Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa

Last updated
Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa
The Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa Logo.jpg
NEC TAMEN CONSUMEBATUR
Classification Protestant
Theology Reformed
Polity Presbyterian
Associations All Africa Conference of Churches; World Communion of Reformed Churches; World Council of Churches; South African Council of Churches
Region South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia
Origin26 September 1999
Port Elizabeth
Merger of Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa & Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa
Congregations473
Members80,000 [1]

The Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA) was formed and constituted in 1999 as the outcome of the union between the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (RPCSA) and the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa (PCSA).

Contents

These two churches shared the same origin dating back to the 19th century, when Britain took over the Cape Colony. The Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa was constituted among soldiers and settlers who arrived in the Cape in 1820, spreading north into Zimbabwe and Zambia. The Reformed Presbyterian Church on the other hand was a product of Scottish missions intended for indigenous Africans and started at Lovedale Mission in Alice. It became autonomous in 1923.

In 1896 the first Presbyterian congregation was founded in Rhodesia at Bulawayo, and later in 1903 in Salisbury (now Harare). Currently there are more than 40 congregations and 100,000-300,000 members. [2]

The motto Nec tamen consumebatur is adapted from the Latin translation of Exodus 3:2 "...The Lord appeared to him in a blazing fire from the midst of a bush; and he looked, and behold, the bush was burning with fire, yet it was not consumed."

Recent history

The UPCSA ordains both men and women as ministers and elders, a position inherited from the predecessor body, the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa. [3] The church defines marriage as exclusively heterosexual, between one man and one woman, and instructs ministers to not perform same-sex marriages. [4] However, a church court ruled in 2015 that the church did not prohibit its ministers from blessing same-sex unions. [5]

In 2019 the UPCSA celebrated its twentieth anniversary after having spent much of that time in forging structures of union.

Presbyteries

The Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa has over 500 congregations and more than 900,000 members [1] and is divided into the following Presbyteries (regional districts):

South Africa

Zambia

Zimbabwe

Democratic Republic of Congo

Associations/ministry groups

The Basis of Union is a contract that was signed in September 1999 entered into between the Presbyterian Church of Southern Africa (PCSA) and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in South Africa (RPCSA). Under this contract, the two churches would join and become one: the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa (UPCSA). Article 13 of the basis of union states that, as a condition of the union, both churches are to bring 4 associations each and the 8 associations would unite to form only 4 associations (one women's association, one men's association, one girl's association and one youth association).

See also

Confession of faith

Further reading

Related Research Articles

The Protestant Church in the Netherlands is the largest Protestant denomination in the Netherlands, being both Calvinist and Lutheran.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United Reformed Church</span> Christian church organisation in the United Kingdom

The United Reformed Church (URC) is a Protestant Christian church in the United Kingdom. As of 2024 it had approximately 44,000 members in around 1,250 congregations with 334 stipendiary ministers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uniting Church in Australia</span> Australian Christian denomination

The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) was founded on 22 June 1977, when most congregations of the Methodist Church of Australasia, about two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia and almost all the churches of the Congregational Union of Australia united under the Basis of Union. According to the church, it had 243,000 members in 2018. In the 2016 census, 870,183 Australians identified with the church, but that figure fell to 673,260 in the 2021 census. In the 2011 census, that figure was 1,065,796. The UCA is Australia's third-largest Christian denomination, behind the Catholic and the Anglican Churches. There are around 2,000 UCA congregations, and 2001 National Church Life Survey (NCLS) research indicated that average weekly attendance was about 10 per cent of census figures. The UCA is one of Australia's largest non-government providers of community and health services. Its service network consists of over 400 agencies, institutions, and parish missions, with its areas of service including aged care, hospitals, children, youth and family, disability, employment, emergency relief, drug and alcohol abuse, youth homelessness and suicide. Affiliated agencies include UCA's community and health-service provider network, affiliated schools, the Uniting Aboriginal and Islander Christian Congress, Frontier Services and UnitingWorld.

The Confessing Movement is a largely lay-led theologically conservative Christian movement that opposes the influence of theological liberalism and theological progressivism currently within several mainline Protestant denominations and seeks to return those denominations to its view of orthodox doctrine or to form new denominations and disfellowship (excommunicate) them if the situation becomes untenable. Those who eventually deem dealing with theological liberalism and theological progressivism within their churches and denominations as not being tenable anymore would later join or start Confessional Churches and/or Evangelical Churches that continue with the traditions of their respective denominations and maintaining orthodox doctrine while being ecclesiastically separate from the Mainline Protestant denominations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church of South India</span> United Protestant church in South India

The Church of South India (CSI) is a united Protestant Church in India. It is the result of union of a number of Protestant denominations in South India that occurred after the independence of India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Congregational Christian Churches</span> U.S. Protestant Christian denomination

The Congregational Christian Churches was a Protestant Christian denomination that operated in the U.S. from 1931 through 1957. On the latter date, most of its churches joined the Evangelical and Reformed Church in a merger to become the United Church of Christ. Others created the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches or joined the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference that formed earlier in 1945. During the forementioned period, its churches were organized nationally into a General Council, with parallel state conferences, sectional associations, and missionary instrumentalities. Congregations, however, retained their local autonomy and these groups were legally separate from the congregations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Presbyterian Church of Australia</span> Largest Presbyterian denomination in Australia

The Presbyterian Church of Australia (PCA), founded in 1901, is the largest Presbyterian denomination in Australia. The PCA is the largest conservative, evangelical and complementarian Christian denomination in Australia. The Presbyterian Church of Australia is Reformed in theology and Presbyterian in government.

