Parkwood Presbyterian Church: major documents of our faith

major documents of our faith

There has been renewed interest of late (Jan. 2002) in the "Subordinate Standards and Statements of our Church". The Presbyterian Church in Canada in its document Basis of Union (1875), indicates its belief that "the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, being the Word of God, are the only infallible rule of faith and manners". It also states that "the Westminster Confession of Faith shall form the subordinate standard of this Church; the Larger and the Shorter Catechisms shall be adopted by the Church and appointed to be used for the instruction of the people". These three documents were drafted between 1643 and 1646 by the Westminster Assembly of Divines, a general assembly commissioned by the English Parliament, at which assembly certain representatives from the Church of Scotland took a prominent role. The Basis of Union goes on to say "the government and worship of this Church shall be in accordance with the recognized principles and practice of Presbyterian Churches, as laid down generally in the "Form of Presbyterial Church Government" and in "The Directory for the Public Worship of God", also products of the Westminster Assembly. These documents may be accessed through the links below:

The Westminster Confession of Faith · with scripture proofs
The Westminster Larger Catechism, questions The Westminster Larger Catechism
the Westminster Shorter Catechism · reformed.org version
The Form of Presbyterial Church Government
The Directory for the Publick Worship of God

Other subordinate standards adopted by the Canadian church over the years include

the Declaration of Faith Concerning Church and Nation, 1955 (available on this site; it forms Appendix E in the PCiC "Book of Forms" available in PDF form only, 1.6 mb) and is available on the PCC site only as part of that larger document
Living Faith (1984), a "statement of Christian belief" was accepted as a subordinate standard in 1998

There are also a number of "parallel subordinate standards", documents of sister churches in the reformed family deemed to be in accord with our own subordinate standards. These include

the Second Helvetic Confession
the Belgic Confession
the Gallican Confession (Confession of La Rochelle) - a creed prepared by Calvin and his pupil, de Chandieu; a confession of the French Huguenots, also called The French Confession of Faith, was adopted by the Synod of La Rochelle, 1571; it is strikingly similar to the Belgic Confession, 1561 (The Huguenots in France and New France, by Rev. G.Ph. Van Popta)
the Heidelberg Catechism

The national website of our church contains some pages describing who we Presbyterians are. These include

Presbyterians in Canada · Our Church Government · What We Believe · Who is a Presbyterian?

Rev. Robin Ross, Oversight and Technical Editor of the PCCWeb's Daily Devotional pages, has produced an excellent article entitled

"Being a Christian and a Presbyterian in Canada Today"

Something old, something new:The Committee on Church Doctrine of the Presbyterian Church in Canada has produced a New Presbyterian Catechism in draft form. This means it's still a work in progress. It's available in PDF format on the national church website. To read a PDF file you need to have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. It's available free from Adobe Systems.