Denominations

The Presbyterian pair

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and Presbyterian Church in America, question by question, with each body's own sourced account beneath the answer.

One formed from the other. The Presbyterian Church in America was formed in 1973 by congregations separating from the Presbyterian Church in the United States, a predecessor of the PC(USA). Both bodies are governed by courts of elders, place pastors by the same two-key mechanism, and use nearly the same vocabulary. They take opposite positions on who owns the building — and the PCA's own historical digest records that its founders were determined to settle that question at the outset.

Of 7 questions, they answer 3 the same way and 3 differently, with 1 not established for one or both. That count is a description of the enum answers, not a measure of how alike the two bodies are — the prose under each question is where the real distance shows.

Who owns the building?

PCUSA The congregation, held in trust for the denomination
PCA The local congregation

PCUSA

The congregation holds title; the denomination holds the benefit. The Book of Order provides that all property held by a congregation — "whether legal title is lodged in a corporation, a trustee or trustees, or an unincorporated association, and whether the property is used in programs of a congregation or of a higher council or retained for the production of income, is held in trust nevertheless for the use and benefit of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)." The drafting is deliberately exhaustive on the two points where a claim might otherwise fail: the form in which title is held, and the use to which the property is put. A congregation cannot escape the trust by incorporating differently, and an investment property is caught as surely as a sanctuary.

  • governing document Book of Order (PC(USA)) 2025/2027, G-4.0203, Church Property Held in Trust
  • governing document Book of Order (PC(USA)) 2025/2027, G-4.0208, Exceptions

PCA

The congregation owns its property outright, and the constitution says so in terms that leave no room to construct a trust: "All particular churches shall be entitled to hold, own and enjoy their own local properties, without any right of reversion whatsoever to any Presbytery, General Assembly or any other courts hereafter created, trustees or other officers of such courts." The clause is worth reading closely for what it anticipates. It denies reversion not only to the courts that existed in 1973 but to any "hereafter created," and not only to the courts themselves but to their trustees and officers. It was drafted by people who had watched property claims be constructed, and who wrote to foreclose the construction rather than merely to decline it.

How does a church get its pastor?

PCUSA Both — call within a supervised process
PCA Both — call within a supervised process

They agree here.

PCUSA

A congregation elects a pastor nominating committee, which searches; the terms of call go to the presbytery's committee on ministry for approval; the congregation votes; and the presbytery receives and installs. Neither party can complete the process alone. The pattern matches the Presbyterian Church in America closely, which is what makes the pair instructive — the two bodies place pastors by nearly the same mechanism and treat the building by opposite rules, so the difference between them cannot be attributed to polity in general.

PCA

The congregation elects its pastor and the presbytery must concur. A church calls the man it wants; the call then goes to presbytery, which considers whether it is in order and whether it is for the good of the Church, and only if so places it in his hands. A session cannot install a pastor — only the presbytery installs. This is the arrangement the "hybrid" value exists for, and it sits between the two poles the site's other profiles occupy. A Southern Baptist congregation calls and nobody reviews; a United Methodist congregation receives and nobody asks. Here the congregation chooses and a court must agree — which means neither party can act without the other, and a congregation's preferred candidate can be refused.

Who is the pastor's employer?

PCUSA The local congregation
PCA The local congregation

They agree here.

PCUSA

The congregation employs and pays, and it also chooses — so, as in the Presbyterian Church in America, this is not the United Methodist split. But the relationship is constituted by the presbytery and dissolved by it: the Book of Order treats dissolution of a pastoral relationship as a matter for the council, not for the congregation acting alone. The employer is local; the power to make and unmake the relationship is shared, and the benefits obligation attached to it is denominational.

PCA

The congregation employs and pays, and unlike the United Methodist case it also chooses — so this is not a split of the kind that field was extended to describe. The qualification is nonetheless real: the presbytery must concur in the call and, because the pastoral relationship is constituted by a court, the congregation cannot simply end it on its own motion. The employer here is local; the power to make and unmake the relationship is shared.

What money leaves the congregation?

