Danny Hyde has provided the link to the audio recordings of the lectures from the 17 Century Spirituality Conference.

The audio from the recent “17th Century Spirituality in the 21st Century” conference with Dr. Carl Trueman hosted by the Oceanside United Reformed Church is now online here:

http://www.sermonaudio.com/search.asp?sourceonly=true&currSection=sermonssource&keyword=oceansideurc&subsetcat=series&subsetitem=17th+Century+Spirituality

You can also watch part 1 of an interview with Dr. Trueman here:

http://vimeo.com/29690327

Blessings!

Danny

Rev. Daniel R. Hyde
Oceanside United Reformed Church, Carlsbad /Oceanside, CA
http://www.oceansideurc.org/
http://www.meetthepuritans.com/
http://www.sermonaudio.com/oceansideurc

Dr. Kim employed the analogy of red and white blood cells toward a way of understanding both the polemical and apologetic (white), as well as the charitable and ecumenical (red) side of the Reformed denominations. Both types of cells are needed for a healthy body, one defends against rogue cells, while the other carries life-giving oxygen to the furthest extents of your body. But too many white blood cells breeds leukemia and your body destroys itself from the inside out, while too many red blood cells leads to HIV, leaving it open to disease and compromise. The perfect balance is needed to maintain your immunity against disease and the vitality of the body. So it goes with the church, as history can attest.

How does this analogy further what we’re about at RED? For one, RED’s ethos is captured with the hyphenated term “winsome-tenacity.” We want to strongly defend and promote the confessionally reformed tradition, which NAPARC churches inherit and indwell, while at the same time, working toward greater unity at the local church level as NAPARC churches cooperate in the Great Commission.

Dr. Kim wrapped up his monologue with the recounting of how Presbyterian missions began in Korea at the turn of the 19th century. (You may see his post from last spring for a more detailed summary here.) In short, the Presbyterian denominations from the United States, Canada, and Australia worked together to advance the kingdom of God through the gospel ministry. A “general assembly” was called after enough missionaries from the respective churches were on the ground in Korea and the Korean Presbyterian Church was born. This is an example for us and serves as a gentle reminder to all NAPARC churches that our Lord prayed for unity in his High Priestly Prayer even as He and the Father are one. May we be ever mindful and conscientious of our historic differences, but let us never forget that we are one “holy catholic church” according to our creed and confession.

I wanted to post a link to the 2011 San Diego Conference on Theology featuring Dr. Carl Trueman, Professor of Historical Theology and Church History at Westminster Theological Seminary, who is also an ordained OPC minister.

This is a free conference for pastors, elders, and seminarians hosted by Oceanside United Reformed Church.

The conference is an example of how two members of NAPARC (URCNA & OPC) are working together to advance Reformed Theology and the Great Commission. Please plan on coming to hear enriching lectures on “17th Century Spirituality for the 21st Century.”

Julius J. Kim, Ph.D.

17 May 2011

I’d like to believe that I am a child of RED, at least an early form of it.  As a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA), my ministerial roots go back to the Presbyterian Church that was formed in the US in 1706.  But my spiritual roots go back to 1885 when the first Presbyterian minister, Horace Underwood, came to Korea to spread the Gospel.  In contrast to the challenges missionaries faced in Japan, reports regarding the many conversions taking place in Korea astonished church leaders in the US.

By the late 1890s, many Presbyterian churches in the US, Canada and Australia were sending missionaries to Korea.  These early missionaries from different countries and churches crossed denominational lines and worked together for the goal of spreading the Gospel throughout the Korean peninsula.  Specifically, four groups of Presbyterian missions, the Northern and Southern Presbyterians of America, the Canadian mission, and the Australian mission agreed to work in harmony, setting up a council to ensure mutual cooperation and partnership.

As early as 1889, two of the groups, the Northern Presbyterians of the US and the Australian Presbyterians formed “The United Council of the Missions of the American and Victorian Presbyterian Churches.”  Three years later in 1892, a new council was organized with the arrival of Southern Presbyterian missionaries.  Their purpose was stated as being “the uniform organization in Korea of one native church holding to Reformed faith and Presbyterian form of government” (Minutes of the General Assembly of the PCUS in 1892, 532).  In 1893 the Canadian Mission joined the council, helping to propel the Korean Presbyterian Church in adopting the Westminster Confession of Faith as the doctrinal standard of the church.

Early efforts of the council included the drafting of comity agreements, a territorial plan to ensure there was a strategic plan not to encroach intentionally on one another’s area of ministry. They began to establish schools and hospitals in addition to their church planting work.  By 1910, for example, missionaries had established about 800 schools of various grades, accommodating over 41,000 students.  This represented about twice the total enrollment in all Korean government schools combined.  The success of these and other educational and medical initiatives greatly contributed to the progress of these early mission efforts.  Today, close to one third of Korea’s 45 million people consider themselves Christians—11 million Protestant and 3 million Catholic.  Presbyterians represent the largest percentage of Protestants at approximately 3 million members.

