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A Missouri congregation has voted to leave Presbyterian Church (USA) over the Mainline denomination's "theological controversies," including its growing acceptance of homosexuality. First and Calvary Presbyterian Church, a Springfield congregation with approximately 1,700 members, voted 493 to 185 on Sunday in favor of disaffiliating with PCUSA. The Rev. Andrew Chaney, senior pastor at First and Calvary, told The Christian Post that his congregation voted following months of consideration. "First and Calvary Presbyterian Church voted to disaffiliate from the PCUSA because it felt that the PCUSA has drifted from its Reformed theological moorings," said Chaney. "Political and theological controversies of the...

JERUSALEM, Israel -- What does the Presbyterian Church USA and Pink Floyd's Roger Waters have in common? They both support boycotting Israel, a sweeping movement that's trying to delegitimize the Jewish state. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says a great struggle and international campaign is being waged against his country to "blacken its name." "It is not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence," Netanyahu said. "It does not matter what we do; it matters what we symbolize and what we are." Just this week, the CEO of French mobile phone giant Orange said he'd cut...

A recent Gallup poll, "Moral Acceptability: Changes Over Time," shows Americans made a startling move to the left over the past 15 years. A blanket blaming of the church is the easy answer, but today, where black and white has faded into varying shades of gray, we are better served going back to where it began because we didn't get where we are today overnight. America's moral decline began with Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt [FDR]. Their arrogant defiance and blatant hostility toward the U.S. Constitution inspired them to lead an insurrection from the Oval Office, effectively convincing...

Presbyterians Collapsing, or “Settling Into The New Thing God is Creating”? The 2014 numbers reveal the PCUSA's largest statistical decline to date. A slimmed-down Presbyterian Church (USA) is apparently getting ready for beach season after shedding unwanted excess members, according to a cheery report by the denomination’s top official. “The PC(USA) is a church made up of vibrant congregations doing their best to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ in their communities and in the world,” an apparently unfazed Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the PCUSA, soothed. “Membership declines continue, but on a whole the...

The Rev. Charles Hasty, senior pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Georgia, has announced his resignation from the congregation he's served for 13 years after members narrowly defeated a motion to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA). Hasty announced his resignation Monday evening after congregants voted 266-146 last month to leave PCUSA over theological differences; the total was just eight votes shy of the necessary two-thirds majority needed to pass. JoAnna Williams, administrative assistant for Hasty, directed The Christian Post to a local news article wherein quotes from a letter Hasty wrote explaining his reasoning was published. "Undoubtedly, there is...

In a tweet by Planned Parenthood president, Cecile Richards, recently released she states, “So grateful to the many faith leaders who stand with Planned Parenthood and our patients. http://ppact.io/1IIU4QF Thank you, @awkukla!” @awkukla is Andrew Kukla, who describes himself as a , “Presby minister, love philosophy and Kierkegaard in particular, dad of four young kids, and I live in Boise, ID,” on his twitter page. The link takes you to a post written by the Presbyterian pastor which calls what Planned Parenthood does “a ministry“. He titled the blog post, “I (heart) Planned Parenthood.” Hard to believe? Read for yourself:...

Across Christian denominations, the debate over gay marriage has fundamentally pitted the views of socially progressive - if not radical - congregants and church leaders who are in favor of gay marriage against that of the conservative, evangelical sector that subscribes to a traditional and biblical definition of marriage. For the most part, proponents of gay marriage have been on the outs - at times waging tough battles that tear churches apart and put their ordination on the line. In the Presbyterian Church (USA), the tables seemed to have turned. Increasingly, the conservative, evangelical members of the 1.8-million-member mainline Protestant...

A Presbyterian Church (USA) regional body located in California has been accused of putting a Korean congregation's effort to leave the mainline denomination to a standstill. Last year, Good Shepherd Presbyterian Church of Rowland Heights voted overwhelmingly to seek dismissal from PCUSA over the denomination's growing acceptance of homosexuality. Out of 817 votes casted in the March 2014 vote, 738 voted to leave, 74 voted to stay, and 5 votes were dismissed. Despite that, the PCUSA Presbytery of San Gabriel has not apparently finalized the dismissal as of this month, according to the Korean-American Christian publication Christianity Daily. Rachael Lee...

This past Sunday, the lives of the Rev. Kaci Clark-Porter and the Rev. Holly Clark-Porter intertwined in perhaps an even more extraordinarily spiritual way, as the couple walked down the aisle at Wilmington, Delaware’s First and Central Presbyterian Church to become ordained Christian ministers. The ordination came just days after the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) announced a change in its constitution that embraced a more inclusive definition of marriage, defining it as being between "two people" instead of between a man and a woman. With this change, PC(USA) becomes the largest Protestant group to offer a nationwide welcome for LGBTQ...

The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI) – a coalition of 34,000 black churches from 15 denominations representing almost 16 million black Americans – has cut all ties with the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) after the denomination voted to embrace same-sex “marriage.” The PCUSA voted last June to jettison the traditional definition of marriage as a sacred union between one man and one woman. Instead, its Book of Order now defines marriage as a union “between two people,” with no mention of biological sex. At the same time, the PCUSA voted to allow its pastors to officiate at homosexual “weddings” in...

