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The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a conservative Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) who strongly objected to the pervasive Modernist theology during the 1930s (see Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy). Led by J. Gresham Machen, who had helped found Westminster Theological Seminary, the church attempted to preserve historic Calvinism within a Presbyterian structure.

History

Background

In the second half of the 19th century, the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America began to shift away from historic Presbyterian faith and practice. Earlier in the century (1838), there had been a split between "Old School" and "New School" lines, with the "Old School" Presbyterians, perhaps being best represented by Charles Hodge, standing for a stricter stance on confessional subscription and church polity, and the "New School" Presbyterians, including Lyman Beecher and Albert Barnes, believing that Presbyterians should take a more active role in social issues, often at the expense of maintaining strict Calvinist orthodoxy.

In 1869, the "Old School" and "New School" Presbyterians reunited. What resulted was not only the PCUSA becoming more broadly ecumenical with other denominations in the name of social reform, but also a decline in doctrinal purity, which included a revision of the Westminster Confession in 1903 to soften strict Calvinism. Higher criticism of the Bible had also become influential in the late 19th century, resulting, in one case, the deposition of Charles A. Briggs, a professor at New York City's Union Theological Seminary, for heresy in 1893. In 1909, the Presbytery of New York attempted to ordain a group of Union graduates who could neither affirm nor deny the virgin birth. In response, the following year's General Assembly listed five essentials of the faith that ministers must affirm: the innerrancy of Scripture, the miracles of Christ, the Virgin Birth, substitutionary atonement and the resurrection, essentials which would later be expounded in a series of articles known collectively as The Fundamentals, and those who adhered to these five doctrines were known as fundamentalists. In 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick, a prominent modernist Baptist serving as a pastor at First Presbyterian Church in New York City, delivered a sermon entitled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win"?, igniting the Fundamentalist-Modernist Controversy.

Machen and the Departure from the PCUSA

Standing in the tradition of men like Charles Hodge, Geerhardus Vos, and B. B. Warfield, Machen was one of the chief conservative professors at Princeton Theological Seminary, which until the early twentieth century was a bastion of orthodox Presbyterian theology. In 1929, the seminary board reorganized along more theologically liberal lines, and appointed professors who were significantly more friendly to modernism and some forms of liberalism.

Machen and a group of other conservatives objected to these changes, forming Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929. Then, objecting to theological positions that he believed compromised the distinctives of the Reformed tradition, if not the basic tenets of Christianity itself, Machen pled his case before the General Assembly of the PCUSA. The Assembly refused to take action, and so Machen and several other professors, along with a group of fellow conservatives, formed the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions.

In 1934, the General Assembly condemned this action and Machen and his allies were deposed from the ministry of the old Church. On June 11, 1936, Machen and a group of conservative ministers, elders, and laymen met in Philadelphia to form the Presbyterian Church of America (not to be confused with the Presbyterian Church in America, which came about decades later). Machen was elected as the first moderator. The PCUSA filed suit against the fledgling denomination for their choice of name, and in 1939, the denomination adopted its current name, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Schism & Continuity

At the time leading up to the founding of the OPC, Machen and his allies in the PCUSA were considered to be prominent leaders of Christian fundamentalism, in that they held to the Five Fundamentals of the Christian faith. Machen and the majority of the OPC, however, were committed to the historic Reformed tradition with plenary statements of faith, rather than to the fundamentalist movement. Although the OPC agreed with the fundamentalists on many issues—including the inerrancy of the Bible—Machen, who died unexpectedly from pneumonia in January 1937, and most OPC pastors felt that fundamentalism was inadequate in its doctrinal formulations.

However, a significant faction of the OPC, led by Carl McIntire, and including other men such as J. Oliver Buswell and Allan MacRae, were strongly Reformed, but held to such things as total abstinence from alcohol and Premillennialist eschatology (positions held by a number of respected leaders throughout the history of American Presbyterianism). In 1937, this faction broke away to form the Bible Presbyterian Church, feeling that the acceptance of their viewpoints within the new denomination were in jeopardy. The Bible Presbyterians have often been labeled as mere "Fundamentalists" and "Dispensationalists," and that they were somehow less than "truly Reformed." However, the historical record would refute these descriptions. From its inception, the Bible Presbyterian Church has formally held the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as its Standards.

