Illustration by Raymond Biesinger
When the Presbyterian Church in America formed in 1973, it was not an auspicious time for denominations. On the one hand, there was a growing Bible church movement, springing from two streams: dispensationalism with its suspicion of denominations as the harbinger of a corrupt one-world church and the Jesus movement with its ideals of restoring the first-century church. On the other hand, the ecumenical movement, represented in its Churches of Christ Uniting mechanism, sought to bring the mainline denominations into a single Protestant “super-church” to save the soul of America. There were undoubtedly many who looked at the PCA as an anachronistic throwback to an earlier time when denominations were significant.
If that was the case then, it is much more the reality now as the PCA prepares to celebrate its 50th anniversary. According to a November 2022 article in “Christianity Today,” in the 2010s the number of nondenominational churches grew by 9,000 congregations, representing an additional 2 million professing believers. There are now more than five times more nondenominational congregations than in the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) and more than 20 times more than in our own denomination, the PCA. In terms of the larger religious marketplace, the “nons” have swamped the Presbyterians and every other denomination.
In addition, during the PCA’s 50-year history, we’ve seen various secessions from us. Through the years we’ve lost groups of congregations to the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Reformed Church in America, Reformed Presbyterian Church General Assembly, Bible Presbyterian Church, Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Vanguard Presbytery, and other smaller or newer denominational groupings. While these secessions have not significantly hindered PCA growth, they raise questions whether denominations like the PCA, which aspire to be national in reach, evangelical and confessional in theology, and mainline in cultural sensibility, are worth the effort.
I believe the PCA is worth the effort — and it all is connected to the development and necessity of denominations.
Original Developments
Sociologists of religion have long recognized that various religious groups tend to organize themselves in repeatable patterns. Drawing on the work of Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, scholars look at the 16th and 17th centuries and find two types of religious groupings: sects and churches. Churches are “national,” established churches — think here of the Church of England, the Church of Scotland, or the Lutheran Church of Saxony — that were formed through the efforts and with the cooperation of magistrates (hence, we sometimes call this the “magisterial Reformation”). Sects form in reaction to those national churches as they seek renewal within the church and society (the Mennonites would be a good example).
Denominations are necessary and important. They assist in providing for cooperative mission and the means necessary for sustaining that mission.
In between churches and sects are denominations. They form within nations that have national churches as well as in nations with no national church. As a sect grows and develops, it takes on the basic functions of a “national church” — credentialing of clergy, ordering of worship, engagement of cultural issues, and support of the nation-state — with this difference: it recognizes that there are other churches or denominations present. Hence, denominations signal a commitment to religious pluralism; no one denomination takes precedence over the others.
That “sect-church typology” certainly makes sense of what happened as churches formed in the American colonies in the 18th century. As men such as Francis Makemie made their way to America, they had the experience of forming presbyteries in Northern Ireland. These Scots-Irish presbyteries were not part of a “national church,” like the Church of Scotland; they represented an indigenous development within Ulster Plantation itself. As a result, when Scots-Irish Presbyterian ministers came to America, they followed the same pattern. In 1706, seven ministers formed themselves into a presbytery in Philadelphia; as they did so, they were no longer a “sect,” but were on their way to becoming a denomination.
Why did they form as a presbytery? While the initial minutes of Philadelphia Presbytery are lost, there was a letter from Makemie, the first moderator, that gives a clue: “Our design is to meet yearly, and oftener if necessary, to consult the most proper measures, for advancing religion, and propagating Christianity in our various stations.” While the presbytery would take on ministerial credentialing and congregational oversight, the primary purpose was mission. As a developing denomination, this Presbyterian body sought to advance the gospel in the American colonies.
Organized for Mission
This would not only be the case for Presbyterians. Nearly every major denomination that developed in the United States did so for the purpose of mission. Though Baptists were present in the United States from the 17th century, it was not until the Triennial Convention (officially named “General Missionary Convention of the Baptist Denomination in the United States of America for Foreign Missions”) started in 1814 that there was properly a Baptist denomination. When that group divided in 1845 over whether a Georgia Baptist could take his African-American slave to the mission field, the Southern Baptist Convention was formed.
Similarly, American Congregationalists would have associations for credentialing and oversight in the 17th century. However, they would not form as a denomination — linking those associations together — until Adoniram Judson desired to go to the mission field; that would lead Congregationalists to form the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, which would in turn link Congregationalists together as a denomination. Whether Presbyterian, Baptist, or Congregationalist, denominations all were organized for mission.
To support mission both in the U.S. and abroad, these denominations started theological seminaries. Not only would these seminaries teach doctrinal distinctives, but they would reinforce denominational identity. While Presbyterian seminaries such as Princeton Seminary would train a significant number of men from other denominations, such schools existed primarily to prepare Presbyterian ministers who would pastor churches in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) denomination. The same could be said of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Baptist) or Andover Seminary (Congregationalist). Theological education was for mission as a means of advancing denominational identity and growth.
As a result of the connection between theological education and mission, denominations also had a responsibility for theological credentialing. With the rise of American theological liberalism, such credentialing would take on heightened importance. Ensuring the doctrinal fidelity of pastors and elders was viewed as vital for effective mission. As a result, at the 19th century’s end, major conflicts over Presbyterian ministerial credentials would lead to heresy trials for well-known pastors and scholars such as David Swing and Charles Briggs. These trials were fueled by the belief that the purity of the Presbyterian Church was necessary for the advancement of its mission.
