Presbyterian Church in the United States of America
The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America 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.
The denomination originated in colonial times when members of the Church of Scotland and Presbyterians from Ireland first immigrated to America. After the American Revolution, the PCUSA was organized in Philadelphia to provide national leadership for Presbyterians in the new nation. In 1861, Presbyterians in the Southern United States split from the denomination because of disputes over slavery, politics, and theology precipitated by the American Civil War. They established the Presbyterian Church in the United States, often called the "Southern Presbyterian Church". The PCUSA, in turn, was described as the Northern Presbyterian Church. Despite the PCUSA's designation as a "Northern church", it was once again a national denomination in its later years.
Over time, traditional Calvinism played less of a role in shaping the church's doctrines and practices—it was influenced by Arminianism and revivalism early in the 19th century, liberal theology late in the 19th century, and neo-orthodoxy by the mid-20th century. The theological tensions within the denomination were played out in the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy of the 1920s and 1930s, a conflict that led to the development of Christian fundamentalism and has historical importance to modern American evangelicalism. Conservatives dissatisfied with liberal trends left to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1936.
History
Colonial era
Early organization efforts (1650–1729)
The origins of the Presbyterian Church is the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century. The writings of French theologian and lawyer John Calvin solidified much of the Reformed thinking that came before him in the form of the sermons and writings of Huldrych Zwingli. John Knox, a former Catholic priest from Scotland who studied with Calvin in Geneva, Switzerland, took Calvin's teachings back to Scotland and led the Scottish Reformation of 1560. As a result, the Church of Scotland embraced Reformed theology and presbyterian polity. The Ulster Scots brought their Presbyterian faith with them to Ireland, where they laid the foundation of what would become the Presbyterian Church of Ireland.By the second half of the 17th century, Presbyterians were immigrating to British North America. Scottish and Scotch-Irish immigrants contributed to a strong Presbyterian presence in the Middle Colonies, particularly Philadelphia. Before 1706, however, Presbyterian congregations were not yet organized into presbyteries or synods.
In 1706, seven ministers led by Francis Makemie established the first presbytery in North America, the Presbytery of Philadelphia. The presbytery was primarily created to promote fellowship and discipline among its members and only gradually developed into a governing body. Initially, member congregations were located in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland. Further growth led to the creation of the Synod of Philadelphia in 1717. The synod's membership consisted of all ministers and one lay elder from every congregation.
The synod still had no official confessional statement. The Church of Scotland and the Synod of Ulster already required clergy to subscribe to the Westminster Confession. In 1729, the synod passed the Adopting Act, which required clergy to assent to the Westminster Confession and Larger and Shorter Catechisms. However, subscription was only required for those parts of the Confession deemed an "essential and necessary article of faith". Ministers could declare any scruples to their presbytery or the synod, which would then decide if the minister's views were acceptable. While crafted as a compromise, the Adopting Act was opposed by those who favored strict adherence to the Confession.
Old Side–New Side Controversy (1730–1758)
During the 1730s and 1740s, the Presbyterian Church was divided over the impact of the First Great Awakening. Drawing from the Scotch-Irish revivalist tradition, evangelical ministers such as William and Gilbert Tennent emphasized the necessity of a conscious conversion experience and the need for higher moral standards among the clergy.Other Presbyterians were concerned that revivalism presented a threat to church order. In particular, the practice of itinerant preaching across presbytery boundaries and the tendency of revivalists to doubt the conversion experiences of other ministers caused controversy between supporters of revivalism, known as the "New Side", and their conservative opponents, known as the "Old Side". While the Old Side and New Side disagreed over the possibility of immediate assurance of salvation, the controversy was not primarily theological. Both sides believed in justification by faith, predestination, and that regeneration occurred in stages.
In 1738, the synod moved to restrict itinerant preaching and to tighten educational requirements for ministers, actions the New Side resented. Tensions between the two sides continued to escalate until the Synod of May 1741, which ended with a definite split between the two factions. The Old Side retained control of the Synod of Philadelphia, and it immediately required unconditional subscription to the Westminster Confession with no option to state scruples. The New Side founded the Synod of New York. The new Synod required subscription to the Westminster Confession in accordance with the Adopting Act, but no college degrees were required for ordination.
Image:DavidBrainerd.jpg|thumb|200px|right|alt=David Brainerd sitting with an open Bible placed on his upper leg|David Brainerd, missionary to the Native Americans
While the controversy raged, American Presbyterians were also concerned with expanding their influence. In 1740, a New York Board of the Society in Scotland for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge was established. Four years later, David Brainerd was assigned as a missionary to the Native Americans. New Side Presbyterians were responsible for founding Princeton University primarily to train ministers in 1746.
