The main Presbyterian Confession of Faith, adopted by the Westminster Assembly, England, in 1643. It sets forth the main doctrines of the Christian faith from a Calvinistic perspective, and became the major confessional influence among Reformed Churches of the English-speaking world.
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith, in the Calvinist theological tradition. Although drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly largely of the Church of England, it became, and remains the 'subordinate standard' of doctrine in the Church of Scotland and has been influential within Presbyterian churches worldwide (with various changes it has also been adopted by some Congregationalists and even Baptists).
In 1643, the English Parliament called upon "learned, godly and judicious Divines", to meet at Westminster Abbey in order to provide advice on issues of worship, doctrine, government and discipline of the Church of England. For more than three centuries, various churches around the world have adopted the Confession and the Catechisms as their standards of doctrine, subordinate to the Bible.
Historical situation
During the English Civil War (1642-1649), the English parliament raised armies in an alliance with the Covenanters who by then were the de facto government of Scotland, against the forces of the king, Charles I of England. The purpose of the Westminster Assembly, in which 121 Puritan clergymen participated, was to provide official documents for the reformation of the Church of England. The Church of Scotland had recently overthrown its bishops and adopted presbyterianism (see Bishops' Wars). For this reason, as a condition for entering into the alliance with England, the Scottish Parliament formed the Solemn League and Covenant with the English Parliament, which meant that the Church of England would abandon episcopalianism and consistently adhere to Calvinistic standards of doctrine and worship.
The Scottish Commissioners who were present at the Assembly were satisfied with the Confession of Faith, and in 1646, the document was sent to the English parliament to be ratified, and submitted to the General Assembly of the Scottish Kirk. The Church of Scotland adopted the document, without amendment, in 1647.
Contents
The confession is a systematic exposition of Calvinist orthodoxy (which neo-orthodox (Barthian) scholars routinely refer to as, 'scholastic Calvinism'), influenced by Puritan and covenant theology. These formulations were repudiated by the Church of Scotland in the 1980s, but they remain part of the official doctrine of some other Presbyterian churches.
American Presbyterian Adoption and Revisions
The first American Presbyterian ministers were New England Congregationalists, whose congregations originated with the migration from New England to the Dutch colony as early as the 1640s, and Presbyterian immigrants from Scotland, Ireland and Wales. When the Synod of Philadelphia met in 1729 to adopt the Westminster Confession as the doctrinal standard, it required all ministers to declare their approval of the Westminster Confession of Faith and catechisms. and it has left the American versions of the Westminster Confession more amenable to the will of the church to amend it.
The 1789 American Revision
The revisions of 1787–1789 removed certain powers of the civil government over the church, which might be called theocratic principles, from the Westminster Confession of faith and catechisms.
1903 PCUSA Revision
Between 1861 and 1983, the northern Presbyterian church (PCUSA) was separated from the southern church (PCUS). In 1903, the PCUSA adopted revisions to the Westminster Confession of Faith that were intended to soften the church's commitment to Calvinism. These revisions paved the way to the partial re-merger of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church with the PCUSA - a division which had persisted since 1810.
The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910
In 1910, the PCUSA attempted to specify that a supernatural perspective is necessary and essential, according to the Bible and the Westminster standards.
The Doctrinal Deliverance of 1910 marks the formal beginning of the conflict between Christian fundamentalism and Modernist Christianity in the PCUSA, which had been developing in that church since the 1890s. Gresham Machen, who went on to found the Orthodox Presbyterian Church which many of the former PCUSA ministers and laity joined), ending the controversy in the PCUSA in favor of the liberals.
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