[12] Its membership has been steadily declining over the past several decades; the trend has significantly accelerated in recent years, partly due to breakaway congregations.

The church-trends database, and the corrected 2023 GA Minutes, show 384,231 male members in 2022, differing by transposing two digits, which is in line with the 4% total membership decrease from 2022 to 2023.

Ministers such as William and Gilbert Tennent, a friend of George Whitefield, emphasized the necessity of a conscious conversion experience and pushed for higher moral standards among the clergy.

Spangler in Virginians Reborn: Anglican Monopoly, Evangelical Dissent, and the Rise of the Baptists in the Late Eighteenth Century (2008)[27] argues they were more energetic and held frequent services better attuned to the frontier conditions of the colony.

[30] In the decades after independence many American Protestants, including Calvinists (Presbyterians and Congregationalists), Methodists, and Baptists,[31][32] were swept up in Christian revivals that would later become known as the Second Great Awakening.

Open controversy was sparked in 1922, when Harry Emerson Fosdick, a modernist and a Baptist pastoring a PCUSA congregation in New York City, preached a sermon entitled "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?"

In the meantime, a conservative group broke away from the Presbyterian Church in the United States in 1973, mainly over the issues of women's ordination and a perceived drift toward theological liberalism.

In the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s, the General Assembly of PC(USA) adopted several social justice initiatives, which covered a range of topics including: stewardship of God's creation, world hunger, homelessness, and LGBT issues.

[53] The stated clerk is the chief ecclesial officer and serves as the presbytery's executive secretary and parliamentarian in accordance with the church Constitution and Robert's Rules of Order.

The Stated Clerks since reunion are: James E. Andrews (1984–1996), Clifton Kirkpatrick (1996–2008), Gradye Parsons (2008–2016), J. Herbert Nelson (2016–2023), Bronwen Boswell (2023–2024) (interim), and Jihyun Oh (2024–).

She was ineligible to apply for the stated clerk position in 2024, and has limited responsibilities focused primarily on completing plans for the 2024 GA and unification of the OGA and PMA.

[59] Her partial characterization of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump as "two lives lost at a Pennsylvania rally" blurs the distinction between perpetrator and victim, unlike definitions of mass shootings that often do not include the shooter in the body count.

[61][62] Jihyun Oh was installed in July 2024 as the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly,[63][64][65] and promoted by the Unification Commission (UC) in October 2024 to lead the interim unified agency.

PC(USA) faces a backlash over the layoffs from critics who note that the 2024 General Assembly called for retaining mission co-workers and funded their budget at 60.

Mienda Uriarte, director of World Mission, explained that "the redesign aims to harmonize compensation and eliminate perceived inequity, thereby enhancing our organizational coherence and employee morale.

[95]) According to the PC(USA) data collection, active membership is defined as a member who has been confirmed, or made similar profession of faith, has been baptized, and attends regularly.

[120] The Boston Brahmins, who were regarded as the nation's social and cultural elites, were often associated with the American upper class, Harvard University;[121] and the Episcopal and the Presbyterian Church.

The PC(USA) is a leader in disaster assistance relief and also participates in or relates to work in other countries through ecumenical relationships, in what is usually considered not missions, but deaconship.

The timing reflected a doctrinal consensus which had been developing over the past thirty-two years coupled with an increasing urgency for the church to proclaim a gospel of unity in contemporary society.

The purpose of A Formula of Agreement is to elucidate the complementarity of affirmation and admonition as the basic principle of entering into full communion and the implications of that action as described in A Common Calling.

[140] Since 1980, the More Light Churches Network has served many congregations and individuals within American Presbyterianism who promote the full participation of all people in the PC(USA) regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

Some felt that the adoption of this report provided for a clear local option mentioned, while the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly, Clifton Kirkpatrick went on record as saying, "Our standards have not changed.

In the General Assembly gathering of June 2006, Presbyterian voting Commissioners passed an "authoritative interpretation", recommended by the Theological Task Force, of the Book of Order (the church constitution).

In that same session on June 20, the General Assembly also voted 405 to 92 (with 4 abstentions) to uphold the constitutional standard for ordination requiring fidelity in marriage or chastity in singleness.

[needs update][143] The second action was to approve a new Authoritative Interpretation of G-6.0108 of the Book of Order allowing for the ordaining body to make decisions on whether or not a departure from the standards of belief of practice is sufficient to preclude ordination.

It neither prevents nor imposes the use of the so-called "fidelity and chastity" requirement, but it removes that decision from the text of the constitution and places that judgment responsibility back upon the ordaining body where it had traditionally been prior to the insertion of the former G-6.0106.b.

[151] In June 2004, the General Assembly met in Richmond, Virginia, and adopted by a vote of 431–62 a resolution that called on the church's committee on Mission Responsibility through Investment (MRTI) "to initiate a process of phased, selective divestment in multinational corporations operating in Israel".

In August 2011, the American National Middle Eastern Presbyterian Caucus (NMEPC) endorsed the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel.

[164] On June 20, 2014, the General Assembly in Detroit approved a measure (310–303) calling for divestment from stock in Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard and Motorola Solutions in protest of Israeli policies on the West Bank.

[165] In June 2022, at its 225th General Assembly, the church's Committee on International Engagement voted to declare Israel an apartheid state and designate Nakba Day.