Pivotal, early leaders of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church included men from American Presbyterian, Dutch Reformed, and Scottish Presbyterian backgrounds, such as Cornelius Van Til and John Murray. Controversies (in the OPC and in American evangelicalism) and failed attempts at church union with other Reformed churches (the CRC and PCA) ultimately promoted a firmly Reformed commitment. Yet, a tension between a more American evangelical and a more rigorously Reformed emphasis remains in the OPC.

Doctrine

The OPC system of doctrine is the Reformed faith, also called Calvinism (because Calvin was the most important exponent of it during the Reformation). Calvin's doctrines continued to evolve after his death, and were set forth in the Westminster Standards (which include the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms), with accompanying biblical references). The OPC holds to the Westminster standards.

The OPC provides the following summary of its doctrine:

• The Bible, having been inspired by God, is entirely trustworthy and without error. Therefore, we are to believe and obey its teachings. The Bible is the only source of special revelation for the church today.
• The one true God is personal, yet beyond our comprehension. He is an invisible spirit, completely self-sufficient and unbounded by space or time, perfectly holy and just, and loving and merciful. In the unity of the Godhead there are three "persons": the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
• God created the heavens and the earth, and all they contain. He upholds and governs them in accordance with his eternal will. God is sovereign—in complete control—yet this does not diminish human responsibility.
• Because of the sin of the first man, Adam, all mankind is corrupt by nature, dead in sin, and subject to the wrath of God. But God determined, by a covenant of grace, that sinners may receive forgiveness and eternal life through faith in Jesus Christ. Faith in Christ has always been the only way of salvation, in both Old Testament and New Testament times.
• The Son of God took upon himself a human nature in the womb of the virgin Mary, so that in her son Jesus the divine and human natures were united in one person. Jesus Christ lived a sinless life and died on a cross, bearing the sins of, and receiving God's wrath for, all those who trust in him for salvation (his chosen ones). He rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, where he sits as Lord and rules over his kingdom (the church). He will return to judge the living and the dead, bringing his people (with glorious, resurrected bodies) into eternal life, and consigning the wicked to eternal punishment.
• Those whom God has predestined unto life are effectually drawn to Christ by the inner working of the Spirit as they hear the gospel. When they believe in Christ, God declares them righteous (justifies them), pardoning their sins and accepting them as righteous, not because of any righteousness of their own, but by imputing Christ's merits to them. They are adopted as the children of God and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, who sanctifies them, enabling them increasingly to stop sinning and act righteously. They repent of their sins (both at their conversion and thereafter), produce good works as the fruit of their faith, and persevere to the end in communion with Christ, with assurance of their salvation.
• Believers strive to keep God's moral law, which is summarized in the Ten Commandments, not to earn salvation, but because they love their Savior and want to obey him. God is the Lord of the conscience, so that men are not required to believe or do anything contrary to, or in addition to, the Word of God in matters of faith or worship.
• Christ has established his church, and particular churches, to gather and perfect his people, by means of the ministry of the Word, the sacraments of baptism (which is to be administered to the children of believers, as well as believers) and the Lord's Supper (in which the body and blood of Christ are spiritually present to the faith of believers), and the disciplining of members found delinquent in doctrine or life. Christians assemble on the Lord's Day to worship God by praying, hearing the Word of God read and preached, singing psalms and hymns, and receiving the sacraments.

Demographics

The OPC churches are located predominantly in the United States with congregations in 47 states. There are 5 churches are in Canada, 4 in the Province of Ontario and 1 in Alberta. There are 2 congregations in Puerto Rico. Pennsylvania and California are the states where the OPC churches are numerically the strongest. Many congregations are located throughout the Midwest. At the 2013 General Assembly, the OPC reported 270 churches, 49 mission works, and 30,555 members.

The OPC has 17 Presbyteries, the Central Pennsylvania, Central US, Connecticut and Southern New York, the Dakotas, Michigan and Ontario, Mid-Atlantic, Midwest, New Jersey, New York and New England, Northern California and Nevada, South, Southeast, Southern California, Southwest.

