A Goodly Inheritance: The History and Identity of the RPCNA
“The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places; yes, I have a goodly inheritance” (Psalm 16:6).
Some Christians inherit a denomination the way they inherit a last name: it’s simply what they were born into. Others discover their church family later in life, through conversion, marriage, a move across the country, or a providential visit on an ordinary Lord’s Day.
The Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA) is small enough that many people only know one or two things about us. They may notice that we sing psalms a cappella, and that alone can seem out of place in the modern church landscape. But those outward features are attached to deeper roots: a covenanting heritage, a strong sense of Christ’s kingship, a conscientious view of worship, and a connectional Presbyterian life shaped over centuries.
“Who are we?” We are Christians before we are anything else. The most important thing about the RPCNA is not our distinctives. We are a Christian church. We believe the Bible. We confess the triune God. We cling to Jesus Christ alone for salvation. We gather week by week because Christ is risen and his gospel is our life.
Nevertheless, the Lord has placed us, historically, in a particular stream of the Christian church. We are in the Western tradition (not Eastern Orthodoxy), and we are Protestant, sons and daughters of the Reformation. More specifically, we belong to the Reformation of the British Isles, shaped especially by the Scottish Presbyterian tradition. That story matters because it explains why we emphasize what we do and why certain themes keep surfacing in Reformed Presbyterian life.
The Covenanted Reformation: Scotland and the Making of a People
In the 1600s, the Reformation took root in Scotland. Presbyterian church government emerged under elders in local sessions, regional presbyteries, and broader assemblies. Scotland’s connection to Reformed theology (including her influences from Geneva) helped shape a church that believed Christ rules his church through his Word, and that the church should be governed by elders rather than bishops. From that understanding came a particular “Covenanter” identity.
The National Covenant and the Solemn League and Covenant
In 1638, many in Scotland signed what became known as the National Covenant. Later, in 1643, during the turmoil of the English Civil War, the Solemn League and Covenant was also signed. These covenants are not merely political or religious artifacts. They were understood as solemn acts of public religion, national and ecclesiastical vows made before God.
At their core, the covenants expressed a few commitments that were taken with utmost seriousness. A pledge to maintain the Reformed faith as grounded in Scripture, in doctrine, worship, discipline, and life. A rejection of Rome’s claims, especially the idea that the pope is head of the church. A sense that church and civil life were not unrelated, and that public life should be ordered under God’s truth. A conviction that vows matter, and that God holds his people accountable for them.
If you have ever wondered why Reformed Presbyterians can sound “conscientious” (or, to some, overly careful) when it comes to worship and and public religion, you are hearing echoes of this older world where those matters were not theoretical—they were life and death.
The Killing Times and the Cost of Conscience
After the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, the crown sought to reimpose episcopal church government and to overturn the covenanted settlements. Many who held to the covenants refused to comply. They would not submit to bishops, and they would not worship under what they believed to be a compromised, state-managed church.
Because they would not attend the approved churches, they gathered outdoors in field services, conventicles, and society meetings. The government declared such meetings illegal. The result was persecution: fines, imprisonment, exile, and executions along with a wider climate of fear and violence. Some Covenanter preachers, such as Alexander Peden, became famous for evading arrest and ministering to scattered flocks under constant threat. They were willing to lose property, freedom, and sometimes life itself rather than worship in a way they believed betrayed Christ.
The Glorious Revolution
In 1688–89, the Glorious Revolution brought William and Mary to the throne and restored Presbyterianism in Scotland. Yet the settlement came with a kind of national amnesia, an attempt to “move forward” by forgetting the covenants and the bloodshed. Many Covenanters could not accept that forgetfulness. They believed the new settlement demanded compromises: oaths they considered morally troubling, a mixed Protestant arrangement with broad toleration, and a lack of justice or repentance for the years of persecution. The church and the state, in their view, were asking them to act as though the persecutions and covenants signed did not matter.
So the Covenanter stream did not simply merge back into the established Scottish church. A distinct Reformed Presbyterian identity became more clear, shaped by the conviction that Christ’s crown rights and Christian truth are not negotiable for the sake of convenience.
