PCC Renewal makes its presence known with a bold statement
In October 2025, congregations in the Presbyterian Church in Canada received copies of 55 Theses to The Presbyterian Church in Canada, a theological letter calling the denomination back to orthodoxy. It was written and distributed by PCC Renewal. On Dec. 4, 2025, LIT editor Andy Cornell talked at length with PCC Renewal’s council members Rachael Chen, Tyler Pettit and Brandon Meloche via Zoom. What follows is an edited version. It reveals how the Theses came together, the vision and motivation. It’s an insightful glimpse into the hearts and minds of three young and devoted believers. It’s filled with hope.
Andy: Why don’t we start out by just doing some introductions.
Rachael: I live in West Toronto. I go to Graceview Presbyterian and I’ve been part of the PCC since last summer, so it hasn’t been a long time, but I do love the Reformed tradition. I currently work as an illustrator/concept artist.
Andy: Tyler?
Tyler: I’m Tyler Pettit. I’m from Beaverton, Ontario. I go to St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Leaskdale. Right now I’m in Hamilton because I am a first year at Redeemer University. I’m studying for Bachelor of Arts – Honours in Theology and Philosophy. As for the PCC, I’ve been a part of it for around two years. I started going in the fall of when I was in grade 11. So yeah, that’d be just over two years ago. And I’ve been baptized in the PCC as well.
Andy: Young adult baptism is a really beautiful thing. Did you attend church growing up? How did you get to the point where you sought baptism as a young adult?
Tyler: So my family is Christian. My dad’s from a more Baptistic non-denominational background. It’s kind of all over the place. My mom’s side is Catholic, but I wasn’t really raised that Christian. My father was like, okay, I don’t want to force God and Christ upon him, wanting him to find it for himself. So he had a very Arminian Baptistic mode of thinking. I did have ideas about some things, but it was very nominal. One day I was on a trip with my grandfather. I was going to Ottawa with him, and I remember him asking me if I had placed my trust in and accepted Jesus Christ in my heart. I said yes, because I just wanted to make him happy. But of course, no, I hadn’t. I didn’t know what that meant. Guilt hit me hard. I remember being back home and just weeping. I was very guilt stricken by lying like that, and I asked my dad if we could go to a church. And turns out the church that we went to was Presbyterian. It wasn’t the Leaskdale one yet. So this was when I was like 11, and then COVID crept up. And before that, I sort of fell away, drifting back into being a nominal Christian. And of course, COVID really shut that down. Then we get to middle of high school. In the summer I started coming across the absolutely wonderful depth of God through theology which made me realize, “Wait a second, there’s a lot to think about”. And so theology really captured my attention. And then, of course, that led me to being really convicted, realizing Church is vital because with my dad’s background, he didn’t really raise me in a church. I was talking with friends, and they recommended St. Paul’s Presbyterian in Leaskdale. Went to the youth group, going strong. Met the reverend there. He’s an awesome guy. Then I realized, if I’m really serious about this Christian thing, well the right thing to do would be to get baptized. That’s how that happened. And I’ve been going strong since then.
Andy: All it took is that one question from your grandfather. He sounds Baptist.
Tyler: Yes, he would be more firmly Baptist.
The 24th January of 2017 is when I cried out to the Lord to save me from my problems. And then the very next day the 25th, which in the Western calendar is the commemoration of the conversion of St. Paul to show you how the good Lord works in mysterious ways. My second middle name is Paul too. – Brandon Meloche
Andy: Sometimes it just takes a bold question. Even among people you know, even trusted family, it’s tough to ask. Brandon, how did you become a believer?
