A Christian Statesman

Charles Darby Fulton was like many other conservative Presbyterians who chose to stay with the mother church rather than leave to join the newly formed denomination as it took a stand against modernism and apostasy. Their reasons for staying may have been varied, but conservatives like Fulton in many respects stayed for the tougher fight, for their numbers were even fewer after the exodus.

There is however something unique about the Rev. C. Darby Fulton that makes you want to know more about the man. He was widely typified as a Christian statesman. One way in which he demonstrated that quality of character was in the fact that, while he did not choose to come into the Presbyterian Church in America at its formation in 1973, he nonetheless was quite willing to bring a message during the PCA’s first General Assembly. [The text of his address is provided below]. Some conservatives who chose not to come into the PCA ignored or even opposed the new denomination. Darby Fulton was different, and that difference is part of what marks him out as a true Christian statesman. It’s part of what makes you want to know more about the true character of the man.

Charles Darby Fulton was born on September 5, 1892, in Kobe, Japan. His parents, the Rev. Samuel Peter Fulton [1865-1938] and Rachel Hoge Peck Fulton, were missionaries sent out by the Southern Presbyterian Church.

Darby Fulton was educated at the Presbyterian College of South Carolina, graduating there with the B.A. degree in 1911, and then earning an M.A. from the University of South Carolina in 1914 [note his thesis topic, in the blbiiography below] before turning his attention to preparation for the ministry at Columbia Theological Seminary. Graduating from Columbia in 1915, he lastly attended Princeton Theological Seminary, and there earned the STB degree n 1916.

Rev. Fulton was ordained on June 25, 1915 by the Presbytery of Enoree [PCUS]. During the time that he was attending Princeton, he transferred his ministerial credentials to the PCUSA, and supported himself by serving the Glassboro and Bunker Hill churches, 1916-1917. Then upon graduation from Princeton, he was received back into Enoree Presbytery and the PCUS as he answered a call to missions work. It was at about this time that Rev. Fulton married Nannie Paul Ravenel, of Spartanburg, South Carolina, in October of 1917.

Departing for the PCUS operated Japan Mission, the Fultons served there from 1918 until 1925. Thereafter Rev. Fulton served as Field Secretary, 1925-32, and then as Executive Secretary, 1932-61, for the PCUS Board of Foreign Missions.

Dr. Fulton served as a professor at his alma mater, Columbia Theological Seminary, from 1962 to 1965, and on September 1, 1965, was entered on the rolls of Presbytery as honorably retired. During his lifetime, he had received a number of honors, including having served as the Moderator of General Assembly [PCUS] in 1948. The Presbyterian College of South Carolina awarded him the Doctor of Divinity degree in 1924 and he received the LL.D. degree from King College in 1952.  Following his retirement, the Rev. Dr. C. Darby Fulton lived another twelve years, and he died on May 27, 1977, at the age of 84, while residing in Nashville, Tennessee. Prior to his death, he had established a fund to assist the Kobe Theological Seminary in Japan.

Partial Bibliography:
1914 – Financial Condition and Its Relation to Character. M.A. thesis at the University of South Carolina.
1938 – Star in the East
1946 – Now is the Time
1949 – Report on China.
1959 – Lectures: Series of three lectures delivered before the Synod of Virginia at Massanetta Springs, June 29-30, 1959.
1959 – Missions: Our philosophy, our program, contemporary problems (1959)
1966 – “Baptism in Reformation Perspective,” in One Race, One Gospel, One Task: World Congress on Evangelism (1966)
1973 – “The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ,” in Addresses delivered during the First General Assembly of the National Presbyterian Church. Montgomery, AL: The Office of Administration, 1973. pp. 32-34.
Undated – “The Gospel is Relevant. Weaverville, NC: The Presbyterian Journal, n.d. Tract, 12 p.

Words to Live By:
For this section today, we would like to provide here the text of Rev. Fulton’s address on the occasion of the First General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America:

The Excellency of the Knowledge of Christ, by C. Darby Fulton [Text: Philippians 3:7-14]

Every life has a key word. With some it is money; with others, pleasure; with still others, fame. With Alexander the Great it was conquest; with Napoleon, France; with Edison, science; with Paul, it was Christ.