No one has never conducted a census to determine the racial, political, or economic compositions of the denomination. Nevertheless, there is much evidence that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church is an overwhelmingly white and politically conservative denomination:

Racial

The OPC does not juridically discriminate against any racial or ethnic groups, but in the early 1970s the General Assembly commissioned (and officially received) a report that acknowledged that the OPC was a "largely white" denomination and that this was the result of ecclesiastical "neglect." The Committee which authored the report identified several reasons why this is so. First, the report identifies the fact that the OPC emerged from the Presbyterian Church USA, which "lost the allegiance of blacks during the ecclesiastical discrimination against blacks in the post-civil war period." Second, it acknowledged that the OPC's "ministry to minority groups has been almost non-existent." The report recommended more outreach to minority and urban areas.

Nevertheless, decades after the report was released the OPC remains an overwhelmingly white denomination. The report's rationale that the denomination inherited the reconstruction racial dynamics of the PCUSA is no longer persuasive considering the fact that the OPC has now been a distinct denomination for over 80 years (and the American Civil War ended almost 150 years ago). There are very few minorities present in any of the official photos of recent General Assemblies, which reflects the fact that there are very few non-whites in leadership positions in the denomination. And in many (if not most) of the previous meetings of the General Assembly, only whites were present as delegates.

Political

Although the OPC does not officially endorse any political party or philosophy, broader political tendencies and trends are quite evident. While there have been no official surveys to determine the political demographics of the denomination, there have been several indications that the membership of the OPC is hardly reflective of the broader American populace. The membership and leadership of the OPC tend, by in large, to eschew the political left.

For instance, the denominational magazine has taken up the question of whether the Christian right is good for American conservativism (a topic that has nothing to do with Reformed Christianity). In the early 2000s, the General Assembly commissioned and officially received a report that concluded that undocumented workers could not claim to be true Christians if they were not willing to "repent" and return to their countries of origin. The denomination has published the ideas of a minister who has asserted, against all historical and scientific evidence, that dinosaurs existed in England just five hundred years ago. Likewise, it has published statements by a minister who describes feminism as "primarily one aspect of the general revolt against God's rule in this world." After considerable debate, the 68th General Assembly declared that women serving in combat positions in the military is contrary to the Word of God. A prominent minister has bluffly asserted that the American political system originally "assumed the internal constraints of true Christianity," which, he laments, "are now rapidly disappearing in the Western world." Such notions are quite at home in the Christian right, American fundamentalist circles, and in quarters of the Republican party.

The OPC has never petitioned the federal government to change its policies when a Republican has held the office of President of the United States. But in 1993, the denomination petitioned then President Bill Clinton to disallow homosexuals from serving in the military. According to the petition, "homosexuality is a reproach to any nation. It undermines the family, and poses a substantial threat to the general health, safety and welfare of our citizens." The OPC did not offer any scientific or biblical support whatsoever for its claim that homosexuality (in and of itself) represents an objective threat to the "safety" and "health" of the American citizenry.

In 2002, a prominent OPC minister was indefinitely suspended from gospel ministry after linking to an article (written by his wife) which argued that Reformed Christians should reconsider their intense opposition to homosexual civil-unions. Neither the minister nor his wife's article approved of homosexuality as such. Instead, the article argued that it was politically pragmatic for a small minority group like Orthodox Presbyterians to support the political rights of other small minority groups. The minister was found guilty of error by the Presbytery of Southern California, and the verdict was upheld after much debate by the general assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

There is no evidence that any Orthodox Presbyterian minister or elder played any role whatsoever in advancing any liberal or progressive cause, such as the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s or equal pay legislation. Historically, the OPC has only made political statements that have coincided with right wing policies, such as opposition to homosexuals serving their country, women serving in combat roles, the status of undocumented workers, opposition to the Department of Education, and the anti-abortion movement

So despite the fact that the OPC has never surveyed its members to determine political demographics, the vast majority of OPC members can be described as either conservative, Republican, libertarian, or even theonomic. Several of the most important founders of American reconstructionism (such as Rousas John Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen) were Orthodox Presbyterian ministers. Some important Orthodox Presbyterians, including Machen, were and are libertarians (but not left-libertarians). Many ministers and elders are members of the Republican party. There have been no noteworthy instances of OPC ministers who have supported the causes of the political left, though at least one minister has pushed back against a few of the economic and religious assumptions of the political right.

