By the time of the merger, the PCUSA had churches in all 50 states, while the heaviest concentration of UPCNA congregations could be found in Western Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio. One institutional expression of the union was the consolidation of two nearby seminaries into the new Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
As had been customary for centuries, the UPCUSA originally held solely to the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms. But, one of the details of the 1958 merger was to revise the Westminster Confession.[3] Realizing that the task of revising the Westminster Confession was too much of a burden and potentially divisive, the commission developed a new confession.[4] Known as the Confession of 1967, it was heavily influenced by neo-orthodoxy. The commission also added several other confessional standards to what was called the Book of Confessions.
Furthermore, the UPCUSA revised its ordination vows. Prior to 1967, the ordination vows required an affirmative to this question: "Do you sincerely receive and adopt the Confession of Faith and Catechisms of this Church as containing the system of doctrine taught in Holy Scripture?" [5] After 1967, the ordination vows read: "Do you sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed Faith as expressed in the confession of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do, and will you be instructed and led by those confessions as you lead the people of God?"[5] Despite strong opposition from conservative evangelicals, much of which dovetailed with their hostility toward the denomination's perceived focus on social action that the Confession of 1967 in particular appeared to endorse, nine-tenths of the presbyteries approved the new documents.
Social stances and ecumenism
Generally speaking, the UPCUSA, especially its leadership, was a strong supporter of progressive causes, such as civil rights and feminism. Eugene Carson Blake, who served as the stated clerk of the UPCUSA from 1954 until 1966, was particularly active in the civil rights movement, including partaking in the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, with Martin Luther King Jr.[6] The following year, the UPCUSA took an unprecedented step in electing Edler Garnet Hawkins (1908-1977), an African American, who had served as pastor of St. Augustine Presbyterian Church, as moderator, a position which he filled until 1970.[7] However, despite the progressive views of many members, a scandal erupted in 1970 and 1971 when the denomination gave $25,000 to defend the Black Panthers and $10,000 to the Angela Davis Defense Fund.[8][9]Katie Cannon was ordained on April 24, 1974, in Shelby, North Carolina, by the Catawba Presbytery, in the Synod of Catawba, becoming the first African-American woman to be ordained in the UPCUSA.[10]
Ecumenical endeavors
In December 1960, UPCUSA stated clerk, Eugene Blake, preached a sermon at Grace Cathedral [Episcopal Church] in San Francisco, in which he laid down the plan for uniting UPCUSA, The Methodist Church (USA), the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ. Following Blake's lead, the 1961 General Assembly sent invitations to the Presbyterian Church in the United States, the Methodists, the Episcopalians, and the United Church of Christ, beginning what was called the “Consultation on Church Union,” but would be eventually renamed the “Churches of Christ Uniting”.[11] The UPCUSA was also part of both the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, the latter of which Blake would become the General Secretary of in 1966.[6][9]:1
Controversies and departures
Despite being the largest Presbyterian body in the United States, controversies and schisms would soon shake the UPCUSA, which would lead to the exodus of several well-known congregations and members.
In keeping with the practice of the PC-USA (which the PC-USA had begun in 1956) the UPCUSA continued the ordination of women. When the union between the UPCNA and the PC-USA occurred in 1958, it was understood that the new denomination would permit, but not require female ministers [12] However, in 1974, Walter W. Kenyon, a student at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, informed his presbytery that, while he would be willing to work with female ministers, or not impede their ordination, he would not participate in their installation. While his ordination was narrowly approved, it was overturned by the Permanent Judicial Commission of the General Assembly the following year, with the commission stating that it was the denomination's responsibility to refuse ordination to those who did not theologically accept the ordination of women, as the General Assembly had no power to grant the presbytery an exception to an already explicit constitutional provision.[13] Furthermore, in 1979, the General Assembly ruled that all congregations must elect both men and women to the office of ruling elder. The ruling resulted in an exodus of approximately forty congregations, including Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, which would eventually realign with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod.[14]
In 1976, the New York Presbytery petitioned the General Assembly asking for advice over what to do about a candidate who was a homosexual, yet who was otherwise qualified for ministry. A task force was assigned and came back with the proposal that the question should be up to the discretion of the presbyteries. However, after lobbying from the Presbyterians United for Biblical Concerns, the majority report was rejected by the General Assembly, which voted overwhelmingly to affirm instead that “unrepentant homosexual practice does not accord with the requirements of ordination as set forth in the Book of Church Order."[15]
Another controversy rocked the UPCUSA when the National Capital Union presbytery voted to receive a minister by the name of Mansfield Kaseman, a move that was upheld by the 1981 General Assembly. Ordained in the United Church of Christ, Kaseman declined to affirm straightforwardly the deity of Christ, His sinless nature and the bodily resurrection. This case resulted in a further wave of departures from the UPCUSA, including those who founded the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, along with longtime Pittsburgh Seminary professor John Gerstner.[16]
Reunion of the UPCUSA and the PCUS
As the UPCUSA continued its more liberal shift, talks had begun regarding a merger between the UPCUSA and the Presbyterian Church in the United States, who had split from the main Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1861 due to the Civil War. Initially committed to “Old School” Presbyterianism, the PCUS had been beginning a shift towards liberalism in the 1950s and 1960s, including allowing the ordination of women in 1964.[17]
While there had been a failed attempt to merge the UPCUSA and the PCUS in 1954, there had been increased cooperation between the two denominations, including joint foreign mission boards, a new hymnal in 1955, union presbyteries in 1968, and in 1970, the so-called “Plan of Union” was drafted.[18] With the December 1973 creation of the National Presbyterian Church, which would soon be renamed the Presbyterian Church in America, which led to an exodus of conservatives from the PCUS, plans for union accelerated,[19] and were also hastened, albeit less decisively, by the creation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church by conservatives leaving the UPCUSA in 1981.
