PCUSA is dead

Firing missionaries was the last straw

The Presyterian Church USA has its headquarters in Louisville, Ken. PCUSA Office of the General Assembly via Christian Post

In any year in any church, missionaries who are overseas on furlough return to the U.S. to report about their ministry in the nation, city, or organization where they serve. Many churches have multiple missionaries each year.

The slide show of days gone by has been replaced by a PowerPoint presentation, complete with the targeted Scripture passage that will encourage supporters in U.S. churches for their ongoing support. Missionaries introduce Americans to people who have been impacted by their work and encourage prayer support.

Churches support missionaries near and far for one reason: spreading Jesus Christ’s gospel worldwide.

Churches and denominations support missionaries like hospitals provide medical care. They go together. That is, unless you’re the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA).

The Mainline Protestant denomination based in Louisville, KY recently fired all missionaries. The PCUSA also ended its foreign mission agency in sweeping moves affirming this denomination is dead. In 2010, the PCUSA had 200 missionaries. Various reports indicate the denomination had 54 to 60 missionaries who were fired.

Greg Garrison of al.com reported the office of Presbyterian World Mission closed in late March after the Presbyterian Mission Agency merged with the Office of General Assembly into the Interim Unified Agency. This ends a 200 year legacy of the PCUSA having foreign missionaries.

Garrison also reported:

‘We're witnessing the slow dismantling of one of our church’s most defining ministries,’ said Karla Ann Koll, a Presbyterian missionary to Costa Rica who was one of those let go as a missionary but who still works there as seminary faculty, according to Presbyterian Outlook. . . .

Worse, a minister in PCUSA leadership in Alabama has no clue the dreadful message this sends to the world. He just explained the move away as a monetary decision, as reported by Garrison:

‘That old system did work well in its time,’ said the Rev. Jay Wilkins, stated clerk of the Presbytery of Sheppards and Lapsley, the regional body of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in north-central Alabama. . . . ‘It’s sad it’s not what it used to be, but this is the logical next step.’

Wilkins doesn’t grasp how important missions are to the life of a church or denomination. It’s just a budget item to be eliminated. Missions prioritizes what God commanded the church to do. It’s also a sign of energy and vision, realizing there are people groups worldwide who haven’t heard the name of Jesus Christ.

Pulling the plug on foreign missions isn’t a “next logical step,” it’s pleading to declare a time of death.

This move isn’t a surprise as the PCUSA has been in a death spiral for decades.

The phrase used for woke businesses, “Go woke. Go broke,” applies to churches and denominations too.

“Relevant Christianity” was supposed to save the Mainline Protestant denominations over the past 60 years, the Presbyterian Church USA (PCUSA) among the group. It boasted more than 4 million members at its peak in 1965.

PCUSA clergy joined the Rev. Alex Patchin McNeill, front center, for a photo following McNeill’s ordination at First Presbyterian Church in Asheville, N.C., in October 2019. Liz Williams/Presbyterian Outlook via Religion News Service

Denomination leaders chose to virtue signal diversity, radical environmentalism, and promotion of the LGBTQ lifestyle.

Today, the PCUSA has 1.1 million members.

Kevin DeYoung, pastor of a Presbyterian Church in America congregation, grew up in a Mainline Protestant denomination. He explained the PCUSA death spiral in WORLD magazine in May 2022. Also, religion researcher Ryan Burge added context to what plagues the PCUSA.

DeYoung wrote for WORLD:

Almost 60 years later, all of that has changed. In its recently released demographic report, the Presbyterian Church (USA) announced it lost another 51,584 members. From a membership peak of 4.25 million in 1965, the PCUSA rolls are now down to 1.19 million. And that membership decline hardly conveys the severity of the situation. In the last reporting year, the denomination dissolved 104 congregations and dropped four presbyteries. More than 40 percent of the congregations have fewer than 50 members. Almost a third of the denomination is more than 70 years old, and another 26 percent are older than 55. Keep in mind that only 16 percent of Americans are 65 or older. The PCUSA is literally dying.

The PCUSA sacrificed thousands of years of biblical truth for being “relevant.” Going woke didn’t make them more diverse. It expedited the PCUSA’s death.

Burge revealed one of the great misconceptions of American politics and churches. The media creates the impression the only churches that are “political” must be theologically conservative.

However, the data reveals the opposite, as Burge reported in October 2024:

However, the same broad trend is crystal clear - mainline Protestant groups were much more politically involved in 2020 compared to the average evangelical tradition. For instance, the Southern Baptist Convention scores below average on basically every one of these political activities. Their influence in the political process comes more from their sheer size than from the actual engagement of each Southern Baptist in the political process.

At a time when foreign missions became far less important to the PCUSA mission than domestic left-wing politics, it makes sense the spiritual activity of missions became expendable.

The PCUSA is no longer relevant.

It’s finished.