» News: Mainstream Press Coverage of Presbyterians

The "Get Religion" blog explores press coverage of religion - as in, "The Press just doesn't 'get' religion". In a posting today, a PCA member notes how often the press aims to make a point about the decline of mainline Presbyterianism yet fails to distinguish carefully between presbyterian denominations.

The author, Daniel Pulliam, writes:

"As a member of the Presbyterian Church in America I found it downright frustrating that the article failed to mention that there are in fact other Presbyterian denominations out there. Lots of them. But the article is not really about Presbyterians, except for the fact that other denominational struggles are mentioned only briefly. It's really about conservative and traditional Presbyterians abandoning the PC USA for elsewhere due to what they view as an abandonment of basic biblical teachings. And this story is hardly unique to the Presbyterian denomination as you all know.

But this isn't really news for Presbyterians, at least in the context the story gives us. Presbyterians have always been abandoning each other in the search for doctrinal purity. The various splits go back as far as John Knox of the 17th century in Scotland."