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June 19: Death of Charles Hodge

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

Charles Hodge enters into eternity

hodgeCharles_grayEarly in July of 1878, on the pages of The Christian Observer, this brief note appeared under the title, “Calvinism and Piety,” :

The Christian Union, which has no friendship for Calvinism, closes its article on the death of Dr. Hodge, as follows:

Dr. Hodge, who was the foremost of the old Calvinists in this country, was, in character, one of the sweetest, gentlest and most lovable of men. His face was itself a benediction. We doubt whether he had any other than a theological enemy in the world. Curiously too, the peculiar tenets of his theology were reserved for the class-room and for philosophical writings. In the pulpit he preached a simple and un-sectarian gospel; his favorite texts were such as “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved;” and his sermons were such as the most successful missionaries delight to preach in foreign lands. In Princeton he is regarded as without peer in the conduct of the prayer meeting. His piety was as deep and as genuine as his learning was varied and profound. The system of theology of which he was the ablest American representative seems to us, in some points, foreign to the teaching of the New Testament, but the life and personality of the man were luminous with the spirit of an indwelling Christ.

Words to Live By: May we all—those of us who name the name of Christ and who also claim that same biblical faith commonly called Calvinism—so find our maturity in Christ as to live in a similar way, luminous with the spirit of the indwelling Christ, pointing all men and women to the only Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Image source: Frontispiece photograph of Charles Hodge, D.D., from The Right of Presbyteries Not to Be Annulled by Any Assumed Authority of the General Assembly: Their Relations to Each Other Defined by Dr. Hodge in the Princeton Review. New York: Anson D.F. Randolph & Co., 1896. The caption beneath the photograph, “That good gray head that all men knew.” is a line taken from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson, written originally in memory of Arthur Wellesley, the first Duke of Wellington (nicknamed “the Iron Duke”), and the poem subsequently is found used on behalf of a number of statesmen and others. Presumably as it was here used of Dr. Hodge, the point was to stress Hodge’s fidelity.

Pamphlet War: The Rights of General Assembly versus the Rights of Presbyteries

The PCA Historical Center has another pamphlet, which, except for the title, appears identical. It even has the same photograph, though the caption beneath the photo is taken from the next line of the poem, “That tower of strength Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew!” The title of this second pamphlet is The Rights of General Assembly Not to be Annulled by Any Assumed Authority of the Presbyteries: Their Relations to Each Other Defined by Dr. Hodge in the Princeton Review, published in New York by E. B. Treat, 5 Cooper Union. Office of the Treasury Magazine, and also published in the same year, 1896.

There is mention of a third pamphlet that was part of this pamphlet war, but we have not been able to locate a copy of that third item yet. We plan to post the text of both of these pamphlets, in essence, Hodge against Hodge, later this summer on the PCA Historical Center’s web site.

Tennyson’s poem, used in part to caption those two pamphlets:

“The statesman-warrior, moderate, resolute,
Whole in himself, a common good;
Mourn for the man of amplest influence,
Yet clearest of ambition’s crime,
Our greatest, yet with least pretence,
Great in council and great in war,
Foremost captain of his time,
Rich in saving common-sense,
And, as the greatest only are,
In his simplicity sublime.
Oh, good gray head which all men knew!
Oh, fallen at length that tower of strength
Which stood foursquare to all the winds that blew!”

 

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June 10: Merger of the UPCUSA and the PCUS

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

The Civil War was Finally Over

The Civil War was finally over, ecclesiastically, on June 10, 1983.  By this we mean, that the two denominations which claimed the name of Presbyterian in their titles—122 years previous in the United States and the Confederate States—did at last unite.

A little history will help us understand this.  On May 16, 1861, the Old School General Assembly split into north and south over the Gardner Spring Resolutions, which sought to support the Federal Government and Abraham Lincoln.  (See May 16, 1861)  Shortly after that  point in time, the Presbyterian Church in the Confederate States of America began.  When the South lost their attempt to be a sovereign nation in 1865, their name was changed to the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

There were attempts to heal this national split all the time.  Southern Presbyterians, as they were called in general, went up to the next General Assembly after the close of the War Between the States in Pittsburgh, only to find out that their Northern Presbyterian brethren were not only not interested in unity, but further they were speaking of the southern states as worthy of missions!

