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October 2: First Stated Clerk of the PCA (sort of)

2 October, 2013 in October 2013 by archivist | No comments

He Was Always Preparing

In 1982, the denomination known as the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES) was received into Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). This ecclesiastical merger was known as the Joining and Receiving (J&R). The RPCES was itself created by the union of two denominations, in 1965. One denomination had a shorter history. This was the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), as it was known from 1961-1965. Prior to that, it operated under the name of the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod, and this group was the larger portion of a split of the Bible Presbyterian Church [1938-1955].

The other denomination that merged with the EPC to create the RPCES was the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod (RPCGS), and this group had a much longer history, dating back to 1833. That was the year in which the Reformed Presbyterian Church suffered a split, thus creating the RPCGS. The other body created by this split is in existence to this day—the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (RPCNA).

Are you thoroughly confused yet? To recap, the PCA received the RPCES in 1982, and the RPCGS was one of the two denominations that united to form the RPCES. (see! that wasn’t so tough!).

Black_John_1768-1849Which brings us to the Rev. John Black, who served as the first Stated Clerk of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod. And as the combined history of the denomination received in 1982 became part of the history of the PCA, it was in that sense, in a manner of speaking, that we might call Dr. Black the first Stated Clerk of the PCA.

John Black had been born in Northern Ireland, in the county of Antrim, on October 2, 1768, and it was only after reaching adulthood that he immigrated to this country. He had been educated at Glasgow College, in Scotland and left for America in 1797. For a while he worked as a teacher, but soon was licensed to preach by the Reformed Presbyterian Church, in 1799. Upon his ordination, Rev. Black settled in the region of Pittsburgh, which was then just a small village, and there he remained the pastor of the same church for forty-eight years, until the close of his life, on October 25, 1849.

As a preacher, he was “distinct, plain, a fluent speaker, always interesting and often eloquent and powerful.” And time and again he proved himself as one who was always ready to preach, whenever called. Yet he never wrote out or memorized his sermons. “He was ready, because he had a full mental storehouse,—the power of abstraction, the gift of language, a great command of the resources of his own mind, and, above all, a strong, humble and unwavering dependence on the help of God’s Holy Spirit. He preached because he loved the work, and had found, by repeated trial, that he had from God the ready power to perform it. And, yet, Dr. Black prepared to preach. He was always preparing. His studies were never finished, and, to the close of his life, he was a laborious student. His views of the Christian ministry were too high to admit of the attempt to serve God with what had cost him nothing. He selected his subject, elaborated it in his mind, used all available helps, wrote upon paper an extended skeleton, and so went to the desk to speak on God’s behalf to sinners. He preached for nearly fifty years, and then died with the harness on.”

To give a flavor of his sermons, here is an excerpt from a sermon which he delivered at the opening of the Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church as it met in Philadelphia in May of 1816. The sermon is on the subject of “Church Fellowship;” Rev. Black begins:—


Saints by profession, are bound to hold communion and fellowship, in the worship and service of God.

I. I am to explain this Communion—

1. It is a communion of Saints. The house of God is holy, and holiness becometh it well forever. Here the social principle is exercised in its perfection on earth. It is devoted to holy purposes, and consecrated to the Lord of the whole earth. None have a right, in the sight of God, to this holy fellowship, but real Saints, and none but such really enjoy it. Others, though they may be present, and appear to participate in the communion of the Saints. yet it is only in appearance. Externally, they draw near to God in his holy institutions,. but their hearts have no concern in the solemnity. The character of such is given in Ezekiel, 33:31. “And they come unto thee as the people cometh, and they sit before thee as my people, and they hear thy words, but they will not do them: for with their month they shew much love, but their heart goeth after their covetousness.” But those who are Saints, were once, a very different character. They were, by nature, children of wrath, even as others. How then do they obtain this character? No way but by union to Jesus Christ, through the regenerating influence of the Spirit of God. Means are generally used, but the efficiency is of God. In the day of effectual working of his Holy Spirit, lays on them an arrest of mercy. They are apprehended by Christ, and are made to apprehend him. Their understandings are enlightened, so that they are enabled to discover the certainty, the value, the excellency, the suitableness of Jesus the Saviour, to their needy case. Objective testimony is furnished, with such undoubted evidence, that they become convinced, and are verily persuaded, not only that they may fully and freely accept of the offered salvation, but that it is the best and the most desirable thing so to do. The will, renewed by the Holy Ghost, follows the dictate of the understanding, and actually receives the Lord Jesus Christ, appropriating him for life and salvation. This completes a mystical and indissoluble union between Christ and the believer’s soul. Christ, by the bond of his spirit, unites himself to the elect sinner, in regeneration, and the sinner, effectually called, by the bond of faith unites himself to the person of the Redeemer. The believer, thus united to Christ, is in the court of heaven, sustained, as righteous. Christ and he being one, whatever is Christ’s is reckoned to the believer. Christ’s righteousness is his, and on account of that righteousness, he is justified. His name is changed from sinner to saint.