Paul interpreted every phase of his life in its relation to Christ. When he rejoiced, it was in Christ; he gloried in Christ; he conquered in Christ; he was strong in Christ; and he took pleasure in weaknesses, in injuries, in necessities, in persecutions and distresses for Christ’s sake. For him, to live was Christ. Read the rest of this entry »

Followers of our blog on Sundays will be expecting Dr. Van Horn’s comments on Question 101 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism today. But this entire series will end shortly, and we thought perhaps it might be good to ask a question in review of the series. We would like to hear from our readers—when the series ends, should we re-run it, or turn instead to new material? Many of our newer subscribers and others have not been with us through the entire series, which began on January 4, 2015, and so on that note, we’re asking this question of our readers, while also looking back today at the very first question in the Shorter Catechism:—

“The African Slave Trade, A Discourse”
by James Dana (Sept. 9, 1790)    

James Dana (1735–1812) graduated from Harvard and was a Congregationalist pastor in Connecticut. He was an early and avid supporter of American independence. Dana became pastor of the First Church of New Haven from 1789-1805, when he was summarily dismissed by the leaders and replaced by the ascendant new preacher, Moses Stuart. He received a D. D. from the University of Edinburgh, and one of his sons, Samuel Whittlesey Dana became a Senator. [Source: consource.org]

This sermon was delivered before the Connecticut Society for the Promotion of Freedom on September 9, 1790. It is an early abolitionist address, showing again that the earlier clergy rightly appealed to Scripture but did not avoid current topics as if that was none of the church’s business.

Dana began with an explanation of the setting of Galatians 4:31 in the context of the Bible. He reviewed the Jewish history and stressed that believers in Christ were not descendants of a line of slavery but of freedom. And as the opening verse of the next chapter asserts, believers were to stand fast in their liberty. Freedom was worth defending. He remarked, “Christian freedom, being alike the privilege of converts from Judaism and heathenism, primarily intends, on the part of the former, the abolition of the encumbered ritual of Moses; and, on the part of the latter, liberation from idolatrous superstition, to which they were in servile subjection: On the part of both it intends deliverance from the slavery of vicious passions.”

Christ’s followers, he taught, brought in a glorious age of expansive liberty: ‘His disciples, made free from sin, walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. There is no condemnation to them. Thus emancipated, they “wait for the hope of righteousness by faith—the redemption of the body.” He added further that Christianity leads its followers to call no man, “master”—the application of which, he preached, would oppose the slave trade (or early Human Trafficking). He also distinguished: “The real friends of liberty always distinguish between freedom and licentiousness. They know that the mind cannot be free, while blinded by sceptical pride, or immersed in sensuality. Liberty consists not in subverting the foundations of society, in being without law. Nor doth it consist in reasoning against God, and providence, and revelation.”

Dana proclaimed that the biblical faith overflowed with “the best aspect on general liberty and the rights of mankind.” “This spirit,” he continued, “doth no ill to others, but all possible good. Rulers, under its influence, are not oppressors, but benefactors.”

Dana did not wish to inflame passions with this address but to appeal to informed consciences. He next provided a detailed history of the colonization of the West, along with a discussion of its religious leadership. He also pointed the finger on the Portuguese (for settling parts of Africa) and various Popes for approving perpetual slavery for certain races. He thought that the exporting of African slaves by the Portuguese began just at the 16^th century opened. A sample of his detail is below:

Spanish America hath successively received her slaves from the Genoese, Portuguese, French and English. A convention was made at London between England and Spain, A. D. 1689, for supplying the Spanish West-Indies with negro slaves from Jamaica. The French Guinea company contracted, in 1702, to supply them with 38,000 negroes, in ten years; and if peace should be concluded, with 48,000. In 1713 there was a treaty between England and Spain for the importation of 144,000 negroes in thirty years, or 4,800 annually. If we include those whom the Portuguese have held in slavery in Africa, with the importations into South-America, twelve millions may be a moderate estimate from the commencement of the traffic to the present time.

The British and French colonialists, he said, contributed mightily to this, with his census being: “The present number of slaves in the West-Indies is 930,669. There are in the United States 670,633. To this number may be added about 12,000 manumitted Africans. In all 1,613,302.” He blamed predominantly Christian cultures (“by the citizens of the most republican States, with the sanction of St. Peter’s successor”) for this magnitude of slavery.

