and so, our common
baptism and our common Table should be common to every Christian
regardless of race as we stand together against the world (WCF 27:1). These
blessings of Word and sacrament come from Christ, the King of the church;
and he has appointed a government in his church with officers drawn from
every race and ethnicity (WCF 25:2; 30:1). These elders are formed into
synods and councils and share in this common government to determine
controversies of faith—again, not restricted to any race, but open to all the
elect who profess Christ and who have been elected to office (WCF 31:2).
On the Last Day, the elect, drawn from every race and ethnicity, will be
displayed to all the watching world. Once again, the fundamental dividing line
among humanity—the elect and the wicked—will be seen, regardless of race
and ethnicity (WCF 33:2). “All persons that have lived upon the earth” will
appear before Christ’s judgment (WCF 33:1) and the elect from every race will
join their voices to praise Christ and honor him.
As should be clear, the biblical-theological story-line traced in the initial
section of our report is faithfully represented in the confessional standards to
which we subscribe. While the seventeenth-century framers of the
Westminster Confession and Catechisms did not have “race” as a framework,
nothing in what they summarized of Scripture’s teaching is inimical to our
church’s developing understanding of racial reconciliation and justice. In fact,
our confessional documents demand that we lean into these issues faithfully in
obedience to the Scriptures themselves. To fail to see these issues as “Gospel
issues,” that is as the proper ethical response to biblical teaching, is to fail to
live faithfully to our own confessional standards.

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Pastoral and Missional Considerations

We live in a time where the global is becoming local. Our neighborhoods,
schools, and places of work are undergoing rapid social and demographic
change, yet our call to neighbor-love remains the same. We must wrestle with
the reality that the PCA will struggle to communicate the heart of God to her
surrounding neighbors if she does not have the heart of God for her
surrounding neighbors. Inasmuch as we fail to love our diverse neighbors in
both word and deed, we are rebelling against the Lord, contradicting our
Christian identity, and working at cross-purposes with our stated mission.
It should be said that cross-cultural love has nothing to do with being
politically correct. Rather, this cross-cultural love has everything to do with
faithfulness to God’s Word and its central message: the good news of God’s
grace in Jesus Christ. The message of racial justice is critical for the world to
hear Christians talking about, almost as important as other critical social justice
issues such as abortion in America. The dying world longs to hear God’s
people speak truth in love that we might become the mature body in Christ
(Eph. 4:15). Theologically, our goal is not to seek diversity as an end in itself
because this would be too small an endeavor relative to God’s mission. Rather
the great end of this pursuit is doxology through diversity. Our goal should be
to glorify our Savior by cultivating a cross-cultural community that maintains
a cross-cultural witness to the grace and glory of God. When rightly
considered, the Christian life and community should be a symphonic
expression of the “breadth and length and height and depth of the love of
Christ” (Eph. 3:18). This love requires humble listening, teachability, and
wisdom as well as the proactive pursuit of individual and institutional change.
By God’s grace, as God changes us, we will become a foretaste of God’s
Kingdom. Again, diversity is not and never should be our ultimate goal; God’s
glory is.
Pastoral Considerations
If the PCA is going to grow as a cross-cultural church, then our pastors and
elders must become faithful cross-cultural shepherds. In order for this to
happen, first, pastoral leaders and elders must keep in mind the diversity that
may surround their particular local church. Even if one’s congregation is
mono-ethnic, keeping in mind the surrounding diversity in one’s neighborhood
will force pastoral leaders to come to Scripture with different questions that
will bring new interpretative perspectives. Faithful pastors will carry both their
own congregants and their diverse neighbors in their hearts and studies as they
prepare sermons and lessons.

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Of course, in order to account for the diversity of one’s neighborhood, pastoral

leaders actually need to know the demographic realities of their neighborhood.
Discovering the diversity within a one-mile, three-mile, and five-mile radius
of one’s church facility will assist pastoral leaders in becoming culturally
intelligent and sensitive. Too often, elders presume that they “know” their
neighborhoods or they think that demographic work is something church
planters do. But churches and pastoral leaders that fail to reach their
neighbors—all of their neighbors, not just the ones who look like them—with
the Gospel are churches that will prove unfaithful to their calling and God’s
mission for them.
As pastoral leaders learn about the diversity surrounding their congregations,
as they pray for those neighbors and neighborhoods, and as they come to know
their diverse neighbors, such relationships should shift the way our churches
engage issues. They cannot help but grow in loving relationships of mutuality
with those whom they have come to know; the issues, suffering, and pain of
neighbors becomes theirs (1 Cor. 12:26). They may not fully understand the
depth of pain that is expressed, but they do understand pain and sorrow and
long to enter with Gospel healing. As elders shepherd those who are different
culturally, racially, and economically from themselves, they work to listen first
and at length. Leaders will remain keenly aware of the fact that Jesus does not
deal with a vague, generalized notion of sin. Jesus deals with particular sins of
particular, culturally located people, with a particular ministry of Gospel
admonishment and restoration. Furthermore, Jesus deals with the particular
wounds of particular people who have been sinned against. This involves a
particular call to particular repentance of particular sins. But such a ministry
starts with a confession of the leader’s need for Christ, as revealed through
honest reflections on his own broken soul.
Practically speaking, our pastors and elders will seriously consider how this
cross-cultural way of life can take shape in the ordinary moments. Elders will
create the necessary space to listen well to their people. They will consider
their functional shepherding values as they are revealed through their
schedules and calendars. They will take disciplinary action when members are
found guilty of racial sins and practices that betray the hospitality and love of
Jesus Christ. Pastors and elders will hold out to their people the more beautiful,
Christ-like way of relating to the marginalized and downtrodden. Pastors and
elders will model faith, repentance, and reconciliation on this very point of
racial and ethnic unity.
The elders and pastors of the PCA must not shrink back from proclaiming to
our people what is profitable for their souls. We must teach them the whole

