Rev. Muttart said some in the Presbyterian Church (USA) use “the feeling of Christ, untethered, un-double-checked by scripture … to get across their political agenda, to get across what they think life should be like, or what culture tells us life should be like.”  “They are gaining in influence,” he said. “What they would have us do is not tether ourselves to the written and revealed word of God.”

Members of the First Presbyterian Church of Bakerstown voted overwhelmingly Sunday to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) and join the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a more theologically conservative denomination.

Hundreds of congregations in the 1.9 million-member Presbyterian Church (USA) have left because they believe the denomination has become biblically lax on matters, including gay ordination.

The church in Richland became one of 20 southwestern Pennsylvania congregations to vote to leave the Presbyterian Church (USA) and join the EPC. Of the 400 members who voted Sunday, 368 voted to leave; only 31 voted to remain affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA). Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church and Round Hill Presbyterian Church in Elizabeth Township also voted to join the EPC recently.

After the vote, a church leader told the members that he spoke with someone from the EPC, which welcomed the Bakerstown church, and the crowded sanctuary erupted in applause.

The Rev. Dan Muttart told the congregants that the Bakerstown church has reached a “pivotal moment” in its 141-year history.

He read from the Sermon on the Mount and said that those who go through life walking a narrow road that Jesus calls his followers to walk have “tremendous respect for all human life” as well as respect for “the institution of marriage between one man and one woman.”

Those who walk a broad road, he said, have an “inherent selfishness” and “do not find themselves tethered to the written word of God.”

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