Pakistan’s Presbyterians Have United. Reconciling Will Take Time.

On March 25 of this year, a group of Pakistani Presbyterian church leaders gathered in one of their homes. There, the 20 or so people decided to bring their factions together after years of contentious division. Later, they gathered for tea and seviyan, a sweet vermicelli dessert cooked in sugar and milk or oil, at Gujranwala Theological Seminary.

There were no contracts or legal documents to mark this momentous decision. “We just talked and trusted each other,” said Reuben Qamar, the leader, or moderator, of one faction.

The Presbyterian Church of Pakistan (PCP) has a long history in the country, where Christians comprise less than 2 percent of the population. The Presbyterian mission was founded in the 1860s, and its missionaries led mass conversion movements and set up schools and hospitals in the region. In 1961, it was declared an autonomous body and local leadership began stewarding it.

This was when the divisions started: first between the ’60s and ’70s, then in the ’90s, and more recently in 2018 and 2021, says Qamar, noting that the splits mainly occurred not because of doctrinal differences but because of power and corruption.

One major conflict arose when there was a dispute on whether a moderator could extend their term from three to five years. Some supported this change, while others did not.

By the end of 2023, the church was split into three factions: One led by Qamar, and two others by moderators Arif Siraj and Javed Gill, respectively. Each claimed to be the Presbyterian Church of Pakistan.

The root of the problem was discipline, says Majeed Abel, the executive secretary in Siraj’s former faction. Whenever conflicts arose, people took “refuge” in splitting and creating a “parallel church” with presbyteries that sometimes consisted only of one member, he said.

These divisions contributed to “the weakening of the church,” and the denomination’s nearly 300 churches were left in turmoil, Qamar also said.

There were disputes in the congregations, where people demanded that their pastor be installed and another terminated. Some of these disagreements turned into court cases, with pastors fighting to prove that they were the legally recognized leader of a church.

This year’s pledge for unity in the PCP arose out of the Presbyterian leaders’ shared desire to mend broken bonds. But unity—and what that looks like practically—has meant different things to different people.

For some leaders, returning to the PCP’s original mission—to carry out the Great Commission—was a big motivating factor in pursuing unity.

“The real mission of the church [was] being ignored. … We [were] going in the courts against each other,” said Qamar.

What convicted him to reconcile with the other factions’ leaders was the passage in John 17:20–23 where Jesus says, “I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

“[Our] purpose is to share the gospel, to become the witness of Christ,” said Qamar. “As a church, we have to share the love of God with this world, and we can achieve these goals only with unity.”

Some leaders also felt a strong desire to restore the PCP’s good standing nationally and internationally. “The divide brought a bad reputation to the church, with the leadership being seen as power hungry,” lamented faction leader Gill.

For Gill, being one body in Christ looks like following the Presbyterian church’s constitution, which states there should be a “united assembly” under one leader as “we are ordered to have one shepherd and one flock.”

“Such divisions weaken the body of Christ, especially in Pakistan, where we already live under unfavorable conditions,” said Azhar Mushtaq, Pakistan Bible Society’s general secretary.

“The conflict affected our interaction with church leadership, making it difficult to identify the genuine leaders.”

At present, the leaders of the different factions meet every month and are planning to visit churches around the country together to advocate for unity. They are also hoping to hold a general assembly by September, where leaders will step down from their positions and let the house appoint a single moderator over the entire Presbyterian church body.

“Despite some bitter experiences, the entire leadership is now committed to forgiveness,” Gill said. The Bible verses that led him to pursue unity with the other factions was 1 Corinthians 1:12–13, where some say “I follow Paul,” and others say “I follow Apollos” or “I follow Cephas.” Is Christ divided?

Reconciliation is a slow work in progress, particularly at the local church level, say many of the leaders CT interviewed.

And there are some who oppose this move because they see each other as enemies, Qamar said.

“The presbyteries that were split … must be reconciled as well,” Abel said. While he is not involved in ongoing reconciliation efforts, he is “happy to reconcile” with the other groups.

“During the peace meeting, we have unanimously agreed to send a reconciliation commission to these presbyteries, but no one seems to be interested in that.”

PCP pastors like Sheraz Sharif Alam and Romella Robinson echoed their leaders’ concerns. The couple, who serve in Gakhar, Gujranwala—a two-hour car ride north of Lahore—have firsthand experience of how the PCP’s long-lasting divisions have impacted local ministry.

The PCP’s financial woes began in 2018. One faction controlled all the bank accounts and used up all the investments and money for litigation purposes and for securing favors from pastors, Qamar shared. Partners such as the US-based Outreach Foundation, which helps churches around the world grow their capacity and reach, stopped their funding because of corruption and the lack of an accountability system. Major projects in community development and mission work are currently halted.

Pastors like Alam and Robinson do not receive a salary. They rely on tithes and thanksgiving offerings like vegetables from their congregation to survive. The financial crunch means that some pastors must turn to other forms of work to support their families. And the PCP’s leaders have not said or done anything to change the current situation, they said.

“Right now, we are principally reconciled, but we are separately working,” said Alam, who also serves as general secretary in Qamar’s former faction. The people who will likely attend the upcoming general assembly are selected from a 2017 list of delegates, which does not include those who have become pastors in the last seven years, Alam added.

Greater transparency about efforts toward reconciliation among the factions would be beneficial, said Robinson. “Leaders must delegate their understanding and wisdom to the coming generation so that they will be able to become good leaders in the future,” she said.

Ongoing persecution against Christians in Pakistan may generate a deeper desire to set differences aside.

For the past two years, the country has ranked seventh on Open Doors’ World Watch List of the top 50 countries where it’s hardest to be a Christian. In 2020 and 2021, it was in the top five.

Last year, mobs in Jaranwala plundered, vandalized, and burned down 26 churches. In May, 72-year-old Christian Lazar Masih was attacked and killed by a mob in Sargodha for allegedly committing blasphemy. In July, young believer Ehsan Shan was sentenced to death for purportedly circulating blasphemous content on TikTok.

After Masih and his family were brutally attacked, PCP leaders and members from the three factions traveled to Sargodha. The group, including Abel, Qamar, and Siraj, met Masih’s brother, also a Presbyterian. They visited the place where the attack had occurred. They spoke with social activists and people from the local peace committee, some of whom were Muslim, and demanded that the people who attacked Masih should be brought to the courts. They campaigned for justice to be served with Christian politicians who were present, like members of the provincial assembly Ejaz Alam Augustine and Sonia Ashir.

Representatives from civic society and the government were “very happy to see us united and together in such an event,” Qamar said.

“This is the work of God, and I trust in God that the Holy Spirit will work in the church.”

Additional reporting by Asif Aqeel