Fast forward a hundred years. Another attempt to merge in the middle of the twentieth century, in the 1950′s, failed because the southern Presbyterians were unwilling to accept centralization of power.  They placed a great deal more emphasis on local power than national power, such as the northern Presbyterians did.

In 1973, there was an exodus from the Presbyterian US over the same issues which brought forth their Northern cousins in the 1930′s — issues of Scriptural faith and practice.   So the Presbyterian Church in America began in December, 1973.

Then in 1964, the Southern Presbyterian Church ordained women, as the Northern Presbyterian had done previously.  Further the former accepted a book of confessions in 1975, as the Northern had done in 1967.

There was really no opposition left to stop this union. Perhaps that was because so many conservative Presbyterians had already left both denominations. Perhaps it was because of the increasing worldliness and continued decline of faithful righteousness in this nation. Regardless, on June 10, 1983, the Presbyterian Church US merged into the Presbyterian Church USA to form the largest Presbyterian church in the nation. They brought together some 3 million members, but ever since that day, the church had been losing members and churches over various issues.  At the time of this post, the removal of restrictions over homosexual clergy this past year is bringing another group of  losses of membership and churches, as remaining Bible believing ministers, members,  and churches recognize the proverbial handwriting on the wall and leave to one of the evangelical and Reformed Presbyterian churches in existence.

Words to Live By: If Francis Mackemie would rise up from his grave and look at the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America today, would he recognize it as  possessing the witness and testimony of 1706?  If we could go back to the pivotal points of Presbyterian history, what would be our position now with respect to those time periods and challenges?  It all demands of us to be aware of sites like the PCA History Center, support such efforts with our financial offerings, read its columns and articles, pray for its effectiveness in the Presbyterian and Reformed churches, and live in the light of its information.  By the grace of God, perhaps we will not repeat earlier mistakes if we are aware of our history.

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February 27: Lewis Sperry Chafer

27 February, 2013 in February 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | 3 comments

chaferLS.Yep. Lewis Sperry Chafer, the founder of Dallas Theological Seminary, was a Presbyterian. As was Chafer’s mentor, C. I. (Cyrus Ingerson) Scofield, and as was Scofield’s mentor, James H. Brookes. Presbyterians all. Perhaps that helps to explain how it was the dispensationalism made such inroads into Presbyterian circles in the era from the 1880’s to the 1930’s. That, and the fact that dispensationalists did a fair job of defending the Scriptures when few others. apart from the Princeton conservatives, would or could.

Lewis Sperry Chafer was born in Ashtabula county, Ohio, on February 27, 1871. His parents were the Rev. Thomas Franklin Chafer, a Congregationalist pastor, and Lois Lomira Sperry Chafer, the daughter of a Welsh Wesleyan lay preacher. When Lewis was just eleven, his father died of tuberculosis. Lewis developed an interest in music while attending the New Lyme Institute as he prepared for college. At Oberlin College, he majored in music and met his future wife, Ella Loraine Case. After their marriage in 1896, he began to serve as an evangelist.

An invitation to teach at the Northfield Boys School in turn led to a close friendship with C. I. Scofield, and as they say, the rest is history. Dallas Theological Seminary, founded in 1924 as the Evangelical Theological College, continues to this day. Its founder, Lewis Sperry Chafer, died on August 22, 1952.

In a prior post we talked about Milo Jamison’s role in the split that created the Bible Presbyterian Church. Jamison was a dispensationalist, while the recently formed denomination that was renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was quickly aligning itself against that system. In the last several decades, dispensationalism as a system has been going through a number of changes, but historically it has been anchored to three key tenets: (1) A “normal, literal” interpretation of Scripture; (2) A strict distinction between Israel and the Church; and (3) a scheme of dispensations or ages which divide up Biblical history. The latter two points are particularly where we find ourselves in disagreement with dispensationalism.

