Orthodox Presbyterian Church Wikipedia

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Nov 18, 2025, 2:00 PM

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a confessional Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States, with additional congregations in Canada, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), who objected to the rise of Liberal and Modernist theology in the 1930s. The OPC is considered to have had an influence on evangelicalism far beyond its size.[2] The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was founded in 1936, largely through the work of John Gresham Machen. Machen, who, prior to this time was a PCUSA minister, had a longstanding distrust of liberalism in Christianity, as typified by the Auburn Affirmation. He and others founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 in response to rising liberal sentiments at Princeton Theological Seminary, and in 1933, Machen formed the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, due to his...

Machen's views were met with opposition. In 1935, the PCUSA General Assembly declared Machen's Independent Board unconstitutional, and gave the associated clergy an ultimatum to break their ties with it. When Machen and seven other clergy did not disavow the Independent Board, they were suspended from PCUSA ministry.[3] In light of these events, Machen and a group of likeminded ministers, elders, and laymen met in Philadelphia on June 11, 1936, to form what they then called the Presbyterian Church of America (not... Stonehouse, J. Oliver Buswell, and Edward Joseph Young.

Machen died shortly thereafter in January 1937. Later that year, a faction led by Carl McIntire broke away to form Bible Presbyterian Church, affirming total abstinence from alcohol and premillennialism.[5] The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) traces its roots to the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. The church, established by Christ in the first century, drifted away from Biblical truth during her first 500 years of existence. During the Middle Ages the truths of the Bible were rediscovered by men like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and others. The principals established during the Protestant Reformation remain the pillars of the OPC today.

From 1643 to 1649 a group known as the Westminster Assembly met in London to address the future of the church in England and Scotland. This group produced a confession known as the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Shorter and Larger Westminster Catechisms. These reformed documents became the basis for today's Presbyterian churches by setting forth a Presbyterian form of government. In the Presbyterian system the church is governed by elders (or "presbyters"), including ministers. Each congregation chooses its own elders, who are in turn responsible to regional and national assemblies of their peers. When immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, and England immigrated to America they established Presbyterian churches in the "New World."

During the 1800s and early 1900s, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. was a strong, faithful, and influential church. But liberalism began to creep in from Europe, and little was done to check its spread. In 1924 about 1,300 (out of 10,000) Presbyterian ministers signed the liberal Auburn Affirmation, which contradicted the basic doctrines of the Reformation. Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, remained a bastion of orthodox Presbyterianism until its Board was reorganized in 1929 with a mandate to bring liberal professors onto the faculty. Four Princeton professors resigned and established Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia as an independent institution to continue teaching biblical Christianity.

The leading opponent of liberalism in those days was J. Gresham Machen, a Presbyterian minister and professor at Princeton (and later Westminster). When he drew attention to the modernist foreign missions program of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the General Assembly in 1933 refused to do anything about it. Because he and others wanted to support missionaries who were actually preaching the gospel, they established the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. The 1934 Assembly condemned their action, and they were soon deposed from office. As a result, 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders, and 79 laymen met in Philadelphia on June 11, 1936, to constitute the Presbyterian Church of America.

The name of the new church was changed to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1939 because of a lawsuit brought by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. It was hoped this new denomination would attract many conservatives from the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., but this did not happen. Early leaders of the Church included men of Dutch Reformed and Scottish Presbyterian backgrounds, such as Cornelius Van Til and John Murray. From the beginning, the OPC emphasized mission work, both at home and abroad. As a result of church-planting efforts, the OPC experienced slow but steady growth (which has accelerated in recent years). Today, one may find her approximately 250 churches and mission works in 39 states (and one Canadian province), organized into 13 regional churches, each governed by a presbytery.

The OPC, although relatively small, has never isolated herself from the rest of Christ's church. She has promoted the Reformed faith around the world. The OPC is currently experiencing a net gain of about ten churches and mission works annually, and our rate of growth appears to be increasing. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is a confessional Presbyterian denomination located primarily in the United States, with additional congregations in Canada, Bermuda, and Puerto Rico. It was founded by conservative members of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), who objected to the rise of Liberal and Modernist theology in the 1930s. The OPC is considered to have had an influence on evangelicalism far beyond its size.[2]

The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was founded in 1936, largely through the work of John Gresham Machen. Machen, who, prior to this time was a PCUSA minister, had a longstanding distrust of liberalism in Christianity, as typified by the Auburn Affirmation. He and others founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 in response to rising liberal sentiments at Princeton Theological Seminary, and in 1933, Machen formed the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, due to his... Machen's views were met with opposition. In 1935, the PCUSA General Assembly declared Machen's Independent Board unconstitutional, and gave the associated clergy an ultimatum to break their ties with it. When Machen and seven other clergy did not disavow the Independent Board, they were suspended from PCUSA ministry.[3]

In light of these events, Machen and a group of likeminded ministers, elders, and laymen met in Philadelphia on June 11, 1936, to form what they then called the Presbyterian Church of America (not... Stonehouse, J. Oliver Buswell, and Edward Joseph Young. Machen died shortly thereafter in January 1937. Later that year, a faction led by Carl McIntire broke away to form Bible Presbyterian Church, affirming total abstinence from alcohol and premillennialism.[5] The Orthodox Presbyterian Church was founded on June 11, 1936, in the aftermath of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, under the leadership of J.

Gresham Machen, a longtime professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, who also founded Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929. With the infiltration of theological liberalism, the mainline Presbyterian Church in the USA had departed from historic Christianity, including the rejection of doctrines such as the inspiration and authority of Scripture, the virgin birth... Originally calling itself the Presbyterian Church of America, the young church was forced by the threat of a lawsuit to change its name in 1939, and it adopted the name Orthodox Presbyterian Church. We are a gospel-centered church. The word gospel means good news, and we believe we have the best news in the world. Jesus Christ has come.

He died for our sins on the cross and God has raised Him from the dead. This is the good news we proclaim. We are unashamed to declare that Christ said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life and that no one comes to God except through Me’ (John 14:6). We want to be true to the Bible’s teaching and what Christians have historically believed. Sometimes we are called are a confessional church because we believe the Westminster Standards most accurately summarizes what the Bible teaches. That’s what a confession does, it gives you an anchor to God’s revealed truth.

Therefore, we believe that we need to be true to the historic Christian faith. For this reason we are a Protestant church, in line with historic, biblical Christianity. We are called “Orthodox” because we try, by God’s power, to stay true to His Word in the Bible. We are a connected church, that is, congregations are bound together to serve and help one another. Every one of our bulletins declares on the cover, “A Mission Church of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.” In an age of non-denominationalism why are we denominational? The Westminster Standards connect us to believers from the historic Presbyterian Church as far back at the 17th century.

. They also link us to each other. Just as every state in the USA must follow the United States’ Constitution, so every congregation in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church must follow the Orthodox Presbyterian Church’s confession. The congregations of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church are led by elders or ‘presbyters’, men who have committed themselves to serving the church. There are three parts of a Presbyterian church: the session, the presbytery, and the General Assembly. A session is the elected body of men in a local congregation.

Groups of congregations in the same geographic region send elders to a body called the presbytery. In turn, each presbytery in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church elects presbyters to attend the national General Assembly. At every level, Orthodox Presbyterian church government provides accountability and connects each congregation to the worldwide mission of the church. 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. 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.[1] 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,... 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.[1] Machen died in January 1937.

Orthodox Presbyterian Church Wikipedia

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