United Presbyterian Church of North America

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The United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA) was an American Presbyterian denomination that existed for one hundred years. It was formed in 1858 by the union of the Northern branch of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (Covenanter and Seceder) with the Associate Presbyterian Church (Seceders). It began as a mostly ethnic Scottish denomination, but after some years it grew more and more ethnically diverse.

Its theology was a conservative Calvinism and also held the distinctives of the Covenanters and Seceders, such as public covenanting, adherence to the Solemn League and Covenant, and exclusive use of the Psalms in singing. (These are very similar to a sister body that still exists, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America.) The church moderated some of its stances in the twentieth century, such as when it released its Confessional Statement and Testimony (1925), abandoning such doctrines as exclusive psalmody.

Around this time, the UPCNA sought mergers with various other Reformed churches, and finally agreed to merge with the much larger Presbyterian Church in the United States of America in 1958 to form the United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.

References

Stuart, A.R. Diminishing Distinctives: A study of the ingestion of the UPCNA by the PCUSA.

Hart, D.G. and Noll, M.A. Dictionary of the Presbyterian and Reformed Tradition in America. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999.