Global RP Unity: Camps, Conferences and more

Over the past year or so, the RP Global Alliance have contributed a series on Global Unity to the various RP Church magazines around the world - the Covenanter Witness, RP Witness and Good News. Stephen was asked to contribute two articles from a historical perspective. You can read the second one below:

Having considered in the previous article how Reformed Presbyterians have sought to express unity with believers outside the RP church family, we are now going to consider how a sense of unity has been fostered between the various denominations which make up the global RP Church.

International Support and Encouragement between Covenanters

There were, of course, personal links between Covenanters in Scotland, Ireland and North America even before the formation of the various Reformed Presbyterian denominations. Congregations in what are now the United States and Canada were formed as Covenanters emigrated from the Old World to the New, with pastors sent from Scotland and Ireland to minister to them. The first American RP Presbytery was formed in 1774 by four immigrant Irish and Scottish RP ministers. In 1858, the first RP congregation in Australia was started after an Irish RP licentiate was sent as a Colonial Missionary.

While the majority of Covenanter ministers who crossed the Atlantic in the eighteenth century did so permanently, there were also who visited for the sake of mutual encouragement, before returning home. In 1789 Rev. James Reid was given leave from his duties in South West Scotland to visit America, returning the following year with a call from South Carolina, either to himself or to any other member of the Presbytery – which they all declined. This practice of ‘mutual eligibility’ – a minister in one RP denomination being free to receive a call from a congregation in another RP denomination – has continued without controversy to the present day.

As time went on, traversing the Atlantic became less of an ordeal. In fact, in 1844, Rev. John Sprott (a Scottish RP licentiate who had become a Seceder minister in Nova Scotia), commented that ‘crossing the Atlantic is now an easy matter’ as it only took ten days. In 1860 RPCS minister John Graham, having recently become minister in Liverpool, went to America and came back with $3000 which enabled his new congregation to finish their church building. Irish RP minister Thomas Houston spent four months in the States in 1856, and an American obituary stated ‘his friends and admirers on this side of the Atlantic were as numerous as those in the country of his birth’. William Milroy was the first RPCS minister to train for the ministry in North America, studying at the university of Toronto, before being licensed by the RP Presbytery of Pittsburgh in 1861 and immediately returning home to accept a call in Scotland.

 International Conferences

Opportunities for unity between the various RP denominations, particularly in the form of conferences, began in 1896, and really took off in the second half of the twentieth century. Obvious reasons for this were the rise of air travel – journeys which had once been measured in weeks and then days, now only took hours – as well as better economic conditions in the English-speaking world.

Another reason is that by the time of the first international conference in 1896, it was clear that institutional unity with other denominations would be impossible for RPs unless they gave up their distinctive principles. The second half of the 1800s was a time when there was a great push for the different denominations to unite with each other. As we saw last time, these efforts at visible unity were something that Reformed Presbyterians had a great deal of sympathy for, and some of the leading RPs of the 19th century were noted for their catholicity and warm personal friendships with those in other denominations. However, they were not in favour of unity at any cost.

In Scotland, the majority of the denomination, which had split off in 1863, united with the Free Church in 1876, which in turn merged with the United Presbyterian Church in 1900 and then the Church of Scotland in 1929. In 1872, RPCS minister Torrens Boyd, speaking at the Irish RP Synod, had prophetically warned that such unions were like chaining two ships together – when the waves begin to roll ‘they will rasp each other’s sides off, tear open each other’s hearts and go down together’. At the same Synod, the RPCI received a proposal from the mainstream (and still exclusively psalm-singing) Presbyterian Church in Ireland to discuss a potential union. They replied, acknowledging the Christian kindness and love of union in initiating the proposal, declaring their ‘earnest concern and desire to have the divisions of the Church speedily healed, on the grounds of Scriptural truth and duty’, but concluding that given their ministerial and membership vows, any discussions were unlikely to produce the desired union.

Against this background, the ‘First International Convention of Reformed Presbyterian Churches’ was held in Scotland in 1896. The purpose of was ‘to examine the distinctive doctrines that were held by the three Churches and to renew their commitment to these common principles’. The book published to commemorate the conference lauded its success in this regard: ‘The first international Convention in her history has infused new life into the Church, and cheered her ranks’. Another benefit of the conference was that ‘Covenanters from the Old and New Worlds met each other for the first time face to face, and clasped hands warmly together in a friendship which will endure while life lasts’.

