David Waltz provides a concise history of the Presbyterian church in an article entitled Calvin: on the visible Church and apostasy – part 3 here. Below is a short excerpt:

[F]irst, a brief history of the Presbyterian Church in the USA.

According to Frank Mead’s Handbook of Denominations (10th edition), “the first American presbytery”, was, “founded in Philadelphia in 1706”. “American Presbyterians met in a general synod in 1729 and adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith, together with the Larger and Shorter Catechism”. A brief split occurred in 1740 between ministers who embraced the “‘new birth’ revivalism…which grew out of the Great Awakening enthusiasm”, with those who upheld “the old creedal Calvinism”. The two sides reunited in 1757 and remained pretty much united until 1837, when a split between “Old School” and “New School” Presbyterians occurred. The civil war precipitated further splits. The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. (PCUSA) became identified with “Northern” Presbyterianism, while in 1857, “several Southern New School synods had withdrawn to form the United Synod of the Presbyterian Church”. This was shortly following by the “greater schism” in 1861, “when 47 Southern presbyteries of the Old School formed the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America. Then in 1867, the two aforementioned “Southern” denominations merged to form the Presbyterian in the United States (PCUS). The PCUSA and PCUS officially reunited in 1983 forming the new PCUSA.

Prior to this reunification, an important schism between the conservatives and liberals had taken place, over what has been termed the “fundamentalist-modernist controversy”. On June 11, 1936 the now famous G. Gresham Machen, a former professor at the Princeton Theological Seminary (on July 18, 1927, Machen, with his colleagues Oswald Allis, Robert Wilson and Cornelius Van Til, formed the conservative Westminster Theological Seminary, in Philadelphia – see Longfield’s, The Presbyterian Controversy, for in depth details), with “a group of about 300 people…met in Philadelphia to form a new church that would be true to the Bible”. But, unity within this new church did not last very long: “A year later it became apparent that the new church was actually composed of two groups with views so divergent [even though both ascribed to the Westminster Standards] as to make continued unity impossible”. A split occurred on September 6, 1938, forming two new churches: the Bible Presbyterian Church, and the church now known as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC).

In the south, a split between the conservatives and liberals took place a bit later in 1973, and the conservative denomination now known as the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) was formed. However, the schisms were far from over, more splits loomed on the horizon.

In 1981, another split from the PCUSA occurred, forming the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC). 1998 witnessed the emergence of the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches out of the PCA. (This schism has its roots in “Federal Vision” controversy.) And in 2006, the ultra-conservative Westminster Presbyterian Church in the United States (WPCUS) was formed (the OPC and PCA were just not ‘conservative’ enough!)

As of 2009, I am aware of no less than 8 conservative Presbyterian denominations which adhere to the Westminster Standards (the 7th and 8th being the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America). But, this is merely ‘the-tip-of-the-iceberg’, for there exists many other conservative denominations which have emerged within the Calvinistic/Reformed tradition (e.g. Reformed Baptists, Reformed Episcopal Church, Free Reformed Churches of North America, United Reformed Churches, et al.). Though these other Calvinistic/Reformed denominations have not adopted the Westminster Standards, the standards they have chosen to embrace are virtually identical, doctrinally speaking.

So, our little history lesson ends with a question:

[H]ow faithful have these conservative Calvinistic/Reformed denominations been to Calvin’s teaching on schism?

Welcome! I agree with you (in fact all that you said). Yet, I still think the series is worth doing, because in order to see theological errors as errors, it is helpful if not necessary to have some awareness of the background philosophical and theological framework through which the Tridentine Fathers approached these questions. A person who is looking at Trent only through sola scriptura lenses, for example, has a harder time understanding that the errors are errors, let alone why they are errors. So I have no intention of going into the intra-Scholastic disagreements. But since St. Thomas was a very significant influence at Trent, therefore looking at Trent through Thomistic lenses can be, I think, one way of helping Protestants (and Catholics) see the broader [shared] theological rationale behind why the Tridentine Fathers judged certain positions to be erroneous and heretical.

In the peace of Christ,

- Bryan

That kind of discussion has been quite ongoing in so many arenas and for so long a period of time ever since the early church, it seems.

In fact, there recently has been a series on the matter that discusses the topic quite extensively, even taking into consideration not only Catholic but also Protestant and Orthodox hermeneutics as well, culminating into what seems a (tentatively) final analysis at Philosophia Perennis: The Development of Doctrine: Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant Hermeneutical Circles”.

I think it boils down to a question of history, as it is not terribly helpful to read the past through the lenses of Aeterni Patris. I should know, I had this problem myself during my thomist days.

It was not intended in that way except so as to say that I didn’t find the post to which I was responding to be either compelling or useful.

100% agreement, Ut Unum Sint is way ahead of our time and needs to be in order to achieve what Called to Communion is about (my perception).

David Grey said “Anyone who thinks there is a unchanged Roman Catholicism within a 2000 year span is kidding themselves.”

David, that blanket statement is precisely the popular non-ecumenical prod (or compliment) that gets these kinds of efforts offline. It can be taken in thousands of ways, and most likely will be assumed in this RC to Protestant conversation to be a stab with negative undertones. It also is a statement so broadly based that it will be found true and false depending on your position (like a horoscope). Until you personally comprehend this, all you are likely to get in return are condescending counters which violate what I see the purpose her, and you deserve better than that.
You have a 99% chance of actually educating some of us here, and even of it is only one, it is worth putting the perceived sword down, and making absolutely clear and specific statements rather than blanket ones. I as an informed Catholic am open to hearing your educated perspective whether you are a Protestant, Muslim or Scientologist. Please dont expect this kind of dialogue from your written blanket, open ended, rhetorically sensitive judgements.

-Dave

But there are some important qualifications here. For one thing, even if the doctrines championed by those who subscribe to the WCF are supposed (by them) to be in accordance with the WCF, it’s still the case that the WCF gets interpreted differently by different people. (Leithart, helpfully, I think, distinguishes between differences in systematic theology and sub-systemic differences, claiming in effect that proponents of Federal Vision agree with the non-FV Reformed on the level of systematic theology and on the letter of the WCF, whereas they disagree on the sub-systemic content of the theology of the WCF). So, that makes it hard to say that “the teaching of” the WCF hasn’t changed since the 17th century.

The other important qualification I’d want to make is that we should distinguish between two ways in which Catholic magisterial teaching could manifest “differences” over time. One way is if there are contradictions — later dogma rejects or conflicts with previous dogma, say. The other way is if there is development in continuity, so that what’s at present held as dogma incorporates but extends beyond previous dogma organically, consistently and coherently. It is not (from my perspective) either troubling or terribly surprizing to find that Catholic teaching has “changed” over time or is now “different” than it was at Nicaea, as long as we mean it in the second sense. Nobody can deny that, I think. It is however more contentious to say that it’s “changed” or is “different” in the first sense, the sense implying discontinuity or internal incoherence.

Anyway, I think I would be utterly shocked if Evangelicalism just imploded and went away in a decade. From where I’m sitting that seems very difficult to imagine; and frankly I think there’s much of value within the Evangelical traditions that can serve to vitalize the Catholic Church, as the Holy Father indicated when he said, in Ut Unum Sint, that certain features of the Christian mystery have been at times more effectively emphasized in these communions. Like you, however, Roma, I want to see this happen within the Church, and not in opposition to it!

Sure.