Our History
Local Church History
Originally, we were two separate congregations from two different denominations who have come together to form a wonderfully exciting and friendly congregation. The present congregation is a result of a merger between:
A. First Presbyterian Church - the building was on the corner of Jory and Robinson in Pen Argyl. The congregation was founded in 1883.
B. Faith United Church of Christ - the present building was home to this congregation which was founded in 1901
On January 1, 1968 the congregations of these two churches formally merged and
became known as Faith United Presbyterian Church.
History of the Presbyterian Church
Being Presbyterian refers to a theological heritage started by Martin Luther and refined by John Calvin. The roots of the Presbyterian Church go all the way back to Protestant Reformation, led by Martin Luther. In 1517, Martin Luther nailed 95 “theses” or questions for discussion on the church door (the town bulletin board) of his town in Wittenburg, Germany. Because of the recent invention of the printing press, within two weeks Luther’s disagreements with existing church doctrine were circulating all over Europe. The Protestant Reformation had begun.
The new reforms within the church soon attracted a bright young student in France, named John Calvin. Calvin, a lawyer by trade, wrote a brilliant articulation of this “reformed” faith, at age 29. He called it, The Institutes of the Christian Religion. People now refer to it as Calvin’s Institutes. His work attracted great attention because of its insight, depth, and clarity. Calvin eventually would settle in the town of Geneva, Switzerland and become an important figure in the new reformation of the church. The Presbyterian Church today finds it theological roots in the writings of John Calvin.
The first Presbyterian Church was organized in America in the early 1700’s in Philadelphia. Just preceding the Civil War, the church broke into two separate denominations, which reunited in 1983. Our denomination’s official name is the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A). This is the “mainline” Presbyterian denomination -- a body of 2.6 million believers in 11,000 congregations.