In 1983, the vote was finally held regarding the merger, with a unanimous 151 presbyteries in the UPCUSA affirming it, and the PCUS affirming it 53 to 8. On June 10, 1983, the first General Assembly was held for the new denomination, which would be called the Presbyterian Church (USA).[20]
Presbyterianism is a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders. Though there are other Reformed churches that are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that formed during the English Civil War.
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.
The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is the second-largest Presbyterian church body, behind the Presbyterian Church (USA), and the largest conservative Calvinist denomination in the United States. The PCA is Reformed in theology and presbyterian in government.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Presbyterian denomination spawned by the Second Great Awakening. In 2019, it had 65,087 members and 673 congregations, of which 51 were located outside of the United States. The word Cumberland comes from the Cumberland River valley where the church was founded.
The Presbyterian Church in the United States was a Protestant denomination in the Southern and border states of the United States that existed from 1861 to 1983. That year, it merged with the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA) to form the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a confessional Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States, with additional congregations in Canada, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), who objected to the rise of Liberal and Modernist theology in the 1930s. The OPC is considered to have had an influence on evangelicalism far beyond its size.
The Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC) is an American church body holding to presbyterian governance and Reformed theology. It is a conservative Calvinist denomination. It is most distinctive for its approach to the way it balances certain liberties across congregations on "non-essential" doctrines, such as egalitarianism /complementarianism in marriage or the ordination of women, alongside an affirmation of core "essential" doctrinal standards.
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 Confession of 1967 is a confession of faith of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), abbreviated PC (USA). It was written as a modern statement of the faith for the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA), the "northern church", to supplement the Westminster Confession and the other statements of faith in its then new Book of Confessions.
The United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA) was an American Presbyterian denomination that existed for one hundred years. It was formed on May 26, 1858, by the union of the Northern branch of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church with the Associate Presbyterian Church (Seceders) at a convention at the Old City Hall in Pittsburgh. On May 28, 1958, it merged with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) at a conference in Pittsburgh to form the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA).
The Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod was a Reformed and Presbyterian denomination in the United States and Canada between 1965 and 1982.
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 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) adopted a policy of "phased, selective divestment" from certain American corporations operating in Israel beginning in 2004, as a means of influencing the government of Israel. This policy has been controversial both within and outside of the denomination, even resulting in charges of antisemitism. The policy was changed in 2006 by another vote of the General Assembly.
Attitudes in Presbyterianism toward homosexuality vary, ranging from outright condemnation to complete acceptance.
The Old School–New School controversy was a schism of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America that took place in 1837 and lasted for over 20 years. The Old School, led by Charles Hodge of Princeton Theological Seminary, was more conservative theologically and did not support the revival movement. It called for traditional Calvinist orthodoxy as outlined in the Westminster standards.
In Christianity, the ordination of women has been taking place in an increasing number of Protestant and Old Catholic churches, starting in the 20th century. Since ancient times, certain churches of the Orthodox tradition, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have raised women to the office of deaconess. While ordination of women has been approved in many denominations, it is still a very controversial and divisive topic.
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.
Presbyterianism has had a presence in the United States since colonial times and has exerted an important influence over broader American religion and culture.
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