At its General Assembly this year the Presbyterian Church in America by an extremely wide margin voted down Overture 37 from Pacific Presbytery seeking to allow the ordination of female deacons. Some in the denomination believe that this action was insufficient because a variety of overtures seeking to prevent “functional female officers” (FFO) were all “moved with reference” to Overture 37, which means that the specific content of these overtures was not voted on because Overture 37 was deemed by the General Assembly sufficient to deal with the issue of female deacons in the PCA. The argument of these voices is that a refusal to include explicit language in the Book of Church Order (BCO) preventing the use of quasi-ordination services for quasi-ecclesiastical offices, such as “commissioning deaconesses,” means that the PCA is unwilling to prohibit such practices, which these men deem unbiblical. Other voices in the PCA agree with these men as to the nature of the GA’s actions this year, but approve of what they believe GA determined: because the PCA did not explicitly prohibit such practices, these men have said, they are therefore allowable.

I would argue that both groups are wrong. The PCA has, in fact, now acted decisively to prohibit not simply the ordination of women to the deaconate (and eldership and pastorate), but also the use of female versions of officer titles in general. In this short article I will lay out the evidence for this claim.

At the GA in 2024 the Assembly voted to change the BCO to include the underlined statement in Section 7-3 of the BCO:

7-3. No one who holds office in the Church ought to usurp authority therein, or receive any official titles of spiritual preeminence, except such as are employed in the Scriptures. Furthermore, unordained people shall not be referred to as, or given the titles of, the ordained offices of pastor/elder, or deacon.

This is language from an overture that was first passed by the 2023 GA and then subsequently passed by two thirds of the PCA’s presbyteries over 2023-24. Its ratification at the 2024 GA made it officially binding for the denomination. The meaning of this sentence is straightforward and obvious: if a person does not hold a biblical office that person may not be referred to using titles for that office.

What does this mean with regard to quasi-ecclesiastical titles such as deaconess or shepherdess being applied to women in the church? There were no overtures to amend the BCO voted on this year that would explicitly prohibit such titles. But overtures are not the only means by which the Assembly may act. The GA restricted the use of quasi-titles (for functional female officers) in a different way. Review of Presbytery Records (RPR) is a committee of the GA that examines the required record keeping of all of the presbyteries in the PCA. Each church session is required to “keep an accurate record of its proceedings, which record shall be submitted at least once in every year to the inspection of the Presbytery” (BCO 12-7), just as “The Presbytery shall keep a full and accurate record of its proceedings, and shall send it up to the General Assembly annually for review” (BCO 13-11). The GA, then, is called “to review the records of the Presbyteries, to take care that the lower courts observe the Constitution” and “to redress whatever they may have done contrary to order” (BCO 14-6c). The GA does this by assigning its RPR committee to examine the minutes of each Presbytery.

RPR can recommend the Assembly approve a Presbytery’s minutes with an “exception of substance,” which means it appears the Presbytery has acted contrary to the PCA’s constitution. The Presbytery is then required to explain itself to the Assembly in the following year. This year RPR determined that Catawba Valley Presbytery had the following exception of substance:

May 17, 2025 (BCO 40-5; BCO 7-3) — Presbytery failed to cite the court next below of what appears to be an important delinquency or grossly unconstitutional proceeding (BCO 40-5). One of the courts next below acknowledged the existence of “deaconesses.” BCO 7-3 states “Furthermore, unordained people shall not be referred to as, or given the titles of, the ordained offices of pastor/elder, or deacon.” Deaconess is a feminized form of deacon.

The GA this year approved this recommendation of the RPR committee for an exception of substance. This means that the GA, the highest court of the PCA, has determined that Catawba Valley Presbytery appears to have acted contrary to the constitution of the PCA by failing to investigate a session for calling women in that church deaconesses. The RPR recommendation adopted by GA clearly considers the use of the quasi-title deaconess to be a “grossly unconstitutional” proceeding.

Simply stated, the significance of this is that the use of female forms of officer titles (and thus “functional female officers”) has been deemed unconstitutional by this year’s GA. What comes next? No overture explicitly addressing FFO made it to the floor of GA this year. None was needed. The issue has already been decided. The constitution of the PCA, with 2024’s changes to BCO 7-3 and the voting down of this year’s Overture 37, is crystal clear, as was affirmed by this summer’s GA in approving the recommendation of the RPR committee. The Bible is clear as well. Presbyteries need not send any more overtures on FFO to the GA. Instead, they should simply enforce the constitution: calling women deaconesses, or shepherdesses, or any such title, is not allowed.

In loving collegiality, pastors and elders at churches who currently engage in this practice should be encouraged by their fellow presbyters to bring the practice of their churches in line with the PCA’s constitution. Churches whose practice on this matter continues to run contrary to the PCA’s constitution should be directed by their presbyteries to cease such unconstitutional actions. In a spirit of joyful submission to the brethren, such actions should be sufficient. If they are not, though with sadness to be sure, the vow that elders in the PCA take to preserve the “purity and peace” (BCO 21-5) of the church necessitates that judicial process be instituted. Error tolerated inevitably becomes error accepted, then error enforced. “The exercise of discipline,” as BCO 27-3 states, thus “is highly important and necessary. In its proper usage discipline maintains: the glory of God, the purity of His Church, the keeping and reclaiming of disobedient sinners.”