Brandon: I am a lifelong resident of LaSalle, Ontario, which is a town right outside of Windsor, right across the border from Detroit, the southernmost bit of Canada. I have been a member of the PCC for a few months. I attend Lakeshore St. Andrew’s Church under the purview of Pastor Brian McGuffin, the new pastor there. I came to Christ in a pretty roundabout way. My ethnic and family background is French Canadian for the most part. So as you can imagine, that translates into growing up in a very, very traditional and conservative Roman Catholic family. So I was a practicing Roman Catholic for 17 of the first 19 years of my life, but I also lived two years as an atheist. That was a very dark period of my life. I came to faith by essentially reaching the end of my rope and asking the good Lord to show me mercy and help me take care of my problems. I did so not knowing that he would do just that. The following morning, I found my life demonstrably better, improved, and problem-free, if you can believe that. I remained in the Roman Catholic Church for about two and a half years after that because, at that time, I didn’t have any exposure to any kind of Protestant church at all. I thought that the message from God was, okay, you’ve come to faith in me, great, you need to be the best Roman Catholic there is. I tried as hard as I could, and, well, I’m sure you can imagine how that ended up. I ended up joining a non denominational church for the next six years. There, I was discipled by a group of wonderful elders. I’m still very close with many people who attend and work at that church. They were and still are very stoic, unapologetic, and principled on Biblical orthodoxy. I was especially grateful to that congregation for taking a wise, faithful, and biblical approach to protecting religious freedom from Government overreach during the COVID years. I came into contact with general Presbyterian theology through a friend of mine who has a pretty famous YouTube channel. His name is Matthew Everhard. He’s a pastor of a congregation of the Presbyterian Church of America in Western Pennsylvania. He turned me on to Reformed theology. He directed me to audit some seminary classes, which I did, and I loved every minute of it. I formally joined the PCC this past summer. The last thing I’ll say by way of introduction is that I’m an accountant by trade, which means I’m a huge nerd. I’m very, very interested in broader theological topics and in issues of church history, in interdenominational issues and that kind of thing.
Andy: Brandon, great testimony. You said the word atheist. So you grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, but were essentially an atheist?
Brandon: Well, I was raised in a nominal immediate family, but in a very devout and conservative extended family. My grandfather’s older brother was the first president of the Order of St. Basil, which is the priestly order that services every Catholic church south of Toronto. Both of my parents walked away from the faith at some point in their 20s, and they did not intend to raise me or my younger brother in the faith whatsoever. They didn’t teach us anything about the faith. They just outsourced that to the local Catholic school system. What ended up happening after about 13 years of that, after I got confirmed, they just said, “Okay, we’re not going to church anymore. If you want to go, you’re an adult in the eyes of the church now. You can go if you want.” The problem with that, though, was that I was 13 and couldn’t drive, so I stopped going. This essentially led me to doubting the importance of church, doubting the existence of God. That’s what brought on the atheism.
Andy: And then you reached the end of your rope. How old were you?
Brandon: I was 17. I can tell you the exact date. As a matter of fact, the 24th January of 2017 is when I cried out to the Lord to save me from my problems. And then the very next day was the 25th, which, in the Western Church calendar is historically the commemoration of the conversion of St. Paul, to show you how the good Lord works in mysterious ways. My second middle name is Paul too, so that adds another layer of God’s Providence. The 25th of January 2017 is when I came to faith, myself. It’ll be nine years in about seven weeks.
Andy: Happy birthday in advance.
Brandon: Oh, well, thank you. I appreciate that.
Andy: Yeah. Born again. Gotta love it.
Brandon: Amen.
Andy: Rachael, I know your faith journey, your faith walk. You’ve shared that. Do you find yourself telling people your witness story?
Rachael: Yeah, it’s come up a lot. I find it easier to share the testimony of how I became a Christian more than straight up just sharing the Gospel. But I think it’s important to follow up with the Gospel after sharing a testimony. I think in our day and age, it’s rarer to come across Christians who are very serious about what they believe. So, it’s increasingly countercultural now. I have had friends that ask me why I’m a Christian. That’s like the golden question every Christian wishes their friends would ask. So I’m always happy to share.
It’s good to be relevant; it’s good to transform, but when you’re not on the foundation of Christ, then what’s going to happen is you’re actually going to start to morph into what you are trying to witness to. – Tyler Petit
Andy: Yeah, you know, testimony could be so powerful. I mean, everyone loves a story. PCC Renewal is an offshoot of Operation Reconquista. Tell me how you came to be part of that. Was it Operation Reconquista first and then PCC Renewal?
