30 November 2011

Presbyterians Week Headlines

[1] ARP Pastor Charles W. Bradley Dies Thanksgiving Day 2011

[2] Preaching on the Plains: Reminiscences Published by Lulu.com

[3] The Christian Pundit on "Hermeneutics and Awkward Science"

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[1] ARP Pastor Charles W. Bradley Dies Thanksgiving Day 2011

Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP) pastor Charles W. Bradley, 55, died on Thanksgiving Day, 24 November 2011, after suffering a heart attack at the manse of Hopewell ARP Church in Culleoka, Tennessee, where Mr. Bradley had pastored for the past twenty years. Mr. Bradley additionally pastored the Union Grove Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Colombia, Tennessee, for many years. Pastor Bradley was a member of the Tennessee-Alabama Presbytery of the ARP Church, and was presently serving as Stated Clerk of the presbytery and as a member of the ARP Church’s Executive Board of the General Synod.

A funeral service was conducted 28 November 2011 at the Hopewell ARP Church. Pastor Bradley is survived by his wife of thirty-six years, Sandra Fisher Bradley, daughter, Clair M. (Lance) Shroades of Fairbanks, Alaska; three sons, Brandon J. Bradley of Marietta, Georgia, Colin Matthew (Belinda) Bradley of Summertown, Tennessee, and Benjamin Clarence Bradley of Culleoka, Tennessee; nine grandchildren, one sister, a half-sister, and a half-brother.

Pastor Bradley’s obituary described him as “…a man who had a fervent desire to know God and know of God. As a result, he not only possessed a sincere love for God, he also lived his life with a deep love for his family and the family of God. He had a remarkable journey that resulted in Christian faith and that ultimately led him to a call into the ministry…. He loved theology, sought understanding of faith through the Reformed tradition and impacted many lives as he challenged those whose lives he touched to grow deeper into their faith in Christ Jesus.”

One of the speakers at Pastor Bradley’s funeral was a ruling elder who had interviewed the pastor twenty years ago before he was called to the Hopewell pulpit. The elder said that the Hopewell congregation had previously fallen to just a faithful few members, and that God used Pastor Bradley to preach biblical truth and gradually the Hopewell church grew to presently include about eighteen families including extended families, a few families with ten or more children, and some single adults.

The editor knew Pastor Bradley only as an Internet acquaintance and Facebook “friend”, and several years ago God providentially brought a great blessing to the Christian Observer when two members of Hopewell ARP Church agreed to became editors. Pastor Bradley’s deep faith has significantly influenced the lives of these two editors, and presumably the rest of the Hopewell congregation. The editor joins Pastor Bradley’s family and congregation in grieving the loss of their beloved husband, father, grandfather, brother, and pastor, and in rejoicing that another good and faithful servant is in the presence of the Lord.


+ Oaks & Nichols Inc., Funeral Directors, 320 West Seventh Street, Colombia, Tennessee 38401, 931-388-4711, oakesandnichols@bellsouth.net

+ Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1 Cleveland Street Suite 110, Greenville, South Carolina, 29601, 864-232-8297, Fax: 864-271-3729

+ Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 8207 Traditional Place, Cordova, Tennessee 38016, 901-276-4572, Fax: 901-272-3913


[2] Preaching on the Plains: Reminiscences Published by Lulu.com

Preaching on the Plains: Reminiscences, by one of the founders of the Presbyterian Church of America in 1936 and the Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC) in 1938, the Rev. David K. Myers, has been published by Lulu.com and is available in paperback for US$10.82 plus shipping.

Myers’ son the Rev. David T. Myers writes:

“[F]or any who are interesting in the history of the early days of the BPC, especially up in the Plains states of Montana, South and North Dakota. Dad was a church planter, an evangelist complete with sawdust tent revivals, an Army chaplain from WW2 through the Korean War, a seminary professor (Faith from 1956 - 64 -- Any one who graduated from Faith in those years would remember him.) and a pastor. He was one of a handful of Presbyterian ministers who was censured by deposition in 1936 from the Presbyterian Church USA (Yellowstone Presbytery in Montana) for his support of the [Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions] in 1933.