Across the Atlantic: Early Reformed Presbyterians in North America
Some of these Covenanters and their descendants came to the New World. In some cases, Covenanters captured in conflict were transported to the colonies under harsh conditions; in other cases, immigrants came seeking a place to live and worship in greater freedom.
Over time, Covenanter communities took root in places like the Carolinas and Pennsylvania. One early ordained Reformed Presbyterian minister associated with colonial America was Alexander Craighead, who labored in Pennsylvania and later in North Carolina. In Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, elders and members gathered for communion and renewed covenant commitments, seeking to carry Reformed Presbyterian and Covenanter principles into American soil.
Another major figure in early RP American life was John Cuthbertson, a missionary sent from Scotland in the 1770s. He traveled extensively, baptized many, administered the Lord’s Supper repeatedly across scattered settlements, and helped establish the structure and identity of the church in North America.
But America brought a unique challenge that would define much of our denominational history.
The American Question: What Does a Nation Owe to Christ?
If Scotland pressed Reformed Presbyterians to ask questions about worship and covenant faithfulness, America pressed us to ask questions about public allegiance and civil authority.
Reformed Presbyterians have long held that government is not a human invention arising merely from the people or by the people. Civil authority comes from God. And if Christ is truly King, if his reign is not confined to the church building, then nations also owe him honor.
When the U.S. Constitution was framed without explicit acknowledgment of Christ’s authority, Reformed Presbyterians believed something essential was missing. They were not indifferent to liberty, justice, or the pursuit of happiness; but they asked a foundational question: where is Christ? If the nation claims ultimate authority in itself, what happens to the truth that Christ rules over the kingdoms of men?
That question shaped Covenanter political practice for generations. Historically, many Reformed Presbyterians practiced a kind of conscientious dissent, including refusing to vote or hold certain offices, not because they despised their neighbors or public life, but because they believed participation (especially where oaths were involved) implied approval of a constitution that did not honor Christ as King.
Over time, RPs worked through how to live faithfully within the American system while maintaining fidelity to Christ. One expression of this care was the practice of making an explanatory declaration when taking an oath, affirming loyalty in temporal matters while also affirming supreme allegiance to Christ and dissent from what the constitution lacks.
Identity Markers: What Has Shaped the RPCNA?
Covenanting
In Covenanting we are responding to God with solemn vows. In Reformed Presbyterian thought, covenanting is a solemn act of worship in which individuals, churches, or nations declare their acceptance of God as their God and pledge allegiance and obedience to him. At its best, it is an instinct to take God seriously, because he has taken us seriously in Christ.
That covenanting spirit appears in ordinary places: Parents vow to raise their children in the fear and admonition of the Lord. Members take vows when they profess faith and unite with the church. Couples covenant in marriage. Office-bearers vow to serve Christ’s flock faithfully.
In a world of casual commitments, covenanting presses Christians toward integrity. What we promise before God matters.
Worship regulated by Scripture
Reformed Presbyterians worship simply because we believe God sets the terms of his worship. The Westminster Confession teaches that the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by God himself and limited by his revealed will. That principle is not an excuse for coldness, it is to keep God’s Word central and the church. Historically, this has meant: Singing the Psalms, a cappella worship, public prayer, reading Scripture, preaching as a central act of worship, and the ordinary administration of the sacraments.
What we sing and pray and hear each Lord’s Day shapes what we love, what we fear, and what we expect of God. If the church’s worship is shallow, the church’s life will often be shallow. If the church is soaked in Scripture, God’s people are strengthened in durable ways.
The Crown Rights of Christ
Reformed Presbyterians speak often of the mediatorial kingship of Christ, his “crown rights.”
Christ rules universally over all creation (his kingdom of power), and he rules redemptively over his church (his kingdom of grace). Those truths mean that Christ’s moral authority is not confined to private devotion or to Sundays alone. Your faith is not meant to be locked inside your home or your conscience or your place of worship. Christ’s reign touches ethics, public truth, business practices, civic life, and the church’s witness in the world.
