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Presbyterianism is a Reformed (Calvinist) Protestant tradition named for its form of church government by representative assemblies of elders. [2] Though other Reformed churches are structurally similar, the word Presbyterian is applied to churches that trace their roots to the Church of Scotland or to English Dissenter groups that formed during the English Civil War.
Some Presbyterians supported the revivals of the Second and Third Great Awakenings in the nineteenth century, including Lyman Beecher and Charles G. Finney. In 1810, a group of pro-revivalist Presbyterians in Kentucky broke away from the mainline Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. to form the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. [35]
The Presbyterian Church (USA), abbreviated PCUSA, is a mainline Protestant denomination in the United States.It is the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country, known for its liberal stance on doctrine and its ordaining of women and members of the LGBT community as elders and ministers.
Mainline Protestant churches share a common approach that often leads to collaboration in organizations such as the National Council of Churches, and because of their involvement with the ecumenical movement, they are sometimes given the alternative label of "ecumenical Protestantism" (especially outside the United States).
Presbyterians trace their history to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. The Presbyterian heritage, and much of its theology, began with the French theologian and lawyer John Calvin (1509–64), whose writings solidified much of the Reformed thinking that came before him in the form of the sermons and writings of Huldrych Zwingli.
Protestantism is the largest grouping of Christians in the United States, with its combined denominations collectively comprising about 43% of the country's population (or 141 million people) in 2019. [1] Other estimates suggest that 48.5% of the U.S. population (or 157 million people) is Protestant. [2]
The family tree of Presbyterian denominations in the United States, courtesy of the Presbyterian Historical Society As its name suggests, the EPC is an evangelical denomination. It associates mainly with Reformed bodies holding similar or identical beliefs regarding Christology, ecclesiology, and ethical/moral stances.
The word presbyter etymologically derives from Greek πρεσβύτερος (presbyteros), the comparative form of πρέσβυς (presbys), "old man". [6] However, while the English word priest has presbyter as the etymological origin, [7] the distinctive Greek word (Greek ἱερεύς hiereus) for "priest" is never used for presbyteros/episkopos in the New Testament, except as being part of ...