“It features his experiences at Wheaton College in the 1920's and Princeton in 1927 - 29. He had sat under J. Gresham Machen, Robert Dick Wilson, Casper Wister Hodge (grandson of Charles H.), Geerhardus Vos, and the like “famous” names. He tells of his experiences of having to prepare his sermon while drunken cowboys still shot their pistols into the air on Saturday night. It tells of one of his "members" who had killed an entire farm family only to meet frontier justice and swing from the end of a rope over the railroad trestle! That happened just after Dad had led him to a profession of faith in the town jail. Probably not many of our present day pastors have had to experience that!!!

“Over all, it is a testament of divine grace, of the Holy Spirit's work in a man who was yielded completely to Him, doing His work in the Great Depression days of our country, and up to the mid to late 80's of the last century.”

Lulu.com provides a passage from the book:

“For some 32 years I have been absent from the northern Plains area which I call 'My Country.' I have had periods of great loneliness for it. I can fancy still the shouts and sounds of gunfire of riders, exuberant horsemen, rushing through the street on Saturday nights on 'Silk Stocking Avenue' in Fairview, Montana, firing into the air. I can feel the pressure of a quick crush with my car into the huge snow drifts in the wake of blizzard seasons; the warm hospitality of the Plains people. I remember the joyful shouts of little children in Vacation Bible Schools; the young lad who joyfully received Christ, then said just before he succumbed from tubercular meningitis, 'I go to dwell in the house of the Lord forever.' And I remember the exhausting nights after full days of preaching five or six times a Lord's Day, the many miles traversed; but all, all forgotten in the joy of seeing souls saved at points in a far flung parish. However, it is all ending in gladness!”

For more information, please see http://PreachingOnThePlains.wordpress.com, or http://Lulu.com.


+ Lulu, 10930 Raven Ridge Road #107, Raleigh, North Carolina 27614, 919-676-6222

+ Bible Presbyterian Church


[3] The Christian Pundit on "Hermeneutics and Awkward Science"

Associate Reformed Presbyterian pastor and Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary professor the Rev. Dr. William VanDoodewaard on 29 November 2011 published “Hermeneutics and Awkward Science” on his The Christian Pundit blog.

The article is a continuation of responses to discussions on hermeneutics and the creation/evolution debate in light of Peter Enns’ recent presentation to a group of New York area Presbyterian Church in America pastors. In “Hermeneutics and Awkward Science,” VanDoodewaard responds to the 16 November 2011 The Aquila Report article “ANE and Creation One More Time, with a Concluding Plea” by Erskine Theological Seminary professor Dr. William B. Evans.

VanDoodewaard responds to Evans’ article, in summary saying: “My issue is not with having “a place” for extra-biblical data in the interpretive process…. I would argue that in the specific case of the interpretation of Genesis 1 and 2, including the account of the origins of Adam and Eve, the issue encountered in alternative readings is a hermeneutically unwarranted accommodation of the text to the priority and primacy of extra-biblical data, rather than simply giving “a place”.

The article can be accessed at:

http://thechristianpundit.org/2011/11/29/hermeneutics-and-awkward-science/
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+ The Christian Pundit, William.VanDoodewaard@puritanseminary.org

+ The Aquila Report, c/o Metokos Press, 211 Main Street, Suite 108, Narrows, Virginia 24124, 540-726-8223, operations@theaquilareport.com

+ Erskine Theological Seminary, Post Office Box 668, Due West, South Carolina 29639, 800-770-6936

+ Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, 1 Cleveland Street Suite 110, Greenville, South Carolina, 29601, 864-232-8297, Fax: 864-271-3729

+ Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, 2965 Leonard Street Northeast, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49525, 616-977-0599, Fax: 616-285-3246, info@puritanseminary.org

+ Presbyterian Church in America, 1700 North Brown Road, Suite 105, Lawrenceville, Georgia 30043, 678-825-1000, Fax: 678-825-1001, ac@pcanet.org