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March 31: “The Practice Has Existed Among Us”

31 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

In a substantial resource written by Dr. Clifford M. Drury under the title Presbyterian Panorama, we read on p. 4:— 

“At a meeting of the Standing Committee held March 31, 1903, a circular letter was approved to be sent to the various “missionary associations in Europe and America” to inquire into “the measures and success of others engaged in Missionary undertakings.” The letter carried the following paragraph:

‘From the time the Presbyterian Church was organized in this country, which was at the commencement of the last century, the practice has existed among us, of sending ministers of the gospel to preach to those who had not its institutions regularly established among them.’

The six simple words, “The practice has existed among us,” emphasize the continuance of the missionary spirit in the Presbyterian Church from the time of the organization of the first presbytery in 1706. Indeed, Presbyterians were carrying on missionary work in the colonies before that date. In 1649 the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in New England received its charter from the the English Parliament. Shortly after its organization, the Society took over the support of Rev. John Elliot, who had begun his ministry with the Indians of Massachusetts in 1646. This Society had the loyal support of Presbyterians throughout all England.”

Words to Live By:
Of course, the problem is that if you don’t believe the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone, then there really is no reason for going to the mission field, for you have no message. That hard reality was what was behind the reassessment issued in 1932 in the report known as Rethinking Missions. By the beginning of the twentieth century, modernism had made heavy inroads into the mainline Presbyterian Church, undercutting the cause of missions. Fewer missionaries were sent out as a result, and of those who did go, fewer still took the Gospel message with them. This was the problem pointed out by J. Gresham Machen that in turn led to the formation of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (IBPFM).

Today the PCA alone fields over 600 full-time missionaries, along with thousands of part-time and occasional missionaries. The OPC, ARP, RPCNA, and other conservative Presbyterian denominations do their part as well and with equal vigor, each in accord with their respective size and strength. And in all this, we all seek to lift of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, that God alone might be glorified and that He might sovereignly build His kingdom. Let this be a reminder to pray for your missionaries and to pray for those who train them, that by God’s grace all might remain true to the Word of God.

 

 

 

 

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March 13: On the Value of Presbyteries

13 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

You Can’t Keep a Good Presbytery Down

The value and help of a Presbytery full of godly men—men who truly fear the Lord and who seek His will in all things—cannot be overestimated. The whole point of the Presbyterian system is that we should be connected, one to another, in the Body of Christ. Our Lord intends that we should be about the work of building up one another, each of us consistently working at pointing the other to Christ as our only Savior and Lord.

On pages 254-255 of Richard Webster’s work, A History of the Presbyterian Church in America (1857), we read this account which serves to make our point:

The Rev. Eleazer Wheelock, afterwards President of Dartmouth College, wrote from Lebanon, Connecticut, March 13, 1749, to Dr. Bellamy :—

” There are many things that have a threatening aspect on our religious interests in these parts: Antinomian principles, and the Korah-like claims which are the usual concomitants of them; prevailing worldliness and coldness which has become a common distemper among us; growing immorality, justified by the wildness and errors of many high professors; a want of promising candidates for the ministry, and the great difficulty that commonly attends the settling of any, chiefly through the strait-handedness of parishes toward the support of the gospel; the want of a good discipline in our churches, and the difficulty upon many accounts of reviving it, &c. &c. I am fully of the opinion that it is time for ministers to wake up for a redress of these evils; and I can think of no way more likely, than for those, who are in the same way of thinking about the most important things in religion, to join in a presbytery. 

Don’t you see that Arminian candidates can’t settle in the ministry? Don’t you see how much those want the patronage of a godly presbytery, who do settle? For want of it, they get broken bones, which will pain them all their days. Would not such a presbytery soon have all the candidates of worth under them, and, consequently, presently most of the vacant churches? Our wild people are not half so much prejudiced against the Scottish constitution as against our own. Many churches in these parts might easily be brought into it, and my soul longs for it. . . . 

For my part, I think it high time that men who have been treated as Mr. Robbins (of Branford) was, should have some way of relief, which I am informed was the view of that honest Calvinist who first moved in that proposal. . . . Is there not some reason to hope that hereby there will be a door opened for bringing things into a better posture among the Calvinist party? You know how God has overruled things in the Jerseys.”