One of the resolutions at the conference was to ask the Synods to hold a similar convention in 1899. As it turned out, however, it was almost four decades before a similar conference was held – marking the tercentenary of the signing of the National Covenant of Scotland in 1938. The conference – once again held in Scotland – was organised by Revs A. C. Gregg, W. J. Moffett (RPCS) and Rev. J. Boyd Tweed (an American pastor who had recently been inducted as pastor in the Glasgow RP Church). The number of delegates totalled 630, with more joining them for the various public meetings.

Once again, it was hoped that a series of conferences would follow, but the war and its aftermath delayed plans. International Youth Conventions were held in Scotland in 1962 (with 35 Americans chartering a plane) and Ireland in 1964.

The first all-age International Conference of the modern era was held in 1966 in Carlton College, Michigan. Between 60 and 70 Irish RPs chartered a flight to attend, with a total attendance of 1352. A conference planned for Scotland in 1968 did not take place. Further International Conferences in the US were held in 1966 and 1970, with the planned 1974 conference moved to 1976 due to fuel shortages. Since then, International Conferences have been held in America every four years, with the venue changing to Calvin College, Michigan in 1996 and then Indiana Wesleyan University in 2012. The conference planned for 2020 was initially postponed for a year due to the outbreak of COVID-19, before being cancelled altogether. God willing, we will return to IWU in 2024.

 International Conferences organised by the Irish RP Church have been held every four years from 1982, initially at Kerrykeel, then Portrush, Termonfeckin (five times), Gartmore (Scotland – twice) and from 2018 at the Gold Coast in Waterford.

 The current arrangement means that an International Conference is held every two years, alternatively in the USA and the UK/Ireland. As the years have gone by, the number of countries represented has increased dramatically given new RP works in Asia and South America.

The RPCS contingent at the last International Conference in Waterford in 2018

 Opportunities for Global Service and Ministry

The Geelong Bible Conference is held in Australia every two years and has featured speakers from the RPCNA, RPCI and RPCS, as well as from those outside the global RP church. Due to their relative proximity, the Australian RP Church has taken a particular interest in the Japanese Presbytery, sending and receiving mission teams, as well as sending ministers to teach at Kobe Theological Hall (as other RP denominations have also done). 

A ‘Consultative Committee of the Three Covenanting Churches’ met 3 times during the 1966 conference and discussed efforts by the Synods towards drawing the three churches together. They discussed the following issues: Praise (namely the possibility of an international psalter), Christian Education, Magazines, Exchange of Personnel (in the form of pulpit exchanges and stated supplies, as well as Irish RPs teaching and studying at RPTS as well as Belfast), Foreign Mission Work, International Conferences, Pensions, and Reciprocity in Doctrine.

A joint meeting of ministers and elders representing the Churches in Scotland, Ireland and America was due to be held in July 1972 in Portrush but was cancelled due to the outbreak of the ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. In our own day, the RP Global Alliance seeks to continue these efforts to facilitate cooperation between the various denominations.

Since 1997, congregations in the various RP denominations have benefited from hosting RP Mission Teams, organised by the RPCNA, but with opportunities for others to serve as well. Irish and Scottish young (and older) people have served together on go teams.  Young people from the US and elsewhere have had the opportunity to experience the wider RP church through formal initiatives like the Covenanter Summer Institute and Semester in Scotland, as well as through attending church camps in Ireland. Irish young people have taken part in Theological Foundations Backpacking trips in Colorado. Seminary students have taken advantage of the opportunity to do internships in RP congregations on other continents.

Many of us have been personally enriched by these connections, and while we feel the smallness of our own denominations at times, those things we perhaps miss out on are more than compensated for by being part of a global body with an international vision and an abundance of opportunities for service and fellowship together.

RPs and Global Unity

Over the past year or so, the RP Global Alliance have contributed a series on Global Unity to the various RP Church magazines around the world - the Covenanter Witness, RP Witness and Good News. Stephen was asked to contribute two articles from a historical perspective. You can read the first one below:

Although Covenanters today make up a very small part of the church of Jesus Christ in each nation of which they are a part, the original Covenanter vision was for national unity with global cooperation. In these next two articles, after touching briefly on that original vision, we will look at how Reformed Presbyterians have sought to visibly express their unity with other Christians – both inside and outside the global RP family. 

