In June, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church voted to accept a “pastoral letter” that critics say opens the door to ordaining celibate, same-sex attracted individuals — a decision that has drawn sharp criticism from within the denomination.
Now some of those churches have decided to leave the EPC and form a new denomination — the Westminster Association of Churches.
According to the Westminster website, it is a “fellowship of confessional and complementarian churches formed as a safe haven for likeminded congregations leaving the EPC.”
The organization identifies five core values: the supremacy of Scripture, the historic Reformed faith, engaged Presbyterian polity, committed complementarianism, and an affirmation of Biblical sexual ethics.
Westminster calls sexual ethics the “issue of our age.”
“We affirm God’s good design for humanity as male and female and uphold the biblical sexual ethic of chastity in singleness and fidelity in covenanted marriage between one man and one woman. We also affirm that unnatural sexual attractions, desires, and/or practices necessarily disqualify men from ordination,” the website states.
The ordination of “celibate same-sex attracted” individuals has been a source of controversy in the denomination for at least a year.
The EPC’s news release characterized the June vote as “reaffirm[ing] the EPC’s historic position on human sexuality and ordination.”
“The assembly approved statements that affirm the historic Reformed Doctrine of Concupiscence — the theological position that disordered desires, not only sinful acts, are themselves sinful — that all disordered sexual desires, including those that arise from same-sex attraction, are in fact sinful,” the EPC wrote. “These sinful desires of thought, word and deed must be renounced, repented of and regularly mortified by all who seek to follow Christ, especially those potentially called to serve as leaders.”
The Presbyterian Plumb Line offered a more pointed summary: “While the letter did not endorse same-sex marriage or homosexual behavior, it opened the door to ordain those who struggle with same-sex attraction as long as they are celibate, repentant, and seeking to mortify their sin.”
The Presbyterian Plumb Line is an online journal of EPC elders who describe themselves as seeking “to lead [the] denomination toward a more biblical expression of our Presbyterian conviction.”
According to an article posted by the Plumb Line, more than 45 of the denomination’s more than 600 congregations have expressed an interest in joining the Westminster Association of Churches. Four churches in the Pacific Northwest have already requested dismissal from the EPC and hope to join the Westminster Association of Churches by November 2026.
According to the EPC Book of Order, a congregation must hold at least two congregational meetings and receive approval from two-thirds of the voting members before it can be dismissed from the denomination.
“For many of us, the matter of celibate homosexual ordination is a matter of conscience,” Pastor Nate Atwood of St. Giles Church in Charlotte, N.C. told the Presbyterian Plumb Line. “A 43% vote at our recent General Assembly in Denver on the [committee’s] recommendations suggests there is a sizable group in the EPC who are distressed. It’s clear that there’s a growing number of congregations who are now choosing their own course, exercising their constitutional right of dismissal.” Read More»
Kim Roberts | “Churches Plan to Leave EPC, Create New Denomination” | August 6, 2026
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