Words to Live By:
Now, there is much in that letter that would take more time to explain than we have here today. But reading the broader strokes of Rev. Wheelock’s letter, the lesson to take away concerns the value of a godly presbytery. A good presbytery is first of all a guard against error, setting a biblical standard for who can serve in the pulpit, and so protecting the churches of the presbytery. Moreover, in a godly presbytery, we can expect to find a continued exhortation, one to another, to maintain that high standard.

A good presbytery is a home and refuge to the men who make up the presbytery. Much more than offering mere fellowship, it should be a place to find encouragement, exhortation, and challenge in our high calling as Christians and as under-shepherds of the Lord’s people.

A good presbytery seeks to advance the Kingdom of God, and so seeks to plant new churches, while also building up and encouraging its existing churches. The work of planting new churches is guided by men who have themselves done that same work. They know the pitfalls and errors to avoid. They know the strengths and abilities that will be needed if the work is to prosper.

A godly presbytery will also keep an eye on its established churches, not wanting that any should suffer. I’ve long thought that presbyteries should encourage small and struggling churches by choosing to meet at those locations, with the presbytery covering all the expenses of their time there. Why meet in the prosperous churches when there is opportunity to build up the weaker ones? By meeting in our weaker churches we come to know the people in that church and so are reminded to pray regularly for them. By meeting there we offer a testimony to the watching world, and particularly in a small town, that can be a powerful testimony. Extending the opportunity, the men of presbytery might arrive early to do the work of evangelism in the community. A small conference, open to the public, might be offered on some suitable subject. The presbytery should also strive to include the host congregation in times of worship, fellowship, and prayer.

What else should we find among the qualities of a godly presbytery? And what can you do to bring that about? How can we be actively engaged, day by day, in building up one another in Christ?

“And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error; but speaking truth in love, we may grow up in all things into him, who is the head, even Christ; from whom all the body fitly framed and knit together through that which every joint supplieth, according to the working in due measure of each several part, maketh the increase of the body unto the building up of itself in love.”—Ephesians 4:11-16, ASV

 

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March 11: The Trial of Francis Makemie (1707)

11 March, 2015 in March 2015 by archivist | No comments

William Buell Sprague makes the notation in his Annals of the American Pulpit, that Richard Webster in his History of the Presbyterian Church in America, has this to say relative to Makemie’s trial—

Rev. Francis Makemie on Trial before Lord Cornbury“The Supreme Court met on Tuesday, March 11 [1707], at which time Makemie was present. The grand jury examined four witnesses, who testified that Makemie preached no false doctrine. His trial was set down for the June term; and Makemie, on his own bonds and those previously given, was allowed to depart. The law of the Province was, that all persons professing faith in God by Jesus Christ His only Son, may freely meet at convenient places and worship according to their respective persuasions. It will be seen from this that Makemie, in preaching in New York, was acting well within his legal rights. Notwithstanding his acquittal, his bail was not discharged until he had paid the whole cost of the prosecution, amounting to the sum of eighty-three pounds, seven shillings and six pence.”

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February 28: The Presbyterian Church in Uganda

28 February, 2015 in February 2015 by archivist | No comments

For today’s post, we will look at a letter composed by the Rev. Don Dunkerley, a PCA pastor who was at that time also serving as the Director of a missions organization known as Proclamation International. He writes here with first-hand knowledge of the establishment of a Presbyterian witness in the nation of Uganda. This letter provides both a unique insight into the birth of a Church, and provides at the same time a great example of why it is so important to have a denominational archives like the PCA Historical Center which will preserve such things. 

July 18, 1986

Pastor Leon F. Wardell

Dear Leon,

I enjoyed our phone conversation several days ago. I phoned you in my role as Director of Proclamation International, the sole representative of the Presbyterian Church in Uganda in the USA, because the brethren in Uganda have been asking me how their request for fraternal relations was being handled by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America.   As Chairman of the General Assembly’s Committee on Inter-Church Relations, you asked me to write this letter giving information about the PCU, since their request has been referred by the assembly to your committee.  You felt that the kind of information I shared on the phone would be helpful to your committee if it could be distributed to them in letter form.

A short time after speaking with you, I spoke with John Galbraith, Chairman of Inter-Church Relations for the General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.  Since the PCU has made an identical request to the OPC, I will also send a copy to John.