The Scottish Reformation

Each branch of the worldwide RP family traces its roots back to sixteenth-century Scotland – but what is often forgotten is that the Scottish Reformation itself had an international flavour. The first Scottish martyr, Patrick Hamilton, encountered Luther’s teachings when studying at the University of Paris. He also studied in Louvain and at the University of Marburg, where he developed a friendship with the French Reformer Francis Lambert of Avignon – possibly meeting Erasmus and Luther along the way.

In the build-up to the Scottish Reformation, John Knox spent four years with Protestant communities in France, Germany and Switzerland where he ‘experienced the diversity of international Protestantism’. Indeed, ‘for the remainder of his life he remained in contact with his European friends and acquaintances and valued his membership of this broad religious brotherhood’. For Knox, John Calvin’s Geneva was ‘the most perfect school of Christ that ever was in the earth since the days of the Apostles’, and Knox himself ministered to a congregation there before returning to Scotland.

Solemn League and Covenant

The Scottish Reformation, brought about under God by Knox and others in 1560, began to unravel before the end of the century. However, a Second Reformation recovered and advanced what had been lost, reaching its high point in the two covenants at the heart of Reformed Presbyterian identity. The Solemn League and Covenant has been called ‘the climax of Scotland’s Calvinist reformation’, though it was signed by the English Parliament as well as the Scots’, along with many people of all classes in Scotland, England and Ireland. This covenant called for ‘the nearest conjunction and uniformity in religion’ in the three kingdoms, in the hope ‘that we, and our posterity after us, may, as brethren, live in faith and love, and the Lord may delight to dwell in the midst of us’.

Covenanters’ Global Vision

One of the immediate consequences of the Covenant was the sending of Scottish delegates to join their English counterparts at the Westminster Assembly, to draw up what became the central documents of worldwide Presbyterianism. The Ordinance calling for the assembly, passed by both the House of Commons and Lords, explicitly made it their agenda to bring about ‘nearer agreement with the Church of Scotland, and other Reformed Churches abroad’. Indeed, Covenanters envisaged future international cooperation, with the martyr James Guthrie (1612-1661) arguing not just for provincial Synods and national General Assemblies, but for representatives from each country being sent ‘to a more universal Assembly’.

RP Evangelical Cooperation

By the time of Guthrie’s execution in 1661, the three kingdoms had rejected their vows, and those who still held to the vision of a Covenanted Reformation were a persecuted remnant. Following the end of persecution and the establishment of Reformed Presbyterian Churches in Scotland, Ireland and North America, the question for future generations of Covenanters became how they would exist alongside other Christians who did not hold to their ideals. In fact, with the advent of evangelicalism, by the nineteenth-century the question was not simply one of existing alongside Christians of differing beliefs, but working with them.

In the 1800s, leading Reformed Presbyterians such as William Symington (1795-1862) in Scotland and Thomas Houston (1803-1882) in Ireland, proved that it was possible to do just that without abandoning their own convictions. Both men were involved in numerous missionary and philanthropic societies with Christians from other denominations, and often preached in congregations outside their own branch of the church. Shortly after the formation of the Free Church of Scotland in 1843, Symington was asked to preach the opening sermon at an interdenominational conference to mark the bicentenary of the Westminster Assembly. His sermon, entitled ‘Love one another’, included a call for unity, which helped lead to the first meeting of the Evangelical Alliance. His older brother Andrew, the denomination’s Professor of Theology, was one of a number of Scottish RPs who took part in that first meeting in Liverpool in 1845. A minister of another denomination remarked: ‘his language in the midst of Evangelical Episcopalians, Methodists, Independents, Baptists, Seceders, Relief, Free Church, and others, indicated no coldness on the subject of Christian union, but the reverse’.

Reformed Presbyterians felt they had something to contribute to the doctrinal basis of such organisations. In fact, William Symington managed to get the original doctrinal statement of the Evangelical Alliance amended to include a reference to the mediatorial kingship of Christ. The Alliance also took a strong position on the Lord’s Day, and according to Symington ‘the movement has no connexion with Voluntaryism and…there are hundreds who are sound to the backbone on the subject of National religion’.

Around the same time Andrew Symington contributed a chapter to a book entitled Essays on Christian Union. He urged Christians from different denominations to speak to one another ‘face to face, and in co-operation in good works’ rather than just reading what others said, or writing to or about one another. He did not advocate institutional unity but saw denominations as like the different tribes of Israel – with their own banners but ultimately rallying around one standard against a common foe.