Rachael: So I came across Richard [Ackerman’s] YouTube channel last January, so almost two years ago now, and was immediately fascinated. I feel like a lot of questions that I had but didn’t have the words for were answered on his channel. And he continues to put out great educational material that answers what young adults are wondering about these days. Soon I became pretty convinced of his mission, Operation Reconquista, and decided that I should discern which mainline church to join first. I discerned for about four months and then landed on being Presbyterian, which was an easy choice because I was already a Reformed Baptist. He kind of enlightened me to the fact that Reformed Baptists are not actually Reformed, and then I started the Instagram around July last year [2024] and just tried to research and make posts, educating myself, but also publicizing what the reformed tradition is really about, what the reformed tradition in Canada looks like in the PCC and the problems that it has. So that’s how things started.
Andy: And then PCC Renewal.
Rachael: Yes, I was in the Operation Reconquista Discord [chatting platform] first. And at that time the PCC denominational group was only a channel within the wider Discord. So there were only maybe 10 people. Tyler was there first and then we realized we needed to make our own Discord. And that also led to the Canadian Discord, which has the other Canadian denominations, Anglicans, Lutherans, Dutch Reformed. So we made those Discords this February and it’s been growing slowly and then we formally became incorporated in October, so just two months ago, just in time for our Theses.
Andy: Tyler, you, how did you discover Operation Reconquista?
Tyler: It was the same initial starting point. So Richard Ackerman, he puts out amazing content on YouTube. So yeah, he’s presented a case for holding onto mainline denominations. They are absolutely necessary, and we should not be leaving these; we should be trying to bolster them because of course, what can you build if you are going to keep separating? Separating means there is no long term assurance for much good. And so it took a bit, but I did become convinced so at first it was discerning on what church to go to. However, it took a while for me to really get convicted of Presbyterianism. Funnily enough, I was convicted of infant baptism and baptism having salvific power very easily, despite the Baptistic background. It was predestination that hung me up. So I almost became Methodist, but I did get to get to Presbyterianism and the verity of God’s sovereignty, which is expressed through predestinarian doctrine. So with that and then combined with mainlines, I thought, okay, how can we do something about this? And that Discord, that hub of like-minded people, was the starting point. So yeah, it was very small, not many active people in there at all that were part of the Presbyterian Church in Canada because Richard Ackerman, he’s based in America, so he has a lot bigger of an American audience. At that time I would have been still in high school. So even though I was the most active, to start up an organization, I thought to wait for someone older to come along. Then someone older did come along and that’s Rachael. So then we got it going, slowly growing. Started out as a very small Discord server, connecting with other Canadian like minded people across denominations. And then now we’ve gotten to a point where we’ve got a nonprofit and we’re starting to make some noise. So it’s been really encouraging just to look back and see where we’ve come from and where we are now and where we’re going to go.
Andy: And then PCC Renewal. Where did that come from?
Rachael: It was just a natural outworking because once you join Operation Reconquista, it’s not a formal organization, it’s just a wider movement and every denomination is expected to have their own branch. And so because the PCC branch didn’t exist yet, I thought, well, it has to. In order to do anything, we need to do it as a group. So that’s why I started the Instagram and things just grew from there.
Andy: Is it safe to say that you [Rachael] and Tyler are the co-founders of PCC Renewal?
Rachael: Yeah, we’re the earliest two people.
Andy: And so you guys have been working towards the 55 Theses. When did that appear to be a goal for you? When did you decide, okay, we need to do this?
Rachael: I guess we’re lucky in a sense that we sprung up much later than the other renewal groups from Operation Reconquista. They had already sent out their Theses in 2023 or 2024. And so we were just following their blueprint really, and we heard Richard talk about his results from that. We weren’t expecting huge change directly from it, but it seemed like a reasonable starting point to find allies and at least put our names out there and contact churches with these concerns as young people that might bring some attention. So it was a natural thing that I had in mind immediately once I started the Instagram.
Andy: A document such as this is not written overnight. Tell me where the inspiration came from and what it took to put it together.
