Jesus Calling: How I Got It Wrong – A Surprising Narrative.

Editor's Note: The views expressed by the author are not necessarily the views expressed by Ref21 or the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.  

After 25 years serving the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), a rather scruffy, nobody pastor is watching what the PCA will do in June at the 52nd General Assembly. In 2014, he encountered Jesus Calling, written by Sarah Young– a career missionary for the PCA. As have many, he took offense at pages and pages of Jesus speaking anew– an imposter, a counterfeit. Foolishly, he ignored his responsibility as a Teaching Elder; arrogantly, he assumed the PCA would be too ungodly to care. At least, not as godly as himself. The idiot didn’t do anything.

Last year at the PCA’s General Assembly, he finally did something. He brought an overture against the book. It was amended by the Overtures Committee, advanced to the Assembly’s floor, tensely debated, and passed by a 5% margin. The PCA officially asked the question about Jesus Calling. Now the PCA will act on the answer. What will the PCA do in June?

Will Jesus Calling fly under the radar? It has for twenty years.The older cohorts of PCA elders are not ignorant. Perhaps silence seemed prudent. They ignored it. Surely Young’s soliloquies- from-Jesus only ephemeral Christian kitsch. Others approved it. Former moderator of the General Assembly Charle McGowan reviewed and praised the first manuscript, but told the author, “I doubt very much if you’ll be able to find a publisher for it.” Will the PCA claim it now?

Twenty years on, the Jesus Calling series has sold 45 million copies in 35 languages– children’s editions, even a Jesus Calling devotional Bible. The PCA’s own ByFaith magazine repeats the publisher’s claim that Young is “the bestselling Christian author of all time.” Outside the PCA, evangelicals have attacked it as New Age Occult channeling. Inside the PCA, there had not been significant public controversy. In 2012, Kathy Keller criticized the book as displacing the sufficiency of Scripture. PCA Pastor Todd Pruitt along with OPC minister Carl Trueman offered  criticism along the same line in 2014. Will the PCA just try to make it go away in June?

When overture #33 passed last summer, all observers were surprised, even shocked. I was the most shocked. I’m that pastor. I'm that idiot, that idiot repenting ten years later. Overtures are how the PCA fixes things. I had no earthly expectation my overture would be received, or amended, or debated on the Assembly floor– let alone passed. What on earth happened? This series of four articles seeks to explain the confusion that surprisingly failed to scuttle my overture's purpose. That purpose is on the docket for the 52nd General Assembly in June.

Error of Expectations

In the Presbytery

I penned my overture as an act of repentance, with no earthly reason to expect success. I knew it had been ignored for 20 years. My overture was subject to two readings at quarterly stated Presbytery meetings, and only three men in the presbytery even discussed it with me. At the time of voting, no speeches for or against were offered. More words from me were superfluous, and no other member stood to speak. When it was defeated on the floor of presbytery, I was surprised by a 25% minority. That much support in my presbytery exceeded my expectations.

A rarely noticed rule allows a lone Teaching Elder to submit an overture directly to the General Assembly-- if it has been considered and rejected by his presbytery. I also knew that, per Robert's Rules of Order, a motion to postpone indefinitely can quash that opportunity. Given that three micro-popular PCA podcasts had done hour-long segments on my overture, I wondered if a proper use of RRO might end the mechanics of my repentance. It did not; thus, with no earthly expectation and a bit of embarrassment, I submitted my overture to the Stated Clerk's office.

In the Overtures Committee

The Overtures Committee (OC) was 135 men. OC deliberates and recommends a final action to be taken by the General Assembly on each overture. They are not shy in recommending that an overture be summarily rejected. They can amend an overture as part of delivering it for the General Assembly’s decision, but the larger body cannot amend. A minority of OC can offer an alternative course of action, but the larger body cannot. OC recommends an action; the Assembly votes yes or no on that specified recommendation.

I didn't expect even the surprising minority which I saw in my presbytery. Their deliberations would be far more substantive, as their work is more decisive. They can’t kick the can down the road. OC reflects the breadth of the PCA, being composed of two elders from each of the presbyteries across the nation. I expected that they would toss Overture #33 as the product of some crazy from some corner.

I was not present for the OC deliberations, and I do wonder how they went from point A to point B instead of the opposite direction. The committee set aside entirely my requested course of action; instead, they called for reports regarding the book from the Committee on Discipleship Ministries (CDM)  and Mission to the World (MTW). They omitted any reference to idolatry in the Westminster Standards, the bulk of my rationale, but fulfilled my purpose by requiring both agencies to answer specific questions about the book at the next General Assembly. The amended overture was sent to the Assembly by a vote of 80 to 53 (with two abstentions), 60% affirming my personal overture. What on earth explains this?

Surely, this was beyond not only my own wildest hopes– it was beyond the sober expectations of anyone familiar with the PCA General Assembly's history. A tiny number of sessions or individual Teaching Elders have turned the crazy from their corner into overtures submitted to the General Assembly-- despite their presbytery's rejection. All have died in the Overtures Committee.

I believe the only similar case in 51 years– similar in no other respect– was the Personal Resolution on Civil Rights Remembrance brought to the 43rd General Assembly. Yet, it was returned to the two authors for perfection and resubmission to the 44th GA. The Jesus Calling Overture wasn't returned for perfecting. It was amended and sent to the Assembly for action.

