To really understand the 30 year struggle between the liberal and conservatives in the Presbyterian Church U.S. which finally resulted inthe formation of the Presbyterian Church in America, one must go back to the time when Dr. L. Nelson Bell (Billy Graham's father-in-law), a medical missionary in China, returned to the United States in the late thirties or early forties and started practicing medicine in Asheville, North Carolina.
It didn't take Dr. Bell long to realize that a relatively small group of liberal ministers and seminary professors in the Presbyterian Church in the United States -- the so-called Southern Church -- were engaged in an organized effort to gain control of the church.
These men led by Dr. Ernest Trice Thompson -- a professor at Richmond Theological Seminary -- formed a secret organization which they called "The Fellowship of St. James."
They sought to have the church abandon its belief in the integrity and authority in the Bible, to water down the Westminster Confessionof Faith, and to participate more actively in teh National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches.
Their primary goal, however, was to unite our church with the far more liberal and three times larger Prebyterian Church in the United States of America -- the Northern Church.
These men would get together before meetings of presbytery, synod and general assembly, decide who they would nominate for key positions, what motions would be made and who would present and speak to the motions. In effect they developed a political machine to control the actions of the church.
-- Kenneth S. Keys in "A Brief History of the Developments in the Presbyterian Church in the United States (Southern) which led to the Formation of the Presbyterian Church in America" from Presbyterian Church in America: A Manual for New Members