Part 2: The Presbyterian Church
Jotham, my friend of three decades, is an elder of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA). Apart from being my good friend, he is also my faithful student of history; if he wants to find out the origins of certain religious practices and doctrines, it's to me he turns.
After reading my article on The Origin of the Methodist Church, he asked if I could also explain the meaning of the word "Presbyterian". He told me he didn't know its meaning despite serving as PCEA elder for five years. We spent two hours discussing it.
The word "Presbytery" comes from the word "presbyteros", which means "elder" in Greek. Loosely translated, a Presbyterian church is a "Church of Elders."
To understand how it relates to PCEA, we have to go back several centuries.
Before the sixteenth century, there was only one Christian church in Western Europe - the Roman Catholic Church.
But in the early sixteenth century, some Western Europe Christian broke away from the mainstream Catholic Church - to protest what they termed as corruption and dictatorship in the church.
This development, which Martin Luther and John Calvin championed, is popularly known as the Protestant Reformation.
At that time, just like now, the Catholic Church was episcopal. In an Episcopalian church, the administration is hierarchical. A central authority appoints priests and bishops, and they have the final say on the day-to-day affairs of their congregations.
Some of the newly formed protestant churches retained the catholic church's episcopalian structure, but others developed new administration systems. One of these systems is Presbyterianism.
John Calvin conceived Presbyterianism, but John Knox, the founder of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, first put it into practice. His objective was to shift authority from bishops and priests and give it to ordinary church members.
Today, most of the world's Presbyterian churches, including PCEA, are governed using the administrative blueprint devised by John Knox for the Presbyterian Church of Scotland in the 16th century.
Knox proposed that the affairs that each church to be supervised by a "Session". A session is a group of "presbyteros" (elders) who serve as the church's board of directors. Their congregations elect them, and they are responsible for the financial, administrative, and pastoral well-being of their church. However, an ordained minister serves as the CEO of the church; and he or she is responsible for preaching, teaching, and managing the church's day-to-day affairs.
Some Presbyterian churches refer to a session as a "Kirk Session". "Kirk" is a Scottish word meaning "church".
A group of sessions in the same area form a presbytery, a higher decision-making body. A presbytery ordains and deploys ministers. It also ensures all churches in the presbytery meet their obligations to the national church.
The head of a presbytery is an ordained minister called a moderator. He or she is the supervisor of ministers serving in churches of his or her presbytery.
In Knox's blueprint, the highest decision-making organ in a Presbyterian church is the "General Assembly", headed by an officer called "Moderator of the General Assembly". The General Assembly has a secretariat that implements the church's plans and programs nationally. Its decisions and proposals have to be endorsed by a sitting of "presbyteros" from all church sessions.
The Presbyterian Church was established in Kenya in 1891 by missionaries from Scotland. They set it up using the structures of the Church of Scotland and as envisaged by John Knox in 16th Century.