We suppose, then, that eight millions of slaves have been shipped in Africa for the West-India islands and the United States; ten millions for South-America; and, perhaps, two millions have been taken and held in slavery in Africa. Great-Britain and the United States have shipped about five millions, France two, Holland and other nations one; though we undertake not to state the proportion with exactness. The other twelve millions we set to Portugal. Twenty million slaves, at £.30 sterling each, amount to the commercial value of £.600,000,000. Six hundred times ten hundred thousand pounds sterling traffic in the souls of men!!!

Dana continued to lament that Christians did not work more zealously for abolition, nor to improve the lives of slaves. Further, he addressed the many OT passages where slavery existed or was not overturned, suggesting mitigating factors for those. Citing the recent language from the Declaration of Independence (“All men are created equal”), he extrapolated that all humans in America were equal and free. He did not believe that Africans were less human or less deserving of all benefits of Christ: “The present occasion will be well improved, if we set ourselves to banish all slavish principles, and assert our liberty as men, citizens and Christians. We have all one Father: He will have all his offspring to be saved. We are disciples of one master: He will finally gather together in one the children of God. Let us unite in carrying into effect the purpose of the Saviour’s appearance.” He called for Christ’s body, the church to be undivided and concluded passionately:

To conclude: In vain do we assert our natural and civil liberty, or contend for the same liberty in behalf of any of our fellow-creatures, provided we ourselves are not made free from the condemnation and dominion of sin. If there is such a thing as slavery, the servant of sin is a slave—and self-made. The captive, prisoner and slave, in an outward respect, may be free in Christ, free indeed; while he who enjoys full external liberty, may, in regard to his inward man, be under the power of wicked spirits: These enter and dwell in an heart garnished to receive them. Jesus Christ, and no other, saveth from sin and wrath. The spirit of life quickeneth those who are dead in trespasses, and looseth those whom Satan hath bound. ‘If we be dead with him, we believe that we shall also live with him.’

The new Jerusalem is free in a more exalted sense than the church on earth. True believers, ‘sealed with the holy Spirit of promise, have the earnest of their inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession.’ In that day of complete redemption, of glorious liberty, may God of his infinite mercy grant that we may meet all the ransomed of the Lord, with songs and everlasting joy, saying: “Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power, be unto him that sitteth upon the throne; and unto the lamb who was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. Amen.”

Worth noting, Dana was not the only one who argued this line. In a 1770 sermon (see earlier link in this series), Samuel Cooke pled similarly:

I trust on this occasion I may without offence plead the cause of our African slaves, and humbly propose the pursuit of some effectual measures at least to prevent the future importation of them. Difficulties insuperable, I apprehend, prevent an adequate remedy for what is past. Let the time past more than suffice wherein we, the patrons of liberty, have dishonored the Christian name, and degraded human nature nearly to a level with the beasts that perish. Ethiopia has long stretched out her hands to us. Let not sordid greed, acquired by the merchandise of slaves and the souls of men, harden our hearts against her piteous moans. When God ariseth, and when he visiteth, what shall we answer? May it be the glory of this province, of this respectable General Assembly, and, we could wish, of this session, to lead in the cause of the oppressed. This will avert the impending vengeance of Heaven, procure you the blessing of multitudes of your fellow men ready to perish, be highly approved by our common father, who is no respecter of persons, and, we trust, an example which would excite the highest attention of our sister colonies. (Election Sermons, 2012, pp. 226-227)

Dana’s sermon man be found online at: http://consource.org/document/the-african-slave-trade-by-james-dana-1790-9-9/, and in hard copy in Ellis Sandoz, Political Sermons of the American Founding Era (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998).

By Dr. David W. Hall, Pastor
Midway Presbyterian Church

For others like this order a copy of Twenty Messages to Consider Before Voting from Reformation Heritage Books.