Rachael: We looked at Luther’s theses, the other OR branches’ Theses (especially the European group, the Crossbearers), Living Faith, The Scots Confession, the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Barmen Declaration, and the PCC’s Human Sexuality Report of 1994. It took around 4-5 drafts, and in the middle we made a pretty significant shift to orient our document towards what we are for. Had 10 people give feedback, two rounds of reviews, with six core reviewers. We’re deeply grateful to everyone that helped us along the way. Despite our final Theses letter still being imperfect, it came a long way since the first draft.
Andy: I’m going to read the opening words from the 55 Theses: “Out of love for the truth and from a desire to elucidate it, we PCC Renewal, composed of members of the Presbyterian Church in Canada, intend to call the church to return to the Word of God as her supreme authority. We lament that the church is straying from the historic Christian faith in ever increasing degrees. We long for her to rediscover the joy of the Gospel, to be rooted in Scripture, and bear fruit in mission. We appeal to all those who share similar concerns to remain steadfast and not depart lest we further grieve the Holy Spirit through schism.” Key word. “We are open to discussion and correction on anything in this letter and invite all to dialogue with us.” Powerful words. And so what follows are 55 statements of Biblical truth, with excellent Biblical references. How long did it take you to craft that statement? There’s a lot in there.
Rachael: We started thinking about it in February of this year, but didn’t really start working on it until June and worked on it intensively over the summer. It was from June all the way to October.
Andy: You must have had multiple meetings. Did you start with 95 as an intent and then settle on 55?
Rachael: I wanted to keep it as short as possible because we know ministers are busy. So I didn’t have a number goal. I did not really want to reach 95. I think I just started out first reading Luther’s theses and the other reform branches, their theses, and started listing out all the things we were taking issue with. And from addressing those topics, it grew into its current form. I guess some could read it as a statement of faith. We got some very valuable feedback that helped us realize we shouldn’t just be known for what we’re against, but to advocate for things that the church is veering from. It’s veering from Biblical truth because it’s not emphasizing enough the things it should be for. So instead of just being a negative document of saying the church should not do this or should repent of this, it became much more of a document that was outlining what we wish the church would focus on once more.
Andy: Tyler, you were nodding your head there when it was the negative versus positive thing.
Tyler: Yeah, for sure. To be a movement. We can’t just be against the problems we see. We have what we’re for and whom we’re for – it’s Christ. We are for Christ. And we want the Christian message to really grow, really be spreading as much as possible because we are to bring the kingdom of God just little by little more to earth. So we want to be for Christ, not just against what we see as straying away. We need to be grounded in Christ and really united with him.
I think the PCC is reacting to problems of the past. There were real problems, but it has swung too far in the other direction, which I guess is something we see all throughout human history, just constantly over correcting the other side. – Rachael Chen
Andy: People are attracted by the negative. But if you want to encourage people, if you want people to come onside, you’ve got to be positive. That’s basic human nature. And so, yes, let’s talk about doctrine here for a second. You quote W.W. Bryden [in the Theses cover page]. “There is nothing more important than true doctrine, nothing more imperative to the life of the church than right belief.” Syncretism seems to be part of the operating thinking and language of so many ministers nowadays. No one wants to offend anyone. And so how frustrating is it for you that we don’t stick to doctrine, true doctrine anymore? We’ve drifted so far.
Tyler: It is a sad thing to see. It’s something that we definitely don’t want because we want to be centered on Christ. And what’s happening here is how witness is trying to happen. Witness needs a foundation in Christ. A faithful witness needs union with Christ through his Holy Spirit, so that we are related to God because Christ, truly divine, truly human, he is how we are able to really relate with God at all. And so, of course, the expression of that is the church based in your community. But of course, there needs to be more than that, and that’s a relevant witness. And what we’re seeing is that mainline denominations, especially The Presbyterian Church in Canada, want to be a relevant witness, which is great because we are supposed to transform the culture, but relevant witness needs to be grounded in faithful witness in Christ. Relevant witness without that is going to lead to what we are grieving about. And we see that in syncretism, problems such as regarding LGBTQ. It’s good to be relevant; it’s good to transform, but when you’re not on the foundation of Christ, then what’s going to happen is you’re actually going to start to morph into what you are trying to witness to. And so, what that requires is critical participation, rooted in Christ. And so when we do see unbiblical stuff, we need to critically participate in that, so that we can witness to that group. We need both faithful witness and relevant witness, and all based on Christ, through his Holy Spirit, and ultimately grounded in God himself.