A Basis of Unity

What role did the Solemn League and Covenant play in all this? For William Symington, it would only be when the Spirit gave ‘the ministers and members of the divided Churches of the Reformation one heart and one way’ that ‘the glorious conceptions of the Solemn League and of the Westminster Assembly’ would be fulfilled. In Ireland, Thomas Houston went further, seeing the Covenants not simply as a spur to unity, but as the basis for it. He wrote a book advocating covenant renewal ‘so that those who are desirous of union throughout the churches’ would have ‘an approved basis of scriptural fellowship, and co-operation for the advancement of the Redeemer’s kingdom’.

Yet while Houston, ‘in marked contrast with many contemporary schemes for union’ desired a union around the Covenants, he also exhibited a warm catholicity when it came to those of different convictions. He could speak of ‘the great and the good of various names, Episcopalians, Independents and Presbyterians’. When Houston sought to raise funds for a church plant, several endorsements of his character by respected ministers of different denominations were included to ‘show that the attempt is not regarded as sectarian’. The testimony of the Seceder R. J. Bryce is a glowing tribute to Houston’s broadmindedness:

‘I do not know, in any denomination, a man of more catholic spirit than Mr. Houston, nor one who unites more perfectly a firm adherence to his own conscientious convictions, with the kindest and most brotherly feelings towards all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity, even in the denominations of Evangelical Christians who differ most widely from his own’.

Practical International Cooperation

Late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Reformed Presbyterians participated in bodies such as the Alliance of the Reformed Churches Holding the Presbyterian System and the International Congress of Calvinists. The Alliance (also known as the Pan-Presbyterian Council) began in 1875 and met in the UK or North America every few years. It soon comprised around 300 delegates from an impressive representation of denominations which also included churches in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and New Zealand. At its meeting in Belfast in 1884, Irish RP Minister J. A. Chancellor (1824-95) gave a paper on ‘The qualifications and duties of elders’. Elders, he said, should have ‘Catholic qualifications’ – realising that the church in any one place or country ‘is but a branch’ of Christ’s church. No single church could bear the burden of the Great Commission itself, and in fact ‘the more conscientious an elder is in the discharge of his duties, the more humble and distressed will he feel at the shortcomings of his own denomination, and instead of restricting his sympathies within its narrow circle, he will expand himself in agonizing earnestness over the whole field’. The servants of Christ should ‘take note of the efforts made by Churches with whom they may have scant sympathy, that they may learn to emulate their sacrifices, while honouring their devotion’.

In our own day, RP involvement in the wider church can be seen by participation in the European Conference of Reformed Churches, the North American Presbyterian and Reformed Council and the International Conference of Reformed Churches, as well as other efforts on more local levels.

Such involvement is not without its challenges – as when Chancellor spoke unsuccessfully against the admission of the anti-Calvinist Cumberland Presbyterian Church to the Reformed Alliance in 1884, or when a couple of years later the RPCNA threatened to withdraw if hymns were introduced to its meetings. On the whole however RPs have concluded that it is worth the effort since, as Houston once put it, ‘while the points on which evangelical Christians differ are not immaterial, those on which they are agreed are numerous and fundamental’.

Irish RP Synod

This past week, Stephen represented the Scottish RP Church at the Irish RP Church’s annual Synod meetings. This year Synod was held in Knockbracken RP Church, where Stephen had worked as an assistant for a year before coming to Stranraer.

The Synod began on the Monday night with a sermon by the outgoing Moderator, Rev. Andrew Kerr (Knockbracken). Rev. Mark Loughridge (Letterkenny and Milford), whose brother Peter is minister in North Edinburgh, was elected Moderator for the year ahead.

On Tuesday night, Stephen gave an update on the work of the Scottish RP Church, before preaching to begin the Wednesday morning day of prayer.

The Moderator and the American RP delegate then travelled across to Scotland for the meeting of our own Presbytery on Friday.

Stephen pictured with the Moderator and other delegates - William Macleod (FCC), Kevin Bidwell (EPCEW) and David Weir (RPCNA).

The Synod finished on the Wednesday night by commissioning Isaac Berrocal for mission work in Almuñécar and Nerja in Spain, a region where 90% of people have never heard the gospel.

On the weekend prior to the Synod, Stephen spoke at Knockbracken’s annual church weekend on the ‘One anothers’ of the Bible.