D. James Kennedy, when examining men for ordination, would routinely ask for the candidate’s views on dispensationalism, and whether the candidate approved or disapproved of the 1944 Southern Presbyterian report on dispensationalism. And Dr. Kennedy was right to use that Report in that way. However, the untold story behind that PCUS report is that in all likelihood, the Report was an attempt to split the conservatives in the Southern Presbyterian denomination, many of whom at that time were dispensationalists. As modernists were gaining power in the PCUS, the 1944 Report gave them an opportunity to set one camp of conservatives over against another and so dampen opposition to their own agenda.

In Sum:
Few conservative Presbyterians today consider themselves dispensationalists. The old Reformation doctrine—really the old Biblical doctrine—of covenant theology is being taught once again, and taught well in our seminaries and in our churches. How it came to be virtually ignored in the 19th-century is something of a mystery, but the general lack of such teaching in that era does help to explain the rise of dispensationalism during the same time period. Nature abhors a vacuum.

For Further Study:
One of the better popular-level works on covenant theology is O. Palmer Robertson’s Christ of the Covenants. Ask your pastor about other helpful materials on this important subject.

Image source: From a photograph on file at the PCA Historical Center, with the scan prepared by the staff of the Historical Center. The photograph lacks any indication as to who the photographer might have been.

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January 31: Wick Broomall, Jr.

31 January, 2013 in January 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

Founding Was In His Blood.

broomall_wickWick Broomall, Jr. was born on this day, January 31, 1902 to parents Wick Broomall, Sr. and his wife, Annie Nixon Broomall. Their son was educated at Maryville College, graduating in 1925 and then preparing for the ministry by attending Princeton Theological Seminary, from 1925-1929. Loraine Boettner was attending Princeton at that same time. Wick earned the Th.B. degree in 1928 while concurrently earning an M.A. from Princeton University, and he then earned the Th.M. degree in 1929. That was the year that was marked by the reorganization of Princeton Seminary, a change in the governance of the school which allowed modernists to take control and a change which drove conservatives like Robert Dick Wilson, J. Gresham Machen, O.T. Allis, and several other professors to resign in order to start Westminster Theological Seminary.

By August of 1929, Wick was ordained by Birmingham Presbytery and he briefly served as stated supply for the PCUS church in Montevallo, Alabama, 1929-30, before taking a post teaching at the Evangelical Theological College, 1930-32 (this school was renamed Dallas Theological Seminary in 1936). Returning to Birmingham, he pastored the Handley Memorial church, 1933-37 while also serving as the founding President Birmingham School of the Bible (now Southeastern Bible College).

Broomall_Wick_02Rev. Broomall also served churches in Georgia and South Carolina and taught at Columbia Bible College, 1938-51, before transferring his credentials into the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church and taught at Erskine Theological Seminary, 1952-58, then was received back into the PCUS and pastored the Westminster Presbyterian church in Augusta, Georgia, 1958-69. While serving as one of the founding faculty at the Atlanta School of Biblical Studies, 1971-75, he was also pastor of the PCUS church in Sparta, Georgia, 1972-75, and as one of the founding fathers of the PCA, led the Sparta church in becoming one of the founding churches of the new denomination.

The author of a number of books and articles, Rev. Broomall was also a founding member of the Evangelical Theological Society, well-known among their number. On February 5, 1976, he was called home to his Lord, at the age of 74.

Words to Live By:
In 1938, an article by Rev. Broomall, on the subject of regeneration, appeared in The Evangelical Student. This would have been published just as he began his tenure at the Columbia Bible College, and may be among his first published works.