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counsel of God (Acts 20:27). But we must begin with ourselves. If we do, we
will become living witnesses who are able to confirm the transforming power
of the Gospel we preach with a peculiar gravitas. The weight of our own
testimony and the evidence of grace in our own lives and relationships will be
felt by our people and impressed upon their souls with a singular urgency. If
the pastors and elders of the PCA heed the costly call of discipleship and
leadership at this point of reconciliation, then we will indeed be consistent with
our mission: "Faithful to the Scriptures, true to the Reformed faith, obedient
to the Great Commission of Jesus Christ.”
Missional Considerations
The mission of the church is integrally related to the mission of Christ. Jesus
says as much when he addresses his disciples with the following words, “As
the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you” (John 20:21). As noted in
the biblical-theological section, God’s own mission is to form a multi-racial,
multi-ethnic people; the nations come under the rule of the son of Abraham,
the Son of David; this is the way God fulfills his promise to Abraham to bless
all the families of the earth through him (Gen. 12:3; Gal. 3:8).
This biblical-theological perspective will cohere with the insights that we may
gain through common grace disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, and
psychology. As Reformed Christians, we gladly affirm that all truth is God’s
truth. However, the biblical material must always remain central; when it is,
we find ourselves starting with Jesus, the truth of God, and with his declaration
of his mission, which is nothing less than the Kingdom of God (Mark 1:15).
And that Kingdom will encompass people from every nation, language, clan,
and people in God’s world.
That means, then, that in the light of the data in this report, we need to ask
ourselves some challenging questions. Are there disparities between the
biblical Jesus and the preached Jesus in our churches? Does our preached Jesus
love, befriend, and empower the poor and disenfranchised? Does our preached
Jesus warrant the kind of faith that leads people into the cultural fray as gentle
peacemakers and courageous mediators? Does our preached Jesus call people
to repurpose their privileges and release their power for the benefit of the
outsider (Phil. 2:6)?
These questions are important because we all have a tendency to fashion Jesus
into our own cultural image. However, the true biblical Jesus will enable our
pastors and elders to traverse the cultural frontiers of our particular mission
fields—our diverse neighborhoods—and will help us to encourage, challenge,
and care for our diverse people. Yet, knowing this Jesus will, at times, prove

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to be excruciating because the love he warrants from us will mean our death.
God’s mission goes through the cross; we are called to be a cruciform people
(Matt. 16:24). As it was for Jesus, so it is for us. We preach free grace, not
cheap grace.
For all our talk of conformity to the likeness of Christ, it seems we have
scarcely reckoned with the fuller implications of this reality. We must dig more
deeply into the identity and activity of Jesus Christ if we are to be faithful
missionaries to our fields of ministry. We must preach the biblical Jesus who
was, in himself, a breathtaking union of two radically different worlds—God
and man—without confusion, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably, as
the Chalcedonian Creed puts it. The very person of Christ calls out: “Unity in
diversity!” This is the particular vision that we are called to shepherd into the
body of Christ. Common union is central to the identity of Christ and it is to
be central to the corporate identity of the church—it is that in which we
participate every time we take the bread and drink the cup in communion (1
Cor. 10:16-17).
Jesus becomes what he was not, out of love for the Father, so that the “other”
might share in that most profound love. We must call our people to this cross-
culturally transformative love. Jesus fully inhabits a particular culture without
falling into racial hubris, ethnocentrism, or idolatry. Jesus embodied his Jewish
culture in a way that did not demean other ethnicities, but rather dignified
them. Thus, we must equip our people with a vision broad enough to burst the
doors of their cultural prisons. We must call our people to embody their ethnic
identity in a way that dignifies rather than demeans all the others. In other
words, God’s mission does not call our church to become “color-blind,” the
negation of race or ethnicity; rather, it calls to become “one new humanity,”
in which that diversity remains diverse and yet finds a new and true unity (not
uniformity) through the blood of Jesus (Eph. 2:13-18).
The Son of God allowed his existence to be altered permanently by the needs
and afflictions of the “other.” He remains a true man to this day, a true man
with the scars to mark the depths to which he was willing to go for love’s sake.
Our preaching must not leave people with the conclusion that they can safely
elude such life alteration in the fulfillment of God’s mission.
Jesus empathizes with the “other” and is fully engaged with the “other” in
mind, will, and emotions. We must call our people to such cross-cultural
empathy and engagement. As we theologize through God’s mission, it
becomes increasingly clear that our current approach to mission requires deep
alterations. We must consider how the Son of God enters into a foreign context
and willingly locates in order to be present with the “other.” We must allow

