April 2014

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April 11: Machen Debates Speer (1933)

11 April, 2014 in April 2014 by archivist | No comments

Be Ready Always

The day of the debate had brought a crowd of Presbyterian elders to the sanctuary of the Fourth Presbyterian Church on that day of April 11, 1933.  The topic was “Modernism on the Mission Field.”  And the two individuals engaging in the debate were two “heavies” on opposite sides of the issue.

machenJG_1934speerRobertEDr. J. Gresham Machen was the recognized leader of the conservatives in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.  Founder and president of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he was still a member minister of the New Brunswick, New Jersey Presbytery, though he had tried unsuccessfully to transfer to the Philadelphia Presbytery.  Against him was Dr. Robert Speer, present head of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.

Dr. Machen began his presentation with a proposed overture from the Presbytery of New Brunswick to the General Assembly of 1933.  The first two of four parts are the key ones, which I will quote word for word from the April 1933 Christianity Today article, and sum up the other two.

Point 1 of his overture was: “To take care to elect to positions of the Board of Foreign Missions only persons who are fully aware of the danger in which the Church stands and who are determined to insist on such verities as the full truthfulness of Scripture, the virgin birth of our Lord, His substitutionary death as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice, His bodily resurrection and His miracles, as being essential to the Word of God and our Standards, as being necessary to the message which every missionary under our church shall proclaim.”

In essence, this first proposition simply summed up the Declarations of the General Assembly’s five fundamentals which were considered as essential for the Church, its boards, and its ministers.  It specifically repudiated the denials of the same by the Auburn Affirmation in 1924.

Proposition 2 of the proposed overture sought to “instruct the Board of Foreign Missions that no one who denies the absolute necessity of acceptance of such verities by every candidate for this ministry can possibly be regarded as a candidate to occupy the position of Candidate Secretary.”

This proposition addressed the important place which the Candidate Secretary has in ascertaining the theological convictions which each missionary candidate has to serve on the Foreign Field.  In other words, in people such as Pearl Buck, who was openly denying the exclusiveness of the gospel of Christ, it is obvious that the Candidate Secretary had “missed the boat” in approving her as being a missionary to China.

The third proposition summed up that those who held that the tolerance of opposing views was  more important than an unswerving faithfulness in the proclamation of the Gospel as it is contained in the Word of God, show themselves to be unworthy of being missionaries of the cross.

This proposition was aimed at those who had accepted the fundamental viewpoint of the book, “Rethinking Missions,” that denied the exclusivity of the gospel.

The last proposition sought to warn the Board of the great dangers lurking with union enterprises in view of wide-spread error.

Dr. Speer for his part of the “debate” simply dismissed each of the overture propositions.    When the vote was taken on Dr. Machen’s proposed overture, it was voted down by the Presbytery of New Brunswick, with a majority voting in favor of confidence in the Board of Foreign Missions.  Dr. Machen, Rev. Samuel Craig, and Dr. Casper Wistar Hodge asked that their names be recorded in  dissent of the motion.

For a fuller account of the debate, click here.

Words to Live By:  We are always called upon to stand faithfully for the gospel.  The results on this earth may be not what we have hoped for, but the results in the General Assembly of heaven are what counts for time and eternity.

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April 10: John Knox Arrives at St. Andrews Castle

10 April, 2014 in April 2014 by davidtmyers | No comments

The Holy Spirit of God has often used various circumstances to call His own into ministry. In the case of John Knox, it was a public challenge delivered by a small congregation in a castle in Scotland by the voice of their Protestant pastor, John Rough.

knox_card03John Knox was approximately 42 years of age. We don’t know when this future Reformer saw the light of the Reformed faith, but George Wishart likely had something to do with it. Knox had been his body-guard as Wishart powerfully preached the gospel throughout Scotland. When the latter was martyred, Knox in time became a religious tutor to three children—two sons of Hugh Douglas of Longniddry, as well as the son of John Cockburn of Ormiston. The two fathers, Douglas and Cockburn, had embraced the truths of the Reformation, and desired their children to be taught of Knox. So, not only in elementary truths like grammar, but also in Scriptural readings and catechising, Knox led his young pupils as he stayed in their homes.  When it became evident that Knox became more and more a marked man by the Roman Catholic authorities, the parents urged Knox to take their children into St. Andrews Castle, where a number of people had fled for their lives.

It was on April 10, 1547 that John Knox arrived at St. Andrews Castle with his three pupils. It is recorded that he began at the same place in their instruction that he had left off in the home of their parents. Their names, for the record, were Francis Douglas, George Douglas, and Alexander Cockburn. Soon that private tutoring became known to the Protestant pastor of the congregation now gathered in the castle, the Rev. John Rough. He came to Knox and urged him to take on what we would call today an associate pastor’s position, as Rough was weary in the work. Knox turned him down flat, saying that he would not do anything without a lawful calling from God.

