Our Denomination’s History
The earliest Christian church consisted of
Jews in the first century who had known Jesus and heard his teachings.
It gradually grew and spread from the Middle East to other parts of
the world, though not without controversy and hardship among its
supporters.
During the 4th century, after more than
300 years of persecution under various Roman emperors, the church
became established as a political as well as a spiritual power under
the Emperor Constantine. Theological and political disagreements,
however, served to widen the rift between members of the eastern
(Greek-speaking) and western (Latin-speaking) branches of the church.
Eventually, the western portions of Europe came under the religious
and political authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Eastern Europe
and parts of Asia came under the authority of the Eastern Orthodox
Church.
In western Europe, the authority of the
Roman Catholic Church remained largely unquestioned until the
Renaissance in the 15th century. The invention of the printing press
in Germany around 1440 made it possible for common people to have
access to printed materials, including the Bible. This, in turn,
enabled many to discover religious thinkers who had begun to question
the authority of the Roman Catholic Church.
One such figure, Martin Luther, a German
priest and professor, started the movement known as the Protestant
Reformation when he posted a list of 95 grievances against the Roman
Catholic Church on a church door in Wittenberg, Germany in 1517. Some
20 years later, a French/Swiss theologian, John Calvin, further
refined the reformers' new way of thinking about the nature of God and
God's relationship with humanity in what came to be known as Reformed
theology. John Knox, a Scotsman who studied with Calvin in Geneva,
Switzerland, took Calvin's teachings back to Scotland. Other Reformed
communities developed in England, Holland, and France. The
Presbyterian church traces its ancestry back primarily to the Reformed
churches of Scotland and
England.
Presbyterians have featured prominently in
United States history. The Rev. Francis Mackemie, who arrived in the
U.S. from Ireland in 1683, helped to organize the first American
Presbytery at Philadelphia in 1706. One of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence, the Rev. John Witherspoon, was a
Presbyterian minister. The Rev. William Tennent founded a ministerial
"log college" in New Jersey that evolved into Princeton University.
Other Presbyterian ministers, such as the Rev. Jonathan Edwards and
the Rev. Gilbert Tennent, were driving forces in the so-called "Great
Awakening," a revivalist movement in the early 18th century.
Several times, the Presbyterian church in
the United States has split and parts of it have reunited.
Currently, the largest group is the one to which Christ
Presbyterian Church belongs, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which
has its national offices in Louisville, Kentucky. It was formed in
1983 as a result of reunion between the Presbyterian Church in the
U.S. (PCUS), the so-called "southern branch," and the United
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA), the so-called "northern
branch."
Our Denomination’s Basic Beliefs
The Bible
Presbyterian
churches look to the Bible as the foundation for all matters of faith
and practice. Along with the other Reformed churches, we claim a
continuity between the people of God in the Old Testament, the
Christian movement in the New Testament, and our own worship and work.
We have confidence that the Bible is the pre-eminent way through which
Jesus calls and teaches his people. We derive our major doctrines –
including the sovereignty of God, the incarnation of Jesus Christ, the
gift of the Holy Spirit, the sinfulness of humanity, and the salvation
of people to eternal life – from Scripture. Each church member is
responsible for reading, interpreting, and practicing the teachings of
the Bible for himself or herself. Accordingly, education is basic to
the workings of our denomination.
Worship of God
Presbyterians
affirm that to be in Christ is to enter into and become a part of his
body, the Church. As a result, the corporate worship service is a
central component for a Presbyterian’s worship of God. The
Presbyterian belief in corporate worship is a natural extension of our
understanding of the six “great ends of the church.” As outlined in
the Book of Order
of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), these are:
-
The proclamation of
the gospel for the salvation of humankind,
-
The shelter, nurture
and spiritual fellowship of the children of God,
-
The maintenance of
divine worship,
-
The preservation of
the truth,
-
The promotion of
social righteousness, and
-
The exhibition of
the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.
The dominant characteristic of
Presbyterian worship is that it centers on God. We seek to draw our
attention to the majesty and glory of God, as he is revealed in the
Trinity, and not to ourselves and our feelings. To do this, we focus
on the Word of God, as expressed in the Bible. Our sermons,
sacraments, prayers, music – all of our forms of worship – are rooted
in Scripture. As stated in the Directory of Worship, “[i]n
Christian worship the people of God hear the Word proclaimed, receive
the Word enacted in Sacrament, discover the Word in the world, and are
sent to follow the Word into the world.”
The Reformed approach to worship is
freedom within order. Both the Directory for Worship and the
Book
of
Common
Worship provide guidelines for public worship,
while leaving room for a wide spectrum of styles. We do, however, hold
several ingredients to be necessary and foundational to corporate
worship: prayer, reading and proclamation of Scripture,
offerings, and the sacraments.
Presbyterians
recognize two sacraments: the Lord’s Supper, which Christ
Presbyterian Church celebrates the first Sunday of each month and on
certain other occasions; and Baptism, which is
administered to the infant children of church members and to adults
who have made a profession of faith.
The
Directory for Worship defines these sacraments as “God’s acts of
sealing the promises of faith within the community of faith as the
congregation worships.”
