GILCHRIST IN CHILE, Part 5. by Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist.
But things were changing in the presbytery and in the mission. Modernism had crept in. One of the missionaries was Irwen Paul, whom the mission did not want because of his liberal stance. He had a lot of followers in Chile before the mission transferred him to head up Union Theological Seminary in Buenos Aires. Not only so, but a Chilean ruling elder, Horacio Gonzales, who had a fairly large commercial enterprise was very influential in the presbytery. He had already published his modernist position in the mid 1930s. He and a couple of others manipulated the presbytery into reorganizing by forming several commissions of which he was a member. But the most powerful was the Coordinating Commission which had ultimate control of the presbytery.
Gilchrist, zealous for the evangelistic ministry, together with a number of pastors and leaders organized the Grupo for Accion Evangelica (GAE) independent of presbytery in 1939. Gonzales and others took them to task at a presbytery meeting in 1942. By January 1944 they were cited to close down GAE. At a special meeting of presbytery on May 18, 1944, Gilchrist and Pastor Olivero Maufras had their ministerial credentials suspended. This led to the formation of the National Presbyterian Church of Chile on July 2, 1944.
Presbyterio de Chile La Granja, 18 May 1944.
El Divino Redentor church in Linares, having joined the new denomination, wrote the Presbytery of Chile and Union Evangelica, their legal representatives, to turn over their property to the Session of Redentor church. Instead, the Presbytery of Chile padlocked the building in which they held services. They did the same to the Santisima Trinidad church in Santiago. They refused to turn over the property to the Linares church.
Gilchrist in Chile, Part 4 by Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist
George Riggle Monfort Gilchrist was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico on March 14, 1892, His father was Joseph James (aka J.J.) Gilchrist and his mother was Elizabeth (Bessie) Rowland Gilchrist, who served as Presbyterian home missionaries in northern NM. George graduated from Occidental College and San Francisco Theological Seminary in California. George married Annie Ruth Sanborne on June 21, 1923.
George and Ruth sailed for Chile in 1925 serving under the Board of Foreign Missions of the PCUSA. They worked in the Central Valley in San Fernando and Rancagua before going to Linares, a provincial capital, named for the fine linen produced from flax. It is the home of the Chilean Escuela Militar de Artilleria. He established contact with the business, military and civic community as well as ministering to the spiritual needs of the working class. His evangelistic service was through evangelistic tracts which elicited hundreds of questions from people with whom they came in contact. Slowly but patiently a group formed, and El Divino Redentor church was born. Ruth Sanborne Gilchrist [1893-1992], photo taken in Germantown, PA, circa 1950-1960. While renting facilities, the church began saving funds for a future building of their own. As this fund grew, Gilchrist encouraged the folks to open a savings account with the Presbytery of Chile. Legally, churches could not open accounts with a bank. The Chile Presbytery, which was an extension of a presbytery in the USA, thus could not have an account in their name. The same was true of the Chile Mission of the PCUSA. So, they formed a national organization, the Union Evangelica whose charter stated that “it was created for the propagation of the Christian Reformed Church in Chile … which includes the different denominations in Chile.” It thus served as the legal body representing the presbytery and the mission, the board included representatives from both mission and presbytery. Eventually the church bought a property. George assured the church that their funds and property were in good hands, and he gave them his word that he would guarantee it. Another missionary assured the congregation that the property “was in friendly hands.”
GILCHRIST IN CHILE, Part 3 by Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist
On May 18, 1944 the Presbytery convened. One member declared, “When these two are got rid of, this movement will die in 24 hours.” Another spoke, “Brethren, we are throwing out the cream and keeping the skimmed milk.” Another pastor warned, “You will crucify these 2 ministers, but after the crucifixion there will come an earthquake!” Anxious to get on with the condemnation of “all pastors, elders, deacons and other church officers who were related to the organization, Presbytery voted on: “That the brethren George Gilchrist and Olivero Maufras be suspended from their ministerial rights until the next Presbytery meeting in January 1945.” The vote was 23 in favor of suspension, and 7 opposed, with 1 abstention. Just before adjourning the presbytery late that evening, Gilchrist made one last plea to permit GAE to continue as part of presbytery in their evangelistic ministry. One representative also pleaded for them to seriously consider its spiritual responsibility – but all to no avail.
