What we Believe

PCUSA Church

For over four centuries, Presbyterians have been responding to the call of Jesus Christ, taking the gospel into the world and bearing witness to Christ’s saving love to the ends of the earth. Today the Holy Spirit is still on the move, calling us to share in what God is doing in the world. 

Shaped by its Reformed theology, history, and representational form of leadership, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) faithfully works to serve Christ in the world through new and existing communities of faith, hope, love, and witness. 

Presbyterians believe that Jesus Christ made it clear in his teachings we have an ethical responsibility to engage in issues of social justice. Our social witness stance is affirmed by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), which encourages church members and leaders to go to places of suffering and need to alleviate poverty, stop violence, protect the planet from climate change, and seek justice for immigrants, the LGBTQIA+ community, and people of color. By engaging in those issues from a biblical perspective, the church recognizes God’s sovereignty over every aspect of human life. 

The PC(USA) has a long history of applying theological insights to issues that affect society, believing that all people are children of God. The church seeks to earnestly discern the will of Christ, and to speak and act with humility and love.

More Light Presbyterians traces its history through two distinct pathways, the earliest is through a sign held up at Presbyterian General Assembly in 1974 by the Rev. David Sindt “is anyone else out there gay?” That sign led to the formation of Presbyterians for Gay Concerns, which later became Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns. The second is after the 1978 Presbyterian ruling that openly LGBTQIA+ people could join and participate in Presbyterian churches, but not serve in official leadership of the church. Several Presbyterian churches took issue with this ruling and declared themselves to be “More Light” Churches because there was “yet more light to shine forth on the scriptures” on, at the time, homosexuality. These churches formally joined together as the More Light Churches Network in 1992. Several years later, Presbyterians for Lesbian and Gay Concerns and the More Light Churches Network merged to form More Light Presbyterians as a non-profit organization in 1999.

Following the removal of two significant barriers to LGBTQIA+ inclusion in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A., many congregations and individuals have been wondering “what’s next in the work to follow God’s call for welcome of all God’s beloved children? More Light underwent a discernment process in 2015 and have emerged with a renewed theological understanding of our call in the world, and an offering of a way our congregations and individuals can best live into it.