The Presbyterian Church (USA) is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States. A part of the Reformed tradition, it is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the US, and known for its relatively progressive stance on doctrine. The PC (USA) was established by 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 similarly named Presbyterian Church in America is a separate denomination whose congregations can also trace their history to the various schisms and mergers of Presbyterian churches in the United States.
The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is the second largest Presbyterian church body and the largest conservative Reformed denomination in the United States. The PCA is Reformed in theology, Presbyterian in government, and active in missions. It is characterized by a blend of Reformed practice and broad evangelicalism.
Reformed Theological Seminary is a theological seminary in the Reformed theological tradition with campuses in multiple locations in the United States. Founded by conservatives in the Southern Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1966, it serves primarily students from more conservative branches of the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition.
The Upper Cumberland Presbyterian Church is a Christian denomination in the United States that maintains less than 1,000 members among twelve congregations in Alabama and Tennessee.
Cumberland Presbyterian Center is the denominational headquarters of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, located in Memphis, Tennessee.
The Rev. Dr. Daniel J. Earheart-Brown is the president of Memphis Theological Seminary. He also serves as Professor of Theology. Earheart-Brown was ordained by the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and served in several pastorates before being named to the seminary's highest position. He attends Faith Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Bartlett, Tennessee. Cumberland Presbyterian clergy are members of presbyteries not individual congregations.
James Wade Knight was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. He served as that denomination's first Director of Ministry and was the Executive of Kentucky Synod.
Roy Clyde Clark was an American bishop of the United Methodist Church, elected in 1980.
Kentucky Synod was a synod of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America established in the late 18th century. As a body, Kentucky Synod was a great deal more conservative than the Presbyterian Church as a whole — especially in its opposition to many aspects of the Second Great Awakening, a revival movement that thrived in Kentucky from about 1798 to about 1820. Synod suspended or deposed a number of revivalist Presbyterian ministers, but these men continued to preach to their former congregations. Eventually, Barton W. Stone, who abandoned Washington Presbytery in 1803, formed Springfield Presbytery, which eventually became the Christian Church. In 1810, ministers from the former Cumberland Presbytery, which had been dissolved by Synod five years earlier, left the church and created an independent presbytery which became the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Thomas Hardesty Campbell was a Cumberland Presbyterian minister, a former president and dean of Memphis Theological Seminary, and a former director of the Historical Foundation of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Campbell retired from the seminary in 1974 and served seven years as pastor of the Harrison, Arkansas, Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He was moderator of the General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1973, and was a member of White River Presbytery, in Arkansas, for many years.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America is a Historically African-American denomination which developed from the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in 1874.
William T. Ingram (1913–2001) was an American theologian. He served as the first President of Memphis Theological Seminary from 1964 to 1978.
The Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy is a major schism that originated in the 1920s and '30s within the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At issue were foundational disputes about the role of Christianity, the authority of Scripture, the death, Resurrection, and atoning sacrifice of Jesus. Two broad factions within Protestantism emerged; Evangelicals who held to traditional Christian Orthodoxy, and Modernists who to varying degrees argued that "antiquated" beliefs should be modified for the times. At first, the schism was limited to Reformed Christianity and centered about Princeton Theological Seminary, but soon spread, affecting every denomination of Christianity in the United States. Denominations that were not initially affected, such as the Lutheran Church, eventually were embroiled in the controversy leading to a schism in the Lutheran Church.
Joan S. Gray was elected moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA) at the 217th General Assembly on June 15, 2006. As moderator, she served as the presiding officer of the week-long General Assembly meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, followed by a two-year term as the ambassador-at-large for the denomination. She has also spent many years working in various churches and is currently serving as part of the faculty at Columbia Theological Seminary.
Cumberland College in Princeton, Kentucky, was founded in 1826 and operated until 1861. It was the first college affiliated with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. In 1842, the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination withdrew its support from Cumberland College in favor of Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee. In doing so, the denomination intended to simply relocate the school from Princeton to Lebanon, but Cumberland College remained open without denominational support until the Civil War.
James Oglethorpe Patterson Jr. was a Pentecostal–Holiness minister in the Church of God in Christ and a former Mayor of Memphis, Tennessee.
Robert Franklin Bunting (1828–1891) was an American Presbyterian minister and Confederate chaplain.