The most well-known name associated with Knockbracken is Thomas Houston, who was ordained there not long after William Symington began his ministry in Stranraer. Houston spent his whole ministry (1828 - 1882) in Knockbracken and Stephen spent a year studying his life for a Masters thesis in Irish history. Houston was a prolific author, whose book on prayer meetings has recently been digitised.

The current minister in Knockbracken is Andrew Kerr, who was the 2018 Moderator of Synod. Andrew writes regularly for the Gentle Reformation blog. Below is part of an interview he did for a recent documentary on the Welsh minister Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

Let Them Live

On Friday night, 3 of us from Stranraer joined people from the other four RPCS congregations at a meeting in Glasgow for a presentation by Let Them Live, a pro-life ministry under the oversight of the Irish RP Church.

The presentation was given by two of Stephen’s former classmates at Theological College - Joel Loughridge (Cloughmills RPC) and Philip Dunwoody (Dervock RPC). They explained how the ministry began and spoke about the need for the church to argue against abortion from an explicitly Christian perspective.

From a Stranraer point of view, it was encouraging to hear the work is under the oversight of the Cookstown RPC session (a recent church plant, pastored by another of Stephen’s classmates) - a reminder that even small congregations can play a significant part in something like this.

The hope is that something similar can be started in Scotland. You can read more about the evening on the RPCS website.

A New Year's Letter

The following letter was written by the minister of Stephen’s home congregation of Faughan in 1887 to the members of the church looking back on the year that was past.

131 years later, it’s still very relevant as we close out one year and begin another:

ANNUAL REPORT: Faughan Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1887

To the Members of the Congregation

Dear Friends,

In the good Providence of God we have been brought to the termination of another year of our congregational life; and it may not be inappropriate for me to briefly review the past, to glance at the future, and to put present duty before your minds. As we look back to the past, we are constrained to acknowledge the goodness of God, erewhile mixing trembling with our thankfulness. Another fifty-two Sabbaths are gone for ever, and what report have they borne on high? Certainly every one of them shall meet us again. Think you shall that meeting be joyful or sorrowful? We may not recal the past, we can improve present opportunities; let us do it in the diligent and attentive use of the public and private means of grace, divinely appointed as the scene of spiritual blessing. Death, whose hand is never still, has been busy during the year, some of our oldest members have been called home; but our sorrow is not that of those who have no hope. We desire to hear the Master’s voice saying – “Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man cometh.” Affliction, too, has cast its shadow over some homes – remember it has not come unsent; and realise that, though your tears may have washed your affections white, you have been in a Father’s hand, who, though smiting, can heal again.

The role of membership remains substantially the same as during the last year. Would that our list of members were all true members of Christ’s body; growing up to the fulness of the stature of manhood in Jesus Christ! Looking to the future, let us encourage one another, provoking to works of faith and labours of love; let us manifest the charity that suffereth long and is kind; let love unfeigned rule in your hearts, and in all things act worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, being in your walk and conversation living epistles, requiring no translation – read of all men.

The cause of Temperance demands your active sympathy. Drunkenness is slaying its thousands. Can you, as Church members, be indifferent? In the good work of Temperance, be fellow-labourers with Christ; coldness ought not to retard you, for Christ Himself was discouraged when among men; here, as everywhere else, “in due time ye shall reap if ye faint not.”

The Faughan church building as it was at the time the letter was written

The young of the congregation I would earnestly urge to acquire the knowledge, which is “the best of the sciences” – the knowledge of Bible truth. If parents neglect their home duties of teaching and catechising, they are making their children pass through the fire to the Molech of ignorance and sin. The Church cannot take the place of family training; it can only assist it, and for this purpose all who are able ought to attend the Bible class on Sabbath mornings in the Church.

In conclusion, we crave anew an interest in your prayers, that the preaching of the word and administration of the ordinances in your midst may be blessed, and that journeying to the common home of the redeemed we may each one be drawn more closely together in the bonds of true sympathy – the sympathy founded upon love to God and truth – and thus in our different positions “serve our generation by the will of God.”

Commending you each one to God, and to the word of His grace, which is able to build you up and give you an inheritance among all them that are sanctified,

I subscribe myself, dear Friends,

Your Minister,

SAMUEL FERGUSON.

(Trevor Magee, Planted By A River, p. 64.)

Related Links: Don Whitney: Questions to ask at the start of a new year