PCUSA Assessed by formula
PCA Voluntary, no stated rate

This question is derived from each body's whole set of money flows rather than a single provision; see the money sections of PCUSA and PCA.

Who oversees the congregation?

PCUSA A council of elders, not a person
PCA A council of elders, not a person

They agree here.

PCUSA

A council, not a person. This body has no bishops: oversight of a congregation and its pastor rests with the presbytery, a body composed of ruling and teaching elders together, and above it synod and General Assembly. What an episcopal body vests in an individual — approving the pastoral relationship, dissolving it, holding clergy standing, consenting to property transactions — is here vested in an assembly that meets, debates and votes. The practical differences are worth naming. A council has no tenure to protect and cannot be succeeded; its composition turns over as congregations elect commissioners; and its decisions are made in public session and are reviewable by a higher council rather than by appeal to a person. It is also slower, and the variation between presbyteries that shaped the departures of the last decade is a direct consequence of oversight being local and plural rather than personal and singular.

  • governing document Book of Order (PC(USA)) 2025/2027, G-4.0206 and G-4.0207 — presbytery permission for property transactions; severance only by constitutional action of the presbytery
  • governing document Book of Order (PC(USA)) 2025/2027, G-3.0106, councils above the session

PCA

A court, not a person: there are no bishops, and no officer of the denomination may direct a congregation personally. Oversight rests in the presbytery, composed of teaching and ruling elders, which holds ministers' membership, must concur in a call, and alone installs a pastor. Sharing this value with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is the point of the pair. The two bodies are overseen by the same kind of institution, by elders sitting as a court, and reach opposite conclusions about property — which is the clearest demonstration on this site that the form of oversight does not determine the material arrangements. What differs is not who oversees but what the overseer was given power over, and BCO 25-10 answers that by prohibiting the courts from ever attempting to take a congregation's property.

Who owns the church's name?

PCUSA Not established
PCA Not established

PCUSA

Not established.Not established. As with the Presbyterian Church in America, the question is complicated by the number of separate American bodies using "Presbyterian" in congregational names, and no evidence was located either way about denominational control of the name.

PCA

Not established.Not established. No evidence was located that the denomination licenses or restricts congregational names, and the question is complicated by the fact that "Presbyterian" is shared among many separate American bodies, so that a congregation's name rarely identifies which one it belongs to. Whether the PCA holds and enforces marks in its own name was not researched.

How does a congregation leave?

PCUSA Disputed in practice
PCA The congregation may simply vote to go

PCUSA

The constitution provides no departure route, and the trust clause means the building is at stake in any attempt — so what actually happened, across a decade of substantial departures, was negotiation under the shadow of litigation. Presbyteries adopted gracious dismissal policies at the General Assembly's request; congregations entered discernment; terms were settled case by case; and some disputes reached the civil courts, where outcomes turned on how a given state treats denominational trust provisions. "Contested" is the honest value here, and it is worth distinguishing from the United Methodist "no provision." Both constitutions lack a right of departure. The difference is that the United Methodist Church opened a temporary, uniform, denomination-wide path with published terms and then closed it, while this body devolved the question to 170-odd presbyteries, each free to set its own terms — producing not one settlement but many.

PCA

The congregation decides, under its own civil-law governing documents, and the denomination has bound itself not to contest the property. BCO 25-11 names "the right to withdraw from or to sever any affiliation of connection with this body or any Presbytery hereof" among the matters a local church may act on in accordance with the civil laws applicable to it, providing that such action "shall be the action of the local congregation or local church" — and adding that each congregation "shall be competent to function and to take actions covering the matters set forth herein" so long as it complies with civil law. So the vote threshold is whatever the congregation's own charter or bylaws require; the constitution sets none and defers to state law. Placed beside the PC(USA), where a congregation's relationship "can be severed only by constitutional action on the part of the presbytery" and a majority vote to leave does not decide who keeps the building, the two Presbyterian bodies are as far apart on departure as any pair on this site.

  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-11
  • governing document Book of Church Order (PCA) 25-10

Other pairs

All bodies, side by side