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this reality to confront us when we are inclined to remain geographically

distant from the undesirable neighborhoods, allowing fear, selfishness, or
apathy to rule us. We must marvel at the way Jesus mediates between the holy
culture that he owns and the broken culture that he embraces in order to make
that which was his by nature to become ours by grace. This type of
Christological reflection demands that we equip our people to be a community
of mediators, bringing healing in fractured neighborhoods through repentance,
faith, and courageous action.
The apostle Paul tells us in the book of Ephesians that Jesus brings the outsider,
those historically estranged from himself, near (Eph. 2:13). Those pastors,
elders, and churches that would be like Christ must do the same. Paul tells the
Philippians that Jesus humbly and willingly repurposes his rights for the
advantage of the “other” (Phil. 2:6). Do we call our people to repurpose their
rights for the benefit and blessing of those who are disempowered and
culturally foreign to them? There would be no Gospel if Christ refused to use
his power for the benefit of the weak. There would be no Gospel if Christ did
not care for, and empathize with, the poor. These truths are central to the
Gospel message, and we must not allow these realities to remain peripheral to
our missionary encounter with our neighbors.
The heart of Christ was so large, so enflamed with love, that he wept over the
brokenness of his place (Luke 19:41-44). Are we touching the hearts of our
people with such longing for renewal and concern for the welfare of their city,
town, or neighborhood? Do our people understand the Father’s plan is to
replicate the heart of this same Jesus in each one of us? This is the Jesus who
is held out to us in Scripture and this is how he fulfilled God’s mission.
Therefore, this is the Jesus whom we must hold out to our people and this is
the manner in which we must fulfill his mission.
Research Results and Analysis (See Attachment for more detail)
After taking bids from various research consulting groups, the study
committee contracted with LifeWay Research Services (hereafter LRS) in
order to understand the landscape of race, racism, and reconciliation
perspectives within our denomination.
The study was built on both qualitative and quantitative data. In the initial
qualitative phase, there were in-depth interviews completed with thirty PCA
teaching and ruling elders representing a diversity of races and ethnicities.
These interviews provided the basis for the kinds of questions that would be
asked in the larger quantitative phases.

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The first quantitative phase involved an online survey of PCA teaching and
ruling elders. Working with the Stated Clerk’s office, LRS made contact with
teaching elders via email asking them to complete an internet-housed survey.
Teaching elders were also requested to share that survey’s internet link with
ruling elders on their sessions. There were 2,618 total responses (1,498
teaching elders and 1,120 ruling elders). This survey was completed by the end
of November 2017 and the committee received the data and analysis in January
2018. The full report as well as the data which formed this executive summary
can be found as Appendix 1 to the committee’s report.
The second quantitative phase is still on-going, an online survey of PCA staff
and students at Covenant College and Covenant Seminary. That phase was not
completed in time for the committee’s report, but the data will be shared with
respective institutional leaders and will be summarized for the denomination
at some future point.
Hence, the executive summary below is based only on the qualitative and the
first quantitative phase. In the quantitative phase:
88% of respondents were White, 3% Asian-American, 2% African-American,
1% Hispanic/Latino.
Most of the respondents had graduate degrees (80%).
Ruling elders in the study were significantly older than teaching elders: 79%
of ruling elders were 50+ years old while only 47% of teaching elders were
50+ years old.
One further research note: the questions for the research surveys intentionally
left the definitions of “race” and “racism” open to allow respondents to reflect
upon how they have experienced these issues in their own contexts. While
some elders expressed their frustration with that choice in their answers to the
open-ended survey questions, that was part of the research design.
LRS’s findings revealed four major areas for our consideration.
1. Seeing the Need for Racial Reconciliation
The overwhelming majority of elders believed that they have “a biblical
understanding of racism” (91% agree/strongly agree) and believe that the
Bible teaches racism is a sin (94% agree/strongly agree). However, fewer
are aware of the Presbyterian Church’s past history and practices that
would meet a standard of racism (68%). Even fewer understand why the
PCA is dealing with this issue (57%) or what the denomination is “trying
to accomplish” on this issue (39%).

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Hence, while the denomination’s elders rightly recognize racism as sinful,

