Yesterday (December 29, 2015) I was driving in the Hill Country west of Austin, Texas and saw a Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Although I have never attended one, I have had students from that denomination. And I once had an acquaintance who briefly served as the dean of their seminary. What especially interests me about this denomination is its difference from other Presbyterian denominations. And I know a fair amount about Presbyterianism. Not only have a I studied it as a tradition; I have also had close relatives who were (some still may be) Presbyterian. My father’s oldest sister was an elder in what is now the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). And she was very outspoken about it being the best Christian denomination (but not the only one). One of my seminary professors was one of the founders of the more conservative Presbyterian Church in America–James Montgomery Boice. And I served for three years as a Presbytery-approved Minister of Christian Education and Youth in a (then) UPCUSA church even though I was then an ordained minister with the ABCUSA. Over the years I have had many Presbyterian colleagues and students. And some of my favorite Christian scholars were/are Presbyterian.
The Cumberland Presbyterian Church interests me because it has a long tradition–going back its founding in 1810 (the General Assembly was founded in 1829)–of leaning more toward Arminianism than other Presbyterian denominations. (Of course, I’m talking here about “Arminianism of the heart” as opposed to the more liberal “Arminianism of the head” that I found infecting many “mainline” Presbyterians when I was among them for three years. After some of my early writings about Arminianism were published, and especially after my book Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities was published, I received several communications from members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church informing me that their denomination was closer to Arminianism than to classical Calvinism.
According to the Handbook of Denominations (13th edition) the Cumberland Presbyterian Church (which is not the same as the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America) has about 730 congregations in the U.S. Most of them are clustered in the South and “border states.” The headquarters and seminary are located in Memphis, Tennessee. The denomination grew out of the Second Great Awakening which may have to do with its more Arminian “flavor.” Its official statement of faith is based on the Westminster Confession of Faith but affirms universal atonement. Distinctly missing is any strongly Calvinistic affirmation of unconditional election or irresistible grace. My informants within the denomination have told me they grew up believing in what I call Arminianism although it was not called that. I have read the 1984 Cumberland Presbyterian Church confession of faith and, as an Arminian, could sign it (if I were so inclined for some reason). My main disagreements with it have to do with my being Baptist, not my being Arminian.
I suspect a “four point Calvinist” could also sign the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s confession of faith; it does not specifically deny unconditional election or irresistible grace. However, its “flavor” seems to me more Arminian than “high federal Calvinist.” Perhaps many of its members are what many Baptists call “Calminians.” As I have explained in Arminian Theology: Myths and Realities, I don’t recognize that as a consistent theological “place to stand,” but I recognize it is the folk religion of the majority of American Protestants and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church’s confession of faith seems flexible enough to allow that. All that is simply to say…IF I had to be Presbyterian, and I could be Cumberland Presbyterian, I would probably be that.
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