The Presbyterian Church in Uganda is a daughter church of the PCA and the OPC.  This is not true in the formal sense of having been planted by PCA and OPC missionaries, for none of our missionaries were working in Uganda.  Nevertheless, in a less formal but very real sense it is a daughter of both of our churches, as the history will make clear.

Although the first missionary to enter Uganda was a Scottish Presbyterian, Alexander Mackay, he was sent by the Church of England and did not plant a Presbyterian but an Anglican Church.  For almost a century thereafter Uganda was a British protectorate, and no Protestant missionaries except Anglicans were allowed into Uganda by the British.

In the early 1970’s a movement for indigenous Ugandan churches was led by Dr. Kefa Sempangi, an Art Professor in Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda’s capital. Kefa’s spiritual background was in the East Africa Revival Movement in the (Anglican) Church of Uganda. Several indigenous churches arose out of Kefa’s movement, most notably the Redeemed Church which, under his preaching, grew from zero to 14,000 members in a year and a half and saw 150 witch doctors converted in that time.  Dictator Idi Amin ordered Kefa killed and Kefa had several narrow escapes from Amin’s hit men.  These are recorded in his book “A Distant Grief,” by Kefa Sempangi with Barbara Thompson (Gospel Light Regal Books, and soon to be reprinted by World Vision.)  The book also tells of the beginnings of the Redeemed Church, the forerunner of the present Presbyterian Church in Uganda.

In the 1960’s, when Kefa was an Art student in London, he regularly sat under the preaching of Dr. D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones.  He was again exposed to the Reformed faith when he studied under Dr. Hans Rookmaaker at the Free University of Amsterdam, where he‘received his doctorate.  When forced into exile by Amin, at the urging of Dr. Edmund F. Clowney whom he met in the home of Dr. Rookmaaker, he came to Philadelphia and studied at Westminster Theological Seminary, where he learned the Reformed faith more fully.

In 1979 Amin was driven into exile and Kefa returned to Uganda.  The Redeemed Church had survived the Amin years as an underground movement. They met secretly under penalty of death.  Amin’s soldiers had orders to raid their services and kill everyone.  They especially had orders to find and kill Peterson Sozi, pastor of an underground Redeemed Church congregation meeting in a garage in Kabowa.  Nevertheless, the church survived and many of Amin’s soldiers were converted.

On his return to Uganda, Kefa gathered together Redeemed Church leaders and began to teach them the Reformed faith in a weekly Bible study.  Soon Sunday afternoon Reformed services began under an open roof behind the public library building (where First Presbyterian Church, Kampala, meets to this day).  Some Redeemed Church leaders rejected the Reformed faith, especially the doctrines of grace (“TULIP”) and so did many of the people.  The Redeemed Church congregation at Kabowa informed Peterson Sozi and others that, if they wanted to teach this, they should leave and start a new church.  Soon a Presbyterian Church was meeting on Sunday mornings behind the public library.  Kefa Sempangi was its founder, but its pastor was Peterson Sozi.  The associate pastor was Edward Kasaija, who had been associate pastor of the Redeemed Church at Makerere, another congregation that would not accept the Reformed faith.  Joseph Musiitwa, an attorney who had been Kefa’s colleague in leading the indigenous church movement and who had most recently been an elder in Kabowa, was one of the elders of the new Presbyterian Church.  Although the Presbyterian Church was worshiping together by November, 1979, they were not officially organized and recognized by the government until January, 1981.

During his days at Westminster, Kefa had befriended Dr. C. John Miller, a professor at Westminster who is an OPC minister and an evangelist with the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, one of the four organizations that took the leadership in forming the PCA.  After Kefa’s return to Uganda in 1979, Jack Miller spent six months each year in Uganda, training Kefa and other leaders in the Reformed faith, until 1983 when Jack suffered a heart attack in Kampala.

In 1981 Jack Miller brought a team of evangelists and ministers from the Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship into Uganda to evangelize and train leadership.  I was a member of this PEF team.  Except for Jack, I believe all members of the team were in the PCA.

Meanwhile, other PCA and OPC people visited Uganda at the encouragement of Kefa and Jack Miller.  Dr. Harvie Conn from Westminster came.  And Peterson Sozi and Edward Kasaija, the two pastors, were able to come for six month periods to study at Westminster Seminary.