Andy: I like how you say that. You know, the faith, the foundation, but the relevance too. Human nature is such that we want to be pleasers, right? But to morph into what we are trying to witness to, that hits the nail on the head. I think sometimes we want to be everything to everyone so as not to offend.
Tyler: That’s right.
Andy: Wasn’t the Gospel rather offensive in its day?
Rachael: I noticed that the church is trying to correct things that it disagrees with in the past. For example, some typical characteristics of Presbyterians. In Bryden’s book, “Why I’m a Presbyterian”, he admitted pretty clearly that Presbyterians are seen as very stodgy, proper, polemical people, people who perhaps did not love, because they were too focused on arguments. So I think the PCC is reacting to problems of the past. There were real problems, but it has swung too far in the other direction, which I guess is something we see all throughout human history, just constantly over correcting the other side. So, yeah, what Tyler said is really important – to stay grounded in God’s truth and not just changing what we believe in order to witness to other people. Because without a foundation in God’s word, we end up compromising the truth in the name of love. But love is not separated from truth. So I understand where the church is coming from.
Andy: We speak the truth in love.
Rachael: Exactly.
Andy: I’m gonna suggest all three of you might be considered born again. Is that fair? Rachel’s nodding, Tyler as well.
Brandon: Oh, absolutely.
Andy: Brandon, how did you find Operation Reconquista and PCC Renewal?
Brandon: So I was a distanced follower of Redeemed Zoomer for about two years before I joined up. The reason I even stumbled upon his Operation Reconquista originally is simply because the part of Canada in which I was raised is a very Catholic-dominated region. Of all of the people of faith down here in Windsor-Essex, the overwhelming majority – I would estimate over 80 per cent – are very staunch Roman Catholics. There aren’t many mainline Protestant churches that are open, let alone practicing biblical orthodoxy. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even meet any Protestants at all until I was 19 years old. I remember when I first started following Richard’s channel, it intrigued me because mainline Protestantism means something very different here in Canada than it does in the United States. The more I learned about theology, the more I realized that non-denominational Christianity is, at best, a very poor attempt at expressing biblical faith and, at worst, a failed attempt at expressing Biblical faith. Over time, I became acquainted with a number of more traditionally-minded pastors. I’m very good friends with the pastor of the oldest Lutheran congregation in my region, for example. My appreciation for Reformed theology, though, drove me in the Presbyterian direction. I joined PCC Renewal because of my interest in the Presbyterian Church and out of my desire to help out however I can, in the movement of retaking as many churches in this country as possible, and I am glad to have been able to do it using my professional skills as an accountant to varying degrees as well.
Andy: So the 55 These are out and distributed. How many actually got delivered by hand and how many were electronic? Do you have a rough idea?
Rachael: Around 50 were handed out in person and then by email it was around 700.
Andy: Have you had much response? Tell me about that.
Rachael: We’ve had some responses, unsurprisingly, not a lot of them, but it’s really sparked a lot of meaningful conversations and connections. And that’s really thanks to some in person deliveries because it seems that on top of the busyness when there’s not a lot of transparency or in person connection, ministers are not very inclined to respond. So it’s been about half negative, half positive, which is a better ratio than I expected. But it would make sense that those who disagree would probably not bother responding.
Andy: What were you expecting?
Rachael: I kind of expected more negative responses and just more responses in general.
Andy: Tell me about some of the negative. What was some of the content and the tone of that?
