Hi bud!
"It's 0 degrees fahrenheit in Illinois today and so I've spent some time combing through your blog. I've come up with a conclusion; you have way too much free time on your hands!"
Heh. Actually, my usual schedule conjures up images of one-legged men and backside-kicking contests. I just have the knack for living happily on 5-6 hours of sleep a night. :-)
"LSPM has become my favorite blog so you must be doing something right."
Thanks! I'm enjoying Army of One, also. I was just shocked to notice that I hadn't permalinked you. I thought I had ages ago. Anyway, you're now an official clog in the machine. Something to wow your co-workers with. ;-)
"I'm a PCUSA presbyterian, albeit an extremely conservative, evangelical one, but I've only been one for less than a year. How would you characterize the differences between the PCA and the PCUSA?"
Great question. . . The first difference that springs to mind is that the PCUSA is much more mixed than the PCA. You can walk into virtually any PCA church in the country and have a reasonable certainty that you'll hear the Word faithfully preached, and that the pastor will hold to Reformed beliefs.
With the PCUSA, it's much more of a corpus mixtum. There's a spectrum, starting on the "left" with the Re-Imaging sorts. The PCUSA General Assembly issued a statement saying of the conference, "Participants were challenged to expand their horizons, to be enriched and nurtured spiritually, and to engage in dialogue with women and men from around the world."
In the middle you have a large number of broadly, more-or-less Evangelical Christians. And on the "right" are many solidly Evangelical and even some solidly Reformed Evangelical believers.
My wife and I have lots of family who are still in the PCUSA, and they help illustrate this. Her cousin is a strong believer who holds to the Westminster Confession and is involved in a renewal movement in the denomination. I have a family member who's been a PCUSA elder for 20 years who literally had never heard of the Confession, and thought it bizarre that I'm catechizing my children.
A second difference would be geography. The PCUSA, thanks to the merger of the northern UPC and the southern PCUS back in the 70's, is everywhere. The PCA is spreading from the South into areas like California and New York, but is still numerically weak in such places. There are other conservative Presby denoms in the north and west though, such as the OPC and the EPC.
A third area would be in missions. One of our supporting churches is a PCUSA. While they're a relatively conservative one (it was George W's church back before he went to Methodism), we were the first church-planting missionaries they'd supported in living memory. There just isn't much fire in the belly at the denominational leadership level for world missions. The PCA, on the other hand, supports missions all out of proportion to her size.
Another major difference would be the national leadership. While there are many wonderful churches and pastors in the PCUSA, they're simply out-voted at the national level (and the denominational establishment -- seminaries, offices and the like -- seem to be dominated by the libs. The conservatives oftentimes hold their own, but the battles regularly make the news.
I don't want to sound overly critical of the PCUSA. Nor do I want to paint the PCA as perfect. God has called some people to be in the PCUSA and be a witness to the truth, and I respect the people who stay and fight the good fight. The Confessing Movement is one of the most hopeful thigns I've seen in a long time. Some of my family members are involved with it.
In the end, though, I came to a different choice. With four little ones, I wanted to raise them in a church where the covenants were taken seriously, where grace was preached, and where I knew the church as a denomination was committed to the Christian faith and the Reformed creeds.
Anyway, sorry for the long-winded answer. Hope this explains more than it muddles. :)
