The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or PCUSA, is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the United States. Its oldest congregations were founded by New England Puritans who moved into New York and New Jersey in the 17th century, but the major ethnic constituencies in American Presbyterianism came from Scots and Scotch-Irish who arrived early in the 18th century.
The first presbytery was organized in 1706, through the efforts of an Irish Presbyterian missionary, Rev. Francis Makemie. By 1716, growth made it necessary to create a synod; and, by 1788, a General Assembly. At this time it was named the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA) and adopted a revised edition of the Westminster Standards and a new book of order, both of which denied to the civil magistrate any role in ecclesiastical affairs.
The first serious controversy, over doctrinal subscription, was settled by a compromise. Ordinands were required to subscribe to the essentials of the Westminster standards, but determination of the essentials was left to presbyteries in specific cases. Between 1741 and 1758 Presbyterians were divided into a New Side, which favored Great Awakening revivalism, and an Old Side which opposed it. When reunion occurred the revivalist element was dominant.
Despite rapid growth due to revival and westward expansion early in the 19th century, the Presbyterian Church did not lower the educational standards for its ministers. Consequently, Presbyterians lost members to the Christian Churches, the Disciples of Christ, and to other denominations, because it was impossible to prepare enough pastors to keep up with the converts. The same causes gave rise to the Cumberland Presbyterian schism.
Controversy over doctrine, polity, and the administration of missions divided the Presbyterians again in 1837. The New School PCUSA, more open to cooperation with other denominations and more tolerant of doctrinal differences, lost its southern portion in 1857 over the slavery issue. The Old School PCUSA divided north and south in 1861, after the Civil War had begun. In 1870 the New School and Old School in the North reunited.
During the war the southern New School and Old School reunited, later to become known as the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS). Several small Covenanter and Secession groups merged in 1858, as the United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA). One hundred years later this body merged with the PCUSA, to create the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (UPCUSA).
The PCUS was more conservative and more provincial than its northern counterpart. However, a more conservative element withdrew from the PCUS in 1973 to form the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).
During the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the PCUSA, a few ministers and members followed J. G. Machen and Carl McIntire in 1936 into a new denomination, which later split into the Orthodox Presbyterian and Bible Presbyterian churches. Some of the latter withdrew again, and eventually united with the PCA in 1982. Another conservative element objecting to a requirement to ordain women, but more open to that issue and to the charismatic movement than the PCA, withdrew from the UPCUSA in 1981 to become the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC).
After more than a century the separate Northern and Southern Presbyterians reunited as the present PCUSA in 1983. PCUSA offices are in Louisville, Kentucky. The PCUSA publishes a monthly magazine, Presbyterians Today, has eleven theological schools and sixty-eight colleges, and is a member of the National Council and World Council of Churches and the World Reformed Alliance.
From the mid-1960s mainline Presbyterians experienced a decline in membership which is still occurring. The PCUSA has about 2,665,000 members, 11,350 churches, and 20,650 ministers in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Ninety-five percent of the membership is white, 2.5% Black, 1.4% Asian, 0.8% Hispanic, and 0.2% Native American.
At least a third of the members are evangelical Presbyterians. Declining funds have led to a smaller national staff and more modest denominational program. More of the churches' funds are diverted to the work of the presbyteries and of the local churches.
There is a renewed emphasis on evangelism and missions, and most of the growing congregations and an increasing number of younger ministers tend to be evangelical. There are over a dozen unofficial evangelical mission and renewal organizations at work in the PCUSA, including Presbyterians for Renewal, who publish reNews, and the Presbyterian Lay Committee, who publish The Presbyterian Layman.
"In its confessions," the Book of Order says, "the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) gives witness to the faith of the church catholic. . . identifies with the affirmations of the Protestant Reformation. . . [and] expresses the faith of the Reformed tradition." The Book of Confessions contains the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds, the Scots and Second Helvetic Confessions, the Heidelberg Catechism, Westminster documents, Declaration of Barmen, Confession of 1967, and a Brief Statement of Belief. The theme of the 1967 Confession is reconciliation; and problems of race, war, poverty, and gender are addressed. The Brief Statement, adopted in 1991, gives a concise statement of the major Reformed doctrines and lifts up concerns that call for attention today. The only statement that would alarm some evangelicals is that both men and women are called "to all ministries of the church."
This denomination requires openness to persons "of all racial ethnic groups, different ages, both sexes, various disabilities, diverse geographical areas, and different theological positions consistent with the Reformed tradition." Ordination is open to qualified women, but it is prohibited to unrepentant, practicing homosexuals.
An ordination vow requires ordinands to "sincerely receive and adopt the essential tenets of the Reformed faith as expressed in the confessions of our church as authentic and reliable expositions of what Scripture leads us to believe and do" and to "be instructed and led by those confessions as [they] lead the people of God."
Children who are being nurtured in the faith are admitted to the Lord's Table. While the PCUSA opposes abortion on demand and rejects abortion as a method of birth control or for gender selection, it maintains that there are some circumstances in which a decision to end a pregnancy may be justifiable.
There are many smaller, more conservative and more homogeneous Presbyterian denominations in the U.S., but this is the largest and, perhaps, the most influential.