Presbyterians affirm the Reformed
conviction that God is active in history. In addition to having
created our universe, we believe, God continues to rule over all
things and is involved in the affairs of the world, moving all
creation toward the coming of the Kingdom of God. Accordingly,
Presbyterian worship seeks to address the concerns of our times – not
remain aloof to them.
Form of Government
The word
Presbyterian describes a particular way of organizing and
governing the church through groups of elders, which is the
English word for presbyter. This polity is one of the ways
members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) work to ensure that our
actions reflect the most important concepts of our faith. Our
Constitution not only makes theological proclamations, but also
provides us with a framework for incorporating those proclamations
into our relationships. It gives us a way for living out the “six
great ends of the church.”
The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is a
connectional church that contains several governing divisions.
The church’s governing bodies are the
session (for each congregation), the presbytery (a collection of
churches), the synod (a grouping of presbyteries), and the General
Assembly (all synods in the United States). At all levels above the
session, each body must contain ruling elders and teaching elders in
numbers “as nearly equal as possible.” Each congregation has
the right to elect its own officers. At the same time, that
congregation and all other parts of the denomination have the
responsibility of providing support to and sharing in the exercise of
discipline for the entire church.
Joining the Church
People become members of a particular
Presbyterian church by making a public profession of faith in Jesus
Christ, making a public reaffirmation of that faith, or by
transferring their certificate of membership from some other church.
There is no minimum age for membership. Each session has the
responsibility “to judge, after careful examination, the readiness of
those who apply for active membership.”
In making that judgment, however, the
session must “welcome all persons who respond in trust and obedience
to God’s grace in Jesus Christ and desire to become part of the
membership and ministry of his Church.” In other words, a session may
not impose any other requirements for membership. Our Constitution
declares that failure to “seek the grace of openness in extending the
fellowship of Christ to all persons . . . . constitutes a
rejection of Christ himself and causes a scandal to the gospel.”
Christ Presbyterian Church gladly welcomes
all candidates for membership. If you are interested in joining the
church, you may indicate this on the Friendship Roster and someone
will call you. You also may contact our Pastor following the
service, or through the church office at any time. Whether you already
are a member of the Presbyterian denomination, are coming from another
denomination, or are new to church life altogether – you are warmly
invited to become a part of the Christ Presbyterian family of faith!
The Role of Creeds and
Confessions
Presbyterians have always required some
kind of public profession of personal faith in Jesus Christ as Savior
and Lord, accompanied by baptism, as the basic requirement for
membership, as well as for ordination. Today, the Constitution of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) includes the
Book of
Confessions, as well as the
Book of Order. The
Book of Confessions contains the Nicene Creed, the
Apostles’ Creed, the Scots Confession, the Heidelberg
Catechism, the Second Helvetic Confession, the
Westminster Confession of Faith, the Shorter Catechism, the
Larger Catechism, the Theological Declaration of Barmen,
the Confession of 1967, and A Brief Statement of Faith –
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
Our Book of Order states that the “Holy
Scriptures are the only rule of faith and manners; that no Church
governing body ought to pretend to make laws to bind the conscience in
virtue of their own authority.” Accordingly, our church’s creeds
and confessions are “subordinate standards in the church, subject to
the authority of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as the Scriptures bear
witness to him.” However, the Book of Order also states that
“[The confessions] are not lightly drawn up or subscribed to, nor may
they be ignored or dismissed.” Accordingly, Presbyterians study and
seek to understand the church’s historic confessions and use them to
aid in and express our faith.
Our
Denomination’s Seal
The basic
symbols in the seal of the Presbyterian Church (USA) are the cross,
the Bible, the dove, and flames. The contour of a book can be seen in
the horizontal section, with the two center lines of the cross
representing an open book. This integration of the horizontal
dimensions of the cross with the book motif highlights the emphasis
that the Reformed tradition has placed on the role of the Bible as a
means of knowing God’s Word.
The
slightly-flared shape of the Celtic cross also makes possible the
transforming of the uppermost section into the shape of a descending
dove. As a symbol of the Holy Spirit, the dove is intimately tied to
the representation of the Bible, affirming the role of the Spirit in
both inspiring and interpreting the Bible in the life of the church.
The dove also
symbolizes Christ's baptism by John and the peace and wholeness which
his death and resurrection bring to a broken world. Beneath the image
of the book is the suggestion of a lectern or pulpit, which captures
the important role of preaching in the history of Presbyterian
worship.
Integrated into
the lower part of the design are flames which form an implied
triangle, a traditional symbol of the Trinity. The flames themselves
convey a double meaning: a symbol of revelation in the Old Testament
when God spoke to Moses from the burning bush, and a suggestion of the
beginning of the Christian church when Christ manifested himself to
his apostles at Pentecost and charged them to be messengers of the
good news of God's love.
The triangle
also suggests the nature of Presbyterian government, with its concern
for balance and order, dividing authority between ministers of the
Word and laypersons and between different governing bodies. This
understanding of the church was based in part on an important idea in
Reformed theology: the covenant, which God establishes with
people to affirm God's enduring love and to call us to faith and
obedience to Jesus Christ.