Scripture repeatedly speaks of Christ’s authority over nations: “Ask of me, and I will give you the nations for your inheritance” (Psalm 2). “All the families of the nations shall worship before you” (Psalm 22). “All authority has been given to me… Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28).
Presbyterian Government
Presbyterian means governed by elders. The RPCNA’s sessions, presbyteries, and synod are not merely organizational novelties. They demonstrate a belief that Christ governs his church through ordained officers who share responsibility, provide accountability, and protect the flock. That connectional life can feel slow. Decisions take time. Papers get reviewed. Questions get sent to broader courts. But “slow” is often how the church stays steady. Rushed decisions can fracture congregations and chase fads. Deliberate processes can guard doctrinal stability and foster pastoral wisdom.
Presbyterianism also reminds us we are not alone. Local congregations have strengths and weaknesses. We need mutual help, counsel, and protection, especially when dangers arise from within or without. That is part of the Lord’s kindness to his church.
A Testimony
Reformed Presbyterians have historically maintained a “testimony” along with the Westminster Standards. A testimony is not meant to invent new doctrine. It is meant to apply biblical doctrine to contemporary questions and errors; clarifying duty, warning against falsehood, and strengthening the church in her witness. Christians are witnesses for God. Since the church has God’s testimony in the Holy Scriptures, it is our duty to confess truth and to resist what contradicts it. A testimony says, in effect: “Here is what Scripture teaches, and here is how we must live it in our time.”
Trials and Resurgence
For a long time, many Reformed Presbyterians in America believed that abstaining from voting was a principled form of dissent: a way of declaring that Christ must be honored in the nation’s constitution. Later, others argued that participation could be a means of reform, working within the system to seek public recognition of Christ. That tension grew and eventually erupted in the late 19th century in a major division called the East End Controversy.
The church also faced long seasons of decline in the 20th century. Yet the Lord preserved and, in many places, revived RP life through renewed emphasis on missions and church planting. In more recent decades, the RPCNA has seen encouraging growth and renewed confidence with commitment to the ordinary means of grace, confessional clarity, and missionary faithfulness.
Today the RPCNA remains a small denomination, spread across presbyteries in the United States and Canada, with a mission presbytery in Japan. There are distinct “feels” in different regions, different local cultures and histories—but we are bound together by shared doctrine, worship, and purpose.
We also maintain fellowship with other conservative Reformed and Presbyterian bodies (for example, through NAPARC), and enjoy a broader sense of family through the Reformed Presbyterian Global Alliance, sister churches in places like Scotland, Ireland, Canada, Japan, Australia, and beyond. We are not governed by an international general assembly, but we do recognize one another as fellow RPs, a worldwide family with shared roots and shared convictions, even where there may be differences in practice.
Why does any of this matter?
Our identity as Reformed Presbyterians shapes how we practice our faith. It shapes how people pray, how they sing, how they raise children, how they respond to cultural pressure, and how they understand faithfulness in hard times.
Knowing our history helps us say, “This is who we are.” Not because our history is perfect, but because God has been faithful. We have deep roots. We did not come into existence because a clever group assembled a church model and marketed it effectively. We exist because Christ has preserved a people and carried them through centuries of upheaval.
And this inheritance belongs not only to those with Scottish ancestry. Many Reformed Presbyterians have no genetic connection at all to the Covenanters. But in Christ, the church is our family. The Lord gives a spiritual heritage to those who were not born into it. That is one of the glories of the gospel. “The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places.” The Lord has placed you where you are. He has given you a church family. He has entrusted you with a goodly inheritance.
The question, then, is not only “What did our fathers do?” but “What will we do with what we’ve received?”
How will we serve Christ here, among these people, in this congregation, in this moment of history? How will we use our gifts to bless the church and advance the kingdom?
If you are Reformed Presbyterian, this is your story as well. By God’s grace, may we receive it with gratitude, carry it with humility, and invest it with courage so that the next generation can look at the RPCNA and say, “Yes, the Lord has given us a goodly inheritance.”
Written by Nathan Eshelman