Photo by AdamEschbach / Idaho Press-Tribune
By Mike Butts
CALDWELL — Caldwell’s historic Boone Memorial Presbyterian Church split into two factions this spring primarily over whether gay members could serve as church leaders.
The Church, founded in 1888, now has an evangelical group that continues to use the building on South 14th Avenue and another group that meets at the Jewett Chapel on The College of Idaho campus.
Church members voted in March to disaffiliate with the Presbyterian Church USA after the national organization’s 2011 decision to allow its churches to elect gays and lesbians to church office. The disaffiliated group is now a member of the national Evangelical Presbyterian Church.
The president of the new Boone evangelical church, Mac McCann, said the decision had to be made in order to retain church members. He said the rift could lead to a legal battle to decide which group owns the Church.
“There’s just a lot of things going on,” McCann said about the split. “It’s basically fundamentalists versus progressives.”