The Reformation Translation Fellowship has been at work 12 years, seeking to extend the fruits of the Reformed faith to Chinese-speaking peoples. If its success were to be measured by comparison, in money expended or in volume of output, with other areas of human effort, we must conclude that, while it has existed, it has hardly succeeded. though there has been steady increase in contributions each year.

However, the materials of the Christian gospel, systematically and consistently presented, take captive the minds and purposes of men for the Lord Jesus Christ. These materials do not occupy their interest merely at the moment of reading. We must conclude, therefore. that the Reformation Translation Fellowship has contributed to the bone and sinew of the kingdom of God in the Far East.

ITS REACH INTO CHINA

Though the Fellowship was not organized till the mainland of China was practically lost to Communism, our covenant God mercifully gave a beginning of Reformation literature in Chinese. For a time our publications—and these, some of the most basic and lucid in their application of the truth in our day, Boettner’s Reformed Doctrine of Predestination, Machen’s Christianity or Liberalism, Edman’s Karl Marx or Jesus Christ, and others—were sent into China. Doubtless, many of those copies have been destroyed, but we trust that some have been preserved. But if not, we are assured that the truth contained in them has taken root in tho hearts of many, where it cannot be destroyed, and that it will bear the fruits of righteousness in God’s appointed way and time.

GAINS

Besides the actual literature distributed, most of it on a gratuitous basis, there have been solid accomplishments. First, a name of respect and confidence has been gained among Christian leaders in the Far East. This is basic to any effective literature work. Then, we have proven workers: the Rev. Charles Chao, editor and translator, Mr. Haisan Young, agent in Hong Kong handling printing, storing and shipping of publications, as well as other translators such as the Rev. Isaac Jen and the Rev. Paul Szto, and a small but devoted nucleus of friends, some of whom have supported this work from its inception.

A FULL-TIME ADMINISTRATOR

Finally, we now have the prospect of one eminently informed on Far Eastern public affairs as well as on specifically Christian affairs, a discerning and committed Calvinist, to work and lead in this task. The Rev. Samuel E. Boyle has offered, and the Board of Directors have accepted, his services on a full·time basis, beginning in 1962. Mr. Boyle was for years a missionary in China, and since 1950 has been a missionary to Japan. He has kept informed on China church affairs as few others have been able to do. He brings to tho R. T. F.—of which he is in a real sense the founder, and which he has served continuously as extra activity along with his missionary work—a knowledge of the field and its need that is invaluable. (Mr. Boyle was associated at the start with the Rev. Johannes C. Vos as American Representative, who continues as a Director, and with Charles H. Chao.)

Evidence of Mr. Boyle’s grasp of Far Eastern affairs may be found in a recent article, mailed to the R. T. F. constituency, in which he analyzes the place occupied by the World Council of Churches in the Far East, and how Calvinists are affected by their activities. Their literature program, which includes some of John Calvin’s works considered as classics, is ambitious; their financial resources are enormous compared with ours; and their prestige due to the size of the W. C. C. constituency is overwhelming; yet, their message has been made largely barren of saving, supernatural truth, by their modernism and neo-modernism.

Mr. Boyle is able to show clearly that such of John Calvin’s message as may appear in their program is really, as he puts it, using the imagery of a Scriptural incident (Saul seeking to call up dead Samuel at Endor), as a merely “illicit traffic with the ‘ghost’ of a man (John Calvin) long dead.”

MISSIONARY WORK, A COOPERATIVE TASK

In the providence of God the Christian Reformed Church is now ministering to a mission of the Reformed Presbyterian Church where national policy has excluded their missionaries, namely, Syria. The Rev. Dassam Madany’s messages in Arabic go into Syria via the Back to God radio broadcasts from Tangier. On the other side of the globe a Reformed Presbyterian, the Rev. Charles H. Chao, ministers to a Christian Reformed Church mission field, namely, Formosa, via the Reformation Translation Fellowship. More R. T. F. publications now go to Formosa than to any other one country.

The Board of Directors of the R. T. F. is as follows: The Rev. Samuel E. Boyle, Missionary in Japan The Rev. J. G. Vos, Head of the Bible Department, Geneva College The Rev. S. Bruce Willson, President, R. P. Theol. Seminary The Rev. Philip Martin, Belillower, California The Rev. G. N. M. Collins, B.A., B.D., Edinburgh, Scotland Mr. John Van Mouwerik, Redlands, California The Rev. Lester E. Kilpatrick, Am. Rep., 1031 E. Glenrosa, Phoenix 14, Arizona