Mr. Gilchrist was made the scape-goat, being blamed by fellow missionaries and fellow pastors for the break. Presbytery empowered several of the commissions with power to act, one of which went to Santisima Trinidad church in Santiago and delegated others to go to El Divino Redentor church in Linares. These were the only churches who lost their properties to the Presbytery. Both churches were put under lock and key to keep the evangelicals from using the property. When the churches learned of presbytery’s actions against their beloved pastor and missionary and against the two churches with properties which were confiscated, they were exceedingly upset, if not angry. Interestingly, it was a movement among the young people of the GAE who began to consider starting a new denomination.
Shortly afterwards, conservative members began the process of organizing the National Presbyterian Church of Chile. On July 2, 1944 held their organizational meeting in Santisima Trinidad church in Santiago. They started with 13 churches or groups and 3 pastors and 21 elders with 97 lay workers representing a constituency of some 800 members and adherents who had left the Presbytery of Chile.
Words to Live By: 13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, He was asking His disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; but still others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Take away the eternal truth that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, and the universal church falls to the ground. Our Lord Jesus is Himself that Rock upon which the Church is established. The Church has enemies which fight against it, an opposition which springs from the very pit of hell itself, but our Lord has promised the victory, a victory which is as sure as the Word of God.
Today we bring you part 2 of Gilchrist in Chile, written by our guest author, the Rev. Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist. Dr. Gilchrist, now retired, served as the second Stated Clerk of the PCA, 1988-1998, and before that, as Stated Clerk of the RPCES, 1971-1982.But Dr. Gilchrist’s story, Gilchrist in Chile, is about his parents, the Rev. George R.M. Gilchrist and his wife, Ruth Sanborne Gilchrist, who were career missionaries in Chile from 1925 until their retirement in 1959, and it is a portion of their story that Dr. Gilchrist will be telling this week.
GILCHRIST IN CHILE, Part 2 by Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist, former Stated Clerk of the PCA.
The Presbyterian Church in Chile became concerned about the growing liberalism in the church. So, by 1939 a group in Valparaiso began to pray for revival in the churches. Another group in the Central Valley organized the Grupo Accion Evangelica (GAE) in which many churches participated. In Santiago the youth got involved along with the others. The Secretary of the Mission Board also recommended to the Board and to the Chile Presbytery that they should pray for spiritual revival.
Presbyterio de Chile la Granja, 18 May 1944
But the liberals led by elder Horacio Gonzales and a pastor, becoming alarmed at the movement of the Spirit, opposed this development. They proposed to the Presbytery a reorganization of their commissions. The main new commissions were the Federation of Young People, the Women’s League, and Coordinating Commission which replaced the Evangelistic and Religious Education Commission. There were 18 commissions with 88 people appointed to serve. But Presbytery named five men (including Horacio Gonzales) who served on the commissions, with 3 or 4 on each of these commissions programs thus controlling them.
At the annual meeting of Presbytery in 1942, the GAE offered a plan for evangelization and its cooperation. However, since the political control considered the GAE a rebellion against the Federation a new committee was named to deal with them. Nevertheless, The GAE movement spread, so that at the annual meeting in 1943, the Presbytery decided it should be squelched. The vote was 23 to 10, with 3 abstentions, to “order the GAE as an institution to disband and that its constituency should join the existing organizations of the church.” The group, however, continued to grow.
Again, in January 1944 the Presbytery turned down a similar proposal from the GAE. But the group continued with planned conferences. Then on April 25, 1944, the President of the Presbytery sent out a call for “an extraordinary meeting of Chile Presbytery for May 18, 1944. The docket: 1. The disobedience of two presbyters to the actions of the Honorable Presbytery. 2. The participation of other officials of the church in the activities of the Grupo Accion Evangelica.” A couple of other items were included. The two presbyters were a leading evangelical pastor from the church in Talca, Rev Olivero Maufras, and missionary/pastor Rev. George R. M. Gilchrist of the church in Linares.
