The Reading Room - History

Historical Backgrounds of The Bible Presbyterian Church

Introduction • Early Tensions • Growing Pains • Reunion of Estranged Brothers
A Succession • Another Thread • Conclusion & Sources

By: Christopher K. Lensch (Associate Professor of OT - WRS)

Life’s developments often come in pairs of opposites. The antithesis can be illustrated by the Reformed Churches coming out of Roman Catholicism, it might be told as the tale of two cities, or it might manifest itself in the modern two-party political system.

Sacred history especially reveals life’s tensions between rivals: the knowledge of good and of evil, the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent, Cain and Abel, the sons of God and the daughters of men, plus many more examples from the patriarchal narratives. Sarah drove out Hagar to protect her son, Isaac from Ishmael, Leah competed with Rachel for attentions from their husband, and even before the birth of a set of fraternal twins, Jacob was striving with brother Esau in the womb.

Early Tensions in American Presbyterianism

Official Presbyterianism had a good start in colonial America. Francis Mackemie was a gifted and energetic church planter sent from Ulster in 1683 to gather the scattered Presbyterian sheep in the new world. By 1706 he had organized a presbytery, and the first synod by 1716. The future was bright for a Presbyterian witness to the Reformed faith in the Anglican church world of early America.

The Father of American Presbyterianism was in heaven before he could see his spiritual children begin to struggle over the family estate. In 1729 the first critical test to the unity of American Presbyterianism developed over the question of doctrinal subscription. In the face of the threat of Socinianism (anti-trinitarianism) and deism spreading from Europe, Scotch-Irish immigrants insisted that church officers must swear to uphold every element of the Westminster Confession. On the other hand, Presbyterians of English stock, while concerned for uniform orthodoxy, called for fealty to the “system of doctrine” contained in the Confession. This would allow for mental reservations based on personal biblical convictions to be stated by a (potential or present) church officer so that his appeal could be determined by his own presbytery. English Presbyterianism had a longer history in the new world and had already been enjoying decades of freedom of conscience and self-determination; in the 1600s many English Presbyterians had fled to the Middle Colonies to escape the suffocating structures of New England Congregationalism.

A compromise was struck to reach the Adopting Act of 1729. Within a dozen years, however, the underlying fissure within American Presbyterianism erupted in a divorce. The Great Awakening placed stress on all non-conformist (viz., non-Anglican) church groups, precipitating institutional soul-searching. The conservatives of the Scotch-Irish tradition collected in what became known as the Old Side; the revivalist Presbyterians who tutored their future pastors in “log colleges” to keep up with the harvest of revival souls were called the New Side.

Thankfully, both sides were Christian enough to forgive past grievances, and Presbyterian enough to want a united witness. They were re-united almost a generation before America’s Revolutionary War, and after supporting the war effort the unified Presbyterian Church became a leading national church.

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