The news was subtle but seismic: the Presbyterian Church (USA) has terminated its missionaries and closed the doors of its global mission agency. It sounds like a bureaucratic reorganization, but make no mistake—this marks the end of a significant chapter in American Protestant missions
By Dr. Tim Orr
The news was subtle but seismic: the Presbyterian Church (USA) has terminated its missionaries and closed the doors of its global mission agency. It sounds like a bureaucratic reorganization, but make no mistake—this marks the end of a significant chapter in American Protestant missions. In a recent episode of The Briefing, Albert Mohler rightly called it a “very inevitable story,” a slow unraveling that began decades ago with a loss of theological conviction. What we are witnessing is not merely the logistical downsizing of a once-thriving mission agency but the theological death of a denomination that once helped carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. The PCUSA's move is emblematic of a broader crisis in mainline Protestantism: when the gospel is redefined or downplayed, missions cease to make sense.
To understand the gravity of this moment, we need to revisit the history of the Presbyterian mission movement. The PCUSA was once a powerhouse of global missions, sending theologically trained men and women across the world with a passion for proclaiming Christ crucified. Names like Nelson Bell—father-in-law of Billy Graham and a conservative voice on the mission field in China—remind us that Presbyterianism once had deep evangelical roots. These missionaries weren’t just social workers or cultural ambassadors; they were heralds of good news, willing to risk everything to proclaim salvation through Jesus. But as Al Mohler points out, “if you don’t believe that persons will go to hell if they do not hear the gospel and repent, the missionary impulse begins to fall away.” This is precisely what happened to the PCUSA. As their confidence in the exclusive claims of Christ weakened, their commitment to missions morphed into something resembling non-profit global partnership work. Eventually, even that became too expensive—and meaningless—to sustain.
This drift was foreseen by J. Gresham Machen nearly a century ago. A staunch defender of orthodox Presbyterian theology, Machen left the northern Presbyterian Church when it began to accommodate liberal theology, founding Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929 and helping form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. He warned that theological liberalism, in denying the supernatural foundations of the faith—such as the virgin birth, the authority of Scripture, and the substitutionary atonement—would gut Christianity of its power. “Liberalism,” he wrote, “is not only a different religion from Christianity; it belongs in a different category of religious thought” (Machen, 1923, p. 6). The collapse of PCUSA missions is precisely the outcome Machen predicted: a church that no longer believes in the necessity of conversion cannot sustain the imperative of missions. Without doctrinal clarity, the very soul of mission evaporates.
Historian George Marsden echoes this trajectory. In The Twilight of the American Enlightenment, Marsden explores how mainline Protestants lost their cultural influence by trying to accommodate secular norms. In their pursuit of relevance, they adopted a form of religion stripped of transcendent truth and moral absolutes. While this strategy briefly won them favor with cultural elites, it ultimately led to internal incoherence and spiritual anemia (Marsden, 2014). The PCUSA’s fate is a textbook case: as the denomination embraced progressive social causes and pluralistic theology, it traded gospel urgency for institutional survival. But as Marsden warns, once a church becomes indistinguishable from the secular culture it tries to reach, it loses both its voice and its purpose.
Mark Noll adds yet another layer to this analysis. In America’s God, he explains how 19th-century Protestant theology was grounded in a strong confidence in biblical authority and the moral necessity of conversion. But over time, mainline churches began to adopt Enlightenment ideals, slowly sidelining Scripture in favor of reason and moral uplift. The result was a drift toward what Christian Smith would later call “moralistic therapeutic deism”—a feel-good religion that focuses on being nice rather than being saved (Smith & Denton, 2005). For a denomination like the PCUSA, this meant missions gradually transformed from proclaiming eternal salvation to promoting social justice and humanitarianism. While those efforts may have been well-intentioned, they were no substitute for the gospel. And when resources grew tight, the diluted version of missions got cut.
The implications of this moment are sobering. As Mohler observes, "If we redefine missions as social work because we've lost confidence in the gospel of Jesus Christ, then eventually that social work becomes too expensive to carry out.” Missions will always be costly, but even the financial sacrifice no longer makes sense when the spiritual rationale disappears. Moreover, Mohler highlights an important point: when liberal denominations vacate the mission field, it is often conservative evangelical missionaries who step in. Progressives view their presence with suspicion, not because of incompetence or lack of compassion, but because they still dare to call people to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. That, to many in mainline circles, has become offensive. But to those who still believe in heaven and hell, that offense is the heart of our calling.
The decline of PCUSA missions is more than a case study in denominational failure—it’s a cautionary tale for all evangelical churches. We must guard the gospel not only in the pulpit but also in our outreach. Missions is not optional. It is the overflow of a heart gripped by the love of Christ and the reality of eternity. The Great Commission is not a relic of colonialism; it is the mandate of our risen King. As Machen, Marsden, and Noll have all shown in their ways, the church's health and the vitality of missions rise and fall together. Lose one, and the other will surely follow.
So let us take this moment not as a chance to gloat over the PCUSA’s demise, but as a sober warning and a renewed call. The world still needs the gospel. And the church, if it is to remain the church, must still send.
References
Machen, J. G. (1923). Christianity and Liberalism. New York: Macmillan.
Marsden, G. M. (2014). The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief. Basic Books.
Mohler, A. (2025, April 25). The Briefing. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdBkdvPDHeE
Noll, M. A. (2001). America’s God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. Oxford University Press.
Smith, C., & Denton, M. L. (2005). Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. Oxford University Press.
Tim serves full-time with Crescent Project as the assistant director of the internship program and area coordinator, where he is also deeply involved in outreach across the UK. A scholar of Islam, Evangelical minister, conference speaker, and interfaith consultant, Tim brings over 30 years of experience in cross-cultural ministry. He holds six academic degrees, including a Doctor of Ministry from Liberty University and a Master’s in Islamic Studies from the Islamic College in London.
In addition to his ministry work, Tim is a research associate with the Congregations and Polarization Project at the Center for the Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis. His research interests include Islamic antisemitism, American Evangelicalism, and Islamic feminism. He has spoken at leading universities and mosques throughout the UK—including Oxford University, Imperial College London, and the University of Tehran—and has published widely in peer-reviewed Islamic academic journals. Tim is also the author of four books.