This entire week we are pleased to have with us as guest author the Rev. Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist. Dr. Gilchrist, now retired, is remembered by most as having served as the second Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America, 1988-1998, and before that, he served as Stated Clerk of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, 1971-1982.
But for our purposes this week, it is most significant to note that he was raised on the mission field, the fourth child born to the Rev. George R.M. Gilchrist and his wife, Ruth Sanborne Gilchrist. Rev. Gilchrist and his wife were career missionaries in Chile from 1925 until their retirement in 1959, and it is a portion of their story that Dr. Gilchrist will be telling this week.
GILCHRIST IN CHILE, Part 1. by Dr. Paul R. Gilchrist, former Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church in America.
The Rev. George R. M. Gilchrist and his wife Ruth Sanborne Gilchrist served as missionaries in Chile, the long string-bean country on the Pacific Ocean side of South America, from 1925 to 1945. Both were born in the Presbyterian Church, USA (Northern) continuing the tradition of several generations of pastors, missionaries and teachers. They served mission churches in the Central Valley in the towns of San Fernando, Rancagua and Linares. They were much loved and saw fruit for their labors in seeing many come so saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ through evangelism and Bible study. They identified themselves as “Evangelicals” rather than “Protestants” since there were many modernist leaning groups identifying with the later designation as in contradistinction from the Roman Catholic Church.
George Riggle Monfort Gilchrist [1892-1988]. This photograph was taken about 1922 while George was a student at the San Francisco Theological Seminary. But on May 18, 1944 the storms of modernism vs. Bible believing conservatism in the Presbyterian Church came to a climax that forced the Gilchrists to resign from the Mission Board as well as from the Chile Presbytery. On that date, the Presbytery held an extraordinary meeting to deal with a pastor, Olivero Maufras, and a missionary, George Gilchrist, who were involved with a “Grupo Accion Evangelica.” They had disobeyed orders from a previous presbytery meeting directing them to “cease and desist” their activities and disband the GAE. And so the Presbytery took the disciplinary action of suspending their ministerial credentials until the January 1945 meeting of Presbytery. But what was their sin? Disobeying the formal demands of a previous Presbytery.
To understand this, consider the modernist—fundamentalist clashes mounting in the 1930s. Pearl Buck, a missionary in China, read and strongly supported the 1932 book Re-Thinking Missions, a book which undoubtedly also influenced Horacio Gonzales, a very influential ruling elder in Chile, who wrote in a similar vein in “Our Presbyterian Situation” in August of 1936. He wrote a chapter on “Religion in a changing world” critical of the evangelical message, “Our religion has dulled the mind” and “we have a wrong vision with errors in the method, the message, etc. which must be changed to meet modern times.” He further stated: “Our doctrinal concepts are molded in terms appropriate to past centuries. …These concepts are too small for the present mentality. Those antiquated ideas are an obstacle to the acceptance of our faith on the part of educated people.” And so he proposed “a revision of the creed and concept of the message, a renovation of the ethical and spiritual values, and a re-interpretation of the essentials of the faith.”
to be continued Tuesday . . .
Words to Live By: Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’–Jeremiah 6:16, ESV.
Pastor Olivero Maufras and missionary George Gilchrist, along with the “Grupo Accion Evangelica,” in Chile, were seeking to be faithful to the ancient paths set out by the Lord in the Scriptures of the Bible. They sought to faithfully proclaim the Gospel of salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in the Lord Jesus Christ. And as we have seen, they were opposed by those who said ‘We will not walk in it.‘ It is an old story and it remains a grievous one, when the Gospel is refused. Remember to pray for our missionaries and for Christians around the world, who face great opposition as they seek to proclaim the Good News.
