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1640
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The Southampton, Long Island, congregation, generally reckoned to be the oldest Presbyterian church in the USA, organizes.
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1647
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The "Humble Advice of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster," now known as the Westminster Confession of Faith, is published. Intended as a consensus confession for all of the United Kingdom, the Confession, with its catechisms, becomes the confessional standard for Presbyterian churches in Scotland (1648).
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1683
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Francis Makemie, whose work in founding churches in the US earns him the title, "Father of American Presbyterianism," arrives from Ireland.
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1706
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Makemie, with six other ministers, organizes the first presbytery in the American colonies in Philadelphia.
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1718
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William Tennent, minister and educator, arrives in Philadelphia. His cabin academy, dubbed the "Log College," (1746) evolves over several decades into the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University).
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1729
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The Adopting Act establishes the Westminster Confession and its Larger and Shorter Catechisms, "in all the essential and necessary articles," as the confessional standard for the American church.
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1741
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"Old Side" and "New Side" factions within the church, at odds over the excitements of the First Great Awakening, divide into separate synods. The schism, the first in the American church, lasts for seventeen years.
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1749
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Jonathan Edwards, foremost of American Reformed theologians, publishes The Life of David Brainerd, missionary to the Indians. The Life becomes one of the most popular religious biographies of the century.
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1755
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Samuel Davies, evangelist and educator, helps organize the Presbytery of Hanover (VA) and prepares the way for substantial Presbyterian church growth in the Upper South.
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1768
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John Witherspoon, minister and educator, arrives in Princeton to be president of the College of New Jersey. A delegate to the Continental Congress, he becomes the only active minister to sign the Declaration of Independence, 1776.
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1789
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The first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the USA meets in Philadelphia, May 21.
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1801
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The Presbyterian General Assembly and New England Congregationalists agree to a Plan of Union, a spectacularly successful cooperative work to plant churches on the frontier. In the West, Barton Stone’s "sacramental meeting" at Cane Ridge, KY, breaks out into six or seven days of frantic revival. Waves of camp meeting revivals spread throughout the South and Midwest giving rise to the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (1810) and other denominations.
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1807
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First African Presbyterian Church organized in Philadelphia, the first African-American Presbyterian church in the U.S.
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1812
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The Theological Seminary at Princeton established by the General Assembly as its first national school for ministers.
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1816
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Isabella Graham and Joanna Bethune, pioneers in female and childhood education, found the Female Society for the Promotion of Sabbath Schools. The Bellevue Church, Caledonia, MO, the first Presbyterian church west of the Mississippi, is organized.
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1817
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A local adult Sunday school union, founded by Alexander Henry, a Presbyterian layman (1816), becomes the American Sunday School Union. The ASSU will become one of the largest of private benevolent agencies in the nation.
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1818
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The General Assembly pronounces against slavery and calls for gradual emancipation, but George Bourne, an immigrant Scottish cleric, whose tract The Book and Slavery Irreconcilable (1816) infuriates the South, is deposed from the ministry.
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1822
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Theologian Charles Hodge begins his long (1822-1878) and distinguished teaching career at Princeton Seminary. He eventually trains over two thousand students.
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1831
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The Synod of Pittsburgh organizes the Western Foreign Missionary Society, the precursor to the Board of Foreign Missions.
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1833
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John B. Pinney, first foreign missionary of the PCUSA, sails for Liberia.
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1834
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Albert Barnes, minister of the First Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and popular Bible commentator, publishes his Notes on Romans, and is tried for heresy (1835). His acquittal in 1836 was a leading cause in the Old School/New School division.
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1837
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After a decade of increasing theological and institutional tensions, the "Old School" party of the General Assembly abrogates the 1801 Plan of Union and expels four largely "New School" synods from the denomination, precipitating a bitter 30 year national division of the Church. Board of Foreign Missions established. Elijah Lovejoy, minister and abolitionist publisher, dies while defending his printing press against a pro-slavery mob in Alton, IL.
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1838
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First Presbyterian church in the Pacific Northwest organized, Waiilatpu, WA.
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1840
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Daniel Baker, the "apostle of Presbyterianism in Texas," and eventual founder of Austin College, lands at Galveston to begin a career as missionary and church builder.
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1842
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Henry Highland Garnet, a freed slave, is ordained by the Troy (NY) Presbytery. Editor, preacher and abolitionist, Garnet eventually preaches before Congress and becomes the U.S. ambassador to Liberia.
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1847
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Marcus and Narcissa Whitman, celebrated explorers and medical missionaries in the Pacific Northwest are killed, blamed for a measles epidemic that decimated the native population but left them untouched.
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1851
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Stephen Colwell, Philadelphia manufacturer, calls attention to the increasing poverty of the Northern industrial cities in New Themes for the Protestant Clergy.
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1853
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First Chinese Presbyterian church organized by William Speer in California.
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1854
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Ashmun Institute, later Lincoln University (Oxford, PA), founded by John M. Dickey. The school becomes one of the major colleges for African-Americans following the Civil War.
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1855
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Charles Baird re-introduces American congregations to their largely forgotten liturgical past in Eutaxia: or the Presbyterian Liturgies.