Governance

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church has a Presbyterian polity and has several components, with specific duties.

The Session The Session consists of its ministers and ruling elders of an individual congregation. It's duties include overseeing public worship, the addition and removal of members, discipline of members and keeping records of membership and the administration of the sacraments. The session is also to oversee worship.

The Presbytery All of the members of local congregations and its ministers are organized into a regional church, and the presbytery serves as the governing body of the regional church. The presbytery is composed of all of the ministers and ruling elders of the congregations in the regional church, and presbytery meetings are to, if possible, all of the ministers on the roll and one ruling elder from each respective session.

The duties of the presbytery include overseeing evangelism and resolving questions regarding discipline. The presbytery also takes candidates for ministry under its care, as well as examines, licenses and ordains them. It also, if necessary, can remove a minister

General Assembly The General Assembly, for the OPC is the supreme judicatory (BCO, pg. 25), and as such, it is to resolve all doctrinal and disciplinary issues that have not been resolved by the sessions and presbyteries. The other duties of the General Assembly include organizing regional churches, calling ministers and licentiates to missionary or other ministries, and reviewing the records from the presbyteries. It also arranges internship training for prospective ministers, oversees diaconal needs.

The General Assembly is to meet at least once a year, and is to have, at maximum, 155 voting commissioners, including the moderator and stated clerk of the previous General Assembly, and ministers and ruling elders representing their respective presbyteries.

Missions

Foreign

The OPC works (alongside other Reformed churches) to establish "indigenous national churches that are firmly and fully committed to the Reformed standards, that are self-supporting, self-governing, and self-propagating, and with whom the OPC may have fraternal relations."

The Committee on Foreign Missions currently sends missionaries to: China, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Japan, Kenya, Korea, Québec, Suriname, and Uganda.

Domestic

The OPC's Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension serves to help sustain and plant congregations in the United States and Canada. Amongst their duties is to aid presbyteries in planting congregations, assist presbyteries in the support of home missionaries, help new congregations find organizing pastors, help established congregations to find pastors and to manage a loan fund that helps congregations in need of property and buildings.

Notable members

Early leaders in the denomination include J. Gresham Machen, Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, Robert Dick Wilson, R. B. Kuiper, John Murray, Ned B. Stonehouse, and Edward Joseph Young. Other notable ministers include Greg Bahnsen, Gregory K. Beale, Charles G. Dennison, Richard B. Gaffin, Jr., Darryl G. Hart, Meredith G. Kline, George W. Knight, K. Scott Oliphint, Carl R. Trueman, David VanDrunen and Paul Norman Browne.

Ecumenical relations

The OPC and the Presbyterian Church in America, the largest conservative Reformed denomination in the United States, remain on very cordial terms despite two failed merger attempts in the 1980s. The two differ from each other more in origin and history (with the PCA coming about when conservatives left the Presbyterian Church in the United States, aka, the "Southern Presbyterians" in 1973) than doctrine. Historically, however, the OPC has been more conservative than the PCA in its approach to worship, church government and discipline. Like the PCA, the OPC does not ordain women as pastors or elders. While the vast majority of OPCs do not recognize the continued legitimacy of the biblical office of deaconess, at least one congregation does allow for the office of deaconess. While most OPC congregations only allow women to teach Sunday school classes for children and other women, some of the more moderate PCA congregations allow a woman to do the same things as a non-ordained man. The OPC also requires elders and deacons to accept the Westminster Standards without exception as an accurate expression of the Bible's teachings, while the PCA allows elders and deacons to accept them with minor exceptions.

In 1975, the OPC became a founding member of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council (NAPARC). Through NAPARC, the OPC currently enjoys fraternal relations with the PCA, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, the Reformed Church in the United States, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the United Reformed Churches in North America, the Canadian and American Reformed Churches and several other confessional Continental Reformed and Presbyterian Churches in the United States and Canada.