We have said, that only such as are thus really Saints, are, in the sight of God, entitled to the communion and fellowship of his church. But as the heart of man is known only to God—as it is his prerogative, and only his, to search the heart and try the reins, an absolute knowledge of this union to Christ, which constitutes men really Saints, cannot belong to this communion. Only Saints by profession, such as possess those distinctive characters which the head of the church has laid down in his word, by which we may, in the judgment of charity, know, and esteem men to be his followers. By their works shall ye know them. If they are sound in the faith, and have a life and conversation, such as becometh the gospel; they are to be reputed Saints, and with such, we are bound to have communion.

2. It is a communion of love and holy affections.

Not only are all Saints united to the Head Christ Jesus, but they are all united to one another in love. They are members one of another. They have one common interest, and they mutually seek each other’s good. They are all actuated by the same spirit. They are all concerned for the honour of their glorious head. They are brethren, children of the same Father and of the same Mother. God is their Father. By him they were spiritually begotten, through the instrumentality of the word of truth. The Church is their Mother. By her they were brought forth. The spouse (the individual believer) calls the church her mother’s house, the chambers of her that conceived her. There are, it is true, some mother’s children, that are not the Father’s children, nominal professors, who love not the real children of the family: but all who are the children of adoption, the sons and the daughters of the Lord Almighty—have a communion in one another’s love. They seek the good of the family, and they live together in unity, as it becometh brethren. This love, and kind affection, is opposed to the biting and devouring of one another. It is opposed to quarrels and intestine broils, the disgrace and the ruin of every family. It is opposed to schism and divisions. Those who possess this principle of love, will cover with the mantle of charity the failings and the infirmities of their brethren. They will bear one another’s burdens. They will be gentle and easy to be entreated. They will not willingly give, or take, offence. But bound up in the bundle of life and of love, with the rest of the members of the household of faith, they will take sweet counsel together, and walk to the house of God in company….”

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September 6: Formation of the Bible Presbyterian Synod

6 September, 2013 in September 2013 by archivist | No comments

The first General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church Meets

They said that the Presbyterian Church of America which began in 1936 had been ”a false start.”  Issues regarding  the exact details associated with Christ’s second coming as well as the total abstention from alcoholic beverages formed a divisive wedge between once united brothers in Christ.   The place of independent agencies in the new church versus denomination agencies added another issue to the contention of “a false start” in the Presbyterian Church of America.  Some would even argue that the death of J. Gresham Machen was a blow to the original testimony.  But whatever it was, in 1937, a small group of ministers and ruling elders had gathered in another place from the General Assembly then meeting to set up the rules for association for a new church.


And now, beginning September 6, 1938, and continuing two more days, thirty-nine teaching elders and eleven ruling elders met at the new tabernacle building of the Collingswood Bible Presbyterian Church, in Collingswood, New Jersey.  The name of this new church had been taken from the name of the congregation pastored by the Rev. David K. Myers, a home missionary of the Presbyterian Church of America in Lemmon, South Dakota.  That constituted  the first Bible Presbyterian Church in the nation.  The other churches were represented by seven presbyteries: New Jersey, Great Plains, Philadelphia, Great Lakes, Chicago Bible, Iowa, and California.  In its beginning days, it would have a glorious testimony to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.

Some of its original ministers were individuals who had and would have a testimony in present and future years.  They were: Francis A Schaeffer [in the above photo, he is the first man on the left, in the front row], H. McAllister Griffiths, Carl McIntire, Harold S Laird, Oliver Buswell, Allan MacRae, Charles Dana Chrisman, A. Franklyn Faucette, J. A. Toms, and others.  J. A. Toms was elected moderator, and H. McAllister Griffiths was elected the Stated Clerk.  Those who had suffered censure in various degrees by the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. were absolved of all such censure.

Two of the original resolutions passed by this new church were the exact two which were issues in the Presbyterian Church of America.  The church was decidedly placed in the premillennial camp by adding parenthesis to the Confessions Standards.  Further, the call for holiness and specifically a call for total abstinence from alcoholic beverages was passed by the new church.

Even though they were classified as independent agencies, both the Independent Board for Foreign Missions and Faith Theological Seminary were endorsed by the new denomination.   