only a little more than half believed that the action of the 44th General
Assembly in confessing corporate involvement in the sins of racism during
the 1960s was extremely or very much needed (52%). Nearly 20% felt that
action by the Assembly was “not at all needed.” Notably, ruling elders
were less enthusiastic about the work of the 44th General Assembly: only
39% believed that the overture was extremely or very much needed.
Likewise, while two-thirds of our elders (65%) felt that racial
reconciliation was extremely or somewhat needed, there was more
enthusiasm for this work among teaching than ruling elders. Nearly 70%
of teaching elders said that racial reconciliation was extremely or very
much needed; only 59% of ruling elders said the same.
There was also some disagreement about how racism manifests itself in
culture and church. While 47% slightly to strongly agree that racism is
more an individual problem, 53% believe that it is more systemic and
structural. Notably, there was a division between teaching and ruling
elders on this point: 63% of teaching elders believed that racism was
primarily systemic while 56% of ruling elders believed that racism was
more of an individual problem. While 59% believe that racism is more a
societal or cultural than an ecclesial problem, 27% disagreed or strongly
disagreed with that statement. And while very few see PCA staff or
processes as contributing to racism and very little personal racism among
elders, it is hard to reconcile the data—if it is at least somewhat structural
and if elders are still sinners being sanctified, then one would expect to see
it manifested in PCA structures and processes in some form or fashion.
2. Characterizing the Amount of Racism in the PCA
Respondents were asked to characterize the amount of racism perceived in
specific areas/spheres (among church congregants in their local churches,
presbyteries, policies/ practices, and among denominational agencies)
within the PCA, based on their experiences.
Elders believed that while our congregants might have a moderate,
significant, or extreme amount of racism (38% in presbytery; 32% in own
church), the plurality (largest number under 50%) of elders in local
presbyteries had no racism (40%) or little racism (31%); and the numbers
were even higher in one’s own congregation (50% no racism; 31% little
racism). Thus, there was some measure of perceived difference between
elders and congregants in the amount of racism, but the vast majority of
elders believed that they and their fellow elders had very little involvement

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in the sin of racism. Moreover, whatever racism that does exist among
elders was perceived to be more unintentional than intentional. And
virtually no church disciplines members for racism; only 3% of
respondents said their church disciplined for such a sin.
Perhaps part of the issue in understanding how much racism might or
might not exist in our denomination could be discovered in our
congregations’ willingness to be multi-ethnic. While 43% of respondents
agree or strongly agree that their local congregations were making an
effort to be multi-ethnic and/or multi-cultural, 37% of respondents
indicated an unwillingness to “lose their preferred worship style to
accommodate other cultures” (ruling elders were less willing to lose their
worship style, 45% to 30% of teaching elders). Moreover, 80% of the
congregations represented by responding elders were Anglo-majority
(with over 80% of the membership made up of white members). And so,
the question might be rightly raised about how willing PCA leaders
actually are to have their churches become multi-ethnic and multi-cultural.
3. Personal Experiences with Racism in the PCA
Half of the respondents (50%) shared that they have personal experiences
with racism in the PCA. These responses broke down into three categories:
Affected by racism, Unaffected (but aware of racism), and Unaffected
(and unaware of racism).
For those affected by racism, the most common examples were racist
comments, speech, and/or jokes; 19% of respondents noted this. Other
examples included influence of culture on racism, observing general
racism in the church and/or session, experiencing exclusion due to race,
observing homogenous preferences and priorities, and inequity in
financial resources such as salary.
For those unaffected but aware of racism, respondents reflected a general
understanding of its existence and impact, but also saw themselves as
unaffected mainly because of mono-ethnic personal and church contexts.
When respondents were made aware of racism’s impact, their attitude
toward the committee’s work was positive and saw racial reconciliation as
necessary.
For those unaffected and unaware, respondents dismissed the value of
addressing the problem through a committee, doubted the ability of
solving the problem through a change in policy, categorized racism as a
sin or heart issue that must be dealt with on an individual basis and local
church level rather than a corporate level, and indicated a sense of “reverse

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racism” being imposed and wanted the attention on the topic to stop
altogether.
4. Barriers for Greater Racial/Ethnic Diversity
When respondents were asked to share some barriers hindering greater
cross-cultural integration in their own congregations, there were three
main areas.
Established church practices, including:
Worship styles, including preaching style and overly academic hymns
Educational barriers to ordination
Cultural and personal preferences
Comfort and traditions
Non-existent outreaching efforts
Denominational reputation
Inexperience with minority groups and cultures, including:
Lack of diversity in leadership
Little knowledge of or interest in African American history and culture
Little exposure to other ethnicities or cultures
Mono-ethnicity of surrounding neighborhood
Sense of discomfort when around those who are different
Experienced racism and societal realities, including:
History of overt racism
Gentrification
Socialized prejudice
Socio-economic differences
History of mistrust among different racial groups in local area
Of all aggregated responses, the number one barrier for greater racial and
ethnic diversity in our congregations was “worship style/traditional liturgy,”
with 19% citing that response.
In summary, the LRC consultation revealed that for a vast majority of the
leaders in our denomination, there is general awareness that our policies,
practices, and behaviors reveal favoritism with perceived inequity along ethnic
lines, but such favoritism is mostly unintentional. Furthermore, while there is
a strong desire to see change in our midst, most are uncertain as to how to
move forward, but recognize the need for more resources, education, and
opportunities to engage in diverse environments.

