3 April 2008

Presbyterians-Week Headlines

[1] Bible Presbyterian Unity Put On-Hold
[2] California Reconsiders Ownership of Children
[3] Pittsburgh Holds Series on Calvin
[4] 'Wee Frees' Want Their Own Schools
[5] Johnson C. Smith University
[6] Hanover Presbytery Returns to Virginia
[7] Algeria Closes Churches
[8] Redstone Peacefully Transfers Congregation to EPC
[9] Andrew Jumper Scholarship
[10] Bavinck Conference


[1] Bible Presbyterian Unity Put On-Hold

After two decades of serious efforts to reunite differing groups in the Bible Presbyterian family, a developing issue calls all these efforts into question.

On 28 March, South Atlantic Presbytery, meeting at Faith Bible Presbyterian Church in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, withdrew from the General Synod of the denomination. The action was taken in a private session but the end vote of 13 to 5 expressed the dissatisfaction of the majority with continued fraternal relation between the Bible Presbyterians and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Orthodox Presbyterians have been occupied themselves with doctrinal deviation and much of their Assembly time has been absorbed by judicial matters growing out of the dispute. The departing Bible Presbyterians claim the efforts to purify the church and sustain the Reformed confessions have not been either sufficiently rapid or extensive.

A minority protest has been filed with clerks of both jurisdictions. The protest suggests that however appropriate the disjunction may have been, the constitution of the denomination places the decision to withdraw exclusively in the congregation.

South Atlantic announced its intention to continue supporting historic agencies. Among these would be the Independent Boards for Foreign Missions and the Presbyterian Missionary Union.

+ Rev. John T. Dyck, Acting Stated Clerk, Bible Presbyterian Church, 12229 38th Street, Edmonton, AB T5W 2J2 Canada (780) 477-5622

+ Rev. Mark W. Evans, Moderator, South Atlantic Presbytery (Autonomous), 20 Sharon Drive, Greenville, SC 29607-2835 [1](864) 232-1486

[2] California Reconsiders Ownership of Children

The California court decision on 28 February that parents without teaching credential have no right to home-school their children provoked a national protest which has now reached the federal courts.

The Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles vacated the ruling pending review. On 11 March Jack O’Connell, California Superintendent of Public Instruction, announced that he believed that home-schooling is still legal in California. Actually, local school districts decide when to initiate prosecutions for truancy and they are not officially controlled by the state agency on these matters.

According to the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) some 20 percent of America’s home schoolers live in California and are immediately influenced by the relief.

+ Focus on the Family, 8605 Explorer Dvie, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80920

[3] Pittsburgh Holds Series on Calvin

Pittsburgh Theological Seminary will host four lectures in the series “A New Look at Old Calvin,” on April 7, 14, 21, and 28 from 10:00 AM-12:15 PM The Rev. Dr. Charles Partee, P.C. Rossin professor of church history at the school, will lead the study.

John Calvin is undeniably one of the most influential theologians in the history of the Christian Church. Participants will explore Calvin and prepare to celebrate the 500th anniversary of his birth in 2009.

Lecture topics include “How New Can Old Calvin Be?”; “Calvin’s Aging Body in his Maturing Theology” with special guest W. Allen Hogge, MD, director of the Center for Medical Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh; “Going to the Johns: Calvin and Wesley on Total Depravity and Christian Perfection”; and “Prayer as the Practice of Predestination.”

Registration fee is US$60. Continuing Education units are available. Suggested reading is Institutes of Christian Religion by Calvin.

+ Office of Continuing Education, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, 616 N. Highland Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15206-2596 (412) 441-3304 ext. 2196

[4] 'Wee Frees' Want Their Own Schools

Faith-based schools designed on Biblical Presbyterian principles and the confessional testimony should be re-introduced, according to the Free Church of Scotland. The "Wee Frees" say they want to return to the period before Scotland's Presbyterian churches gave up their schools to be run by the state In 1872 the Free Church, together with the other Presbyterian churches, gave up their schools to be run by the state. "This was done of the condition that they continued to be Christian schools run on a Christian ethos,” according to David Robertson.
Roman Catholic and Scottish Episcopal schools still exist but are controlled by local education authorities, not the churches.Rev. David Robertson, editor of the Free Church of Scotland’s official magazine has contacted First Minister Alex Salmond’s suggesting that it is time to return to education delivered on religious lines and seeking to initiate a national conversation.

