I did not see the video feed on the floor debate at the PCA General Assembly, but I understand that R.C. Sproul Sr. argued there that putting FV guys on the study commission would be akin to putting the defendant on the jury. Okay, so let’s take that as our model of what the proceedings were supposed to be like.
If it were simply a study committee, then you would expect to get the various perspectives, a majority report and minority report and so on. If it were a judicial proceeding, then you would not expect that — in that context, R.C.’s comment makes sense. But of course, in order for a judicial proceeding to make to the floor of GA, other things would have had to have happened first — little things like charges, proof, trials at presbytery, that kind of thing. But let’s leave that aside for the nonce.
Now I believe that it was the former, a study committee, and so I advance the argument that the committee was as stacked as . . . as . . . as, I don’t know, stacked things. But what happens if it is the latter? A jury, not a study committee? That presents me with another argument, and this one is actually far more potent than the argument I ought to have. Study committees sit around in the library. Juries handle the lives and reputations of others. And so of course, you exclude the accused from the jury. You also exclude men who are hostile to the accused, and who are out to get them. You exclude the personal friends of the accused, and — because Almighty God inhabits the highest heaven and considers the ways of men — you also exclude the professional adversaries of the accused. The point of a jury is to find disinterested parties, who will listen to both sides, and make a determination. Instead, what do we have? So the committee was a jury. Did it meet the biblical standards of justice for the composition of juries? Ha.
As a study committee, the PCA Ad Interim committee was stacked and risible. But if you want it to be a jury, it was far worse than that.