At this, Rough, with the support of two or three others, decided to challenge Knox publicly. John Rough, on the following Sunday,  preached a message on the election of ministers as his theme. At its close, he, in the name of the small castle congregation, addressed John Knox with the following words, which we find recorded in Knox’s book, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, (p. 72):—

 knoxJohn04“Brother, ye shall not be offended, albeit that I speak unto you that which I have in charge, even from all those here present: — In    the name of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ, and in the name of these that presently call you by my mouth, I charge you, that ye refuse not  this holy vocation, but, as ye tender the Glory of God, the increase of Christ His kingdom, the edification of your brethren, and the comfort of me, oppressed by the multitudes of labours, that ye take upon you the public office of preaching, even as ye look to avoid God’s heavy displeasure, and desire that He shall multiply his graces upon you.”

The future Reformer left the worship time in tears and spent many days and night in grief and trouble of heart. Eventually, he came to believe that the call came from God.

His first sermon was in the parish church of St. Andrews, where he took as his text that of Daniel 7:24, 25. Laying open the false doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church, he compared their justification by works with the justification by faith alone as expressed in the Word of God. The hearers said that while others lop off the branches of Romanism, Knox had struck at the root to destroy the whole.

The author of The History of the Church of Scotland, W. M. Hetherington, writes on page 34 that such preaching by Knox was the real beginning of the Reformation in Scotland. From that time forth, no appeal was made by the Reformers to any other standard except the Word of God.

Yet before John Knox could move on in his fledgling ministry to declare the unsearchable riches of the gospel, the castle was attacked and captured by French naval forces, and forced to surrender on July 31 of the same year. Knox would spend the next 19 months as a galley-slave on a French ship, which we will consider in a future post.

Words to Live By: The inspired New Testament writer James leaves the church a sober warning in chapter 3, verse 1 of his letter, when he wrote “Not many of you should become teachers,  my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.” (ESV)  Whether it was this which prompted John Knox to respond with great tears, we know not. But he obviously believed that any call for him to minister the Word of God had to come from God’s Spirit, and not merely by a group of men. Readers, remember the words of the unknown author to the Hebrews, who wrote in Hebrews 13:7, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the Word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (ESV)

Image sources: Two different conceptions of what John Knox looked like. The first is a bit “unorthodox”—an image from a cigarette trading card, specifically, Ogden’s “Leaders of Men” series, no. 27, issued in 1924. The second is from a postcard bearing only the attribution “A. H., édit.” to designate the publisher. Both cards are among a small collection preserved at the PCA Historical Center.

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April 9: Dr. Gordon Haddon Clark [1902-1985]

9 April, 2014 in April 2014 by archivist | 5 comments

clark1945Gordon Haddon Clark was born on August 31, 1902, the only son of the Rev. David Scott Clark and Elizabeth Haddon Clark. Gordon’s father had graduated in 1887 from Princeton Theological Seminary and after pastoring two other Philadelphia area churches, was now pastor of Bethel Presbyterian Church at the time of Gordon’s birth. The Rev. D.S. Clark remained as the pastor of Bethel until the time of his death in 1939 and so Gordon was truly “brought up in the shadow of the Bethel Presbyterian Church.”

Gordon Clark profited immensely both from the Christian home in which he was raised and also from the superior educational system of his day. At home, he was taught the Westminster Shorter Catechism by his father and he took full advantage of access to his father’s library, familiarizing himself with the writiings of Calvin, Warfield and Hodge. At school, though only enrolled in a vocational high school, he was given an extensive education which included both Latin and French.

He went on to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1924 with a Bachelor’s degree, and again graduated from the same institution in 1929 with a Ph.D. in philosophy. In March of 1929 he married Ruth Schmidt, his wife of 48 years and to this marriage two children were born, Lois Antoinette and Nancy Elizabeth. Upon graduation, Dr. Clark took a position as Instructor of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania from 1929 to 1936. Additional study at the Sorbonne in Paris took place during these same years. From 1936 to 1944 he served as Professor of Philosophy at Wheaton College in Wheaton, IL. 

On August 9, 1944 Dr. Clark was ordained into the ministry of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church by the Presbytery of Philadelphia. He served as Stated Supply at the Trinity OPC Church of Cincinnati, OH while also working as Professor of Philosophy at Butler University. While remaining in his post at Butler until 1973, he left the OPC and was received on October 14, 1948 by the Presbytery of Indiana of the United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA). From 1958 to 1965 he pastored the First UPCNA Church of Indianapolis, IN, which church soon moved with him to affiliate with the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod, Dr. Clark having been received by the Western Presbytery of the RPCNA, GS on October 29, 1957.