Salmond is looking for friends. Members of the Scottish Parliament are calling for Alex Salmond to stand down from Westminster after he spent more than UK£130,000 in expenses and staffing costs as an MP during a period in which he visited the Commons six times according to published reports.
+ Free Church of Scotland, 15 North Bank Street, The Mound, Edinburgh EH1 2LS Scotland

[5] Johnson C. Smith University

Johnson C. Smith University Board of Trustees has announced that Ronald L. Carter will become the university’s 13th president on 1 July. Carter will leave Coker College in Hartsville, SC, where he has served as provost and dean of faculty since 1997. He succeeds Dorothy Cowser Yancy who has led the school since 1994. Carter brings to his new position more than 30 years experience serving students and universities along with an “impressive record of community leadership, academic administration and budget management,” the school said on its Web site. Upon graduating from Morehouse College in Atlanta in 1971, Carter began his career at Boston University’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Center, where by 1981 he rose to become the school’s youngest dean of students.

+ Johnson C. Smith University, 100 Beatties Ford Rd. Charlotte, NC 28216 (704) 378-1000

[6] Hanover Presbytery Returns to Virginia

The 2008 annual meeting of the Reformed Presbyterian Church (Hanover Presbytery) will return to Virginia after a period in New Jersey. The confessionally conservative body will assemble 16 and 17 April at the historic Reformed Presbyterian Church in Old Town Manassas.

Tracing its roots to Virginia and Massachusetts, the jurisdiction now has congregations, missions, and preaching points in 11 states-nationwide. A substantial mission work in Burma is identified with the denomination. Guests are welcome to attend the meeting.

+ Presbytery Registrar, Reformed Presbyterian Church, 9400 Fairview Ave., Manassas, Virginia 20110 (703) 261-2921

[7] Algeria Closes Churches

Police ordered two Algerian churches to cease activity in March, the latest in a series of 10 church closures and further court cases against foreign and local Christians. In Tizi Ousou, 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Algiers, security police on 9 March notified pastor Salah Chalah to close his 1,200-member church.

Police issued notice to a second pastor, Mustapha Krireche, to close down his church in Tizi Ouzou’s Nouvelle Ville district. “They are trying to establish a minority, which might give foreign powers a pretext to intervene with Algeria’s domestic affairs,” Religious Affairs Minister Bu ‘Abdallah Ghoulamullah told reporters.

Written police orders called on both churches to “cease all activity until [their] situation could be regularized and brought into conformity” with a 2006 religion law governing non-Muslim worship.

Passed two years ago, the law forbids attempts to convert Muslims to other religions and bans the production of media intended to “shake the faith of a Muslim.”

+ Compass Direct News, PO Box 27250, Santa Ana CA 92799

[8] Redstone Peacefully Transfers Congregation to EPC

In an outstandingly congenial development, historic Redstone Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church (USA) transferred St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church in Somerset, Pennsylvania, to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. The secret ballot ran 48 to 41 in favor of a peaceful and full dismissal of the congregation with all of its real and personal property and without any strings.

According to a report by Rev. Chris Enoch, published in Presbyweb, “After the vote, in an amazing grace-filled moment, Rev. Fink and elders from St. Paul's Presbyterian Church had hands laid on them and prayers offered by a number of members of Redstone Presbytery.

+ Presbytery of Redstone, 1004 Mt. Pleasant Road, Greensburg, PA 15601-5762

[9] Andrew Jumper Scholarship

Seminarian students pursuing EPC ordination and a M.Div. from Reformed Theological Seminary are encouraged to apply for the Andrew Jumper Scholarship. The EPC has a significant amount of scholarship funding available this year. The deadline for applying for the scholarship is fast approaching. Please have your student contact the Financial Aid office of RTS for more information.

+ Financial Aid Office, Reformed Theological Seminary, 5422 Clinton Blvd., Jackson, MS 39209-3099 (601) 923-1600 <rts.jackson@rts.edu>

[10] Bavinck Conference

An International Conference, 18-20 September 2008 will take place on the campus of Calvin College and Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan: A Pearl and a Leaven: Herman Bavinck for the Twenty-First Century. A competition and call for papers to pastor theologians and Ph.D. students in theology, history, or religious studies.

All who submit proposals will receive a complimentary copy of Volume 4 of the Reformed Dogmatics when released.

To complete, submit a 500-750 word proposal for a 5,000–7,500 word scholarly essay on an aspect of or related area to Bavinck scholarship. Proposals are due 15 February 15, 2008

+ Office of Continuing Education, Calvin Theological Seminary, 3233 Burton St. SEGrand Rapids, MI 49546