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Specific Suggestions for Racial Reconciliation

One key part of the mandate that the General Assembly gave to this study
committee was to recommend concrete steps that sessions and presbyteries
might take in order to pursue racial reconciliation in their local contexts. Our
committee believes that the greater part of the progress we as a denomination
might make is at the local level. As congregations learn to live and love locally,
pursuing each other and valuing the diversity-in-unity that the Cross of Jesus
brings, we will serve as images for what God’s ultimate purpose is—to unite
all things in Christ (Eph. 1:10).
We do, however, also have some suggestions for General Assembly Agencies
and Permanent Committees. While we prize our “grassroots” orientation as a
denomination, we also believe that our polity teaches that the General
Assembly “represents in one body all the churches” and “constitutes the bond
of union, peace, and correspondence among all its congregations and courts”
(BCO 14-1). Thus, what happens at General Assembly—both during our
annual meeting and in the work of the various committees—affects the rest of
the church. Hence, racial reconciliation and justice must play out both locally
and nationally in our connectional polity.
General Suggestions
The 44th General Assembly had urged congregations and presbyteries to
“prayerfully confess their own racial sins as led by the Spirit and strive toward
racial reconciliation for the advancement of the Gospel, the love of Christ, and
the glory of God” (M44GA, p. 78). Our committee joins that previous
Assembly in urging such reflection, confession, and commitment. If the data
set from LRS shows anything, it appears that many of our teaching and ruling
elders believe that there is a minimal level of racism and racial sin presently
within our congregations and presbyteries. As was noted in that section, our
committee wonders how it is possible for elders to believe that remaining sin
is present in all of us and that (as Calvin noted) the seed of every known sin is
in our hearts, that racism is at least partially structural and hence generational,
and yet to believe that there is no racism or very little present in our
denominational life.
Part of the way, perhaps, to gain insight into the way that racism remains in
our congregations is to pursue cultural intelligence about our contexts and how
those contexts have shaped us. While reading books would be helpful in that
regard, undoubtedly the best way of gaining insight into the experience of
minority races in the PCA and in North America is to be in intentional
relationship with those from other races, ethnicities, and cultures. This is more

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than “having a black acquaintance” within one’s proximity; this involves

entering into a genuine relationship over the long haul where honest reflection
and communication might happen. Once our hearts and minds are engaged
with the real hurt and pain of others, we are shown the cultural blind spots that
cause us to sin against our brothers and sisters.
In turn, when we begin to see ourselves as we are—as sinners who commit
racial sin too—then we can begin to explore why we have sinned in this way.
Some of it is individual and personal; but much of it is structural and
generational. We have sinned as our forefathers before us. And part of the
biblical pattern is to confess our sins as well as our covenantal involvement in
the sins of the previous generations before us (Lev. 26:39-42; Ps. 106:6;
Is. 3:25; Is. 14:19-20; Dan. 9:5-7, 15; Neh. 1:5-7; Ezra 9:6-7; Luke 11:48-51).
We appreciate the sentiments expressed by the faculty of our denominational
seminary, Covenant Seminary, and underscore their 2017 statement on biblical
social justice. In particular we appreciate this understanding of racial
reconciliation:
Issues of racial reconciliation and justice are subsets of larger
issues that marginalize all kinds of people in our failure to
love God and love neighbor. Prejudices and ethnocentrism
fuel racism and many other forms of mistreatment of people
across various ethnic differences and socioeconomic strata.
However, application to the issue of racial sin against African
Americans is of particular relevance in the PCA, and the
United States of America in our long and sad history. It is right
to name it, repent of it, grieve it, and steward present and
future opportunities to make things right going forward.10
As an Assembly, we have done this, both in 2002 for our covenantal
involvement in the sins of chattel slavery and in 2016 for our covenantal
involvement in the sins related to the Civil Rights era. Some of our historic
congregations—most notably First Presbyterian Church, Montgomery,
Alabama; First Presbyterian Church, Jackson, Mississippi; First Presbyterian
Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Independent Presbyterian Church,
Memphis, Tennessee; and First Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia—have
considered their own covenantal and generational involvement in sins of
racism and have confessed. A few presbyteries have done the same. However,

10 “Covenant Seminary Statement on Biblical Social Justice,” (2017):

https://www.covenantseminary.edu/covenant-seminary-statement-biblical-social-
justice/.

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far too few congregations and presbyteries have taken a serious look at their
present sins of racism and their past involvement in racial injustice. It is hard
to imagine being a church in the American South, for example, from 1973 on
without having some racially-motivated sin of which to acknowledge, confess,
and repent.
Not only did our Assembly call us to confess and repent, but also to commit
ourselves to particular practices of reconciliation and justice that will show
how the Cross of Jesus brings the races together. In what follows, the
committee makes suggestions on practical steps that we might take.
Specific Suggestions for Congregations
There are a number of practical and creative ways to implement this shared
vision and theological commitment to racial reconciliation. The following are
merely suggestions and not prescriptions, for the ways that a local church
might move forward in the work.
Designate a season of prayer, lament, discernment, and discussion for your
session. Seek the Lord for a unified commitment to racial reconciliation among
the leaders of your church. Pray for “soft hearts and thick skin” at the very
beginning of this journey, a spirit of humility, and an openness to the
possibility that we’ve been wrong on the issue. Ask the Lord to give his
wisdom, insight, and conviction so that your leaders can celebrate evidence of
grace, repent of particular sins and failures, and pursue the fruit of repentance
in specific actions. Pray that the Lord would make your neighbors visible to
you because there are often representative people groups in our neighborhoods
that you have not really seen. This is also a good time to discuss each member’s
personal story with regard to racial self-awareness, shaping experiences/
influences, and ways that your past affects your present thoughts on race for
good or ill. This may take time, but be patient, prayerful, and expectant that
the Lord will hear your prayers.
Initiate Congregational Dialogue and Season of Prayer. After working through
these issues at the leadership level, seek to replicate something of that process
with your congregation. Whether through a congregational meeting, or a
ministry initiative, signal to your congregation that racial reconciliation is an
important matter in the Christian life that your church is going to explore and
address. Depending on the size of your church, you can invite members or
representatives in your church to share personally about their experiences of
racial formation, their hopes for the growth of your church, and the progress
that can be celebrated in your community. Invite ownership of the change you
seek in your church among your members. Your local church could invite

