Entries Tagged 'Church History' ↓

A few weeks ago I posted an article highlighting something I found in the book The Scotch-Irish: A Social History by James G. Leyburn. Today I want to post an extended quotation from the book and make a few observations.

I am in the section of the book that deals with Scotch-Irish immigration to America. The chapter is “The Presbyterian Church”. The first point made is about the lack of churches among many (most) of these immigrants. Two reasons are cited: First, the lack of trained ministers. The Presbyterians insisted on a classical education for their clergy, something in short supply on the frontier. Trained ministers from the Old Country were rarely found among the immigrants.

But an even greater problem afflicted the re-establishment of the church among these immigrants, all of them Presbyterian in their native country. That problem was a general spiritual malaise that affected all the major denominations at the time, according to Leyburn. My lengthy quotation follows (including the quote in our little ‘identify’ the person and time game a few days ago). The quotation comes from pp. 277-279.

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Ran across this in my reading:

“Conservatives were contemptuous of [his] pulpit pyrotechnics, dubious of the validity of the sudden conversions he achieved, and sure that the church would degrade itself by diluting its message and making religion ‘easy’ for the common man.”

So… who is the preacher I mask by ‘[his]’ and when is the historical setting?

No Googling!

A very interesting discussion on names and terminology in the 17th century is going on here. Would the first Baptists have embraced the term ‘anabaptist’? Apparently not.

Apparently labels matter (or mattered) to some.

I am in the midst of rebuilding my lawn after having a new $eptic $y$tem installed, so I am too busy for blogging. But let me note a few things of interest to me lately…

Nasa is Taking Shots at the Moon

There are places on the Moon where the sun hasn’t shined for millions of years [sic]. Dark polar craters too deep for sunlight to penetrate are luna incognita, the realm of the unknown, and in their inky depths, researchers believe, may lie a treasure of great value.

NASA is about to light one up.

For Church History Buffs

• Christianity Today’s Liveblog provices a list of favorite Church history sites. Two I knew about, but three are new and look promising.

So, what do you think of Video Games?

• The Canadian Christianity site has an article that raises some concerns about the addiction of many to gaming. A real concern, I think, but a typically too weak response in our child-centered era. (I think every branch of conservative Christianity is too weak on this, including Fundamentalism.)

And last, for now…

What gives with this Muslim-Christian conference?

• And did the Christians involved give away too much in the process? And what should a prominent Minnesota Baptist pastor say to another prominent Minnesota Baptist pastor this time? [Probably he should say more than he will say, I reckon.]

A bit more from my Church History notes. We were nearing the end of the semester when we discussed revival and revivalists. The heading of this lecture is the subject line of this post, “Characteristics of Revival”. Here they are:

• Interdenominational (but not undistinguished cooperation between infidelity and fidelity)
• Prominence of prayer

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In an earlier post, ‘stages in the history of visible church unity‘, I left off on the point noting the emergence of the World Council of Churches on the one hand and the International Council of Christian Churches on the other. What follows is a bit of an expansion on that, again from my 28 year old Church History class notes.

Edinburgh 1910 – World Missionary Conference

• Turning point towards WCC
• International Missionary Council

[From this also flowed two conferences...]

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I’d like to resume my notes from Church History class. I am taking a break from my break from blogging – largely related to working out my taxes… I hate doing taxes. Reality is so depressing! Far better to live in the imprecise haze of not knowing exactly where one stands! In Canada, our tax day is Apr 30, so we have a bit longer to dither than our USA friends. (Of course, if you don’t have to pay, they are in no hurry for you to get your refund!)

So a little R & R… blogging!

The lecture I am entering today comes under a header entitled:

The Ecumenical Movement

Next comes a quote – may not be exact words, but something was said that struck me:

Be aware of the difference between my will, Satan’s wiles, and the Spirit’s wooing.

Now for the main lecture:

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In my Church History notes folder I have the reprint of an article written by Dr. Panosian in 1963 for the Nov/Dec issue of Voice of the Alumni, the news-magazine for BJU alumni. The article has a picture of a very young Dr. P. It was written a bare six or seven years from the Billy Graham 1957 New York crusade, the moment when lines were starkly drawn and personal decisions for or against the new evangelicalism had to be made.

Dr. P summarizes the definitions of other men for the (then) new movement. Among those cited are William E. Ashbrook, Harold J. Ockenga, Charles Woodbridge, Bob Jones, Jr., and Robert C. Brien. From these, Dr. P distills this definition:

So Neo-Evangelicalism is a movement, an approach, a group, a theological position, a practice, an attitude, a method and a mood. It prefers positivism without negativism, liberalism to fundamentalism, infiltration to separation, results to principles, scholarship to Revelation, ‘Preaching the Gospel’ without contending for the faith, ‘love’ to Truth, and ‘unity’ to loyalty to the Word of God. Ignoring the injunctions of the Epistles, concerning the believers’ reaction to error, infidelity, and apostasy — mark them, avoid them, rebuke them, have no fellowship with them, reprove, exhort, receive not, try them, from such turn away — the Neo-Evangelical has already been judged by God’s Word. He needs no other judgement.

A few thoughts flow from this…

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I’ve been blogging my old Church History class notes [minus the doodles] for a little while now. The next two sections concern new evangelicalism:

The Course of Neo-Evangelicalism

1. Sellout of schools: Fuller Theological Seminary and Wheaton College [as examples]
2. Emergence of honoured leaders:
   Harold Ockenga
   Carl Henry
   Edward Carnell
   Donald Ray Barnhouse
   Vernon Grounds
   Bernard Ramm
   Alan Redpath
3. Emergence of Propaganda Vehicles
   Christianity Today (an answer to the liberal Christian Century)
   Christian Life
   Eternity

As I think about this section, I must not have fully understood the lecture, or else ‘sellout’ is my term. Fuller was created for the purpose of advancing the neo-evangelical cause. It has always been committed to a course of compromise, whereas Wheaton turned away from a more militant beginning to the position it holds today.

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Continuing my church history notes from 28 years ago…

Two of the prominent men of the neo-evangelical movement were John Carnell and Carl Henry. My notes at this point say “both from fundamental background.”

Henry was the first editor of Christianity Today, and was

at the time trying to make conservative evangelical orthodox Christianity rationally acceptable.

AIn 1947, Henry articulated something I have headed in my notes as the “NEEDS OF CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICALISM”

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