Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod
| Presbyterian Church in America | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Abbreviation | PCA |
| Classification | Protestant |
| Orientation | Reformed Evangelical |
| Theology | Conservative Confessional Calvinist |
| Governance | Presbyterian |
| Moderator | Dr. Alexander Jun |
| Stated clerk | Roy Taylor |
| Associations | North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council; National Association of Evangelicals; World Reformed Fellowship |
| Region | mainly United States and Canada but has a Presbytery in Chile and a forming provisional presbytery in Paraguay, and churches in various cities in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Grand Cayman Island and the Czech Republic |
| Headquarters | Lawrenceville, Georgia |
| Origin | December 1973 Birmingham, Alabama |
| Separated from | Presbyterian Church in the United States |
| Absorbed | Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (1982) |
| Congregations | 1,545 (end of 2016) |
| Members | 374,161 (end of 2016) |
| Ministers | 4,761 (end of 2016) |
| Official website | www |
The Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) is the second largest Presbyterian church body (second to Presbyterian Church (USA)) 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.
The PCA has its roots in theological controversies over liberalism in Christianity and neo-orthodoxy that had been a point of contention in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (formerly the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America) which had split from the mainline Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A along regional lines at the beginning of the Civil War. While the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy had led to a split in the PC-USA in the mid 1930s, leading to the formation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Bible Presbyterian Church, the PCUS remained intact. However, beginning in 1942, as the PCUS began to experiment with confessional revision, and later, when neo-orthodoxy and liberalism began to become influential in the PCUS' seminaries, and attempts were made to merge with the more liberal PC-USA and its successor, the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., renewal groups began to be formed, including the Presbyterian Churchmen United, which had been formed by more than 500 ministers and ran 3/4 page statements of their beliefs in 30 newspapers, the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, conducted revivals in PCUS churches, the Concerned Presbyterians, and the Presbyterian Churchmen United (PCU), an organization of conservative pastors in the Southern Presbyterian Church. They sought to reaffirm the Westminster Confession of Faith as the fullest and clearest exposition of biblical faith, which many conservatives felt that presbyteries had been violating by receiving ministers who refused to affirm the virgin birth and bodily resurrection, and to expect all pastors and leaders to affirm the inerrancy of scripture. Opponents of the merger took specific issue with the United Presbyterian Church's adherence to the Auburn Affirmation and the Confession of 1967; the Southern Presbyterian denomination rejected the adoption of these confessions as official standards, noting amorphous biblical doctrine, lax sexual ethic, and conversations with other church bodies that rejected the Reformed faith, such as those explored by the Consultation on Church Union. They also felt the church should disavow the ordination of women. Conservatives also criticized the PCUS Board of Christian Education's published literature and believed that the denomination’s Board of World Missions no longer placed its primary emphasis on carrying out the Great Commission. In 1966, conservatives within the PCUS, concerned about the denominational seminaries founded Reformed Theological Seminary.
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