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guest speakers to address issues where your leadership senses a lack of

competency on certain issues. This is one place where the goodness of being a
connectional church can shine. A good goal in this corporate discussion is to
make the time about real people who are inside of, and outside of our churches.
Spend less time debating theories and ideas and more time discerning how
your church can love and care for the real people of your community. Spend
time thinking of ways that this conversation can be put into action by your
community. Whether you have small groups, community groups, care clusters,
or some other way of living in community, utilize those opportunities to foster
conversation and sharing.
Address Racial Reconciliation Through Liturgy and Preaching. In our PCA
churches, our deepest values are often reflected in the amount of “air time”
that we give to issues and themes during worship, particularly in the preaching
moment. Utilize these opportunities for the discipleship of your people through
the sermon series. Be aware of your liturgical choices and what they reflect
about your commitments, your desires, and the breath of your mission. This is
not as much about the style of your liturgy as it is about the substance of your
liturgy. We corporately repent of all manner of sins every Sunday and we
invite all of our people to confess together. Include sins of racism, partiality,
racial hubris, lack of love for neighbors, self-righteousness of a racial or ethnic
hue, fear of different people, and any other sins that disrupt racial
reconciliation.
As elders, hold one another accountable to shepherding racial reconciliation
into the lives of your members. When we sit with our people, we cover any
number of topics that relate to their life in Christ, their sin and need, their
spiritual formation, and their participation in the life of the church. This is also
a good time to shepherd our people into what may be a very different way of
life. As elders, we must encourage one another to ask the hard questions. How
our people are embodying the call of Christ to reconciliation and neighbor-
love is every bit as important as what they are looking at on their computer
screens when nobody is around or how they are loving their spouse. Invite
their honest thoughts. As Paul tells Titus: “Declare these things; exhort and
rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.” Use the word of God to
“reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching” (2 Tim.
4:2). Leaders in God’s church need one another to live a life worthy of the
gospel and to lead in a way that adorns the teaching of Scripture.
Gather data from your neighbors. We do not have to guess what our neighbors
are thinking on issues of race, ethnicity, and reconciliation. Many will gladly
share with us. It is a good idea to spend time learning from your particular

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neighbors, expressing your local church’s desire to be a reconciling force in

the community. This can be done through formal or informal means. You
could give your members a short questionnaire and ask them to find a few
neighbors who will respond to the form. You could also have a day of
hospitality, a community party where you invite your neighbors to eat, drink,
and connect. During this outreach, you could ask your guests to fill in a short
questionnaire as your church seeks to learn more about how you can love your
neighborhood. Gather this data and present it to your church with some
specific ways that your leadership plans to address the needs. Not only will
this have a positive impact on the way that your neighbors perceive your
church, but it will further catalyze your people and connect the ideas and
theory of racial reconciliation to actual neighbors that you long to win to
Christ.
Learn Best Practices From Other Churches. Local churches do not have to
reinvent the proverbial wheel when it comes to racial reconciliation. There are
other churches that are doing this work and seeing good fruit. Learn from these
brothers and sisters and gather some best practices that you can put to work in
your local context. Keep notes, share among your local church’s leadership
team, and think together on what you can implement in your church. Nearly
all of the PCA pastors who are fully engaged in this work would be delighted
to be of help if called upon. Again, this is a beautiful aspect of being a
connectional church.
Send Representatives of Your Local Church to Be Equipped for the Work of
Racial Reconciliation. In addition to the annual sessions at General Assembly,
there are conferences, cross-cultural institutes, and education opportunities
available for gaining a better understanding of how racial reconciliation can be
implemented. Your church might think about sending representative leaders to
one such opportunity to take advantage of learning from other believers and
teachers so that they can bring practical and creative ideas back home to your
local church. Not only will the investment in these members be appreciated,
but it will also help with leading your people to take ownership of the
responsibility to participate in this work locally. In many cases, the benefits
will far outweigh the costs of sending some of your people to learn over a
weekend.
Build Partnerships with Other Local Churches or Parachurch Organizations in
your Area. Many of our churches are surrounded by other churches and
parachurch organizations that are filled with brothers and sisters from different
walks of life and even theological convictions. Herein lies a wonderful
potential for catalyzing the work of reconciliation. It is a small step for local

