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60 Jurist 3 (2000)
Church Law in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

handle is hein.journals/juristcu60 and id is 5 raw text is: THE JURIST 60 (2000) 3-24 CHURCH LAW IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.) JAMES E. ANDREWS* Sources of American Presbyterianism English colonists who had dissented from the established religion in their homeland were among the earliest settlers along the Atlantic seaboard, especially in New England and later in New York. Calvinist theological ideas common to the Reformed family of churches were strong within the congregations they founded, and the Congregationalism they developed included many features also shared by the Presbyterian branch of the Reformed family of churches. As increasing numbers of Presbyterian immigrants from Scotland and Northern Ireland began to settle in the middle colonies early in the eighteenth century, there were hopes that a single Reformed Church would develop, shaped by the Re- formed theology of Calvinism. But the two groups remained separate ecclesial bodies. While both shared many religious concepts and were often allies in religious and po- litical movements, they were kept apart by major differences in their views of the nature of the Church. New England Congregationalists in- sisted that . . the Church of Christ on earth existed only in its individ- ual congregations. The Church Universal was but the totality of these congregations. Presbyterians, predominantly Scotch-Irish, believed with equal fervor that . . the Church Universal transcended all of its many local manifestations, being an entity greater even than the sum of its parts.' Different views of church membership and ministry grew out of the basic conflict in ecclesiology. With the issue of church government continually on the table, these freshly transplanted religious bodies struggled to define such things as ministerial status, the locus of authority to ordain clergy and organize churches, and developing disciplinary process. The source of church law for Presbyterians was the work of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which met from 1643 to 1649 by appointment of the English Parliament. * Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA. Former Stated Clerk of the Presby- terian Church (USA). 1 Leonard J. Trinterud, The Forming of American Tradition (Philadelphia: Westmin- ster Press, 1944) 16.

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