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For the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) - I’m the teaching elder who requested debate on Overture 11 (study bitcoin) at General Assembly yesterday. Debate on that overture quickly met its demise through a parliamentary bunker buster, but here’s what I would have said if the moderator had called on me to speak to my request #pcaga #PCAGA25 :
With Overture 11, I humbly encourage the three courts of our church to study the important savings technology called Bitcoin. The heavenly mission of the church ordinarily runs on earthly resources, not least money. According to BCO 9, diaconal ministry includes financial stewardship and is overseen by the elders, sometimes even carried out by them. Financial stewardship is critical to the mission of the church, and we’ve already spent a significant amount of our time at GA debating it.
One of the major stressors of ministry and of the Christian life and apparently of this G.A. is money. It is increasingly difficult to pay ministers, support missions, or buy buildings. Many of our people and our churches are deep in debt. Many of us are worried about saving enough for retirement.
The US dollar is perhaps the greatest paper money in the world, and yet, since the PCA’s first GA in 1973, the dollar has lost nearly 90% of its value. As with every country in the world, America’s debt is inescapable. The only realistic path forward is much more money-printing, and with it higher prices for our churches and ministers and missionaries.
I’m not speaking to the motives or character of government officials….Our money itself is deeply broken. Our struggles around agency budgets and costs of living increases are not entirely or necessarily our faults.
The pain and destruction that come with monetary debasement is why multiple US states (including my presbytery’s great state of Texas), over 100 public companies, and eight nations (including the US) are saving wealth through Bitcoin strategic reserves.
Bitcoin was invented as a digital solution to the ancient problem of debasement. Because it is decentralized, widespread, and secure, it has a reliable fixed supply, and it can be sent easily and cheaply by or to Christians all over the world, even if they are unbanked or financially persecuted.
It is the only digital asset that the @SECGov has recognized as a commodity. @BankofAmerica recently noted that Bitcoin is as important an invention as the printing press, the light bulb, and the internet.
As Jesus said in Luke 16, when it comes to handling wealth for the sake of a greater mission, the sons of this world are often more shrewd than the sons of light…but this need not be. I suggest that Bitcoin could very well be one aspect of the church’s faithful and wise stewardship in a digital world marked by monetary debasement and financial persecution.
So I commend overture 11 and encourage our churches and denomination to look into this revolutionary global savings technology for the sake of more fruitfully fulfilling the great commission.
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