Perhaps we here in the US can learn a thing or two about reformed ecclesiastical dialogue and partnership from Korean Presbyterian missions history.

“The Reformers on the other hand, went so far as to teach that the special object of justifying faith is the favor of God toward us for Christ’s sake. Therefore to believe is to be assured of our own personal salvation. Thus Luther, Melancthon and Calvin taught. This is the doctrine taught in the Augsburg Confession and Heidelberg Catechism.” Hodge, Commentary on the Confession of Faith, 325.

Here the beloved Dr. Hodge goes so far as to bring in the Continental Reformed and the Lutherans when speaking of the doctrine of Justification by Faith and the fount of assurance that flows from justification. This sweet spring would anchor the faith of the believer against the progressive justification that the Roman Catholic church. He knew he was not original and no island in his theological heritage.

Notice here a few things:

1) Hodge had his own tradition. He was a stalwart Presbyterian; he was not Continentally Reformed or Lutheran whom he identifies with here. Yet he reaches outside of his own tradition knowing that doctrine does not drop out of the sky, or into the mystics mind from seeing God in the nude. Doctrine, rather, is put together with history not apart from it.

2) He grounds this doctrine in confessions not just in people. For Hodge a personality cult would not be enough to ground this doctrine. In and age of evangelical Britney Spears the church needs to learn to profit from other confessions just as Hodge did here when he quotes the Heidelberg and the Augsburg Confessions.

Hodge, knowing that no church is an island reached outside of his tradition to confirm, to the uttermost, the assurance of granted in the Reformed Faith. To believe is to be assured says Hodge, and so says the Reformation with him.

This quote exemplifies the heart of RED because its latitude reaches to all the Reformed family and its longitude to the very heights of heaven where the savior is seated making intercession for his church.

In 1555, as English refugees fled to the continent where they sought refuge from Roman Catholic Queen Mary Tudor (“Bloody Mary”), many arrived at Frankfort to a French-speaking Protestant church waiting with open arms.  Over time, however, those arms turned cold as differences over aspects of worship sparked sharp discussion and disunity.

Calvin wrote “To the English At Frankfort” (SW, 6.117–19) to urge them to amend their worship for the sake of unity and peace in the church.  Calvin wrote, “This [disunity] indeed grievously afflicts me and is highly absurd, that discord is springing up among brethren.”  Calvin did not want the Protestant churches to fragment, especially those that have a “sacred bond” of unity that should have held them “closely united.”  As an advocate of reformational unity, Calvin was thankful that the refugees sought to connect to a church with like “minds and language.” As lack of unity surfaced, he did not want them to place “obstacle[s] in the way of [their] coalescing in one body of worshipers.”  He wrote, “This is really too unreasonable.”

To alleviate this disunity, Calvin prescribed flexibility.  He said that when it comes to “external rights” of the liturgy, certain ceremonies, he could be “indulgent and pliable.”  Calvin had limits in concession and so should we, but he could not tolerate those who were too uncompromising.

For the Great Commission, we must take a page from Calvin.  We should be careful to not let our own external obstacles, like particular polity, stand in the way of dialoguing with one another.  May we not be too obstinate, but instead unite around the sacred bond of our common confessions in order to see the fields that are white with harvest filled with reformed churches.

We just launched on saturday night our new forum. The Forum is called ‘City Center’ because we want it to be an area of free dialogue about the church. A place where this further dialogue can serve the growth of Reformed Churches together. The first post, by our beloved Chairmain Dan Borvan, was opened to discuss Dr. Godfrey’s talk. Let people know this is a place for Reformed Dialogue about the church! What are you thinking about and what do you need help with? Ask the Center

Just a friendly reminder for this weekend. We will be live streaming and recording the lecture so feel free to tune in Sat May 7th, 2011, 6:30pm Pacific time.

RED exists for two reasons: First, we want to be cheerleaders for Reformed ecumenicity wherever it takes place around the globe.  Reformed churches since the 1520s have stressed the importance of unity and cooperation.  God has used these cooperative efforts to spread the gospel and to advance his kingdom to the far reaches of the earth.  Upcoming posts will discuss Reformed ecumenicity in the late nineteenth century that brought great fruit in Korea.  Our goal is to promote this kind of activity that is currently taking place so that we can share in rejoicing about what God is already doing and can encourage others to join the cause.

Second, RED exists to help facilitate cooperation between Reformed churches.  The internet offers amazing means of communication that were unavailable in previous generations.  We can have instant conversations today that would take weeks and months through written correspondence.  RED can serve as a meeting place for church officers and laity to dialogue about Reformed ecumenical endeavors.  Relationships can form and cooperation can begin through these dialogues.

RED seeks to build unity at the grass-roots level.  We are not attempting to move the mountains within NAPARC toward ecumenicity.  We desire to help move individual rocks closer together.  Over many years and multiple generations, we hope and pray that the movement of individual rocks toward unity will result in whole mountains drawing together to accomplish the Great Commission.