Words to live by:  There is always joy over the birth of something new, especially a church body.  But to have individuals who had stood the test of orthodoxy in an increasing liberal church find out that they cannot agree with one another on other issues is disheartening. The issue of the doctrine of the last things was not premillennialism per se.  It was dispensational premillennialism.  The issue of holiness of life and total abstinence from alcohol was an issue in the days of prohibition, but to this writer it was not a reason to separate from brothers in the Lord.  Westminster Seminary put out a directive right around this time which enjoined its students from alcohol, citing a witness to the world and that of offending brothers in Christ.  But there is encouragement even in small blessings, for just a few years ago, modern Bible Presbyterians approved a motion in granting observer status to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. There are blessings to brothers who dwell together in liberty.

Coverage of the First General Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church was provided on the pages of The Christian Beacon, in its September 15, 1938 issue. To view the entirety of that issue as a PDF scan, click here.

Photo source: The Christian Beacon, 3.32 (15 September 1938).

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August 13: George R. M. Gilchrist

13 August, 2013 in August 2013 by archivist | No comments

A Heart for Missions

gilchristRWIt was a proud day in Las Vegas, New Mexico, on March 14, 1892, when Elizabeth Rowland Gilchrist and her husband Joseph James Gilchrist welcomed their new child into the world. George Riggle Monfort Gilchrist was, in part, named after a favorite uncle, the Rev. George Washington Riggle, who was a pastor in Socorro, New Mexico. The name Monfort was in honor of the Huguenot side of the family, in particular, Joseph Glass Monfort, who was George’s great uncle. He was quite involved with Old School Presbyterian Church, working primarily in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois.

George Gilchrist attended Occidental College, graduating with the Bachelor of Science degree in 1915, and from there proceeded to Chicago, where he attended the Moody Bible Institute for two years, graduating in 1918. Seminary added a few more years as he prepared for the ministry, and graduated in 1923. Even while in school, he had his eye on mission work, and in particular the field of Chile, annually serving there as a short term missionary during his Seminary years, primarily teaching in the Instituto Ingles, located in Santiago.

Rev. Gilchrist was ordained by the Presbytery of San Francisco (PCUSA) on April 27, 1924 and he was installed as the pastor of the Presbyterian church in Richmond, California. He served this congregation less than two years before he departed as a foreign missionary, serving in Chile under the auspices of the PCUSA’s World Missions Board. He would remain on the field in that capacity for twenty years.

gilchristRW&RuthThen in 1945, Rev. Gilchrist transferred his credentials to the Bible Presbyterian Church, and continued to labor another fourteen years in Chile, now under the auspices of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions. When the Bible Presbyterian Church split in 1956, Rev. Gilchrist aligned himself with the Columbus Synod BP’s and concluded his missionary work in 1959 with World Presbyterian Missions. In retirement, Rev. Gilchrist eventually came to live in Mount Hermon, California (circa 1968).

George R. M. Gilchrist died August 13 at Bethany Manor in Ripon, CA, just a few weeks after a family reunion for his sixty-fifth wedding anniversary. His mortal remains were laid to rest in the cemetery in Felton, California. Gilchrist was a teacher and an evangelistic missionary in Chile for more than three decades. He was survived by his widow Ruth and four children. Of these children, the Rev. Paul R. Gilchrist is noted as having served as the second Stated Clerk of the PCA, from 1988 to 1998.

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August 3: Rev. Henry G. Welbon

3 August, 2013 in August 2013 by archivist | No comments

WelbonHG_lockedout On August 3, 1936, newspapers in and around Wilmington, Delaware ran the following article covering the closure of the Head-of-Christiana Presbyterian Church, where the Rev. Henry G. Welbon was pastor at the time.

Pastor Ignores Church Locking

Defies Presbytery In Church ‘Lockout’

Unfrocked Pastor Holds Former Pulpit

Rev. H.G. Welbon Uses Own Key at Head-of-Christiana.
Has Services in Spite of Ban.

The Rev. Henry G. Welbon, fundamentalist pastor recently unfrocked by the Presbytery of New Castle for his refusal to bow to that body in the fundamentalist-modernist conflict, found himself locked out of Head-of-Christiana church when he went there yesterday to conduct Sunday services.

After consulting an attorney, he opened his church with his own key and conducted services as usual, ignoring a notice that had been tacked on the door by four trustees forbidding the use of the building except with their permission.

The notice was also signed by a committee of four established by the Presbytery to act as the church Session. The four trustees are a majority of the board who side with the Presbytery.

The trustees acted to exercise their authority over the church property, now in dispute between Presbytery and the seceding group led at Head-of-Christiana by Mr. Welbon.

“It is now up to this (seceding) group to prove their right of possession of the church and their right to enter it,” one of the four trustees said today.

