Jesus Christ established his church, and for several centuries that church zealously guarded biblical doctrine and opposed heresy. The church formulated basic doctrines about God and Christ in such creeds as the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed. We share with other Christians these great ecumenical creeds.
But in 1054, after centuries of rivalry, the Western ("Catholic") church split from the Eastern ("Orthodox") church over a fine point of Trinitarian formulation: whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son (as the West holds) or only from the Father (as the East holds). Despite our name, the OPC is part of the Western church.
During the Middle Ages, the church lost sight of the Bible and sank into ritualism, superstition, and ignorance under the domination of a hierarchical priesthood (headed by the Pope at Rome). But, by the grace of God, the truths of the Bible were rediscovered by Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other Reformers. The Bible was translated into the languages of the people, and this fueled the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century. The Reformers insisted on the infallible authority of Scripture, unencumbered by church tradition (nonbiblical doctrines and practices that had developed down through the centuries). They declared, on the basis of Scripture, that salvation is a gracious gift from God, received by faith in Christ alone, not something dispensed by priestly rituals or earned by good works. These Protestant principles remain the pillars of the OPC today.
Although remarkably united on most doctrines, the Protestant world soon divided on such matters as church government, the nature of the sacraments, and worship. In these matters, the Lutherans and the Anglicans departed from Rome less than the Reformed churches did, and the Anabaptists (forerunners of many fundamentalist groups today) departed more. The OPC belongs to the Reformed family of churches.
In the Netherlands, Arminianism arose, compromising the doctrines of the sovereignty of God and salvation by grace. Although condemned by the Synod of Dort in 1618, Arminianism became influential in many churches of Reformed parentage and has many followers in American churches today. The OPC is solidly Reformed in theology and firmly rejects Arminianism. (For a summary of the Reformed faith, see "Our System of Doctrine" on pages 6-7.)
During an enormous religious and political struggle to determine the character of the national churches in England and Scotland, the Westminster Assembly met in London from 1643 to 1649 and issued the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms (and other documents). These documents are distinctly Reformed, much like the Heidelberg Catechism and other earlier Reformed creeds. They became the basis for what are today called Presbyterian churches. With slight revisions that reflect American Presbyterian developments, they are the doctrinal standards of the OPC.
The Westminster Assembly addressed the burning issue of its day--church government--by setting forth a Presbyterian form of government. The Assembly rejected both the Episcopalian system, in which the church is ruled by bishops in a hierarchical arrangement, and the Congregational system, in which congregations are independent, self-governing entities. In the Presbyterian system, which the OPC follows, the church is governed by elders ("presbyters"), including ministers. Each congregation chooses its own elders, who are in turn responsible to regional and national assemblies of their peers.
When people immigrated to America, they brought their religion with them. Immigrants from Scotland, Ireland, and England soon established Presbyterian churches. Presbyterianism grew up with America and had a major impact on shaping her destiny. The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. split along geographical lines as a result of the Civil War. The OPC came out of the Northern Presbyterian church, although it is today a national church with congregations in all sections of the country.
Reformed theology is also called covenant theology, because it teaches that God has established covenants that govern his dealings with men. In the covenant of grace, operating in both Old and New Testament times, God has promised salvation to those who believe in Christ. However, in nineteenth-century England there arose a different system of biblical interpretation, called dispensationalism, which set up different schemes of salvation for Israel and the church, and divided the Scriptures into portions that applied to one or the other. Dispensationalism has a considerable following among American fundamentalist churches, but within the OPC it is regarded as a serious error.
The greatest struggle within the church at large in recent generations has been the struggle between biblical faith and theological liberalism (or modernism). Liberalism begins by questioning the full authority of the Bible and ends up denying every biblical doctrine that is disagreeable to modern secular thinking. Liberalism is an insidious form of unbelief because it develops gradually and preaches "tolerance" until it takes over a church and suppresses the truth. The OPC was established in direct opposition to liberalism. The word orthodox in our name indicates our adherence to "straight teaching."
Many churches in the twentieth century have been affected by the charismatic movement, which alleges that speaking in tongues, miraculous healings, and special revelations are present in the church today. We reject these claims, believing that these special gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased at the end of the Apostolic Age, their purposes having been achieved.
Princeton Seminary remained a bastion of orthodox Presbyterianism until its Board was reorganized in 1929 to bring in liberal professors. Four Princeton professors resigned (with the support of others) 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. (Because of a lawsuit brought by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., the name of the new church was changed to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1939.) This church was to "continue the true spiritual succession of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A." Hopes were high that there would be a mass exodus of conservatives into the new denomination, but this did not happen. On January 1, 1937, Machen's untimely death dealt a great blow to the new church.
This struggle continued and intensified during the next decade, but the church maintained a firmly Reformed stand. This tension between a more American evangelical and a more strictly Reformed emphasis remains in the OPC, but it is less pronounced today.
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 over the years. Today, one may find at least one of her approximately 220 churches and mission works in 38 states and provinces, organized into 12 regional churches, each governed by a presbytery (see appendixes 1 and 3). Carrying the whole truth of Scripture to the utmost ends of the earth has been dear to Orthodox Presbyterians from the outset. Recent developments on the foreign missions field have been encouraging, as many areas of the world are opening up to the gospel.
The OPC, although small, has never isolated herself from the rest of Christ's church. She has promoted the Reformed faith around the world and has engaged in ecumenical discussions with other Reformed churches in order to perfect the unity that Christ desires for his people. In 1975 the OPC's effort to negotiate a merger with the (then) Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, was almost successful. In the 1980s, efforts to unite the OPC with the Presbyterian Church in America likewise came close to success. Several congregations were frustrated by the failure of these efforts, and, despite the urgings of their presbyteries, subsequently withdrew from the OPC and joined the PCA.
At present, no negotiations are underway to unite with another denomination, and the OPC is focusing its attention on carrying out its own mission. It is currently adding about five to ten new churches and mission works annually.