Presbyterian Church in America

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Presbyterian Church in America
Classification Protestant
Orientation Conservative Reformed Evangelical
Polity Presbyterian
Origin December 1973
Birmingham, Alabama
Separated from Presbyterian Church in the United States
Separations none
Associations North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council; National Association of Evangelicals
Statistics
Congregations 1345
Members 338,873
Statistics for 2006; Source: www.pcanet.org[1]

The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is a Protestant denomination, the second largest Presbyterian church body in the United States after the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). The PCA professes a strong commitment to evangelism, missionary work, and Christian education. The church declares its goal to be "faithful to the Scriptures, true to the reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission."

Contents

[edit] History

The origins of the PCA lie somewhat in a re-alignment of American Presbyterianism, which since the Civil War had generally been divided along North-South lines – the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA) and the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), respectively. Movement towards a national merger (which eventually occurred in 1983) had begun to take shape by the early 1970s, and was accelerated by the decision of many dissident conservative congregations to withdraw from the PCUS.

In December 1973, delegates from 260 congregations (over half of them from Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina) that had left the PCUS gathered at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in suburban Birmingham, Alabama, and organized the National Presbyterian Church. After protests from a UPCUSA congregation of the same name[2] in Washington, D.C., the denomination at its Second General Assembly (1974) called itself the National Reformed Presbyterian Church, then adopted its present name the next day.

According to the PCA's official website, it "separated from the PCUS in opposition to the long-developing theological liberalism which denied the deity of Jesus Christ and inerrancy and authority of Scripture." Additionally, the PCA espoused a complementarian interpretation of Scripture regarding the matter of women in church offices, excluding them from the offices of elder and deacon, whereas the PCUS had begun accepting the ordination of women over a decade earlier. According to PC(USA) author Rick Nutt, a less explicitly stated motive that was likely also influential in some quarters was the dissatisfaction with the PCUS's general opposition to the Vietnam War and support of the civil rights movement and the Equal Rights Amendment.[3]

The mid-1970s witnessed the PCA's first significant acquisition of congregations outside the South, when several conservative UPCUSA churches in Ohio and Pennsylvania joined the PCA. This move was precipitated by a case regarding an ordination candidate, Wynn Kenyon, denied by the Pittsburgh presbytery because of his refusal to support women's ordination to either the ministry or eldership (the presbytery's decision was upheld by the UPCUSA General Assembly).

More significantly numerically, though, was the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod merging with the PCA in 1982. The RPCES had been formed in 1965 by a merger of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (an offshoot of the Bible Presbyterian Church) and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod. The latter body maintained a direct historical tie to the Scottish Covenanter tradition. The RPCES brought two important things: a more nationally-based membership, and a college and theological seminary, the latter of which the PCA did not officially have up to that point, relying instead on independent evangelical institutions such as Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. However, it must be said that RTS received its initial support at the time of its founding in the mid-1960s by PCUS pastors and churches that would ultimately join the PCA, so in a sense, RTS served as the PCA's de facto seminary. One notable figure from the RPCES was evangelical cultural theologian Francis Schaeffer.

Also that year and in 1983, on the eve of the UPCUSA's and PCUS' merger into the current Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), several PCUS churches that had originally decided to remain loyal in 1973 opted to defect to the PCA (some others joined the recently-formed Evangelical Presbyterian Church, unrelated to the 1950s and 1960s body of that name). A clause in the Plan of Union between the two mainline bodies allowed dissenting PCUS congregations to refrain from joining the merger and to join the denomination of their choosing.

These moves laid the foundation for a body that has engaged in aggressive evangelistic work, most notably in church planting. Especially since the late 1980s, the PCA has focused its efforts toward establishing congregations in suburbs of fast-growing metropolitan areas, particularly in the South and the Western U.S.

[edit] Doctrine and practice

The PCA professes adherence to the traditional statements of Presbyterianism -- the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and the Westminster Larger Catechism -- though it views them as subordinate to the Bible, which alone is viewed as the inspired Word of God, a viewpoint which encompasses the doctrine of inerrancy in matters of fact, history, and teaching.

Much in the vein of pre-1900s Presbyterianism, the PCA has sought to value academic endeavor a great deal more highly than more revivalist-oriented evangelical churches (e.g., the Southern Baptist Convention, the Assemblies of God). Apologetics in general and presuppositional apologetics in particular has become something of a specialty with many of its theological professors and higher-ranking clergy, and many also practice "cultural apologetics" (pioneered by men like Schaeffer) by engaging with and participating in secular cultural activities such as film, music, literature, and art.

