by David Ayers
Rev. Dr. Rebecca Todd Peters, an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church-USA (PC-USA), recently treated a Unitarian Universalist congregation to a fiery sermon. Was it about heaven, hell, salvation, and the need to repent and believe the Gospel — messages that one would think members of a non-Christian group such as the latter would need from a Christian minister? No. Instead, she thundered from the pulpit that abortion, all abortion, anytime up through birth, is essentially good, including her own two abortions, for which, she assured everyone, she “felt no guilt, no shame, no sin.”
Does that mean it would have been alright for Mary to have aborted Jesus? She did not quite come out and say that, but if we take her at her word, then clearly, the answer is yes. Sorry, God. The fetal Jesus was not really Jesus yet (the also-fetal John the Baptist and his mother (Luke 1:41–44) were wrong about that), and it would have been a drag for a young, unmarried Jewish woman to have Him, so try again later with some other lady. Or, as Peters would say, “Trust Women.”
Welcome to mainline Presbyterianism circa 2023. Presbyterianism is now characterized accurately, as Wikipedia informs us, as being “known for” liberalism, as accepting openly practicing LGBTQ+ clergy and other church leaders, same-sex marriage, and, yes, abortion. This is a Presbyterianism that calls on all church members to get rid of their handguns while saying it is OK to kill the unborn. It is a Presbyterianism that is also known, unsurprisingly, for its steady and steep decline.
What happened?
The Presbyterian-American Revolution
What we think of as “mainline” Presbyterianism used to be a powerful, intellectually potent, conservative force in America, reaching back deep into the colonial years. It was rooted in rigorous Calvinism and led by men of deep learning, who held to orthodox and historic Christian doctrines, including miracles, Scriptural accuracy and authority, the virgin birth, the reality of sin and the need for salvation from it, and the deity and physical resurrection of Christ, not to mention all that Christianity has historically taught about personal morality. Presbyterians gave us Princeton University, in addition to other universities in the Reformed theological tradition, such as Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth (Congregationalist), and Rutgers (Dutch Reformed).
Presbyterians gave us the only ordained minister and college president to sign the Declaration of Independence, namely Princeton’s John Witherspoon. Its adherents, many of them Scot and Scots-Irish, plus folk moving over from Puritan Congregationalism, were stubborn, even at times ferocious, in their convictions. During the American Revolution, King George’s advisers often treated the rebellion as a religious war spurred on by Presbyterian ministers. One Hessian captain wrote, “This war … is nothing more nor less than an Irish-Scotch Presbyterian Rebellion.” This view was widely held by the British during this time, and for good reason. Jonathan Van Waren, writing for the Stream, noted that Horace Walpole, a member of the House of Commons, put it rather colorfully: “Cousin America has run off with the Presbyterian parson, and that is the end of it.” Van Waren also documents sound historical estimates that more than half of the Patriot army were Presbyterians and that, when Cornwallis surrendered, all but one of their colonels were Presbyterian elders. Yes, the term “Presbyterian” often meant all Protestant dissenters to Anglicanism and Catholicism (throwing in the occasional Baptist and Congregationalist, for example), but the Brits and Loyalists still honed in on formal Presbyterians. These facts — once widely acknowledged and detailed even by today’s PC-USA — are now little noted by historians.
The famous film actor Jimmy Stewart — Scots-Irish by extraction — after a short detour in the glitz of youthful acting and stardom followed in the military and Presbyterian footsteps of his ancestors, including his father, Alex. Theodore Roosevelt was a deeply committed Presbyterian as well. Presbyterians “except for the Episcopal church … have seen more of their membership elected to the Presidency than any other religious body.“ This included Ronald Reagan. The same applied to the Supreme Court, with Presbyterians again number two, behind Episcopalians. Presbyterians had clout and, while not alone among denominations who did so, played a big role in shaping not only our politics, education, and business but also our culture, including the morals we embraced and encouraged.
Presbyterianism Adopts Modernism
The PC-USA of today, built in the merger of two mainly liberal bodies in 1983, is increasingly in the lineage of its august predecessors in name only. Swept up in the fundamentalist-modernist controversies of the early 20th century, which modernists eventually won, sometimes driving out dissidents, the denominations that formed it have long rejected Scriptural authority as a general standard, leaving room for seminary professors, clergy, elders, and deacons who reject miracles, the divinity of Christ, the virgin birth, and a lot more. The church saw one accommodation to modernism after another. Still, many within those bodies that remained in mainline Presbyterianism thought, illogically and unwisely, that they could ditch all this embarrassing talk about total depravity, divine intervention, and the supernatural but still keep that helpful Christian morality and their public influence in promoting it.
But ultimately, as conservative Presbyterians had long predicted, these moral standards went the same way as the virgin birth. I am reminded of a conversation I had with a PC-USA minister when I was researching the acceptance of cohabitation among professing Christians for an article in Christianity Today a few years ago. We discussed how he handled engaged couples who were living together. His answer was roughly along these lines, although I cannot recall the exact words: “Well, we accept same-sex marriage, so it is pretty hard to make a fuss about cohabitation.” I suppose we can say the same thing about tolerating leaders who celebrate abortion as an “act of love.”
The mainline Protestant denominations are spent as a powerful social and cultural force. They are dying. And things like this — the PC-USA tolerating and even supporting “clergy” like Peters — are the reasons why. Are there smaller, faithful, conservative Presbyterian denominations? Yes, but they do not command anything like the towering influence that the older Presbyterianism centered in places like Princeton Seminary once held. Are there still some good churches and people within the mainline denominations, including in the PC-USA, as there still were even a couple of decades ago? Yes, but less and less.
Too many of my conservative Protestant colleagues are ho-hum about the collapse of mainline Protestantism. After all, at least at the denominational levels, they are increasingly no longer faithful to even the most elemental historical creeds of the Christian faith. But their disintegration is nothing to be indifferent about. We have lost something majestic and replaced it with something pathetic, and the loss echoes across the landscape of American life.
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Dr. David Ayers is former dean of the Calderwood School of Arts and Letters at Grove City College, where he is currently a professor of sociology in the Department of Economics & Sociology, and a fellow at the college’s Institute for Faith & Freedom. Ayers’ latest book is After the Revolution: Sex and the Single Evangelical. He is also author of Christian Marriage: A Comprehensive Introduction.