In 1983, on my second trip, Petereon and Edward told me that the elders hoped that I would start an organization that would enable me to return often to Uganda to evangelize and train leadership and would be able to represent the Presbyterian Church in Uganda in the USA.  It might also have a similar ministry in other countries.  In March, 1984, in direct response to the urging of the elders in Kampala, Proclamation International was formed in Pensacola.  Our board has seven men.  I am a PCA minister and five of the other six are elders and deacons in Gulf Coast Presbytery of the PCA.  Until Proclamation International was recognized by the IRS, we operated as a committee of Pinewoods Presbyterian Church (PCA), Cantonment. Fla.

Meanwhile, Dr. Henrik Krabbendam, an OPC minister and a Professor at PCA’s Covenant College, became involved in Uganda.  He has been visiting about twice a year, evangelizing and training leadership.  I believe he is there at this present time.

Close ties are developing with individuals and churches in the Christian Reformed Church.  More financial support is coming presently to the PCU from CRC sources than from either PCA or OPC.  And Reformed Bible College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, an independent school with close ties to the CRC, is also becoming involved.  Our PCU Bible School, “The Back to God School of Evangelism and Discipleship” in Kampala, is being operated with very close ties with Reformed Bible College.  Emma Kiwanuka, a member of the church and a graduate of RBC, is the one full-time faculty member.  He designed the curriculum in consultation with Dr. Burt Braunius, Vice President for Academic Affairs at RBC.  Burt was at one time Director of Christian Education at Mcllwain Memorial Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Pensacola, Florida.

(I am attaching the class schedule for the most recent program, June 23 to July 6.  Please notice the emphasis on TULIP.)  Dr. Dick Van Halsema, President of RBC, has raised most of the money to date for the construction of a church sanctuary for First Presbyterian Church, Kampala, a building that is about half paid for and partially built.

In 1984 Peterson asked me to teach Church Government to the leadership. He felt that they had been grounded in Reformed theology by Miller, Krabbendam and others, but needed help with Reformed Church government. He said he was asking me to teach this because of my practical experience.  He was aware that I had been the organizing first Moderator of Gulf Coast Presbytery, had participated in the Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church in the historic February, 1973, meeting and had been elected by the Convocation of Sessions to be an alternate to the Organizing Committee of the Continuing Presbyterian Church, with which I served actively.

For three weeks in the Fall of 1984 I taught a daily morning seminar. Our text was, “The Form of Presbyterian Church Government” (FOG), written by the Westminster Assembly of Divines and adopted by the Church of Scotland in 1645.  We studied it line by line, discussing at each point its scripturalness and also its relevance to Uganda.  At the conclusion of the course they asked me to write a revision of the Westminster FOG in the light of our discussions.  Daughter churches were being formed and a presbytery should be organized soon.  The constitution would need a FOG suitable for Uganda.

After preparing an initial draft. I sent copies to many that I believed could make helpful suggestions, including:

Dr. Will Barker, Pastor Rich Cannon, Prof. George Clark, Dr. Phillip Clark, Chaplain Don Clements, Dr. Edmund Clowney, Dr. Harvie Conn, Dr. John Richard DeWitt, Dr. Sinclair Ferguson, Pastor John Findlay, Dr. George Fuller, Professor Bill Iverson, Dr. James C. K. Kim, Dr. George Knight, Dr. Henrik Krabbendam, Dr. Paul Long, Pastor Jimmy Lyons, Dr. Allan A. MacRae, Dr. Don MacNair, Dr. C. John Miller, Pastor Iain Murray, Dr. J.I. Packer, Dr. Robert Rayburn, Dr. Robert Reymond, Dr. Palmer Robertson, Dr. Morton H. Smith, Mr. William H. Spanjer, III, Dr. R. C. Sproul, Dr. Dick Van Halsema, Dr. Luder Whitlock, and Pastor Paul Zetterholm.

Significant revisions were made as a result of suggestions from these brethren.  Of course, not all suggestions were incorporated.  Some contradicted each other, especially on the number of offices.  Don MacNair, Henry Krabbendam and Allan MacRae are among those whose specific wording was included at certain points.

When Peterson was in the USA in 1985, I gave him a copy of my revised draft plus the complete file of correspondence.  He took this material back to Uganda where it was thoroughly studied by the elders.  They sent me a list of further revisions, mostly editorial changes to bring it more in line with Ugandan English.