Urging Presbyterian Church USA to "repent and be restored to fellowship," the National Black Church Initiative, which represents 34,000 churches from 15 denominations, has declared it has severed ties with PCUSA after it amended its constitution changing their definition of marriage to include same-sex couples."NBCI and its membership base are simply standing on the Word of God within the mind of Christ. We urge our brother and sisters of the PCUSA to repent and be restored to fellowship," NBCI President Rev. Anthony Evans said, according to Charisma News."PCUSA's manipulation represents a universal sin against the entire church and its members....

The National Black Church Initiative (NBCI), a faith-based coalition of 34,000 churches comprised of 15 denominations and 15.7 million African-Americans, has broken its fellowship with Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) following its recent vote to approve same-sex marriage. The Presbyterian General Assembly, the top legislative body of the PCUSA, voted last June to revise the constitutional language defining marriage. This arbitrary change of Holy Scripture is a flagrantly pretentious and illegitimate maneuver by a body that has no authority whatsoever to alter holy text. Rev. Anthony Evans, NBCI President noted: "NBCI and its membership base are simply standing on the Word...

There have been few times in my life when I have been truly soul sad. As a Pastor, I have stood by the bed of dying patients and encouraged them to hope in Heaven when earth offered them none. I have held the hands of mothers when their cries had no comfort, because the terminally ill child in their arms would be the pain of unfulfilled dreams. I have listened to the hurt of children betrayed, seen the terror of marriages destroyed by temptation, and cried when good people have made devastatingly bad choices. For these my soul has hurt,...

A small congregation in New York has voted unanimously to leave Presbyterian Church (USA) following the mainline denomination's recent vote to approve gay marriage. Brighton Presbyterian Church, a 200-year-old congregation in Rochester, voted Sunday to seek dismissal from its PCUSA regional body, the Presbytery of Genesee Valley. The vote to disaffiliate came not long after a majority of presbyteries in PCUSA approved an amendment to their Book of Order defining marriage to include same-sex couples. Kerry E. Luddy, spokeswoman for Brighton Presbyterian and wife of the head pastor, told The Christian Post that the decision to leave "is not a...

On Saturday afternoon the Great Lakes City Classis (formerly the South Grand Rapids Classis), one of forty-five classes in the Reformed Church in America (RCA), approved University Reformed Church’s request to transfer to the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). As a condition of its transfer, together with all its real and personal property, University Reformed Church (URC) must pay its annual assessment for 2015 and 2016 (roughly $80,000 total) and pay an additional $200,000 so that the classis can plant another church in the area. I’ve written before about how URC voted to leave the RCA–first as an internal “discerning...

Five Illinois Churches in the Reformed Church RCA) in America have voted to affiliate with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). The PCA’s Chicago Metro Presbytery met with, examined, and approved the pastors and elders of these churches during 2014. On October 15, 2014, the churches were officially approved and received by the Chicago Metro Presbytery. The Presbytery will have a special service of celebration and welcome on February 1, 2015 at 3:00 p.m.; during this service the pastors and elders will be installed. The service will be held at the First Reformed Church in Lansing, IL. Dr. Ligon Duncan,...

From its inception Christianity was a marginalized not a culturally powerful or influential religion. With the death of the mainlines we’re witnessing the last gasp of the informal Constantinianism in America, the gathering of cultural elites in the narthex of tall-steeple PCUSA congregations. The informal coalition of cultural and political power brokers in and with the mainline is dead. The WWII generation was probably the last to care to identify with the mainline or to seek the approval of the mainline. Now that the culture has got what it wanted, capitulation, even the NYT will ignore it. There is no...

Days after America's largest Presbyterian denomination approved an amendment to its constitution changing its definition of marriage to include same-sex couples, a lesbian couple will be ordained as ministers Sunday at First & Central Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware. Kaci Clark-Porter and Holly, who married three years ago, will be the first-ever same-sex couple to be jointly ordained, according to USA Today, which says the denomination couldn't point to other examples. Last year, Presbyterian Church (USA) approved a vote on an amendment to change their official definition of marriage from "a man and a woman" to "two people, traditionally a...

The nation's largest Presbyterian denomination has rewritten its definition of marriage and has authorized same-sex weddings nationwide. By Tuesday evening, a majority of presbyteries or regional governing bodies had voted to ratify an amendment to the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), allowing but not requiring its pastors to perform same-sex weddings and its churches to host such rites.

“How can you call yourself a Christian, let alone a minister?!” I get asked that question frequently and the questioner is hostile more often than not. Still, I like to answer it if I believe the questioner is sincere. Though I self-identify as a Christian and I am an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), I raised eyebrows a few years ago when I posted an article on my website about how my personal beliefs don’t align with those of most Presbyterians. For example, I believe that: - Religion is a human construct - The symbols of faith are...