It was on this day, September 2d, in 1937 that an article appeared on the pages of The Christian Beacon, a tribute to Dr. J. Gresham Machen, written by one who knew him well, Rev. H. McAllister Griffiths. Regrettably, when I looked, this particular issue of The Christian Beacon was not available to me. But as the article was actually published in serial form, in five parts, I will take the liberty to instead reproduce here an earlier portion of this tribute, Part IV, from the August 26, 1937 issue. Even in serial form, this section of it is lengthy and I can only give our readers selected portions:—

I have carefully read the tributes paid to Dr. Machen since his death, by both friend and foe. Some of the former were poured from the white crucible of great and sudden grief. Others, while recognizing his greatness, were written by those who, per se, were incapable of understanding the relation of his character to the cause that was the passion of his whole being. But not any of them all, I feel, has been able quite to grasp and to convey the combination of qualities that made him the man he was. I certainly do not pretend to be able to do so now, but shall do the best, chiefly, that I can.

As I remember long years of intimate association, the quality that stands out most clearly was Dr. Machen’s deep, Christian humanity. God gave him mental powers of a supreme order, and he developed them and used them in the service of the Giver. Though God in this particular set him apart from other men, he never set himself apart from other men. He was deeply and genuinely human. Like us he knew hours of exaltation and disappointment. He was profoundly humble when he had every natural inducement not to be. Nor was it that assumed humility which is so offensive, but a true humility which came from the very center of his being. It had its roots, without any doubt, in the great experience of having prostrated himself at the foot of the Cross. He had learned the love of Christ at the knee of a Christian mother, an unusually gifted and cultured lady who exercised a consecrated influence over both his mind and soul. But if his Christian experience did not come like sudden lightning, it was nevertheless like a luminous and always present pillar of fire in his soul. He loved Isaac Watts’ hymn When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, and in it the words ‘And pour contempt on all my pride’ were peculiarly characteristic of his life. He was always, everywhere, whatever he was doing, a sinner saved by grace. From this as a center every activity and interest of his life radiated in concentric circles. Because of it he had an almost infinite capacity for friendship, loved, as Ben Jonson said of Shakespeare, ‘little short of idolatry’ by those who knew him well. He would, of course, have repudiated any affection for him which took the place of that owed to God. But in his friendships he gave himself without stint, both in counsel and in more material ways if his friends were in trouble and need. And there were others who had bitterly attacked him, who, when they were in want, were the recipients of his help sent through third parties who were strictly charged never to reveal the source of the gift.

Dr. Machen’s chief intellectual characteristic was not his great learning (concerning which he was not in the least self-conscious) but was perhaps his passion for consistency. If he was right he wanted to be right all the way. He had the most orderly mind of any man I ever knew. No one could read The Origin of Paul’s Religion (his greatest book, I think) without being reminded of the progress of a supremely led army over a varied terrain, with each objective clearly defined and occupied on schedule. Not an inch of ground that was not covered, and when one arrived at the end of the book, one felt like an eye-witness of a brilliantly conceived and consummated military campaign. But how the analogy breaks down as one finds in the book not merely the progress of a relentlessly ordered mind, but the beating of a heart filled to over-flowing with love for Christ and those for whom He died!

I have spoken before of the love which Dr. Machen drew from so many. He had friends because he knew how to be a friend. The acknowledged leader of a movement he always treated his associates not as underlings but as equals. A man of wide and broad culture he exerted a charm that was spontaneous and genuine because it was not a matter of the surface merely, but like everything else about him, sprang from his heart. And he possessed that saving grace, a sense of humor. A man who can laugh at himself at times, is in good mental health.

When he died it was with his harness on. (The word ‘harness’ refers to the armor worn by soldiers in ancient and medieval times, not to that worn by horses.) He literally spent himself in the cause he loved, used up his reserves of strength, and fell the easy victim to sudden disease brought on by a quick change from a warm to sub-zero climate when he was already suffering with a heavy cold. Now, in God’s inscrutable providence, he has gone to be with Christ. To many of us it was a bitter separation and tragedy. But I can never forget the sermon Dr. Machen preached at the funeral of the gifted young minister, Henry Atkinson, in Wildwood, New Jersey. His work was done, said Dr. Machen. We could not see it. But God did, else He would not have taken His servant home. And so it is now with the one who that day preached the sermon. His work, though we could not see it, was done. God had higher uses and greater blessings for him there in ‘the deep wells of light’ where he can rest his eyes forever on the face of the Lord he loved, all earth’s dissonance forgotten in the Beatific Vision.

