The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) voted June 10 to end their fraternal relationship with the Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
During the 222nd meeting of the General Synod in Flat Rock, N.C., the Inter-Church Relations Committee recommended that the ARP sever its ties with the EPC amid growing concern about leadership and denominational structure, women in ministry, and the promotion of charismatic gifts in ministry. The recommendation was approved with no debate or discussion from the floor.
“The ARP Inter-Church committee has instructed our representatives to have open and frank discussions with their EPC brothers about the situation in the EPC and to be in prayer with them,” the committee reported to the Synod. “The reasons for this include concerns about the nature of how leadership is wielded in the denominational structure of the EPC, growing support and hardening of the promotion of women in ministerial and elder offices, and continued concerns with the likewise promotion and support of charismatic gifts. We continue to pray for renewal within the EPC.”
The Synod action ended a fraternal relationship that began in 1985 when the EPC and ARP established a fraternal relationship and exchanged delegates at annual meetings. In 1991 the two denominations considered union, but decided for committees of both bodies to continue meeting for exploring ministry collaboration — particularly fruitful was the shared Church Planter Assessment Center (CPAC) that evaluated church planter candidates for the ARP and EPC.
Rev. Ben Glaser, who served as chair of the Inter-Church Relations committee of the ARP, wrote on his June 12 blog commenting on the ARP Synod vote to cut ties with the EPC: “The ARP was the first denomination to recognize the new EPC which had come out of the Northern Presbyterian Church before the merger of the UPCUSA and the PCUS in 1983. Our Synod had sent several letters of concern, and had met with representatives of the EPC, about the rising rigidity of the EPC on women’s ordination, charismatic gifts, centralizing of institutional authority, and the recent flirting with Side B Christianity. However, there was no discussion on the floor. Speaking to members of our Synod about it later it was evident that there was unanimity to the need for this action, that we had done what we could do as a body to witness to our concerns.” Glaser noted that a member of Synod offered a prayer for the EPC.
The ARP currently maintains fraternal relationships with the Korean-American Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America; the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales; the Free Church of Scotland, the United Reformed Churches, and the Canadian Reformed Churches.
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