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pastors and elders to form friendships with other local pastors and leaders in
their place who are culturally different. Over time, there will be opportunities
to serve our places together, to worship together, to fellowship together, to
pray together, and to build a relationship of fraternal love that models healthy
catholicity. Pray for these partners during your worship service and for your
shared kingdom work in your place. Such partnerships obviously call for
discernment and wisdom, but more often than not, it is a “mess worth making.”
This kind of partnership is a testimony to your neighbors of the reconciling
power of the cross. This is one of the ways that we can begin to embody the
prayer of Jesus in John 17 for oneness in our local context.
Support the minority-focused ministries overseen by MNA, MTW, and RUF.
The 44th General Assembly approved the establishment of the PCA Unity
Fund, which was created for the purpose of assisting ministerial candidates
under care with their presbyteries, to pursue seminary education for the
purpose of seeking ordination in our denomination. Congregations might
pursue restorative justice by dedicating a portion of their giving monthly or
annually to this fund. Likewise, congregations could focus on financially
supporting MNA’s ministries (e.g., African American Ministries; Haitian
American Ministries; Hispanic American Ministries; Korean ministries;
Native American and First Nations Ministries) and MTW’s recruitment of
African Americans for missions through the Reformed African American
Delegates (RAAD). Working with RUF in their minority outreach and
development, especially by way of financial support, will assist interns and
staff to be developed for campus ministry.
Specific Suggestions for Presbyteries
In order to coordinate efforts in regional ways, Presbyteries may want to
consider forming committees—either standing or ad hoc—for the purpose of
racial reconciliation. Such committees might focus on encouraging ruling and
teaching elders to grow in the knowledge and wisdom needed to understand
the issues and concerns that need to be addressed in order for deeper
reconciliation among races to occur. A committee could host days of training
and reflection on racial reconciliation and justice for the presbytery. It also
should work to invite crucial minority cultural perspectives to be shared as a
standing part of a presbytery meetings. This could happen not only by inviting
minority elders to preach at presbytery, but also by inviting minority elders to
presbytery any time there is a challenging issue facing the presbytery in order
to gain their perspective and wisdom. If a presbytery does not have minority
elders, they might invite others from outside the presbytery to share with them.
Above all, such a committee could continue to assess the diversity of the
presbytery. Such an assessment could identify problems that need to be

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addressed, develop guidelines and steps for use in the presbytery’s

congregations to promote the work of racial reconciliation, and assist the
presbytery in aspiring to become more diverse, reflecting both their own region
as well as the Kingdom of God.
Another suggestion for presbyteries is to become more intentional in
developing and recruiting minority candidates for gospel ministry. When
churches have staff openings, presbytery leaders can work to place minority
pastoral candidates in those churches. Further, when there is church planting
within the presbytery, the presbytery should encourage multi-ethnic
intentionality in that planting. When churches experience numerical decline
because of transitioning neighborhoods, presbyteries should press those
churches not to abandon their locations, but rather reshape their ministries to
reach the neighborhood and so become more diverse racially. Likewise, when
there is opportunity to start an RUF campus ministry, priority should be given
to historically black colleges and universities where there is opportunity to
reach a more diverse people group with the gospel.
Finally, presbyteries could foster racial reconciliation and cross-cultural
ministry through their examination of candidates for ministry. Especially, it is
vital that candidates for ministry understand the full background of PCA
history. It is not enough to be able to name the four organizations that lead to
the PCA’s formation nor to name the date and place of first General Assembly.
Candidates need to be able to talk meaningfully about the theological and
social contexts that led to the PCA’s founding.11 Credentialing committees
should also ensure that ministerial candidates are able to articulate the biblical
foundations for racial reconciliation—such as given in this report—so that they
might demonstrate that reconciliation is a Gospel imperative that flows from
the nature of the Gospel itself. As part of exploring a candidate’s sense of call
to a particular place, the credentialing committee might explore their
commitment to racial and cross-cultural reconciliation in their potential call,
especially if they are going to a work of revitalization. And when examining
candidates in the area of church discipline, committees might inquire whether
they see racism as grounds for church discipline, in line with what the 32 nd
General Assembly previously stated in its “Pastoral Letter on Racism.”
Specific Suggestions for Academic Institutions
Our denominational college and seminary have opportunities to shape the
future of our church by working to ensure that racial reconciliation and justice

11 To assist with this, see Sean Michael Lucas, For a Continuing Church: The Roots
of the Presbyterian Church in America (Phillipsburg: P&R, 2015).

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are woven into the life of their institutions in curricular and co-curricular ways.
In addition, through representing minority voices in faculty and administrative
hiring as well as board representation (below), academic institutions may
provide representation for minority leaders to shape the next generation with
the biblical-theological perspective offered in this report.
Faculty and administrative staff hiring. While our institutions have hired
minority faculty and staff, more must be done in order to develop minority
faculty and administrators. Working with students at the college level and
identifying those who would make solid graduate students, assisting them
financially in order to receive that training, and providing teaching
opportunities when they are ABD (all but dissertation completed) are all ways
to work toward minority hiring. In addition, the finding of qualified
administrative candidates, both those who are in agreement with PCA
doctrinal standards as well as those who are willing to work within those
standards, should be pursued as well. Minority faculty and administrators are
key for diverse student recruitment, and our educational institutions must be
even more aggressive in developing future leadership in this regard.
Curriculum development. Within the main undergraduate and graduate degree
programs that our academic institutions offer, faculty and administration
should consider how many textbooks are written by minority authors. Are
there any? If so, how many? Where might there be opportunities within the
curriculum for recommended readings by minority authors? In addition, in
curriculum development, are there opportunities for lectures or even whole
classes that would speak to the minority experience or viewpoint within a
majority world? In history classes at the undergraduate or graduate level, how
much time is given to the minority experience in America or to other global
cultures? How are students exposed to the biblical-theological, confessional,
and pastoral-missional perspectives offered in this report?
Co-curricular opportunities. In chapel services, special lectures, invited faculty
lectures, there are opportunities to expose students to minority voices that offer
different experiences and perspectives. In addition, field trips, partnerships
with local cross-cultural ministries, and dialogues with black church pastors
would provide valuable insight to seminarians and undergraduates alike.
Offering space for students to process race in the United States and Canada,
and our biblical response to standing with those who are oppressed or who
experience injustice, would also assist in shaping the next generation in
meaningful ways.

