Presbyterianism

Presbyterianism is a branch of Reformed Christianity that began in the mid-1500s. Born in the midst of the Protestant Reformation, Presbyterianism was a reaction against the Catholic Church that rejected the unilateral authority of popes and bishops in favor of placing the power of church governance in congregations and assemblies. Presbyterianism was introduced to America in the colonial era, growing over the next several hundred years into a church with nearly two million members. The two largest Presbyterian denominations in the United States are the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbyterian Church in America.

History

Presbyterianism was one of many new branches of Christianity that arose during the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s. This movement originated with German theologian Martin Luther in 1517 as a response to what he saw as the despotism, corruption, and other moral abuses of the Roman Catholic Church.

He publicly stated as much when, that year, he nailed his "Ninety-Five Theses"—an essay of ninety-five complaints against the church—to a church door in Wittenberg, Germany. The relatively recent invention of the printing press allowed copies of Luther's document to be disseminated throughout Europe within only a few weeks. Thus, the center of the Roman Catholic world became aware of and inspired by Luther's anger and dissent.

By the mid-1530s, Luther and his widely publicized attack on Roman Catholicism had galvanized the French theologian and lawyer John Calvin to introduce his own ideas to the existing Protestant movement. In 1536, in Basel, Switzerland, he published Institutes of the Christian Religion, which detailed his views of God and humanity's relationship with God. Among other tenets, Calvin's Reformed theology, as it came to be known, stressed the importance of faith and scriptures, not obedience to priests and popes, to a Christian life.

Prior to publishing Institutes, Calvin had left France due to the country's vehement opposition to Protestant ideology. With his Reform movement begun, he decided to remain in Switzerland. He was passing through Geneva, a Reform-friendly city, when he was approached by the local Reformed movement leader, William Farel, who entreated him to help spread the new brand of Christian theology throughout the city.

Their careers as Reformed public ministers in Geneva were cut short, however, when, in 1538, the two men were banished from the city for offending the people with their insistence on strict morality in personal conduct. In 1541, however, the Genevan government requested that Calvin return to the city to begin a Reformed Christian movement there in earnest. For the next twenty-five years, Calvin successfully installed his version of Reformed theology in Geneva, where reverence for his teachings remained great for years afterward.

In 1553, during his years of teaching in Geneva, Calvin was visited by the Scottish tutor John Knox, who became a pupil to him in the study of Reformed Christianity. Knox returned to Scotland in 1559 a changed man. He became a Protestant minister in Edinburgh, a position he used to lead the Reformed Christian movement in the Catholic Scotland. In what became known as the Scottish Reformation, Knox transformed the Kirk, or the Church of Scotland, into a wholly Reformed Christian entity. He defined the beliefs and practices the church would follow in Scots Confession, which he cowrote in 1560, and the Book of Common Order, written from 1556 to 1564.

The Scottish Reformation and the breaking of the Church of Scotland from Roman Catholicism in favor of Reformed Christianity are generally regarded as the inception of Presbyterianism. The word Presbyterian itself derives from the Greek word "presbuteros," used in the New Testament of the Christian Bible to mean "elder." This new branch of Protestantism took its name from its governing structure; Presbyterians would create their own church authority by electing presbyters, elders, from among their own laity. They rejected the Roman Catholic notion of priests, bishops, and popes being a specially chosen class of people who were granted favored status by God to rule their churches unopposed. Although Presbyterians still supported clergy in the form of ministers, the ownership and direction of a church congregation was controlled by the people themselves, through democratically elected assemblies.

Presbyterianism quickly became the dominant form of Christianity in Scotland before spreading with equal rapidity to England. It was especially popular there among those Anglicans, members of the Protestant Church of England, who felt their state-sanctioned church exhibited too many characteristics of the Roman Catholic Church they abhorred. Even as Presbyterianism and the many other branches of Protestantism continued to grow throughout the British Isles and Western Europe, the movement would make another great leap forward in the latter half of the 1600s, when it crossed the Atlantic Ocean to England's North American colonies.

By the early 1600s, the English Protestants who had been trying to reform the Church of England had chosen to begin new lives of religious independence in America. Many different Protestant denominations arrived in North America throughout the century. These included Anglicans, Presbyterians, Congregationalists—Reformed Christians similar to Presbyterians in their reliance on their own congregations for church leadership—and Calvinists, those who adhered strictly to the teachings of John Calvin himself.

At this point, four primary branches of Calvin's Reformed Christianity had emerged in Europe and were now making their way to America: Presbyterianism, Congregationalism, the German Reformed Church, and the Dutch Reformed Church. These groups all settled in their own areas of the Northeast, with Presbyterians essentially overtaking the middle colonies, especially Pennsylvania, and Congregationalists and Calvinists establishing their churches in New England colonies such as Massachusetts.

Presbyterians—mostly English, Irish, and Scottish immigrants—lived and worshiped in their new American home for some time before a formal American Presbyterian church began to take shape. In 1682, Irishman Francis Makemie became an ordained Presbyterian minister in response to a request for a missionary to be sent to the Maryland colony in America. He arrived there in 1683 and established four Presbyterian congregations in the southeastern region of the colony. These are generally considered to have been among the first individual Presbyterian churches in America.

