Church leaves national group
First Presbyterian seeks realignment
By WILLIAM TAYLOR
Assistant People editor
Oct 29, 2007

One of south Louisiana’s largest Presbyterian churches is splitting with the nation’s largest Presbyterian denomination.

Baton Rouge’s First Presbyterian Church announced in an e-mail Sunday that its members had voted 425-61 that morning to end a 25-year association with the Presbyterian Church (USA).
The next step is considered a formality: requesting alignment with the much smaller Evangelical Presbyterian Church.

The Evangelical Presbyterian Church is a denomination of about 180 congregations and 75,000 members as compared with the 2.3 million members and 11,000 churches of Presbyterian Church (USA), but the smaller denomination is viewed as more conservative.

“This was a defining moment for us,” the Rev. Gerrit Dawson, senior pastor at First Presbyterian, said in the e-mail. “We want to conduct our mission with clarity about the Lordship of Jesus Christ and the authority of the Scripture.” the rest