The single point of similarity-- arising from a single Teaching Elder and not a Presbytery-- is enough to provoke gawking. The OC sent an overture from a single Teaching Elder to the Assembly floor for a vote. Never has this happened before. Never has a single blade of grass sprung up to bud on the floor of General Assembly. It is historic by being anomalous.

On The Assembly Floor

I had no earthly expectation of listening to a debate of #33 on the floor of General Assembly. (Video of the floor debate is available online, starting at time 2:41:30.) My surprise was affirmed by the OC chair in his rationale for offering the overture with such substantive amendment:

"There was little to no chance the original overture would have any chance of discussion [on the Assembly floor] . . ."

Contrary to my own, and I dare say others', general expectation, the committee offered the amended overture to the end that ". . . we could enjoy the fruits of what this overture is seeking to bring about."

Why were my expectations so wrong-- especially about the Overtures Committee and on the floor of the Assembly? I do think the amended overture provided a responsible course of action, although it diverged dramatically by dropping my concern for the Second Commandment. While I continue to affirm the technical accuracy of the case made in the whereas clauses of my original overture, I concede that my argumentation was apparently irrelevant– to my presbytery, to the Overtures Committee, to the Assembly and to the PCA in the broadest scope.

The OC chairman's speech and the action taken by the Assembly provided no additional explanation. In his summation, the chair seemed to assume that the rationale was so commonly obvious to the Assembly that it need not be specified. The amended overture directs two agencies to report on their history with Jesus Calling, and directs CDM to provide "a general recommendation about its appropriateness, and I imagine we can all assume what that will probably be." Apparently, we all have something against this book.

There is a significant portion of the PCA that will disagree. This is why Teaching Elder Steve Young, in his manly advocacy on the Assembly floor for his wife's writings, warned that the action was "potentially divisive." Would such possible polarization be well grounded?

The insufficient premises of the last 20 years, which I will address in my next article, were repeated on the Assembly floor. With that public reasoning, the amended overture passed by 5%. I was surprised. I believe most were surprised. I also believe that the rehashed arguments cannot account for the General Assembly acting beyond all expectations. Something more significant is involved. Was 55% of the Assembly wiser than articulated during the floor debate?

When Expectations are Exceeded

I didn’t expect this to be more than a blip at one General Assembly, much less two. I really thought that I was only doing the right thing, ten years late, repenting because shame at my previous inaction was honest. Jesus Calling was not debated in my Presbytery-- not a word, and about 25% voted for the overture. I thought the Overtures Committee would see it as a waste of time. No commissioner arriving at the 51st General Assembly expected to see the time for debate extended on Jesus Calling. The Assembly actually enacted my purpose. In the procedural history of the PCA (that's a Presbyterian thing), such an event has never happened. What sound reasons can account for it?

With the earnest initiative of no group (there are no factions), nor committee (the PCA is grassroots), nor any prominent figures (not even among equals)-- the General Assembly took a controversial action. The PCA even got bad press for it from Christianity Today. A single elder of no importance moved the denomination to action by merely following the Book of Church Order. What can account for the rarest form of what our polity considers bread and butter?

I bet the Gospel Reformation Network and the Alliance for Mission and Renewal would both like to bottle it. Maybe you can't bottle the middle, any more than the ministry. This was the middle, not lobbied toward (or away from) either ditch. It is incumbent to recognize that the PCA's middle determined to assess Jesus Calling's fitness for use by Christians, and to inquire about the book's history in the denomination's discipleship and world missions efforts. I got it wrong. Did the middle?

The language of political factions truly is not fitting for a Christian church. It's not the kid sitting in the middle seat to whom the callous teacher yells, "Keep your hands and heads in the window, I don't want to be hosing off the splatter." There are tendencies, and there are free-standing organizations, and there is the middle of the PCA. On this occasion:

A don't-teach-your-exceptions, pointy-headed, confessional

nobody, clearly preoccupied with the Second Commandment

only exceeded the role of any nuance-nuancing, missional,

innovator, so soberly-grappled-with-the-grappling-of-context

by being the donkey #33 road in on.

What can account for that rude and stinky little donkey, being warmly welcomed and well-washed (and maybe they pulled a fast one with a Shetland pony) by the Health Department? And what can account for the town's spontaneous Thursday afternoon parade-- when none of the ranchers, or veterinarians or even the glue speculators showed up? The reasons trotted out so far will not account for any of this. The middle accounts for it.

Jesus Calling: I got it wrong. My expectations of the process were wrong. I think the smart people in the PCA got it wrong. In my own way, along with them, I put forward true but irrelevant arguments. Even piled up and lit aflame, they cannot account for the measured yet real dissatisfaction with the book. Maybe what happened at the 51st General Assembly was good mule-sense: "What is that thing? Dunno, just don't eat it."

℈ ℈ ℈ ℈ ℈

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,

than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

Hamlet Act I, Scene v.

Part 2, “Jesus Calling: How They Got It Wrong” will trace the inadequacy of arguments against the book over the last 20 years. This is important lest the PCA take inadequate action about Jesus Calling at the 52nd General Assembly in June 2025.

Benjamin Inman is Ph.D. is a graduate of Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He and Anna are members of First Reformed Presbyterian Church in Durham, NC.