By 1758, both sides were ready for reconciliation. Over the years, New Side revivalism had become less radical. At the same time, Old Side Presbyterians were experiencing numerical decline and were eager to share in the New Side's vitality and growth. The two synods merged to become the Synod of New York and Philadelphia. The united Synod was founded on New Side terms: subscription according to the terms of the Adopting Act; presbyteries were responsible for examining and licensing ordination candidates; candidates were to be examined for learning, orthodoxy and their "experimental acquaintance with religion" ; and revivals were acknowledged as a work of God.
American Independence (1770–1789)
In the early 1770s, American Presbyterians were initially reluctant to support American Independence, but in time many Presbyterians came to support the Revolutionary War. After the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the Synod of New York and Philadelphia published a letter in May 1775 urging Presbyterians to support the Second Continental Congress while remaining loyal to George III. In one sermon, John Witherspoon, president of Princeton, preached "that the cause in which America is now in arms, is the cause of justice, of liberty, and of human nature". Witherspoon and 11 other Presbyterians were signatories to the Declaration of Independence.Even before the war, many Presbyterian felt that the single synod system was no longer adequate to meet the needs of a numerically and geographically expanding church. All clergy were supposed to attend annual meetings of the synod, but some years attendance was less than thirty percent. In 1785, a proposal for the creation of a General Assembly went before the synod, and a special committee was formed to draw up a plan of government.
Under the plan, the old synod was divided into four new synods all under the authority of the General Assembly. The synods were New York and New Jersey, Philadelphia, Virginia, and the Carolinas. Compared to the Church of Scotland, the plan gave presbyteries more power and autonomy. Synods and the General Assembly were to be "agencies for unifying the life of the Church, considering appeals, and promoting the general welfare of the Church as a whole." The plan included provisions from the Church of Scotland's Barrier Act of 1697, which required the General Assembly to receive the approval of a majority of presbyteries before making major changes to the church's constitution and doctrine. The constitution included the Westminster Confession of Faith, together with the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, as the church's subordinate standard in addition to the Westminster Directory. The Westminster Confession was modified to bring its teaching on civil government in line with American practices.
In 1787, the plan was sent to the presbyteries for ratification. The synod held its last meeting in May 1788. The first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America met in Philadelphia in May 1789. At that time, the church had four synods, 16 presbyteries, 177 ministers, 419 congregations and an estimated membership of 18,000.
19th century
Interdenominational societies
The late 18th and early 19th centuries saw Americans leaving the Eastern Seaboard to settle further inland. One of the results was that the PCUSA signed a Plan of Union with the Congregationalists of New England in 1801, which formalized cooperation between the two bodies and attempted to provide adequate visitation and preaching for frontier congregations, along with eliminating rivalry between the two denominations. The large growth rate of the Presbyterian Church in the Northeast was in part due to the adoption of Congregationalist settlers along the western frontier.Not unlike the circuit riders in the Episcopal and Methodist traditions, the presbyteries often sent out licentiates to minister in multiple congregations that were spread out over a wide area. To meet the need for educated clergy, Princeton Theological Seminary and Union Presbyterian Seminary were founded in 1812, followed by Auburn Theological Seminary in 1821.
Growth in the Northeast was accompanied by the creation of moral reform organizations, such as Sunday schools, temperance associations, tract and Bible societies, and orphanages. The proliferation of voluntary organizations was encouraged by postmillennialism, the belief that the Second Coming of Christ would occur at the end of an era of peace and prosperity fostered by human effort. The 1815 General Assembly recommended the creation of societies to promote morality. Organizations such as the American Bible Society, the American Sunday School Union, and the American Colonization Society, while theoretically interdenominational, were dominated by Presbyterians and considered unofficial agencies of the Presbyterian Church.
The support of missionary work was also a priority in the 19th century. The first General Assembly requested that each of the four synods appoint and support two missionaries. Presbyterians took leading roles in creating early local and independent mission societies, including the New York Missionary Society, the Northern Berkshire and Columbia Missionary Societies, the Missionary Society of Connecticut, the Massachusetts Missionary Society, and the Boston Female Society for Missionary Purposes. The first denominational missions agency was the Standing Committee on Mission, which was created in 1802 to coordinate efforts with individual presbyteries and the European missionary societies. The work of the committee was expanded in 1816, becoming the Board of Missions.
In 1817, the General Assembly joined with two other Reformed denominations, the American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church and the Associate Reformed Church, to form the United Foreign Missionary Society. The United Society was particularly focused on work among Native Americans and inhabitants of Central and South America. These denominations also established a United Domestic Missionary Society to station missionaries within the United States.
In 1826, the Congregationalists joined these united efforts. The Congregational mission societies were merged with the United Domestic Missionary Society to become the American Home Missionary Society. The Congregational American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions became the recognized missions agency of the General Assembly, and the United Foreign Missionary Society's operations were merged with the American Board. By 1831, the majority of board members and missionaries of the ABCFM were Presbyterians. As a result, most of the local churches established by the organization were Presbyterian.