The Bible Presbyterian Church emerged in 1937 as a breakaway group from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, with total abstinence from alcohol serving as one of its defining commitments.[1] This principle was not incidental to the denomination’s identity but rather a core theological and ethical stance that distinguished it from its parent body.
The disagreement over alcohol
consumption centered on whether Scripture forbids its use entirely. Buswell and
the McIntire faction insisted that churches adopt total abstinence as policy,
but the Orthodox Presbyterian General Assembly rejected this proposal and
upheld the traditional Reformed position, which condemns drunkenness while
affirming believers’ freedom to drink moderately.[2] This fundamental disagreement over
Christian liberty became the catalyst for separation.
The minority faction—including Allan
MacRae, J. Oliver Buswell, and Carl McIntire—were premillennialists who
strongly espoused total abstinence and supported cooperation with
non-Presbyterians in the Independent Board.[3] At its first synod, the Bible
Presbyterian Church amended the Westminster standards to teach premillennialism
and enjoined a piety which included alcoholic abstinence.[4] McIntire and the Bible Presbyterians
adopted dispensational premillennialism, proscribed all consumption of alcohol
and demanded strict separation from anyone not adhering to fundamentalist
standards.[5]
What emerged was not merely a
disagreement about drinking practices, but a broader fundamentalist worldview
that connected total abstinence to separatism and doctrinal purity. The
denomination’s chief characteristic was a self-conscious denominational “testimony”
for the Bible and Jesus Christ, which issued in a separatist stance calling for
separation from apostasy as well as from those having fellowship with
apostates. This ultimately isolated the BPC and hindered evangelistic efforts.[4]
[1] Nathan P. Feldmeth, Garth M.
Rosell, et al., Reformed and Evangelical
across Four Centuries: The Presbyterian Story in America (Grand Rapids, MI: William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2022), 335.
[2] James Edward McGoldrick, Richard Clark Reed, and Thomas Hugh Spence Jr., Presbyterian and Reformed
Churches: A Global History (Grand Rapids, MI: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012), 328.
[3] W. Robert Godfrey, “The Westminster School,” in Reformed Theology in America: A
History of Its Modern Development, ed. David F. Wells (Grand Rapids, MI:
William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1985), 93.
[4] Daniel G. Reid, Robert Dean Linder, et al., “Bible,” in Dictionary of Christianity in
America (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990). [See here, here.]
[5] Daniel G. Reid, Robert Dean Linder, et al., in Dictionary of Christianity
in America (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1990). [See here.]
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