The RPCNA,GS was a very small denomination, but Dr. Clark was one of several men responsible for significant growth in the denomination during the 1950’s. He later supported the move to merge the RPCNA,GS with the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod. This latter group was the larger wing of the 1956 division of the Bible Presbyterian Church, originally formed in 1937 in division from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In 1961 the Columbus Synod renamed itself the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, holding this name from 1961 until the 1965 union with the RPCNA,GS. The resulting denomination was now know as the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES).

[Later, when the RPCES merged in 1982 with the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Clark choose not to join the PCA, but instead transferred his ministerial credentials into the unaffiliated Covenant Presbytery. That transfer occurred on 14 May 1983, and his ministerial affiliation remained there until his death.]

clark01During all of this ecclesiastical activity, Dr. Clark continued in his position as Professor of Philosophy at Butler University, working there until 1973. It was during his tenure at Butler that some of his best works were written and published. Thales to Dewey [1957] remains an important college-level introduction to philosophy. Other titles written during this same period include A Christian View of Men and Things [1952]; Religion, Reason and Revelation [1961]; Karl Barth’s Theological Method [1963]; What Do Presbyterians Believe? [1965] and Biblical Predestination [1969].

In 1974 Dr. Clark finally left Indianapolis and Butler University, having served there as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy from 1945 until his retirement in 1973. With the start of the 1974 academic year, he begin teaching at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA. He remained there for ten years, while also teaching during the summers at the Sangre de Cristo Seminary in Westcliffe, CO and intermittently at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in Philadelphia, PA.

The Rev. Dr. Gordon Haddon Clark died on April 9, 1985, after a brief serious illness. Dr. Clark’s wife, Ruth, had died in 1977, preceding Dr. Clark by some 9 years. At the time of his death, Dr. Clark was survived by his two daughters and their husbands, 12 grandchildren and one great grand-daughter. Funeral services for Dr. Clark were held on April 11, 1985 at the Sangre de Cristo Church in Westcliffe, CO.

Dr. Clark was the author of over 33 books and numerous articles and had been a founder of the Evangelical Theological Society. When discussion began in 1980 towards the union of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES) and the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), Dr. Clark found himself an opponent of that merger, perhaps in part because the plan also entailed the simultaneous union of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. While the OPC did not come into the merger, the 1982 joining and receiving of the RPCES into the PCA left Dr. Clark with the decision to be dismissed by the Tennessee Valley Presbytery of the PCA on September 11, 1982. He was received by the unaffiliated Covenant Presbytery in May, 1983.

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April 8: Rev. James Patterson Miller

8 April, 2014 in April 2014 by archivist | No comments

First Historian of the Associate Presbyterian Church

James Patterson Miller, the son of Hugh and Mary (Patterson) Miller, was born at King’s Creek, in Beaver County, Pennsylvania, on August 1st, 1792. His father, while he was not directly involved in the legendary Whiskey Rebellion, did apparently permit his house to serve as a refuge for some of those who were caught up in that affair. While James was still a young child at that time, he clearly remembered seeing two men in his home who, when visitors approached, would retreat to the upper loft and draw the ladder up behind them. His mother was sincere in her Christian faith and from his birth, prayed that the Lord would use James in the ministry of the Gospel.

James was educated at Jefferson College and graduated there in 1818. His studies were threatened when his mother died of dysentery and both he and his younger brother nearly died as well. In the years following graduation, he worked as a teacher, taking charge of several different academies, first in Virginia, and later in Ohio. Along the way he managed to secure some of his theological education, intending to become a pastor. but James also had a keen interest in politics. For a time he worked as editor of a political newspaper, but when his wife died in 1824, that loss made him realize his life’s purpose, and he was finally licensed to preach the very next year.

Miller was ordained in 1827 by the Presbytery of Muskingum, of the Associate Presbyterian Church. Initially he was installed as a home missionary, and a year later received a call to serve a congregation in Argyle, Washington county, New York. For twenty-one years he faithfully served this church.

One biographer notes that “Mr. Miller was a close and diligent student of the Bible in the original languages. He preferred to go to the fountain-head to find out exactly the mind of the Spirit, rather than trust any translation. Both himself and some of his children were in the habit of using the Greek Testament in family worship.”

Throughout his ministry, Rev. Miller exhibited a deep interest in missions, and at the advanced age of 59, he resigned his charge, preached his farewell sermon to a weeping congregation, and departed for the Oregon Territory. There in a small village of Albany, Oregon, where no church could be found and where the Sabbath was never recognized as a day of rest, Rev. Miller set about to establish a church. By 1853, a small congregation was meeting regularly. Miller preached his last sermon on April 2, 1854, speaking on the glories of Christ’s kingdom. Two days later, he made a trip to Portland, and on the return trip, on April 8th, the boiler of the steamboat exploded and Miller was killed instantly by a piece of iron hitting his head. Sadly, his wife and one of his children were present to witness the tragedy.