Additionally, the PCA has enjoyed growing interest and participation in ministries of mercy such as caring for the poor, the elderly, orphans, American Indians, people with physical and mental disabilities, refugees, etc. As a result, the denomination has held several national conferences to help equip members to participate in this type of work, and several PCA affiliates such as Desire Street Ministries and New Song Fellowship have received national attention for their service to the community at large.

[edit] Comparison to other Presbyterian denominations

The PCA is more conservative than the larger PC(USA) on matters of Biblical and doctrinal interpretation and social and political stands. Like the PC(USA), the PCA accommodates different views of creation[4] and strives for racial reconciliation.[5]

The PCA is generally less conservative than the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) and more conservative than the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, though the differences can vary from presbytery to presbytery and even congregation to congregation. For example, some churches in the PCA allow women to do anything a non-ordained man can do, such as teaching co-educational Sunday school classes, whereas other churches in the denomination only allow women to teach women and children. Also, PCA churches hold worship services in various styles (e.g, traditional Presbyterian, liturgical, contemporary), while most in the OPC hold to the traditional Scottish/Scots-Irish practice of singing only psalms and older hymns. The OPC also generally has stricter requirements overall on its officers' subscription to their standards of doctrine. Nonetheless, the two denominations enjoy fraternal relations and cooperate in a number of ways, such as sharing control of a publication company, Great Commission Publications.

[edit] Affiliations and agencies

According to its official website, the Presbyterian Church in America has 1,345 churches and 294 missions throughout the USA and Canada. There were 338,873 communicant and non-communicant members (as of 2006).[6] As a church with origins in that region, the PCA has its greatest concentration in the states of the Deep South, with more scattered strength in the Atlantic South, the upper Ohio Valley, and the Southwest.[7]

Additionally, the denomination has its own agency for sending missionaries throughout the world (Mission to the World), its own ministry to students on college campuses (Reformed University Ministries), its own camp and conference center (Ridge Haven, Brevard, North Carolina), and its own college (Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Ga., near Chattanooga, Tenn.) and seminary (Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.).

Most recently, the PCA has begun publishing its own denominational magazine, byFaith.

The church maintains headquarters in Lawrenceville, Ga., a suburb of Atlanta, which was once home to the former PCUS (the reunited PC(USA) moved all offices to Louisville, Ky. in 1988).

The PCA is a member of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC), an interchurch body representing conservative denominations in the Calvinist tradition. It is also a member of the National Association of Evangelicals.

[edit] Notable figures with PCA background

[edit] References

  1. ^ Presbyterian Church in America Statistics. PCA Administrative Committee. Retrieved on 2008-02-11.
  2. ^ National Presbyterian Church
  3. ^ "The Tie that No Longer Binds: The Origins of the Presbyterian Church in America" in The Confessional Mosaic (ISBN 0-664-25151-X), pp. 236-256
  4. ^ "Report of the Creation Study Committee", 2000
  5. ^ "The PCA Pastoral Letter on Racism", approved by the 32nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, June 2004
  6. ^ [1] "PCA Statistics"
  7. ^ [2] "PCA Church Directory"

[edit] Further reading

  • Loetscher, Lefferts A., The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
  • Smith, Morton H. How is the Gold Become Dim. Jackson, MS: Premier Printing Company, 1973
  • Smartt, Kennedy. I Am Reminded. Chestnut Mountain, GA: n.p., n.d.
  • Hutchinson, George P. The History behind the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. Cherry Hill, NJ: Mack Publishing, 1974
  • Nutt Rick. "The Tie That No Longer Binds: The Origins of the Presbyterian Church in America." In The Confessional Mosaic: Presbyterians and Twentieth-Century Theology. Edited by Milton J. Coalter, John M. Mulder, and Louis B. Weeks, 236-56. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1990. ISBN 0-664-25151-X
  • North, Gary. Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics, 1996. ISBN 0-930464-74-5
  • Settle, Paul. To God All Praise and Glory: 1973 to 1998 - The First 25 Years. Atlanta, GA: PCA Administrative Committee, 1998. ISBN 0-934688-90-7
  • Smith, Frank Joseph. The History of the Presbyterian Church in America. Presbyterian Scholars Press, 1999. ISBN 0-9676991-0-X
  • Lucas, Sean Michael. On Being Presbyterian. Phillipsburg, PA: P&R Publishing, 2006. ISBN 1-59638-019-5

[edit] External links

North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council member denominations
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church | Free Reformed Churches in North America | Heritage Reformed Congregations | L'Église réformée du Québec | Korean-American Presbyterian Church | Orthodox Presbyterian Church | Presbyterian Church in America | Reformed Church in the United States | Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America | United Reformed Churches in North America