“Much is being said and written in our modern age about the fruits of Christianity. The so-called social gospel of bankrupt Modernism is nothing less than a vain attempt to get the fruits of Christianity without the one essential root that alone can produce the desired fruits. The root that we are referring to is what the Bible calls the new birth or regeneration. The sterility and barrenness of present-day Modernism is to be found in the fact that Modernists have largely denied that man as he is needs a radical change in his nature. They have said so many nice things about our sinful Adamic nature, and have dressed it up with so many refinements and cultural embellishments, that they have completely covered up the facct that man’s nature is essentially evil and is absolutely incapable of producing the desired fruits. One does not need to hear or read many sermons in order to be convinced that the doctrine of regeneration as taught in the Word of God is both denied and ignored today.”

[excerpted from “The Christian Doctrine of Regeneration,” The Evangelical Student, 13.1 (Jan. 1938) 15-19.]

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January 15: Flournoy Shepperson

15 January, 2013 in January 2013 by Wayne Sparkman | No comments

This day, January 15, in 1966 marks the death of the Rev. Flournoy Shepperson [10/10/1883-01/15/1966].

sheppersonSrFlournoy Shepperson was licensed and ordained in July of 1917 by the Ouchita Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church, U.S. His first pastorate was in a yoked ministry to the Presbyterian churches of Magnolia and Mt. Holly, Arkansas, serving there 1908 to 1911. Rev. Shepperson next pastored the Presbyterian church in Monticello, Arkansas from 1911 to 1920, before answering a call to serve Purity Presbyterian church in Chester, South Carolina, from 1921-1925. His last pastorate in the PCUS was with the Second Presbyterian Church of Greenville, SC, which he served from 1925 to 1940. He then withdrew from the Southern Presbyterian denomination and united with the Bible Presbyterian Synod, while his brother David remained within the PCUS. Upon leaving the PCUS, Dr. Shepperson planted a Bible Presbyterian church in Greenville with an initial congregation of 335 members. The church later took the name Augusta Street Presbyterian church, and eventually became part of the PCA, though it was dissolved in 1996. The Augusta Street church was also notable as the original location of the Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

shepperson_BPchurch03

Oddly, Second Presbyterian of Greenville—the church that Dr. Shepperson left—later became one of the founding churches of the PCA, in 1973, and it was not until 1982 when the Augusta Street church also joined the PCA, as part of the Joining and Receiving of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod (RPCES).

From the Memorial read at the 144th RPCES General Synod:

Dr. Shepperson was among those who very early sensed the rising tide of unbelief in his own Presbyterian denomination and took a strong stand against it. It was under his leadership that there was formed a new Presbyterian church in his own city of Greenville, South Carolina, completely separated from apostasy, which church has grown to be one of the largest and most influential churches of our Synod.

Dr. Shepperson was an able and faithful preacher of the Word of God. He possessed a sense of humor that often brightened and enlivened his messages. This he did not lose even in that period of ill health that preceded his death. Many of us can testify to the rich blessing of his ministry from our own pulpits. Those of us who knew him intimately can also testify to his deep devotion to his Lord and to the consequent blessing always experienced in fellowship with him.

We are all aware of the fact that our loss is his great gain. We know that for him to depart this earthly life was to immediately be with Christ, which is far better. We believe that he could honestly echo the words of the great apostle, “to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”

Dr. Shepperson had three sons, two of whom entered the ministry, and a daughter. Flournoy Shepperson, Jr. was ordained in the BPC and later came into the RPCES. He pastored churches in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Pittstown, PA, Savannah, GA, Durham, NC and Tampa, FL. Dr. Shepperson’s son Sam was also ordained in the BPC and later affiliated with the PCA. He had a long pastorate in Arkansas and is now honorably retired. It was Sam who so graciously provided the news clipping and photograph of his father.

Words to Live By: The Church is blessed with many faithful pastors. Sometimes it is easy to focus on the relative few who stray in doctrine or practice, and we forget to praise God for how He works through those who remain faithful and steadfast year after year. We are engaged in a great spiritual battle, and your pastor is on the front lines. Remember to pray for him.

Note: Our Through the Scriptures and Through the Standards sections have now been replaced by RSS feeds which appear at the top of right-hand column, and also at the bottom of each blog page.

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