Rachael: Among the disagreeing emails we got, a lot of them were very curt. A lot of them just said, please remove me from this mailing list. And we got one very angry, effectively a cease and desist, sort of letter from a Session. And that was a real shocker because of how accusatory it was of us being harmful and damaging and how if we were to attach anything to their church again, they would take action. But then the positive ones were quite encouraging. A lot of the positive ones actually came not from the pastor, but seemingly an elder or perhaps a layperson who told us that they had been praying for renewal. The rest were positive ones from ministers. So those are the responses I got by email.
Andy: Interesting. Take action. That sounds legal.
Brandon: I believe they did use language like that.
Rachael: Yes, they did. [They said] “We would consider this to be harassment and potentially a targeted hate crime. And we would then consider taking appropriate action.”
Andy: Oh, my. I’d love to see what they would do. Because really, you guys are not doing anything different than what we’ve been doing for, Renewal Fellowship for what, four decades?
Rachael: But I think it might have been seen as a little bit more aggressive with the physical attachment rather than just dropping in the mailbox. So we’re going to keep that in mind. And Tyler, you can briefly mention the connections that we made from your side.
Tyler: Yeah, for sure. The best and most fruitful connections have definitely been in person, where you can really connect with ministers and other people that have some involvement in The Presbyterian Church in Canada. So that’s what I’ve noticed. I’ve reached out to a lot of ministers. I’ve been to a couple of conferences where I’ve met people that are interested. And we’ve moved forward, pursuing deeper relationships with those kinds of people and see how we can work together and how they can help us. I’m at Redeemer University, so I reached out to some of the professors, churches around the area in Hamilton here and of course my church back home, that kind of thing. It’s really in the personal connections that the most fruitful and deep relationships are built.
Rachael: And we got to hear from moderate ministers, which is something that’s been lacking in our review process. So learning from the moderate group, understanding that they actually compose the greater portion of the PCC, it helped us remember what really matters, which is to be more clearly what we are for and the essentials of the faith and the rest may follow.
Andy: Of 55 Theses, are any of them favourites? Do any of them really stand out in your mind?
Tyler: The very first one. Thesis number one. Beginnings are definitely the hardest, definitely the most important. And so we really worked out this one. “When our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ said I’m the way, the truth and the life, and commanded baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. He willed that we confess the one true God, the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, who alone deserves worship.” It is God whom we’re attempting to serve here. And that God is triune and that is how we relate to him. Because it is through the Holy Spirit in us, given by Christ, that unites us to Christ who bridges us to God. How we’re able to relate to God. So all blessings come from this reality of that. It’s the Spirit within believers within the church who is uniting us to Christ. And all good things come from God. So that is our feeble human attempt, but we want to be as focused as we can in our love for God in our desire through truth and love to witness to the denomination.
Rachael: For me, I have two favorites. I like number 25. “Therefore, the church must stand firm upon the Gospel and reject other false gospels.” Because the church has really drifted without clarity. Reality does have a lot of gray, but there, there are still some clear binaries. In refusing to reject false gospels, I think the church has strayed from the true gospel. And I like number 43. “Christ is the vine, we are the branches. The church only has value to offer the world insofar as she preaches Christ rather than contemporary trends or philosophies.” And I think that shows up in real statistics in which churches are actually growing. And it’s from my experience, a lot of PCC churches I’ve visited, unfortunately end on a social justice point as the conclusion of many of their sermons. Not just from my attendance, but from online research as I try to log churches on our database and do some research through listening to YouTube sermons. But the gospel is so much more than just a social justice related point. The gospel is so much deeper than that. And the church can’t grow if it doesn’t refocus on Christ.
There was demon worship in the temple. Did the prophets start a separate temple? No, they sought to reform it, which actually gives us hope. – Tyler Pettit
Andy: Amen. Brandon, how about you – any faves?
Brandon: Well, I happen to truly love all of them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t actively involved with their formulation due to other obligations while they were being written. However, I will say my favourite part of them, if I had to pick one, would actually be the Preamble, in the sense that it evokes the same spirit that Luther had and paraphrases him when he wrote his theses. So I like the preamble very much because it shows and really puts in center field the necessity to base everything that follows on truth and the desire to make that known.
Andy: Yeah, we know that at many secular universities today, it’s almost expected that there is – Well, it’s taught that there’s no such thing as truth. Right. It’s all relative.