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) was a fellowship of more than 200 churches with roots in the 16th century Reformation, and particularly in the theology of John Calvin. Its headquarters was in Geneva, Switzerland. They merged with the Reformed Ecumenical Council in 2010 to form the World Communion of Reformed Churches.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church</span> German Lutheran denomination

The Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church is a confessional Lutheran church body of Germany. It is a member of the European Lutheran Conference and of the International Lutheran Council (ILC). The SELK has about 33,000 members in 174 congregations. The seat of SELK is in Hanover.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tiyo Soga</span> Xhosa journalist, minister, translator, missionary evangelist, and composer of hymns

4

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK)</span> Christian denomination in South Africa

The Dutch Reformed Church is a Reformed Christian denomination in South Africa. It also has a presence in neighbouring countries, such as Namibia, Eswatini, and parts of Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. In 2013 it claimed 1.1 million members and 1,602 ordained ministers in 1,158 congregations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa</span>

The Uniting Reformed Church in Southern Africa was formed by the union of the black and coloured Nederduits Gereformeerde Kerk mission churches.

The Sudanese Reformed Presbyterian Churches (SRPC) are a unified body of Protestant Churches in Sudan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">World Communion of Reformed Churches</span> International Christian organization

The World Communion of Reformed Churches (WCRC) is the largest association of Reformed (Calvinist) churches in the world. It has 230 member denominations in 108 countries, together claiming an estimated 80 million people, thus being the fourth-largest Christian communion in the world after the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Anglican Communion. This ecumenical Christian body was formed in June 2010 by the union of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NHK)</span>

The Dutch Reformed Church in Africa is a Reformed Christian denomination based in South Africa. It also has congregations in Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Along with the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (NGK) and the Reformed Churches in South Africa, the NHKA is one of the three Dutch Reformed sister churches of South Africa. The NHKA retains the old Nomenclature Nederduitsch, the word originally referring to the Dutch language. The word refers to the Low Saxon language today. The Dutch language remained the official language of the church until 1933 when the church started functioning almost exclusively in Afrikaans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Reformed Churches in South Africa</span> Conservative Christian denomination

The Reformed Churches in South Africa is a Christian denomination in South Africa that was formed in 1859 in Rustenburg. Members of the church are sometimes referred to as Doppers.

The Presbyterian Church of Africa was founded in 1898 by the Reverend Phambani Jeremiah Mzimba, who broke from the Church of Scotland. He broke away because of misunderstanding between the black and white clergy.He was born in Ngqakayi, and his father was a deacon in the Presbyterian Church. Mzimba become a pastor, and was ordained in 1875. He was sent to Scotland to the anniversary of the Free Church of Scotland, but later severed its ties with the denomination. In 1898 he founded his own independent Presbyterian church. He died in 1911. The first Synod was constituted in Alice, Cape Colony. Mzimba had a dispute with the Free Church of Scotland over land and over the use of money. The Presbyterian Church of Africa is a predominantly black church. It was a small group of churches with 2 presbyteries. The church grew steadily. It is one of the oldest independent churches in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Anderson Soga</span> South African medical doctor (1858–1916)

William Anderson Soga was the first black African to qualify with an MBCM in 1883 and the first black African medical doctor to practise in South Africa, as well as being the first black African to obtain a doctorate MD. His thesis titled "The ethnology of the Bomvanas of Bomvanaland, an aboriginal tribe in South East Africa, with observations upon the climate and diseases of the country, and the methods of treatment in use among the people" was completed at the University of Glasgow in 1895. He was also ordained as a minister in the United Presbyterian Church 1885 making him one of the first medical missionaries in South Africa. Soga was involved in the running of mission stations, building churches, diagnosis and treatment of patients, research and writing.

References

  1. 1 2 "South African Christian". Archived from the original on 2014-06-20. Retrieved 2013-04-12.
  2. "Reformed Churches » Religion in Zimbabwe". 11 March 2011.
  3. Duncan, Graham A. (2019-02-12). "South African Presbyterian women in leadership in ministry (1973–2018)". HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies. 75 (1): 10. doi: 10.4102/hts.v75i1.5180 . hdl: 2263/75979 . ISSN   2072-8050.
  4. "Statement on Marriage". Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa. September 8, 2013.
  5. "Church gives blessing to pastors over gay marriages". BusinessLIVE. Retrieved 2021-06-11.