Big Week for Presbyterian Churches - This Week in Christian History June 9-15, 2013

There were several important developments in the Presbyterian Church this week in history. As a background, here is a brief history of the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church formed in large part due to John Knox’s visiting John Calvin’s Geneva. He was impressed with it and based his theology on it. The National Church of Scotland was formed in 1560 which was basically the first Presbyterian Church. The theology spread to England and was no longer illegal in 1647 (we live in great times where we can decide for ourselves what religion to follow).

The Presbyterian Church of Wales was made of Calvinistic Methodists ministers, who were originally known as the Calvinist Methodist connexion. Scottish immigrants to Ireland helped spread the Presbyterian Church there. The name Presbyterian is not used in France, but is known as Calvinist or the Church of Scotland. There are also Presbyterians throughout the world.

This relates to this week because of the following events:

6-13-1876

The Presbyterian Church in England merged with the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland to form the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland.

06-10-1925

The United Church of Canada was formed from Methodist, Presbyterian, and 3,000 independent churches. Currently there are about 200,000 people who attend services.

06-11-1936

The Presbyterian Church of America (PCA) was organized in Philadelphia, now called the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The church was formed from objections to modern and liberal changes to the church. Modernism here means to study scriptures as you would other writings, not as the literal word of God.

6-10-1983

The United Presbyterian Church (UPCUSA) and the Southern Presbyterian Church (PCUS) reunited to form The Presbyterian Church (USA). This denomination has almost 2,000,000 members today and is the largest Presbyterian denomination.

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Thank you for reading.