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Specific Suggestions for Committees and Agencies

In our system of government, the General Assembly does its coordinated work
through its Permanent Committees and Agencies. In order to foster diversity,
we make several suggestions.
Diversify staff with qualified minorities. This would involve staffing at every
level of a Committee or Agency. Presently, there is only one minority elder
who coordinates a Permanent Committee or Agency; as those positions come
open, search committees should intentionally consider and interview qualified
minority leaders who might fill those roles. At other levels of the
organizations, Permanent Committees that have oversight responsibility
should direct their coordinators to work to develop minority staff. Seeking
input from denominational minority leaders and networks could help yield
candidates for such positions.
Nominate qualified minorities to serve on governing boards of Agencies or on
Permanent Committees. These boards chart the direction for these Agencies
and will be made richer with the additions of other ethnic voices in the image
of Christ. For our Agencies that have boards that generally recommend their
own trustees, board leadership should ensure that diverse minority
representation is present. For Permanent Committees whose membership is
determined by the Assembly’s nominating committee, we urge the nominating
committee to be more intentional in placing qualified minority elders before
the Assembly for election to Permanent Committees.
As appropriate, consider partnering with other similar agencies outside of the
PCA who share our core distinctives and who represent ethnic diversity. There
are a number of denominations and networks that are working toward ethnic
diversity from whom we might learn. In church planting, working together
with the Acts29 network might assist us in learning how they have developed
minority church planters. In campus ministry, consulting with Campus
Outreach, InterVarsity, or Cru might assist in further insight in how they are
doing the work of cross-cultural ministry on our increasingly diverse
campuses. In education, as regional and professional accrediting allows,
determining how alternative approaches might foster greater diversity of
baccalaureate and/or seminary graduates should be explored.
Listen to other voices (than those in the majority culture) when planning PCA
calendar, events, and programs. For Assembly host committees, we should
ensure that there are minority elders and lay people involved in the work of
hosting our annual meeting. This would provide other perspectives on planned
women’s and children’s events to make sure that they are generally inclusive

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of the racial and cultural diversity of the commissioners; in addition, it would

allow worship planning committees to make sure that the platform speakers
present diverse ethnic voices in the ministry of the Word. Likewise, as
Committees and Agencies plan events, programs, and conferences, they might
do so with consideration to inviting minority keynote speakers, workshop
facilitators (on topics that do not necessarily deal with race) and general
representation on the staff and Permanent Committees. This would facilitate
greater awareness of and appreciation for the diverse perspectives on a variety
of topics within the denomination.
Summary of suggestions
As one can tell from the various suggestions, central to them all is
intentionality. Unless and until church leadership becomes intentional in
developing cross-cultural relationships and partnerships, fostering diverse
leadership, and elevating such leadership to platform positions, very little will
change in the life of our church. Once we recognize that our structures and
natural networks work against diversity in leadership, then we must become
intentional in forging new networks and producing new structures that will
involve all of our brothers in the connected leadership of our churches. The
larger goal in this intentional care of God’s people is that we might show the
world that this diverse body is united in Christ: “There is one body and one
Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and
through all and in all” (Eph. 4:4-6). May God make it so!
Committee Recommendations
1. That the General Assembly receive the report of the ad interim committee
on racial reconciliation and distribute it to the presbyteries and
congregations of our denomination.
2. That the General Assembly direct the Committee on Discipleship
Ministries to publish this report for sale and distribution, along with the
other actions of the Assembly related to racial reconciliation, especially
the actions of the 30th, 32nd, and 44th Assemblies, as the PCA’s statements
on the Gospel and racial reconciliation.
3. That the General Assembly direct the Committee on Mission to North
America to budget and plan for renewing the research with LifeWay
Research Services, or some other research service, to report back to the
51st General Assembly (2023) in order to establish a longitudinal study of
our denomination on the issue of racial reconciliation.
4. That the General Assembly dismiss the committee with its thanks.

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Respectfully submitted:
RE Sylvester Brown (advisory)
TE Carl F. Ellis, Jr. (voting)
RE Alexander Jun (voting)
TE Sean M. Lucas (voting)
RE Otis Pickett (advisory)
TE Jonathan P. Seda (voting)
TE Richie Sessions (voting)
TE Alexander Myron Shipman (voting)
TE Kevin M. Smith (chair)
TE Russell Douglas Whitfield (advisory)

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