Page "Cumberland Presbyterian Church" Paragraph 3

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Presbyterians on the frontier suffered from a shortage of educated clergy willing to move to the frontier beyond the Appalachian Mountains.

At the same time, Methodists and Baptists were sending preachers with little or no formal training into frontier regions and were very successful in organizing Methodist and Baptist congregations.

Drawing on New Side precedents, Cumberland Presbytery in Kentucky began ordaining men without the educational background required by the Kentucky Synod.

This was bad enough for supporters of the Old Side, but what was even worse was that the presbytery allowed ministers to offer a qualified assent to the Westminster Confession, only requiring them to swear assent to the Confession " so far as they deemed it agreeable to the Word of God ".

Old Siders in the Kentucky Synod ( which had oversight over Cumberland Presbytery ) sought to discipline the presbytery.

Presbytery and synod were involved in a protracted dispute which touched upon the nature of ecclesiastical jurisdiction.

Ultimately, the synod decided to dissolve Cumberland Presbytery and expel a number of its ministers.