What separates the EPC, OPC, and PCA? Why haven’t they merged?
As I understand it (and I’m not that up on EPC rules) the EPC allows women elders and pastors and the possibility of speaking in tongues. Neither the PCA nor the OPC go for that.
The OPC and PCA have discussed merging over the years, but the OPC is wary of being swallowed up by the larger denomination. Also, the OPC tends to be the more conservative of the two and likes to preserve its heritage. The founding of the OPC was due in large part to some courageous men who stood up for the truth back in 1936 and lost everything in doing so.
The PCA was founded around 1973, I believe, and many of the churches that left the liberal Presbyterian denomination are in the south. They were alarmed at the merging of two large Presbyterian groups that were becoming more and more liberal and political. There was a cultural, as well as a theological, basis to the orgins of the PCA.
Having been a member in OPC and PCA churches over the years, it seems to me that the OPC tends to be the most conservative, especially in worship style. Both denominations are Calvinistic in doctrine and uphold the doctrines of the sovereignty of God and the inerrancy of Scripture.
The non-PCUSA Presbyterian denominations differ on the ordination of women. The PCA (my denomination) only ordains men as pastors (teaching elders), ruling elders and deacons (as does the much smaller OPC), while the EPC allows the ordination of women as ruling elders and deacons if elected by local congregations.