On February 28, 1986, I had the privilege of being the only American visitor present at the formation of the Presbytery of Uganda.  Most of the meeting was taken up with last minute changes to the Form of Government.  The FOG was adopted, along with the Westminster Confession and Catechisms (I am appending a copy of the FOG in the form finally adopted.)  Peterson Sozi was elected Moderator and Kefa Sempangi was elected Stated Clerk.  A “Letter to All Churches of Jesus Christ” (patterned after the one adopted by the First General Assembly of the PCA) was adopted, and copies have since been sent to PCA and OPC
General Assemblies, among others.  The Clerk was instructed to write the following churches for fraternal relations: the Presbyterian Church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Christian Reformed Church (USA), and the Westminster Presbyterian Churches of Australia.  A letter was also sent to Gulf Coast Presbytery, PCA.

In a technical sense, PCU is not a daughter of the PCA and the OPC. But who are its spiritual fathers?  We have seen some names: D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Free University of Amsterdam, Hans Rookmaaker, Edmund P. Clowney, Westminster Theological Seminary, Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship, C. John Miller, Harvie Conn. Henrik Krabbendam, Proclamation International, Reformed Bible College, Dick Van Halsema, Don MacNair and Allan MacRae.  The roots of the PCU are in the PCA, OPC and related movements.  They look to us as their fathers.  We should receive them as our spiritual children.

It should be abundantly clear that the PCU is a church of like faith and order with the PCA and OPC.  It is also our spiritual daughter and looks to us for leadership and help.  Not only is there no good reason to refuse their request for fraternal relations, but to do so would hurt them greatly and hinder our ability to nurture them in the future. I urge your committee to recommend strongly to the PCA General Assemb1y that it enter fraternal relations with the PCU.

May the Lord bless you richly.

In Christian affection,

Don Dunkerley

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February 20: The Presbyterian Church of New Zealand

20 February, 2015 in February 2015 by davidtmyers | 1 comment

A Presbyterian Remnant Remains True to the Gospel

The story line was surprising and sorrowful at the same time. Written just last year, it told the story of the dying Presbyterian Church of New Zealand which had decided to attract new members with an approach  of “drinking  to the Gospel,” as they called it. Many churches of this main line Presbyterian Church down under were adding outreaches entitled “wine  and theology” and “beer and barbecue” to their schedules. It wasn’t always this way in this Presbyterian church.

The beginning of the Presbyterian Church in New Zealand began on February 20, 1840 when the Rev. John Macfarlane of the Church of Scotland arrived in Port Nicholson, Wellington. The Scottish minister became the church planter of the first Scots church four years later in the area.  Even when the disruption occurred in during this same time period, it took a little time for that to reach the new country. Eventually it did however, and ministers from the Free Church of Scotland arrived to minister to the Scottish people residing in the land. In fact, whole groups of families from the Free Presbyterian church began to arrive in country, along with their pastors. A Presbyterian Church true to the gospel was being established in  New Zealand.

Fast forward to the mid-sixties. The Presbyterian Church had grown strong and numerous. Twenty four Presbyteries dotted the land, with 446 parishes, 806 church buildings, ninety thousand plus members, over 70,000 Sunday school pupils, and 20,000 Bible class students. But numbers can be deceiving as well, so it was in this decade that the church was falling into apostasy.  Individual churches began to “come out and be separate,” until 2000, a fully fledged denomination started called Grace Presbyterian Church of New Zealand was organized.

According to its web page, it describes itself as “Presbyterian in government, Reformed in theology, and Evangelical in spirit.”  It states fully that it is a “national Presbyterian Church that holds strongly to the Bible as its rule of faith and life,” with a passion for God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) and a passion for people.”  That means, the web site says, “that we seek to bring glory to God and be aware of where  he is leading through His Word and Holy Spirit.”  Further, it translates out as being “dedicated to proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are lost, both here in New Zealand and elsewhere.” In addition, they as a church are “fully committed to the Reformed faith as the most consistent presentation and outworking of Biblical Christianity.” They take their stand for life in the womb and for marriage between a man and a woman.

Words to Live By:
If you are like this author, you must acknowledge that you had no idea that a faithful Presbyterian remnant for the gospel was existing in this South Pacific nation. At the same time, you are thankful for even small beginnings which seeks to be faithful to the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Why not pray today, and if you are a pastor, pray from the pulpit and/or Sunday School desk for Grace Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, that they will remain faithful to the Scriptures, the Reformed Faith, and the Great Commission?

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