Appears that way. This kind of "cult of personality" can result from this type of laissez-faire church structuring. And why a Presbyterian form of church government of checks and balances seems optimal -- where the church property is owned by the Presbytery and the pastor is accountable to the Presbytery whose responsibility it is to protect doctrine and enforce church order.
The Presbytery is then accountable to the General Assembly made up of elected Commissioners.
Members of the local congregations elect local elders. Elders elect from themselves delegates to the Presbytery. Delegates elect from themselves Commissioners to the General Assembly.
This church governance works to insure a time-delay of any "innovation" of doctrine; prevents any dominating personalities or egocentricity among its elders and pastors; and strives to keep all churches harmonized according to the Gospel.
IMO the Baptist model of complete independence was a by-product of the counter-reformation. What better way to splinter your opposition than to take away its authority, divide its members and encourage them to "do their own thing."
It's always been a puzzle to me how reformed Baptists can be some of the strongest, most righteous voices against the errors of the papacy, yet not see how they have played into its goal of dismantling the Reformation by diluting its ability to confront Rome's arrogance en masse.
That organization has led the PCUSA where?
Sorry, Doc, but I have to disagree with one point. In the PCA the local congregation owns the property, not Presbytery.
Not in any Presbyterian body that I'm aware of. Even in the PCUSA, they've only been able to bamboozle judges in about half the states with their bogus 'trust' theory.
In the PCA, and I believe in the EPC, it's constitutional that the local congregation owns the property, absent a loan and mortgage.