[Words to Live By:]
It is something to have known such a man, for they come out rarely on the human scene. May all of us, who loved him be the better for it. Despite the differences which separate some of us who once fought the battle shoulder to shoulder under his leadership, may we differ, when we must, not as enemies. Holding the truth as we see it in utmost fidelity, let us always comport ourselves as Christian brethren who owe a duty to ‘Christ’s little ones’ and who stand upon a common level as only sinners saved by grace.

[excerpted from The Christian Beacon, Vol. II, No. 29 (26 August 1937): 1, 2, 8.

This Day in Presbyterian History is hosted by the PCA Historical Center, but we have tried to be somewhat ecumenical with this blog, looking at people and events in different denominations as opportunity permits. One denomination that I don’t remember having touched on is the United Presbyterian Church of North America (UPCNA). Officially formed in 1858, one historian noted that this denomination was “the result of several unions;” that “its antecedents are more numerous and fragmentary than those of most churches.” But to keep it simple, the UPCNA was formed by the merger of the Associate Presbyterian Church and the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Numerically they were strongest in Pennsylvania, Ohio and throughout the midwestern states.

At its formation, the UPCNA issued a Testimony [pictured at right], which was a doctrinal statement consisting of eighteen articles, designed to set out the character and nature of the denomination. Notable among these articles was Article 14, which states,

We declare, That slaveholding human beings is involuntary bondage, and considering and treating them as property, and subject to be bought and sold—is a violation of the law of God, and contrary both to the letter and spirit of Christianity.

The “argument and illustration” supporting this Article continues for several pages and is too lengthy to reproduce here, but the conclusion was that no slaveholder could be a member in good standing in the UPCNA. In this conviction, the UPCNA followed the Reformed Presbyterians who took that same stand in 1802. And both these denominations lived out their principles in various practical ways.

So it was that in 1889 the UPCNA’s General Assembly adopted a motion to establish a ministry in Henderson, North Carolina, designed to serve primarily as a secondary school for blacks living in the Henderson area. A year later, in 1890, The denomination’s Board of Freedmen’s Missions had purchased thirteen acres of land just outside the Henderson city limits and in what must have been a very busy year, a school building and teacher’s cottage at the church’s Bluestone Mission in Virginia were broken down and then rebuilt on the Henderson Institute property. The official opening of the Institute took place on this day, September 1, 1891, with the Rev. J. M. Fulton serving as principal. He had formerly been the pastor of the Fourth Church, Allegheny, Pennsylvania, but was forced to relocate to a warmer climate for his health. Despite the cultural obstacles that might be expected in that time and place, the school was judged a success from the start. The initial enrollment of 556 students soon prompted a call for more teachers
and more buildings. During the two years that Rev. Fulton was there, over seven hundred students were enrolled in the day school and another two hundred students enrolled in the night school.

Of his time there at the Institute, in 1893 Rev. Fulton wrote bluntly, but with a measured optimism grounded in the Gospel, that:

The whole race is fenced in by the deep conviction of the whites, that the Negro was appointed by the Lord to do only menial [labor], and beyond that he cannot go. This is not prejudice on the part of the white people, but it is a religious conviction. The southern people will never do anything to change this condition. When we attempt to help the colored man we are told it is no use. … The only hope for the colored race is in the church—the benevolent people. The nation helped to crush the colored man and the Indian. The one she forsakes, the other she helps. Why this difference? Since God has put this work upon the Church let us arise to a realization of the needs of the people and strive to fit them for citizens of earth and heaven.

The Rev. C. L. McCracken followed Fulton and seemed to follow his conclusions as well, striving the connect the Henderson Institute more closely with the Church. Then in 1900, the Rev. J.L. Cook was the first African American to be appointed as principal of Henderson. He died after having served the school for three years, and was succeeded by the Rev. John Cotton, whose tenure lasted thirty-one years. The school finally closed in 1970.

Words to Live By:
If the first chapters of the book of Genesis weren’t enough to demonstrate that all of humanity is related, then the remarkable event related in Acts 2 should have driven the point home that the divisions among the peoples of the world are now overcome by the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Parthians and Medes, Elamites, Judeans and Asians, Libyans, Cretes and Arabians, all that believed were together.

[Note: The Henderson Institute of Henderson, North Carolina is not to be confused with the Henry Henderson Institute, a school in Blantyre, Malawi, founded in 1909, and named in honor of Henry Henderson, a lay missionary from the Church of Scotland who founded the Blantyre Mission.]