History
The seminary was founded on April 21, 1981, when a group of Christian Reformed ministers and laymen met at the Hilton Hotel at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. At this meeting, it was decided to establish a seminary society and board of trustees, to purchase the Harmony Youth Home in Orange City, Iowa, to serve as the seminary's campus, and to name the seminary Mid-America Reformed Seminary. 1 The seminary was intended as an alternative to Calvin Theological Seminary, the denominational seminary of the Christian Reformed Church in North America, which the founders of Mid-America believed was straying from its confessional Reformed identity.
In 1995 the seminary moved its campus to Dyer, Indiana, where it now resides.
The school faculty members are Cornel Venema, J. Mark Beach, Alan Strange, Marcus Mininger, Andrew Compton, Mark Vander Hart, and Paul Ipema.
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country, known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers. The Presbyterian Church (USA) was established with the 1983 merger of the Presbyterian Church in the United States, whose churches were located in the Southern and border states, with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, whose congregations could be found in every state.
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The Christian Reformed Church in North America is a Protestant Calvinist Christian denomination in the United States and Canada. Having roots in the Dutch Reformed Church of the Netherlands, the Christian Reformed Church was founded by Dutch immigrants in 1857 and is theologically Calvinist.
John Gresham Machen was an American Presbyterian New Testament scholar and educator in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1906 and 1929, and led a revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Theological Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. As the Northern Presbyterian Church continued to reject conservative attempts to enforce faithfulness to the Westminster Confession, Machen led a small group of conservatives out of the church to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. When the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) rejected his arguments during the mid-1920s and decided to reorganize Princeton Seminary to create a liberal school, Machen took the lead in founding Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia (1929) where he taught New Testament until his death. His continued opposition during the 1930s to liberalism in his denomination's foreign missions agencies led to the creation of a new organization, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (1933). The trial, conviction and suspension from the ministry of Independent Board members, including Machen, in 1935 and 1936 provided the rationale for the formation in 1936 of the OPC.
Union Presbyterian Seminary is a Presbyterian seminary in Richmond, Virginia, and Charlotte, North Carolina, offering graduate theological education in multiple modalities: in-person, hybrid, and online.
The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARPC) is a theologically conservative denomination in North America.The ARPC was formed by the merger of the Associate Presbytery (seceder) with the Reformed Presbytery (covenanter) in 1782. It is one of the oldest conservative denominations in the United States.
The United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA) is a theologically conservative federation of Reformed churches founded in 1996. Many churches joined the URCNA after splitting from the Christian Reformed Church in North America denomination.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) was a Presbyterian denomination existing from 1789 to 1958. In that year, the PCUSA merged with the United Presbyterian Church of North America. The new church was named the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It was a predecessor to the contemporary Presbyterian Church (USA).
The Bible Presbyterian Church is an American Protestant denomination in the Calvinist tradition. It was founded by members of the Presbyterian Church of America over differences on Eschatology and Abstinence, after having left the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America over the rise of Modernism.
Covenant Theological Seminary, informally called Covenant Seminary, is the denominational seminary of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). Located in Creve Coeur, Missouri, it trains people to work as leaders in church positions and elsewhere, especially as pastors, missionaries, and counselors. It does not require all students to be members of the PCA, but it is bound to promote the teachings of its denomination. Faculty must subscribe to the system of biblical doctrine outlined in the Westminster Standards.
Erskine Theological Seminary, a division of Erskine College, is an institution of graduate theological and pastoral education. The seminary is based in Due West, South Carolina. It also offers classes in Columbia, South Carolina and Greenville, South Carolina. Erskine Seminary is in the conservative Presbyterian tradition, and primarily prepares candidates for ordained Christian ministry. The Seminary, founded in 1837, is a part of Erskine College, a liberal arts college established in 1839 and affiliated with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. The mission of Erskine Theological Seminary is to prepare "men and women to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ through theological higher education that is ecclesial, missional, and confessional."
The fundamentalist–modernist controversy is a major schism that originated in the 1920s and 1930s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At issue were foundational disputes about the role of Christianity; the authority of the Bible; and the death, resurrection, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Two broad factions within Protestantism emerged: fundamentalists, who insisted upon the timeless validity of each doctrine of Christian orthodoxy; and modernists, who advocated a conscious adaptation of the Christian faith in response to the new scientific discoveries and moral pressures of the age. At first, the schism was limited to Reformed churches and centered around the Princeton Theological Seminary, whose fundamentalist faculty members founded Westminster Theological Seminary when Princeton went in a liberal direction. However, it soon spread, affecting nearly every Protestant denomination in the United States. Denominations that were not initially affected, such as the Lutheran churches, eventually were embroiled in the controversy, leading to a schism in the United States.
The World Reformed Fellowship (WRF) is an ecumenical, Christian fellowship that advances partnerships among confessional Reformed churches around the world.
The Reformed Episcopal Seminary is a private seminary in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1887 as the first seminary of the Reformed Episcopal Church.
Northwest Theological Seminary was a theological seminary in the Reformed Christian tradition located in Lynnwood, Washington. It closed in 2018.
ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians is an evangelical Presbyterian denomination in the United States. As a Presbyterian church, ECO adheres to Reformed theology and Presbyterian polity. It was established in 2012 by former congregations and members of the Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PC(USA). Denominational disputes over theology—particularly ordination of practicing homosexuals as pastors and gay marriage—and bureaucracy led to the founding of ECO. In 2018, ECO has over 383 congregations, 103,425 covenant partners and over 500 pastors. ECO churches are egalitarian in beliefs and ordain women as pastors and elders.
The Presbyterian Church of the Philippines (PCP), officially The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of the Philippines, is a growing evangelical, Bible-based Reformed church in the Philippines. It was officially founded in 1987 and the General Assembly was organized in September 1996.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church in Taiwan was officially established in 1971 when the First Presbytery was formed as a result of the union of various conservative Presbyterian and Continental Reformed congregations planted by various missionary groups. Its origin could be traced back to the 1950s when the very first missionaries of those Presbyterian and Continental Reformed missionaries arrived in Taiwan.
Presbyterianism has had a presence in the United States since colonial times and has exerted an important influence over broader American religion and culture.
The Kosin Presbyterian Church in Korea, also called Korea-pa, is an Evangelical Reformed and Presbyterian denomination in the Republic of South Korea. Although, congregations have spread all over North America and in many other countries.
