History of PCA Key dates

Question 1

in 1923,

Answer 1

when 150 ministers
signed an affirmation denying the necessity of subscription to the five fundamentals for ordination to the
gospel ministry in the PCUSA

Question 2

in 1929.

Answer 2

When restructuring of her board was ordered by the General Assembly, an action which would surely change her
character, many of her orthodox faculty, under the leadership of NT scholar J. Gresham Machen, left to
form Westminster Theological Seminary

Question 3

in 1936

Answer 3

When Machen and his followers objected to their
tithes towards missions going to non-Christian pluralistic missions work, and established the Independent
Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, they were defrocked by the PCUSA. They went on to found the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church

Question 4

1890’s

Answer 4

when the moderates attempted to revise the Westminster Confession of Faith

Question 5

1903

Answer 5

1903 the General Assembly adopted statements into the confession on
“missions and on the Holy Spirit, an affirmation of God’s love for all humanity, and the assurance of
salvation for those dying in infancy.”5
This marked a gradual move from traditional Old School
orthodoxy.

Question 6

“General Assembly of 1910

Answer 6

“General Assembly of 1910, responded
to complaints about doctrinal laxity on the part of three Union Seminary graduates…”6
The assembly
proposed and adopted five “essential and necessary” doctrines. These included commitments to the
inerrancy of the Bible, the Virgin birth of Christ, the substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection of
Christ, and the authenticity of miracles. These “famous five points” paralled the “Five points of
Fundamentalism” and became points of debate between the Fundamentalists and the Modernists.

Question 7

1916 and 1923

Answer 7

The Essentials were adopted and reaffirmed in 1916 and again

Question 8

1922

Answer 8

, Harry Fosdick forced the issue with his sermon, Shall the Fundamentalists Win?
In this sermon he argued for the validity of liberal Christianity. t became the object of many responses
from the pens of Conservative Presbyterians. In particular, J. Gresham Machen of Princeton Theological
Seminary. He responded by publishing the book, Christianity and Liberalism

Question 9

1924

Answer 9

The modernists responded in 1924 by signing the Auburn Affirmation which urged tolerance and
affirmed alternative explanations of Christian doctrines. The debate continued into the General Assembly
of 1926 when the assembly actually nullified the five essentials and brought the denomination into
conformity with the Auburn Affirmation. Thus dealing a tragic blow to orthodoxy

Question 10

1933

Answer 10

1933 when he
formed the conservative Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions “to promote truly Biblical
and truly Presbyterian mission work.”8
This act led to the suspension of his ordination in 1935

Question 11

jun 11th 1936

Answer 11

Machen and his fellow

conservatives formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)

Question 12

1973

Answer 12

The Presbyterian Church in America was formed in 1973under the name The National Presbyterian
Church.