John Anderson (theologian)

He sailed to the United States in June 1783, studied for four years, and was ordained in Philadelphia 31 October 1788.

[1] He was no more than five feet tall, with black, piercing eyes and tangled hair, and gained a reputation for absent mindedness through his practice of reading a book while riding to church, not noticing when the horse wandered off the route.

[1] Anderson was the founding minister of the Service Associate Presbyterian Church (later part of the United Presbyterian Church of North America) in present-day Raccoon Township, Beaver County, Pennsylvania.

[3] The first part of that book argues for the historic Presbyterian and Reformed doctrines of confessional membership and close communion.

Anderson is also known for his extensive work defending the traditional Presbyterian practice of exclusive psalm singing, Vindiciae Cantus Dominici, published in revised form in 1800.