The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a Presbyterian denomination in the northern United States.
It was made by members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA). They strongly objected to the Modernist theology during the 1930s. It had influence on evangelicalism far beyond its size.
Orthodox Presbyterian Church | |
---|---|
Abbreviation | OPC |
Classification | Protestant |
Theology | Confessionalism (Reformed) |
Governance | Presbyterian |
Moderator | Jeffery A. Landis |
Associations | North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council, International Conference of Reformed Churches |
Region | United States |
Headquarters | Willow Grove, Pennsylvania |
Origin | June 11, 1936 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
Separated from | Presbyterian Church in the United States of America |
Separations | Bible Presbyterian Church (1937) |
Congregations | 281 |
Members | 31,112 |
Ministers | 534 |
Official website | www |
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was made in 1936. It was founded largely through the efforts of John Gresham Machen. Machen and others had founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929, in response to a re-organization of Princeton Theological Seminary. In 1933, Machen, concerned about Liberal Christianity|liberal theology tolerated by Presbyterians on the mission field, formed the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. The next Presbyterian General Assembly reaffirmed that Independent Board was unconstitutional and gave the associated clergy an ultimatum to break their links. When Machen and seven other clergy refused, they were suspended from the Presbyterian ministry.
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, or PCA, which came about decades later). Machen was elected as the first moderator. The PCUSA filed suit against the denomination for its choice of name. In 1939, the denomination adopted its current name, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
Machen died in January 1937. Later that year, a significant faction of the OPC, led by Carl McIntire, broke away to form the Bible Presbyterian Church, a denomination which, unlike the OPC, required abstinence from alcohol and taught premillennialism.
As of 2014, The OPC had 281 congregations. In 2019, Escondido Orthodox Presbyterian Church received media attention as the church of which John Earnest, alleged perpetrator of the 2019 Poway synagogue shooting|Poway synagogue shooting, was a member. Its pastor, Zake Keele, condemned the shooting as an "act of evil."
The OPC system of doctrine is the Reformed faith. This is also called Calvinism.
Calvin's doctrines continued to develop after his death, and an evolution of them was set forth by a 17th-century assembly of British theologians in the Westminster Standards (which include the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Westminster Larger Catechism|Larger and Westminster Shorter Catechism|Shorter Catechisms). The OPC holds to the Westminster Standards with the American revisions of 1788.
The OPC provides the following summary of its doctrine:
OPC pastors and presbyteries teach a range of doctrines based on the historical view of the biblical creation accounts, from framework and analogical interpretations to young earth.
The 39th General Assembly, meeting in 1972, adopted a statement on abortion that said "voluntary abortion, except possibly to save the physical life of the mother, is in violation of the Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13)."
In 1993, the denomination petitioned then President Bill Clinton to continue to disallow homosexuals to serve 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 petition claims that AIDS and "other diseases" are spread through homosexual conduct.
The 68th General Assembly declared that women serving in combat positions in the military is contrary to the Bible.
In 2006-2007, a study committee formed by the General Assembly created a report that said "the church should never turn its back on fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, whether they are legally or illegally in the country. We should be willing to see to the spiritual and physical needs of anyone who comes to the church." The report also recommended that illegal immigrants seek to "repent" of their legal status.
OPC ministers have held a variety of political views. Carl Trueman, an ordained minister in the OPC, has authored Republocrat: Confessions of a Liberal Conservative (pub. 2010). Several founders of American Christian Reconstructionism (such as Rousas John Rushdoony and Greg Bahnsen) were Orthodox Presbyterian ministers.
This article uses material from the Wikipedia Simple English article Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 license ("CC BY-SA 3.0"); additional terms may apply (view authors). Content is available under CC BY-SA 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
®Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wiki Foundation, Inc. Wiki Simple English (DUHOCTRUNGQUOC.VN) is an independent company and has no affiliation with Wiki Foundation.