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The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is a Protestant denomination, the second largest Presbyterian church body in the United States after the Presbyterian Church (USA). 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."

History

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

In December 1973, delegates from 260 congregations (primarily from Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina) that had left the Presbyterian Church in the United States gathered at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in suburban Birmingham, Ala., and organized the "National Presbyterian Church." After protest from a UPCUSA congregation of the same name in Washington, D.C. *, the denomination adopted its present name in 1974.

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 maintained 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. Less explicitly stated, though likely also influential, were opposition in some quarters to the civil rights movement and support of the U.S. conflict in Vietnam.

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 denied by the Pittsburgh presbytery because of his refusal to support women's ordination to either the ministry or eldership (a decision 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 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, Miss.

Also that year and in 1983, on the eve of the UPCUSA's and PCUS' merger into the current Presbyterian Church (USA) (or PCUSA), several PCUS churches that had originally decided to remain loyal in 1973 opted to defect to the PCA. 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. As with American Presbyterianism generally, its chief constituency is Euro-American, belongs to the middle or upper-middle class, and places a high premium on personal discipline and family life.

Doctrine

The PCA adheres 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 as the inspired word of God.

As is true for many Presbyterian denominations, the PCA has always maintained a measure of traditional Presbyterian detachment and respect for academic endeavor.

The PCA is generally regarded as more conservative than the larger PCUSA, and significant elements within the PCA are enthusiastically part of the so-called Religious Right, with its cultural and political implications. However, as the denomination has expanded beyond its Bible Belt origins, some of the edges of its conservatism have softened. Recent examples include a resolution accommodating views of origins other than Young Earth creationism and a stated commitment to strive for racial reconciliation. [http://www.mcilwain.org/pdf/The%20PCA%20Pastoral%20Letter%20on%20Racism.pdf

Affiliations and agencies

According to its official website, the Presbyterian Church in America has over 1450 churches and missions throughout the USA and Canada. There were 330,182 communicant and non-communicant members (as of 2004). 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 South Atlantic, the upper Ohio Valley, and the Southwest.

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), and its own college (Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Ga.) and seminary (Covenant Theological Seminary, St. Louis, Mo.). It shares control of a publication company, Great Commission Publications, with a similar denomination, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

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

The church maintains headquarters in Atlanta, Ga., a city once the home of the former PCUS.

Prominent personalities

External links

Christian denominations of North America | Presbyterianism in the United States

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Presbyterian Church in America".

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