143. A Chapter Called Fred Greco

So when folks open up to the RIO in the back, even before the contents are listed, there's this preparatory statement.

In keeping with the concept that the bylaws are designed for the conduct of the PCA in regard to civil matters, the RIO is designed to serve the GA itself as an ecclesiastical organization.

So care should be taken that these rules contain only that which is essential for the biblical and efficient operation of the GA ecclesiastically.

Between me and y'all and a bunch of people listening here, The civil relationship of the PCA and the ecclesiastical has always been a hard thing for me to parse through.

You know, Roy Taylor's got a little book out there.

I think it was Roy that wrote that little book, or has a paper at least on it, the relationship, the ecclesiastical relationships distinct from the civil.

Fred, can you help us parse through that prefatory statement? Yeah.

Um, we've got bylaws, which are later on in the binder, uh, for civil matters with RIO is for the GA. What's the distinction and the significance, you know, it may be in a practical sense or whatever, whatever's helpful.

Well, remember that the PCA itself is a corporation.

It is an incorporated body for civil legal purposes, much in the same way that not all, but almost all PCA churches are incorporated.

And Basically, bodies like the PCA and individual churches incorporate both for regularity and predictability, so that there's a body of corporate law that governs their decisions when they buy or sell property or borrow money, etc., and do these sorts of things.

Banks like to see corporate documentation rather than just unincorporated, random pieces of paper.

And so that helps there.

The other reason, of course, is a limitation of liability for civil matters.

But there is this duality here.

So in the same way, for example, when a congregation is going to buy a piece of property or mortgage a piece of property and they ask me, what should we do? I tell them that under our book of church order, they should have a congregational meeting in which they take a congregational vote on the property.

You can't sell property or make major property decisions, for example, without the consent of the congregation.

That is the communing members of the church.

But then I tell them what you ought to do is after you adjourn that congregational meeting, you ought to tell everyone to stay in your seats.

Don't move.

We're now going to have a corporate meeting.

And the corporation is the same people.

They're called different.

They're called members of a nonprofit corporation.

But every communing member of a congregation is a member of a nonprofit corporation.