When PCA ministers leave for other denominations, where do they go? Our friend Zack Groff has tracked this and takes a slightly different approach in his analysis than do we. He uses more peaceful/less peaceful to describe the receiving denominations. We will use the flawed left/right descriptor.
For our purposes left will basically mean less doctrinally precise and/or more egalitarian than the PCA. Right indicates denominations more doctrinally precise or socially conservative than the PCA. Far fewer congregations leave for other denominations than do ministers, thus the ministerial numbers are more significant than the congregational data. Here is the section of the General Assembly minutes from 2023 that reflects ministerial moves in 2022:1
The data suggests that when PCA ministers leave, they go left. More than half of the leavers went to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC - 9)) and ECO (A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians - 2) are less concerned2 with confessional Reformed doctrine and both allow women elders and pastors. The same is true for the hard-to-categorize Anglican Church in North America (ACNA - 1). And the Episcopal Church (1) is simply a liberal mainline church. It should be noted that all of these “left” denominations (Except the Episcopal) were late 20th/early 21st-century institutions meant primarily to serve as landing zones for “conservative” refugees from the mainline.
Four of the ministers transferred to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP). We believe that transfers to or from the ARP indicate nothing—except for the option for ordained women deacons there are few differences between the ARP and the PCA.
We would say that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is more doctrinally precise and even less prone to egalitarianism than is the PCA, but only two PCA ministers transferred there. The more “fundamentalist” Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC) received but one PCA minister.
(As for the single Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches transfer, we do not consider the CREC to be a legitimate denomination though they would sure consider themselves to the “right” of everyone in some ways. Concerning the Korean transfers, we simply don’t know enough about them to say anything.)
Isn’t it good that egalitarian or less confessional ministers leave?
The rightward transfers are numerically insignificant. The leftward moves are interesting. There is no hemorrhage of ministers in any direction but there is a dripping leak to the left. It may be asked, “Isn’t it good that egalitarian or less confessional ministers leave?” We would answer in the affirmative, but we’d also note that the precipitating change in convictions probably didn’t arrive with lightning-bolt speed. The number leaving left suggests that men with egalitarian convictions operated in the PCA for a number of years before departing. This is all the more evident when you consider the fact of continuing “gender confusion”3 in the PCA.
We know anecdotally of more leftward transfers (either completed and not reported, or in process) of PCA ministers, including one to the mainline PCUSA. #JusticeForMachen!
Again, for a more thorough (and possibly more charitable) analysis see Zack Groff’s work.
by Brad isbell
Any careful observer of the minutes over several years will note that this section is somewhat inaccurate, sometimes lagging time-wise, and is necessarily dependent upon accurate reporting from lower courts and individuals. The transfers for the three previous years were more balanced than those in 2022. The way to find this data is to open the minutes (found here) and search the text (ctrl-f) for “ministers dismissed.”
The EPC uses the Westminster standards but qualifies their adherence to them with their motto In Essentials: Unity. In Non-Essentials: Liberty. In All Things: Charity. This leaves room for female elders/pastors and the expression of the so-called charismatic gifts in some of their congregations. ECO retains the Barthian Declaration of Barmen and qualifies their confessional standards with “Essential Tenets.”
There's another option.
The PCA histically has had more M.Div.s than pastoral positions.
The EPC (as an example with which I am familiar) has more churches desiring Confessionally Reformed ministers than it produces. This has always been the case, but has become even more acute since the huge influx of churches from the PCUSA approximately 10-15 years ago.
As the ministers who came out 9f the PCUSA retire or move, those churches are most decidedly NOT going to call some guy who attended a PCUSA or other mainline seminary. They tend to look for ministers who are Reformed and well-educated.
Where does one find such men? They are largely graduates of RTS, Covenant, Westminster, etc. Who overwhelmingly attends those seminaries? People in or from the PCA. Where does a church find such a man, especially if he is a seasoned minister? Existing PCA churches.
I was a member of my EPC presbytery's Ministerial Committee for years. As an RTS man, I encouraged churches looking for ministers to look to call men from those seminaries. They usually found them in the PCA.
The EPC is in a constant state of flux. The continual inflow of congregations from the PCUSA from the EPC founding in 1981 to the present day means that there has been a continual in-migration of less-than-confessional churches and ministers. The congregations typically (re)discover Reformed theology in that process, and usually select future ministers who are more confessional than the ones they arrived with.
At least in regard to PCA men going EPC, I would suggest that what you are seeing isn't necessarily ''left-moving'' clergy so much as men to whom denominational loyalty to the PCA isn't a core conviction. In my experience, they are very often men who remain confessional but for whom being PCA is less important than having a good call to a confessional congregation regardless of its affiliation.
(Bear in mind that - on paper - EPC and PCA vows and subscription rules are identical. And if a congregation & presbytery affirm male-only officers, then the difference between EPC and PCA is virtually nonexistent at the local level.)
HEAVENS TO MERGATROID! EXIT, STAGE LEFT!