The State of Reformed Theology in the State of West Virginia

How many Reformed churches does West Virginia have?  


I know there are 10 churches affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in America (my denomination).  There are two Orthodox Presbyterian churches.  One Evangelical Presbyterian church.  One Reformed Baptist Church.  Perhaps three or four independent Baptist churches that have Reformed leanings, but do not claim to be creedally Reformed.   There are dozens of churches affiliated with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, but who knows how many of these are actually Reformed or even embrace the most basic Christian doctrines.   So the State of West Virginia has a very meager Reformed presence.  Why? 

I hope to be able to explore this question in detail in a doctoral dissertation at Pittsburgh Theological  Seminary within the next couple of years.  I have a feeling that at least some of the reasons are related to reasons West Virginia is consistently at the bottom of good lists and at the top of bad lists.  But here’s a few observations for the moment.

1. It is difficult to find pastors for Reformed Churches in our State.
•  It is hard to bring them in from the outside because there is a dearth of Calls within the State.  Even when Calls are available, West Virginia doesn’t tend to attract people easily.  There are not a lot of churches and not a lot of ministers for those churches. Five of our ten PCA churches are without pastors at the moment, so they are being filled by “stated supply,” which is a sort of interim. The vast majority of the dozens of PCUSA churches in the State are filled by lay-pastors, interims, and stated supply.  This is probably because they are too small to support full-time, ordained teaching elders.
• It is hard to bring them in from the outside because most of those churches are not able to support full-time pastors.  Low salaries do not attract pastors who need to support families.
• It is hard to bring them up from the inside because educational standards are poor within the State.  West Virginia trails the nation in the percentage of college graduates.  People who do not go to college cannot go to seminary.  Someone who “desires the office of a bishop” has a long row to hoe before he can even begin to consider pastoring a church—at least 7 to 10 years of undergraduate and graduate education.   Who wants to bother with this?  It is a tough and rare achievement even in States with higher rates of college completion.  How much more in a State where college degrees are few and far between.
• It is also hard to bring them up from the inside simply because Reformed theology is not widely understood even in Reformed churches.  That leads to the second observation.
2. West Virginians have a hard time accepting Reformed Theology and Presbyterianism.  Why?  I am not dogmatic, but I wonder if the following has any merit:
• Our Appalachian culture has been dominated by easier theology.  Frankly, we are flooded with free-will theology, churches, and culture.  Baptistic churches have spread throughout our State in part because there are no universal ordination standards, such as seminary education, and because baptistic theology is easier to both preach and digest.  "Low ordination standards" means that literally anyone can be a preacher and a pastor.  Baptistic churches can and have spread quickly and easily.  It also means that their preachers and pastors tend to be unschooled in theology and exegesis.  In many cases, West Virginia preaching is simplistic, containing very little theological instruction or exegesis.   People have been digesting this type of preaching for decades.  It is all they know.  Bring in something different and people immediately recognize it.  And that is not a good thing in their eyes.   They may be getting the Word of God more richly and deeply than they ever have before, but they will still yearn for "hard preaching" and a some good ol' fire and brimstone.   Can I get an "Amen?"
• The result is that Reformed theology is an affront to widely accepted and deeply pervasive free-will theology.   Election is a bad word, as is the word "doctrine."  The local Christian bookstore owner assured me that her Sunday School Quarterlies don't contain "doctrine." She said that as if it were a good thing, revealing at the same time that she was unaware of what the word "doctrine" even means. Even in Presbyterian churches, many congregants are suspicious  of Reformed doctrines that have been taught elsewhere for centuries.   
• There might also exist a blue-collar distrust for white-collar Presbyterian ministers.  This is compounded by the simple fact that any serious attempt to teach theology must include terminology and complexities that many see no practical need for or have a difficult time understanding.   The education and experience of those who labor in the Word varies so widely from those who labor with their hands that it is qualitatively different in comparison.   This difference is not always viewed favorably.
• I also do not want to underestimate the dark and difficult history of West Virginia. Our history flavors who we are as West Virginians. I would even speculate that the deeply ingrained historical animosity between Company men and miners might play some sort of a role in the entire culture.   Sometimes I wonder if the Presbyterian distinctions between ordained ministers and laymen might mirror the Company/miner distinction in disadvantageous ways.  Is overarching presbytery action inherently perceived as analogous to Company dictates and abuses of power?   This is union country.  The Presbytery, by analogy, might be the Company.  Union members are raised to distrust the company from their earliest years.

In short, our more complex theology and higher ordination requirements, among other cultural distinctives, might be responsible for reformed theology's lack of success in this State. But it does not seem that a simpler theology and lower education requirements would fix this problem. A simpler theology would be less likely to be a Reformed theology. Similarly, lower education requirements would eventually result in a simpler theology and less Reformed theology. One of the reasons we have such high education requirements is because it enables the preservation of the Reformed faith.

So are we in a straight betwixt two?

I think we are, but I think that if the state of Reformed theology in the State of West Virginia is going to improve, we will likely need to explore, expand upon, correct, and address some of these ideas. 

As I say all these things, I want any reader to understand that the people in our State are just as intelligent as the people in any other State. They are hard working and wise in ways that the rest of the country cannot even identify with. My church members have been drinking in the Reformed faith and I have enjoyed every minute of my preaching and teaching ministry to them. I find them very capable of understanding and embracing Reformed doctrines that are taught well. 

But the people of our State have simply not had the same opportunities that other parts of the country have enjoyed. Poverty has played a role in this. The abuse of our people and resources by the rest of the country has played a role in this. Closed geographical communities have played a role in this as well. Just as Robert Byrd couldn't change these things over course of fifty years in spite of his best intentions, I do not expect that we will be able to change these things either. The job is more difficult here than it might be elsewhere.

What that means is that the burden is upon the Presbyterian church to meet our people where they are. We must find some way to do this or the Reformed faith will continue to struggle in this State.