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1858
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Two denominations which trace their roots back to 18th century Scottish dissenters unite to form the United Presbyterian Church of North America.
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1859
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Anna Warner, New York author of several popular but sentimental novels, publishes Say and Seal, in which appears "Jesus Loves Me," soon to become the anthem of the American Sunday school movement.
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1861
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In the midst of the Secession Crisis, the General Assembly (OS) pledges loyalty to the Federal government. Southern commissioners protest and withdraw. The Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America (renamed the PCUS in 1865) organizes in Augusta that winter.
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1869
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Reunion of the Old and New School General Assemblies in Pittsburgh, ending the "Presbyterian Thirty Years War."
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1870
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Women's Foreign Missionary Society, the oldest and largest of the women’s boards dedicated to the cause of foreign missions, organized in Philadelphia.
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1877
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The First General Presbyterian Council meets in Edinburgh Scotland. The ecumenical venture eventually results in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
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1884
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Sheldon Jackson, tireless missionary on the western frontier and founder of dozens of churches, becomes first superintendent of public instruction for Alaska Territory. Alarmed by starvation among the Eskimos, Jackson directs the introduction of Siberian reindeer into Alaska (1891).
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1889
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Louisa Woosley, first woman Presbyterian minister, ordained in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The Cumberland General Assembly refuses to recognize her ordination for two decades.
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1892
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Charles Briggs, brilliant and argumentative professor at Union Seminary, NY, is embroiled one of the most publicized heresy trials in the church’s history due to his "higher-critical" views of Scripture. Reacting to the controversy, the General Assembly adopts language defending the "inerrancy" of Scripture.
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1895
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The Hymnal, edited by Louis Benson, is published as an official hymn book for the PCUSA. It becomes a model for subsequent church hymn books.
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1896
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William Jennings Bryan, journalist, politician, crusader, and sometime Bible commentator runs for President for the first time at age thirty-six. He runs twice again before serving in Woodrow Wilson’s cabinet (1912).
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1903
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PCUSA adds two new chapters and two Declaratory Statements to the Westminster Confession-the first substantial changes to the confessional standards since their adoption.
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1906
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The majority of Cumberland Presbyterian churches reunite with the Presbyterian Church in the USA, ending a division of nearly 100 years.
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1908
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The Federal Council of Churches, predecessor to the National Council of Churches (1950) organized with heavy Presbyterian participation.
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1910
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The Fundamentals, a non-denominational tract series sponsored by two Presbyterian elders, is distributed widely across the nation. The series gives its name to the growing "Fundamentalist" movement.
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1912
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Woodrow Wilson, Presbyterian elder, and a son of the manse, elected President. He is still considered by some to be the most deliberately theological of U.S. Presidents.
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1928
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Norman Thomas, Presbyterian minister, runs for President as the Socialist Party candidate.
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1930
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The PCUSA's constitution is amended to allow women to be ordained elders.
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1936
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J. Gresham Machen, minister, scholar, and author of Christianity and Liberalism (1923), leads secession from the PCUSA which becomes the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
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1948
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The Faith and Life Curriculum, a highly ambitious and integrated educational program launched by the PCUSA. PCUS adopts a broadly similar Covenant Life Curriculum, 1963.
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1952
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Presbyterian Dwight Eisenhower elected President.
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1953
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John Mackay, President of Princeton Seminary and Moderator of the PCUSA General Assembly decries the panic of McCarthyism in "A Letter to Presbyterians." Justice William O. Douglas, a Presbyterian, cites the "Letter" as a landmark statement against repression (1954).
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1954
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The General Assembly of the PCUS becomes the first church body to endorse the Supreme Court's ruling against racial segregation.
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1956
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Margaret Towner is ordained as the first woman minister in the PCUSA. Rachel Henderlite becomes the first in the PCUS, 1965.
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1958
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The PCUSA and the United Presbyterian Church of North America unite to form the UPCUSA, the largest Presbyterian denomination in the country.
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1962
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Presbyterian John Glenn orbits the earth.
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1963
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March on Washington. Martin Luther King, Jr., addresses crowd of 200,000. Presbyterian Eugene Carson Blake also among the speakers.
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1964
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Edler Hawkins elected first African-American moderator of the UPCUSA General Assembly. Lawrence Bottoms elected first Black moderator of the PCUS, 1974.
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1966
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Eugene Carson Blake, minister, Stated Clerk of the PCUSA and UPCUSA ecumenist, and civil rights leader, becomes general secretary of the World Council of Churches. An advocate of Christian unity, Blake gave early leadership to the Consultation on Church Union.
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1967
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UPCUSA supplements the Westminster Confession with a Book of Confessions, containing Christian confessions from the fourth century to the twentieth, including the newly-drafted Confession of 1967.
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1972
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Lois Stair elected first woman moderator of the General Assembly, UPCUSA. Sarah Moseley elected first woman moderator of the GA, PCUS, 1978.
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1973
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The Presbyterian Church in America is established.
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1983
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The UPCUSA and the PCUS, the largest American Presbyterian denominations, reunite after 122 years, forming the PC(USA).
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1984
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Presbyterian Ronald Reagan elected President.
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1986
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Holly Haile Smith is ordained as the first Native American woman in the PC(USA).
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