# RPCUS



## Jake (Feb 27, 2021)

Does anyone know if the RPCUS is still around? There website is down, and the two remaining churches in the state of Georgia (including the mother Chalcedon Presbyterian Church in Cumming) are now part of the Vanguard presbytery. I know they were already a lot smaller after a lot of churches went into the RPC Hanover Presbytery (including Joe Morecraft) a few years back, but this appears to be more recent.


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## Edward (Feb 27, 2021)

Per the Wayback machine, it looks like they had 3 churches this time last year. If all have left, I'd argue that there isn't a denomination any more. https://web.archive.org/web/20200307224229/http://www.rpcus.com/ March 7, 2020. 

The third church shown was Trinity Presbyterian in Tazewell, VA. I couldn't find an affiliation on their website. https://www.thebiblealone.com/ But they show up on the Vanguard website. 

As for Zion Presbyterian in Juliette Ga, it still shows RPCUS affiliation on its website. http://zionpres.com/ . But Vanguard now claims them https://vanguardpresbytery.com/affiliations/

As you noted, Chalcedon does show Vangard affiliation. 

So it appears fairly safe to assume that RPCUS has now been subsumed into Vanguard. 

Not being a fan of micro-denominations, I'd say that there are probably some splits in Vanguard's future. Although it is large enough I'd count it a Presbytery, if not a denomination.


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## Jake (Feb 28, 2021)

Good call on the Wayback machine. I didn't realize the RPCUS had gone all the way down to 3 churches. The RPCUS spawned directly or indirectly the RPC-Hanover, RPCGA, CRPC, and WPCUS (which may also be dead) in its short history. Glad to see them merging into a larger group this time.

Reactions: Like 1


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## Edward (Feb 28, 2021)

Jake said:


> The RPCUS spawned directly or indirectly the RPC-Hanover, RPCGA, CRPC, and WPCUS (which may also be dead) in its short history.


I am definitely not a fan of micro denominations, and this shows why. Splitters are going to split. And it's usually going to be personalities instead of doctrine.

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## PointyHaired Calvinist (Feb 28, 2021)

I used to keep up with these. Didn’t know RPCUS completely folded but it looks that way. 

I see the RPCGA is holding steady at about a dozen churches. Hanover and the Covenant PC denomination are of similar size. 

WPCUS seems to be gone also (site is down but the founders church still says WPCUS)


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 1, 2021)

A few years ago, Chalcedon Presbyterian Church and Morecraft (40yrs the pastor) had a split. I know not one thing about it, but it seemed sad no matter how you look at it. Last I saw, JM was preaching each Lord's Day to a small crowd in a hotel conference room.

(as noted in the OP, today, he's part of Hannover Presbytery)


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## Edward (Mar 1, 2021)

Contra_Mundum said:


> Last I saw, JM was preaching each Lord's Day to a small crowd in a hotel conference room.


Looks like they've moved to a new location. They don't even have a website, just a Facebook page.


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## Contra_Mundum (Mar 2, 2021)

Edward said:


> Looks like they've moved to a new location. They don't even have a website, just a Facebook page.


They definitely have a website: https://heritagepresbyterianchurch.com/

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## Jake (Mar 2, 2021)

PointyHaired Calvinist said:


> I used to keep up with these. Didn’t know RPCUS completely folded but it looks that way.
> 
> I see the RPCGA is holding steady at about a dozen churches. Hanover and the Covenant PC denomination are of similar size.
> 
> WPCUS seems to be gone also (site is down but the founders church still says WPCUS)



Wasn't your church planted by Wayne Rogers? I attended an RPCUS congregation he pastored for a season and that is part of my interest in the group.


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## Edward (Mar 2, 2021)

Contra_Mundum said:


> They definitely have a website:


From the pictures, it looks like things have changed. I remember when they didn't allow Blacks in Forsyth County. Although the rule was "after sunset".


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## Jake (Mar 2, 2021)

Edward said:


> From the pictures, it looks like things have changed. I remember when they didn't allow Blacks in Forsyth County. Although the rule was "after sunset".


Forsyth County is rapidly growing. My wife and I were up there recently. It's proximity to the large job markets in neighboring North Fulton and Gwinnett have made it an attractive location. Wikipedia's most recent estimates have 68.7% as non-Hispanic white.


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## PointyHaired Calvinist (Mar 2, 2021)

Jake said:


> Wasn't your church planted by Wayne Rogers? I attended an RPCUS congregation he pastored for a season and that is part of my interest in the group.


Yes it was! Our church actually was in the RPCES for like a year until J&R. We also visited his church near Atlanta many years ago. I think he retired now?


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## Jake (Mar 2, 2021)

PointyHaired Calvinist said:


> Yes it was! Our church actually was in the RPCES for like a year until J&R. We also visited his church near Atlanta many years ago. I think he retired now?


We attended the church he planted in Conyers/Covington area. I think he was in Gwinnett County before that.

He's currently stated supply at a small PCA church in Virginia last I saw.


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## Pilgrim (Mar 9, 2021)

Wasn't the RPCUS founded because a presbytery of the PCA wanted only postmil (and theonomic?) teaching elders and the PCA wouldn't allow it? I suppose this is only a small number of churches that has gone into Vanguard, but the sense I have of Vanguard is that it is sort of a Southern Presbyterian broadly evangelical group that thinks that the PCA is moving too far left on certain issues. If that's right, those who have hinted that this may not be too stable of a situation would seem to be correct unless these former RPCUS congregations have abandoned the insistence on theonomy.

EDIT: After checking their website was kind of shocked to see that an old school PCA congregation near me has joined Vanguard. The pastor (a GPTS grad and a native of SC) told me years ago that he'd probably be more comfortable in the OPC but that he wouldn't want to lose his southern heritage. So there you go. Perhaps I was incorrect about the "broad evangelical" descriptor since this brother is anything but. (He also told me once that he had some theonomic leanings, but did not really press that, even allowing a speaker from Escondido to teach more than once.) I was basing that on opinions expressed by at least one confessional man that led me to believe that this was more of a culturally conservative group than a confessional one. And perhaps I misunderstood something. In my hometown, a congregation is meeting in the building of a PCUSA congregation. I don't know if they are simply renting the building or if something else is going on. The last I knew that congregation had a lot of money but very few people.


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## NaphtaliPress (Mar 9, 2021)

Dewey Roberts has been around a while. I don't know him but know those who do and from what I read it seems to carry a stamp of his priorities (evangelism, old school, etc.). I reserve judgment. Let's see if they allow exceptions to the standards or not and what they are. There is simply no point in a new denomination with the same typical exceptions on the Sabbath, worship and idolatrous images. Join the OPC or other exisiting church if you are fine with that.

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