In 1938, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (then known as the Presbyterian Church in the USA) lost a court case against the PCUSA and was forced to change their name. Here were the various options before the Fifth General Assembly that were not ultimately selected.
- The Evangelical Presbyterian Church
- The Presbyterian and Reformed Church of America
- The North American Presbyterian Church
- The Presbyterian Church of Christ
- The Protestant Presbyterian Church of America
- The Free Presbyterian Church of America
Machen once said
I never call myself a “Fundamentalist.” There is indeed, no inherent objection to the term; and if the disjunction is between “Fundamentalism” and “Modernism,” then I am willing to call myself a Fundamentalist of the most pronounced type. But after all, what I refer to call myself is not a “Fundamentalist” but a “Calvinist” – that is, an adherent to the Reformed Faith. As such I regard myself as standing in the great central current of the Church’s life – the current which flows down from the Word of God through Augustine and Calvin, and which has found noteworthy expression in America in the great tradition represented by Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield and the other representatives of the “Princeton School.”
Hart and Muether quoting Machen in Fighting the Good Fight (Philadelphia: Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1995), 13.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported Sunday that Pope Benedict XVI has urged priests to engage in new media. Even the original Westminster Confession antichrist is all for Web 2.0.
The spread of multimedia communications and its rich ‘menu of options’ might make us think it sufficient simply to be present on the Web,” but priests are “challenged to proclaim the gospel by employing the latest generation of audiovisual resources.
File this one under “The Spirit of Murray.” The oft-derided theological formulation of definitive sanctification is seen by some as a superfluous doctrine. To subscribers of this line of thought, the doctrine should fall victim to Occam’s Razor. Can’t we explain definitive sanctification simply by appealing to the doctrines of regeneration or effectual calling? One theologian of the previous generation addresses the question himself.
While regeneration is an all-important factor in definitive sanctification, it would not be proper to subsume the latter under the topic ‘regeneration’. The reason is that what is most characteristic in definitive sanctification, namely, death to sin by union with Christ in his death and newness of life by union with him in his resurrection, cannot properly be referred to regeneration by the Spirit. There is multiformity to that which occurs at the inception of the Christian life, and each facet must be accorded its own particularity. Calling, for example, as the action of the Father, must not be defined in terms of what is specifically the action of the Holy Spirit, namely, regeneration. Definitive sanctification, likewise, must be allowed its own individuality. We impoverish our conception of definitive grace when we fail to appreciate the distinctiveness of each aspect, or indulge in over-simplification.
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John Murray, Collected Writings of John Murray, Vol. 2, p. 285n2.
photo by Chae Chong
I’m still trying to deconstruct this one, but I’m not sure it deserves any attention. I saw the trailer for the new Denzel Washington movie before Avatar. The movie is getting a lot of press, but the reviews are generally not favorable. As the Hebrew students out there should know, Eli means “my God” and from what I gather, the gist of the movie is that Denzel Washington wanders through a post-apocalyptic world in possession of the last Bible. The antagonists are attempting to get the Bible from him in order to place it in the kingpin’s collection of rare artifacts. I’m puzzled at the motivation for the premise of this plot, but I fear the movie may be too gimmicky or shallow for the effort.