In 1839, Rev. Miller had compiled what must apparently be the earliest written history of the Associate Presbyterian Church, titled Biographical Sketches and Sermons of some of the First Ministers of the Associate Church in America. The Associate Church began in the American colonies in 1754, and then in 1858 it merged with the northern branch of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church to form the United Presbyterian Church of North America.

Words to Live By:
From the historical introduction to Rev. Miller’s Biographical Sketches, the following short quote seems pertinent to our larger purpose on this blog :

“But if the members of any society [i.e, denomination] are unacquainted with the particular history of their own body, they are in a great measure disqualified for discharging their duties as members. Every parent in the whole nation of Israel was required to explain to his children, the meaning and design of every historical monument that was erected to perpetuate any of God’s mercies wrought for that people. That parent in Israel, who could not do so, was incapable of performing his duty to his children, whose right it was to be instructed in the use and design of those things. Yea, he was incapable of discharging his duty to God, who required him thus to instruct his children.”

For Further Study:
Rev. Miller’s work, Biographical Sketches, can be found on the Internet, here.

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April 7: John Knox Licensed to Preach

7 April, 2014 in April 2014 by davidtmyers | 2 comments

A True Portrait of the Man

Mention the name of John Knox, and what comes to your mind?  Founder of Presbyterianism, the land of Scotland, Protestant Reformer, author, rigid leader, ever ready to prove his preaching orthodox by “apostolic blows and knocks”? Such is the picture which we have of this sixteenth century individual.

We always could expect negative views of him from his enemies in those centuries in assailing the character of this leader. They didn’t want his brand of Reformation truths and practices to become the norm in the Kingdom of Scotland. But often his friends in both those  years and today have felt that they must apologize for his fierce statements and actions, where and when no apology was needed. Of course, what doesn’t help is the familiar picture of John Knox, so familiar in all our minds, where his expression and especially his beard makes the present day characters of Duck Dynasty tame by comparison. And then there was that sermon written overseas entitled “First Draft of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regimen of Women,” which diatribe was against the female rulers of England. All this causes us to be thankful for the result of the establishment of Presbyterianism in Scotland, and our country, but sometimes apologetic about the instrument used to bring it about.

Yet all these negatives were challenged by the discovery of four unpublished papers of John Knox in a collegiate library in London near the close of the nineteenth century. These papers were not originals to be sure, but transcripts from the originals written in the sixteenth century. And from them, we get a true portrait of the character of John Knox.

In addition, they reveal a little more of his ministry spent—are you ready for this?—in England. In fact, half of his ministry was spent either in England, or among English exiles in Germany and Geneva. Further, today in April 7, 1549, we remember his license being issued as a priest of the Church of England.

John Knox himself in his great work, The History of the Reformation in Scotland, describes his time in the Church of England with a very succinct paragraph on page 98. He said, “The said John Knox was first appointed Preacher to Berwick; then to Newcastle; last he was called to London and to the south parts of England, where  he remained to the death of King Edward the Sixth.” His whole five years of ministry was reduced to thirty-seven words.

The footnote under that quotation reads on the same page, “In this modest sentence John Knox disposes of his English residence of five years, making no reference to his appointment as a Royal Chaplain to Edward the Sixth, before whom he frequently preached at Windsor, Hampton Court, St. James’s and Westminster, nor to the share he took in preparation of the Book of Common Prayer and the Articles to the Church of England, nor to his declination first of the Bishopric of Rochester, and afterward of the vicarage of All Hallows in London. His appointment as preacher to Berwick and Newcastle was made by the Privy Council of England.”

As the English Reformer, the papers referenced above reveal the true character of Knox as exhibiting “a combination of tenderness with strength, of playful humor with the profoundest seriousness, of all genial sympathies with fervor of devotional and burning zeal for truth.”  (p. 443)  Knox is shown as a guide of souls in trouble, with remarkable wisdom and moderation. To be sure, John Knox did not compromise his divine calling as a pastor in the Church of England. He stood fast by his conviction that Scripture alone must command his actions as a servant of God.

Suffice to say, while this author rejoices in the Scottish Reformation, with no little gratitude that his ancestors were members of the Church of Scotland on his mother’s side, we must also rejoice in the influence that John Knox had on the English Reformation, where, preaching from the Word of God, he proclaimed the unsearchable riches of God’s grace, while defending the historic Christian faith from those who would seek to destroy it.

Then too, in cooperation with those Reformed members of the Church of England, Knox was a powerful influence in framing the Book of Common Prayer and the English Articles  of Religion. It was only with the death of Edward the Sixth that Mary Tudor came to the throne with the intention of restoring Romanism to the realm, which in turn forced Knox to flee to the Continent with countless other Protestants.

Words to Live By: “And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness, God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.” — 2 Timothy 2:24 – 26, ESV.

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