The Westminster Standards

The Bible is the very word of God, so it is our standard of belief for faith and life. The truths of the Bible and the view of the world it proclaims make claims on all of life and every area of life. So what is are the Westminster Standards? They are the secondary standards of our church. They are subordinate to the authority of the Bible. However, they are helpful in understanding the Bible, much in the same way that a map is helpful in understanding a new land.

In 1643 a large gathering of pastors and theologians, called the Westminster Assembly of Divines, met to write the Confession of Faith, the Larger Catechism and the Shorter Catechisms, and the documents were completed in 1647. These documents have served as the doctrinal standards, subordinate to the Word of God, for Presbyterian and other churches around the world. The breadth of doctrine covered, and the clarity and concise nature of the writing, has made the Westminster Standards some of the most important theological writing in the English language.

The Westminster Confession of Faith, as adopted by the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).

One of our sister denominations, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, has the Westminster Confession of Faith and the Larger and Shorter Catechisms on their website, in a number of formats (with and without Scripture proof texts, and with or without frames, in Palm Pilot format, etc.).