The OPC is also a member of the International Conference of Reformed Churches, which includes Reformed & Presbyterian denominations from across the globe. Outside the ICRC and NAPARC, the OPC has relations with the Africa Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church in Japan, the Presbyterian Church in Japan and the Presbyterian Church of Brazil.

References

1. Hart, D.G. & Meuther, John Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism (P&R Publishing) 2007, pg.138
2. Hart & Meuther, pg. 129
3. Hart & Meuther, pg. 137
4. Hart & Meuther, pg. 171-173
5. ^ "What is the OPC?: 2. Our System of Doctrine". The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Retrieved 8 January 2013.
6. Fox, Arthur. Orthodox Presbyterian Church "2013 General Assembly Report". Retrieved 5 November 2013. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help)
7. http://www.opc.org/presbyteries.html
8. http://www.pnjopc.org/opcpresbyteries.html
9. ^ http://www.opc.org/GA/race.html
10. http://opc.org/news.html?news_id=191
11. http://www.opc.org/nh.html?article_id=735
12. http://www.opc.org/qa.html?question_id=356
13. http://opc.org/qa.html?question_id=532
14. http://opc.org/qa.html?question_id=499
15. http://banneroftruth.org/uk/resources/articles/2001/should-women-fight/
16. http://opc.org/os.html?article_id=398&cur_iss=F#return1
17. http://www.opc.org/GA/homosexuality.html
18. http://www.upper-register.com/about.html
19. http://www.acton.org/pub/religion-liberty/volume-4-number-4/j-gresham-machen
20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU-aOyHFlQI
21. http://thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevindeyoung/2010/10/19/republocrat-a-review/
22. "The Book of Church Order of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church", pg. 17accessed July 4, 2013 http://opc.org/BCO/BCO_2011.pdf
23. ^ BCO pg. 17
24. ^ BCO, pg. 20
25. BCO pg. 21
26. ^ BCO pg. 23
27. BCO, pg. 24
28. "About Home Missions," retrieved Oct. 1st, 2013 http://chmce.org/about-home-missions/
29. http://www.ncpcboston.org/about/leaders/
30. "The Constituting Meeting of the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council(NAPARC)" accessed July 4th, 2013, http://www.naparc.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Minutes-of-the-1st-1975-Meeting-of-NAPARC.pdf
31. "Member Churches" accessed July 4th, 2013 http://www.naparc.org/member-churches
32. "The OPC's Ecclesiastical Relations" retrieved September 14th, 2013, http://www.opc.org/relations/links.html

Further reading

• Gatiss, Lee. Christianity and the Tolerance of Liberalism: J.Gresham Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy of 1922-1937. London: Latimer Trust, 2008 ISBN 978-0-946307-63-0
• Churchill, Robert King. Lest We Forget : a Personal Reflection on the Formation of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Philadelphia : The Committee for the Historian of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1987. ISBN 0-934688-34-6
• Longfield, Bradley J. The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. ISBN 0-19-508674-0
• Hart, D.G. Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994. ISBN 0-8010-2023-9
• Hart, D.G., and John Muether. Fighting the Good Fight of Faith: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Philadelphia: The Committee on Christian Education and the Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1995. ISBN 0-934688-81-8
• North, Gary. Crossed Fingers: How the Liberals Captured the Presbyterian Church. Tyler, TX: Institute for Christian Economics. 1996. ISBN 0-930464-74-5
• Calhoun, David B., Princeton Seminary: The Majestic Testimony, 1869-1929. Carlisle, PA: Banner of Truth, 1996.
• Rian, Edwin H. The Presbyterian Conflict. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. 1940. ISBN 0-934688-67-2
• Loetscher, Lefferts A., The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press
• Elliot, Paul M., Christianity and Neo-Liberalism: The Spiritual Crisis in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Beyond, 2005, Trinity Foundation, ISBN 978-0-940931-68-8

External links

• The Orthodox Presbyterian Church: official website
• Great Commission Publications

• Orthodox Presbyterian Church
• Presbyterian denominations in Canada
• Presbyterian denominations in the United States