In 1706 Makemie assembled a number of Presbyterian ministers and leaders he had encountered during his extensive travels throughout the colonies and founded the Presbytery of Philadelphia. This marked the official beginning of organized American Presbyterianism, of which Makemie is regarded as the founder.

Presbyterianism continued to grow throughout the 1700s. In 1746, the College of New Jersey, later Princeton University, was founded by Presbyterians. Around the same time, the Presbyterian minister Gilbert Tennent and the Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards began preaching Reformed Christianity throughout the colonies in the widespread spiritual revival known as the Great Awakening.

Theological and moral disagreements within American Presbyterianism caused the church to split into separate factions numerous times in the 1700s and 1800s. In 1861, at the outbreak of the Civil War, the church divided into the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, in the North, and the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America, in the South; after the war, this Southern branch became the Presbyterian Church in the United States. These branches remained apart until 1983, when they reunited to form the Presbyterian Church (USA), which became the largest mainline Presbyterian denomination in America.

Beliefs

The core theological beliefs of Presbyterianism include the supremacy of God in the universe, the importance of scriptures—particularly the words of Jesus Christ as related in the New Testament—and the need for faith in God and the saving power of Jesus Christ.

One of the defining characteristics of Presbyterianism, and all other Calvinist forms of Protestantism, is its promotion of the concept of predestination. This is the belief, posited by Calvin, that God decided, before he had created the universe, which humans he would save at the end of time and which he would banish to eternal suffering. Although Presbyterians still insist on having faith and living a moral life, they believe that no good actions can save humans who have been selected for damnation; God's sovereignty is such that no other reality is possible.

Of God himself, Presbyterians believe in a Holy Trinity: a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God the Father sent the Son, Jesus, to die on earth as a human to bring about eternal salvation. They believe that Jesus was fully divine and fully human, and that the Holy Spirit acts as God's living agent on earth, attempting to undo the work of the devil. It is the devil's purpose, Presbyterians assert, to prey upon humanity's natural inclination to sin by tempting them to do evil. Presbyterians believe, however, that God knows in all cases what choices people will make and where their souls will go after death.

Practices

Reformed Christians hold religious services on Sundays. These services consist of hymns, praying, confessions of sins, Bible readings, and the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, in which the faithful consume the symbolic body and blood of Jesus.

This is an area that separates Reformed Christianity and some other forms of Protestantism from Roman Catholicism; while, to Catholics, the flesh and blood of Christ are physically present in the Eucharist, for Presbyterians they exist there only figuratively. The Eucharist and baptism, the symbolic cleansing of a person with water, are the only sacraments Presbyterians celebrate.

All church activities are overseen by an elected, hierarchical, representative form of government, as initially favored by Calvin. He believed that church power should not reside with one individual or with the entire congregation. Rather, the members of a Presbyterian church select their own leaders to guide them. At the individual church level, people can become deacons and elders. Deacons provide pastoral assistance, while elders collaborate with ministers to manage the business of their specific congregation.

Above this singular church government, called a session, is a presbytery, a governing body containing ministers and elders from multiple congregations in an area. Presbyteries answer to the larger Synod, and then the General Assembly, the highest form of Presbyterian government. All of these levels of church management are composed of a mixture of clergy and laity to show that all are equal before God.

Presbyterianism in the United States

In the twenty-first century, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States is the Presbyterian Church (USA), with more than 1.7 million members in about 10,000 congregations. This church was formed in 1983 from the union of the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America and the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) ordains men and women as ministers; does not claim that scriptures are free from error; and does not directly oppose abortion, homosexuality, or divorce. This church has gradually declined in membership since its inception. From 2012 to 2013, for example, the denomination lost about 90,000 members—4.8 percent of its national membership—and 224 congregations. Congregations that remain open are generally modest, boasting fewer than 200 members each. The highest concentration of Presbyterians of this denomination is in Pennsylvania, home to nearly 174,000 members, or 10 percent of the national Presbyterian Church (USA) population.

The second largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States is the Presbyterian Church in America. It formed in 1973 as a response to what it considered the overly liberal forms of Christianity permeating American culture. This church remains separate from the Presbyterian Church (USA) mainly for the two institutions' opposing teachings on various subjects.

As of 2024, the Presbyterian Church in America ordained only men as ministers; taught that scriptures contain no errors; and opposed abortion, divorce, and homosexual activity. In 2022, the Presbyterian Church in the United States had 1,140,660 members and 8,705 congregations. However, according to the Christian Post in 2023, the church was losing both members and churches. In 2022, the church lost more than 53,000 members and more than 100 congregations.

Bibliography

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Carter, Joe. "How to Tell the Difference between the PCA and PCUSA." Gospel Coalition. The Gospel Coalition, Inc. 23 June 2014. Web. 14 July 2015. http://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-to-tell-the-difference-between-the-pca-and-pcusa. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024.

Gryboski, Michael. "PCUSA Lost Over 100 Churches, 53,000 Members in 2022: Report." The Christian Post, 2 May 2023, www.christianpost.com/news/pcusa-lost-over-100-churches-53k-members-in-2022-report.html. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024.

"History and Beliefs of the Presbyterian Church." Faith Presbyterian Church. Faith Presbyterian Church. Web. 14 July 2015. http://www.scfaith.org/about-faith-church/history. Accessed 29 Oct. 2024.

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