Brandon: Oh, indeed. I unfortunately had to go through about eight years of secular education, so I am very intimately acquainted with that.
Andy: And so what’s next for PCC Renewal? You put a tremendous amount of work into the 55 Theses. You are incorporating, you are establishing yourself. You’ve got an amazing website, you’ve got an Instagram presence.
Rachael: So we are hoping to create a few more educational posts next year, either in slideshow format for Instagram, as we’ve done before, or on YouTube. We did post our first ever reel, which is a short video on YouTube. But there’s a lot more that we still need to research in order to put out substantial material that’s actually helpful. There’s a lot of study that we have to do. We also want to host at least three webinars on our Discord, to increase engagement there. So we’re hoping to just continue to make connections, reach more people online as well, and spread informational material that will increase people’s awareness of the goodness of the reformed tradition, and why the PCC is still worth saving and restoring.
Andy: The PCC is worth saving. Why is it worth saving?
Rachael: It’s just one of the churches that came directly from the Reformation, from the Church of Scotland. And it’s great that in Canada we haven’t had huge schisms yet the way that the PCUSA has had in America. We have our confessions. They’re such treasures of reform doctrine. And we built universities and charities and these things that have really stood the test of time and continue to contribute to Canadian society. This church is just full of beautiful history, tradition, rich theology and liturgy that’s just so precious. It’s irreplaceable.
Andy: Beautiful.
I think we’re in it for the long run. I think at least 30 years. But who knows? We pray that God hastens the day. – Rachel Chen
Tyler: I see it has the potential to have the strongest foundation to witness to the nations. The mission of a church, the mission of Israel, was to be God’s firstborn to witness to the nations. As we can see through history, when the PCC and when mainlines in general really have their strong foundation in Christ, we made Dalhousie, we made Queens… Oh, my goodness. All these things that can transform culture, what happens when we separate? Well. You lose so much of that. Yes, we are becoming more theologically liberal. We’re definitely going to become more theologically liberal when theological conservatives leave, because you’re left with theological liberalism. So then what happens when those offshoots get a little too liberal? How can they, to the best extent, witness to the nations without transforming culture consistently? And so we see reform as more biblically faithful. And of course there’s examples in scripture. There was once demon worship in the temple. Did the prophets start a separate temple? No, they sought to reform it, which actually gives us hope in that. Are we worshiping demons in the PCC? No, there’s a lot of hope here because clearly the Temple did get better [at times], even though they were so far gone. The New Testament church was at one point blaspheming the Eucharist. We aren’t doing as bad, so the church can recover the institution that really goes back to the apostles. It can recover and it can provide the most faithful witness to the nations. And that is why we’re staying, for what we see is the most biblically faithful way to serve the mission of the church.
[Brandon had to mute at this point and was not able to contribute further]
Andy: Final word, what’s the vision?
Rachael: Our vision is to see our generation realize the beauty of Presbyterianism, or other mainline traditions, to come to a deeper understanding in their faith, of God, of what it means to be the church in the world. We see a lot of problems in non-denom churches such as veering into emotionalism or being self-centered or individualistic in some ways where it’s not really focused on bringing heaven to earth. And we just hope to see this generation care about the church not just in how it serves us as believers, but how we can serve the church and through the church, serve the world. We yearn for a deeper, grander view of what it means to be a Christian, to be spread among our peers.
Andy: Thank you. Tyler?
Tyler: To fulfill that mission of bringing Christ to the nations. And so the denomination is very important, the church as an institution. And then what we can do is branch off of that, that foundation in Christ, through the grace of God, to bring salvation to the nations, bring this Good News that we really are here for. We get the wonderful task to make Earth just a little bit more like Heaven.
Andy: Any predictions as to how long it’ll take if the vision holds and God-centered orthodoxy transforms the church and progressive liberal churches naturally die and that the denomination returns to orthodoxy?
Rachael: I think we’re in it for the long run. I think at least 30 years. But who knows? We pray that God hastens the day.
Photo credits: Rachel Chen
Great work from the PCC Renewal