And when the mainline Presbyterian denominations were no longer committed to doctrinal purity, there was an accompanying loss of missional passion and reach. Without an inspired, infallible, inerrant Scripture and a full-throated commitment to the exclusivity of Christ, global missions became syncretistic. Evangelism was replaced by education. Church planting dried up. Men and women were no longer lost and going to hell; they were good people who were merely ignorant of God’s eternal love for them. It was in response to the doctrinal and missional waywardness of the Presbyterian Church in the United States that the PCA formed in 1973. PCA founders believed that the need of the hour was a denomination that was “true to the Scriptures, faithful to the Reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission.” They were a continuing church, seeking to organize and advance for mission.
Opportunity Before Us
With this historical sketch, we can begin to see why denominations are necessary and important. They assist in providing for cooperative mission and the means necessary for sustaining that mission. Also, they are inevitable: If denominations didn’t exist, something like them would have to be formed for churches to advance mission.
Our opportunity is to declare to ourselves and others: we are far better together in this denomination called the PCA. Because together, we might reach our country and the world for Christ.
For example, many nondenominational churches are not actually “nondenominational” or “independent.” They inevitably create networks for mission, work together for theological education, and assist each other in credentialing. Whether it is Acts 29, The Soma Family of Churches, or the Association of Related Churches, these networks act like denominations: They assist with mission strategy and church-planter training and certification. Churches need denominations or denomination-like entities because no single congregation can accomplish as much alone as it can in partnership with others.
For Presbyterians, denominations are necessary expressions of our theology and polity, which recognizes regional groupings of churches connected for mission. The question for Presbyterians isn’t whether to be in a denomination; the question is which denomination?
One way of getting at this question is to think about the line from the Nicene Creed in which we confess that we believe in “one holy catholic and apostolic church.” Over a millennium and a half after this creed was accepted by the church, we recognize that oneness is a spiritual, not organizational unity, and that apostolicity is rooted in the biblical witness concerning Jesus Christ. But the tension is in those center words: holiness and catholicity. Or to put it differently, churches are more or less pure and more or less comprehensive.
Throughout American religious history, there have been tensions between purity and comprehensiveness, holiness and universality. As denominations have become less pure doctrinally, there have been renewal movements and even separations that chose purity over comprehensiveness. The PCA’s formation in 1973 was an example of this. In the face of the doctrinal failure of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), the founders choose to leave their mainline denomination that was “comprehensive” (at least in the Southern states) in order to form a doctrinally purer church.
Yet even in forming the PCA, the founders didn’t give up on comprehensiveness. They stressed that they were a “continuing church,” seeking to maintain both ideals of holiness and catholicity from the parent body. In addition, some founders such as G. Aiken Taylor hoped that the PCA would not simply become a national denomination (our first name was “the National Presbyterian Church”), but also a church that would grow through mergers, bringing together other Reformed bodies into a truly comprehensive body. Our 1982 joining and receiving with the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, was the culmination of those “catholic” hopes.
In other words, the PCA was founded to be a conservative, evangelical, mainline Presbyterian church. We were seeking both purity in doctrine and comprehensiveness in scope, to be a national denomination that brought many people together across this country (and even into Canada). And yet, our very name reminds us that though we seek such comprehensiveness, such catholicity, we are never identified with this country or continent. We are the Presbyterian Church “in” America, not “of” America. Our commitments are larger than our country; we see ourselves as part of that “catholic” or universal church that extends around the world.
And so, answering the question of “which denomination” comes back to whether we will so privilege purity that we will give up on comprehensiveness, or whether we will hold onto the ideal of a truly national Presbyterian body that seeks to be “true to the Scriptures, faithful to the Reformed faith, and obedient to the Great Commission.” Some of our brothers and sisters will find their place in other smaller, even micro-Presbyterian bodies where they maintain the Reformed faith in their understanding of purity. We bless them and wish them nothing but the very best. Yet many of us in the PCA believe in the original vision: We desire a national denomination that aggressively works together for mission with shared doctrinal commitment to the Westminster Standards.
The opportunity before the PCA for the next 50 years and beyond is to come back to this original vision — not just of our PCA founders but of Francis Makemie himself, the first moderator of the first presbytery in the American colonies. Remember, he said that presbytery formed “to consult the most proper measures, for advancing religion, and propagating Christianity in our various stations.” Our opportunity is to grasp hold of that vision again.
What are the most proper measures for advancing religion and propagating Christianity in our various stations? It will necessarily look different in rural areas versus the suburbs or the city, or in the Northeast versus the Southwest. We are agreed in our commitment to the fixed orthodoxy of the Westminster Standards; we should be able to allow flexibility in our methodology as we seek to propagate Christianity.
Our opportunity is to declare to ourselves and others: We are far better together in this denomination called the PCA. Because together, we might reach our country and the world for Christ.
Sean Lucas is senior pastor at Independent Presbyterian Church in Memphis, Tennessee and Chancellor’s Professor of Church History, Reformed Theological Seminary.