The Founding Vision of the PCA: Derek Radney and Sean Michael Lucas
In a time of growing polarization within the PCA, questions about our identity have taken on new urgency. In this conversation with Derek Radney, historian and pastor Sean Michael Lucas revisits the denomination’s founding vision and considers how a clearer grasp of our past can shape an even more faithful future.
Conversations about the PCA’s future often hinge on competing stories about its past. Was the denomination founded as a narrowly defined confessional project that later loosened over time—or as a broad, evangelical, Reformed body that has largely remained true to its original impulse?
In the video below, Lucas walks through the historical record, unpacking how these narratives emerged, where they fall short, and what the PCA’s early debates reveal about who we have been since the beginning. As Radney guides the conversation, they consider how a more honest engagement with the PCA’s history might reframe present debates and clarify the church’s path forward.
Derek Radney: Derek grew up in San Diego, CA and Austin, TX. In 2005, he married Sally, and they have four children. He has served as a pastor at Trinity Church (PCA) in Winston-Salem, NC since 2012. He received a B.A. in philosophy from Wake Forest University (’04), an M.Div. from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (’07), and a Th.M. from Duke Divinity School (’12).
Sean Michael Lucas: Born in Stratford, New Jersey, Sean moved up and down the eastern seaboard as a child. He graduated from Bob Jones University (BA, 1993; MA, 1994) and Westminster Theological Seminary (PhD, 2002). He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 2003, then served on the pastoral staff of Community Presbyterian Church (PCA), Louisville, Kentucky, and Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA), St. Louis, Missouri. In 2009, he became Senior Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, where he served until coming to serve as senior pastor at Independent Presbyterian Church, Memphis, Tennessee in 2017.
Sean has taught at two theological seminaries. He is presently the Chancellor’s Professor of Church History at Reformed Theological Seminary, where he has taught since 2011. Prior to that, he was chief academic officer and associate professor of church history at Covenant Theological Seminary, where he served from 2004 to 2009.
Sean has also written many books, including On Being Presbyterian: Our Beliefs, Practices, and Stories (2006); God’s Grand Design: The Theological Vision of Jonathan Edwards (2011); J. Gresham Machen (2015); and For a Continuing Church: The Roots of the Presbyterian Church in America (2015). He and his wife Sara have four adult children: Samuel, Elizabeth, Andrew, and Benjamin.