The notice text was: “To whom it may concern: We the undersigned members of the Board of Trustees of Head-of-Christiana Church and the committee appointed by the Presbytery of New Castle to exercise the function of the session do hereby declare this church building to be closed and to be opened and used only by special permission until such time as this notice is withdrawn.”

Mr. Welbon said he acted upon advice of his attorney in opening the church. His attorney, Mr. Welbon said, stated that so long as Mr. Welbon had the key he could not be locked out. The four trustees obtained a key which they believed to be the only one to the church, from the sexton’s home.

*    *    *    *

Dating back to legal cases set down in the 19th-century, local church property in the PCUSA legally belonged to the PCUSA Presbyteryies Thus, when conservative Presbyterians left the PCUSA in the 1930’s, in almost every case they lost their church buildings.
The loss of those buildings was a substantial setback, particularly in the midst of an economic depression. So this was one major reason for the slow initial growth of both the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Bible Presbyterian Church, as leaving congregations had to start over and finance new buildings. That in turn may have been one very pragmatic reason why more conservatives did not leave the denomination.
By contrast, when the Presbyterian Church in America was formed in 1973, certain legal precedents had been established in the 1960s  which allowed most of the leaving congregations to retain their property. So these PCA congregations were on a better  footing to begin with, plus it can be argued that the economic times were better. There were substantial costs of leaving in both the ’30’s and the ’70’s, though the costs were somewhat different in each instance.

Words to Live By:
The church is not a building. Not a physical building, anyway. The  visible church consists of all those people and their children that have entered into a covenant with the one true God by way of His Son and the sacrifice that He paid on behalf of a chosen people.

“So then you are no longer dstrangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. (Ephesians 2:19-22, ESV)

The Notice pinned to the church’s front door:

welbon_notice

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June 4: Bible Presbyterian Church Formed

4 June, 2013 in June 2013 by archivist | No comments

A false start?

The beginnings of the Presbyterian Church of America in 1936 were small but richly blessed with men who had taken their stand for the faith of historic Christianity.  [here we are speaking of the denomination that was compelled under lawsuit to change its name in 1938 and which has been known since as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church]. Yet, but a year later—in 1937 and during the Third General Assembly of that church, a group of ministers from among their number were meeting to set up a new Presbyterian church, made up of elders out of that original group of stalwarts of the faith.  What had happened?

They had all agreed on the reasons for the separation from the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America.  That church had allowed departures from the faith at home and on the mission field without doing anything about it.  Failure to discipline those who had broken their ordination vows was rampart.  Indeed, not one minister who had signed the Auburn Affirmation was ever charged by any Presbytery.  J. Gresham Machen himself had acknowledged this failure while he was still living. But he had been taken from the small body of Presbyterian separatists by death on January 1, 1937.

Now in the new church, various secondary issues had sprung up to threaten the peace and unity of the church.  One was the eschatological issue.  Pre-millennialism had always been allowed in the church, but dispensational pre-millennialism had not been accepted.  This was proving to be a divisive issue.  Second, prohibition was raging in the nation at that time.  Many churches, especially in the midwest, were taking a position against the saloon trade.  In that light, an overture was made at the PCA general assembly to bring the church to a position of total abstinence from intoxicating drink.  That was voted down by the Assembly.

1942smBelieving that these two issues were crucial, fourteen teaching elders and three ruling elders met on June 4, 1937 at the St. James Hotel in Philadelphia to discuss their concerns.  Believing that a “false start” had been made by the delegates of the Presbyterian Church of America,  the articles of association were drafted for what later on became the Bible Presbyterian Church.  Their call for a new church which was Calvinistic, fundamental, premillennial, and evangelistic was made at that time.  Their first General Synod did not take place until September in 1938.  At that meeting, a statement was adopted which affirmed that the church and its members would pursue a course of total abstinence from alcoholic beverages, thus condemning the liquor traffic and the modern saloon.  Interestingly though, while they spoke of pre-millennialism as being a hallmark of the new church, they acknowledged liberty in eschatology or the things of the last day.

Pictured above: the delegates to the 1942 Synod of the Bible Presbyterian Church.

In more recent days, the Bible Presbyterian Church has recognized the schismatic nature of that separation from what is now the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  After many examples of extreme separation down through its history, the current Bible Presbyterian Church has twenty churches  nationwide, as found in four presbyteries.

Words to Live By:  We can and should be thankful to God for all churches which are obedient to the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, which are Reformed in doctrine, those which look forward to the Lord’s return in power and great glory, and which are evangelistic, intent upon taking the Gospel to the nations.  Let us extend a hand of fellowship to all such congregations.

For Further Study:
To view the finding aids for a portion of the Bible Presbyterian Church records preserved at the PCA Historical Center, click here. [information on related collections can be found at that linked page.]

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