This year the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) in the USA celebrated its fiftieth birthday. It took several days out of its regular assembly to look back in thanks and analysis over those fifty years. At the same assembly it debated whether it should go out of existence. Before the assembly was a proposal to be absorbed into the much larger Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). This would not be a normal church union in which negotiation between two churches produces compromises which hopefully retain the best points of each. The OPC would simply enter the PCA on the PCA’s terms. The proposal required a two-thirds majority to pass. It obtained only 53%. Thus a majority were for the union but not a sufficient majority. Yet the inconclusive result of the vote has left the church divided and uncertain on its future direction. That uncertainty is likely to continue for the immediate future as the PCA has responded to the rejection by re-issuing the invitation for the OPC to join it.

The question to my mind, as a fraternal delegate of the Reformed Churches of Australia, was whether there was any relevance of this debate to Australia. I believe there are two issues behind the debate which parallel issues we struggle with.

Reformed or Evangelical?

The Presbyterian Church in America split when the nation split in the Civil War. A very strongly naturalistic and moralistic theology spread through the church late last century and early this century.

The earliest and worst inroads were in the northern church. Christians of many different convictions were united in opposition to this. Out of that opposition came the original Fundamentalist movement. It affirmed that the Bible was God’s Word; that Jesus was really born of a virgin, performed miracles and rose from the dead. Those who denied such truths or wanted to shelter the deniers of such truths gained control of the Presbyterian church in the north. They first barred orthodox men from prominent positions at Princeton Seminary. Later they ruled that the officers of the church had to support the Foreign Mission Board of the church, even if that Board was sending out missionaries who denied the gospel. For refusal to support the Foreign Mission Board, a number of men were removed from office as ministers and elders. They formed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

So far the history has very little parallel with our experience in the Australian Reformed Churches. The points of contact come with what happened next. In the fight against liberalism in the Presbyterian Church the generals tended to be men of strong Reformed conviction. The troops however were often not Reformed. They commonly held to Dispensationalism and believed that a Christian should not drink alcoholic beverages. In other words, they were much closer to the broad stream of American evangelicalism or what we today call fundamentalism than to the Reformed faith.

The leadership of the new church had no uncertainty as to the direction it wanted to· pursue. It sought for a strengthening of the Reformed element in the new seminary, Westminster, and in the new church. Hence it asked for help from the Christian Reformed Church. From that church to Westminster came R. B. Kuiper, N. B. Stonehouse, and, in particular, Cornelius Van Til. The most significant influence was to be Van Til.

This alignment with the Dutch tradition of Reformed scholarship was not universally welcome in the OPC. Twice the OPC was to split on the issue of identity. Was it to be a Reformed church, anchored in the Westminster Confession and Catechisms but cross-fertilized by the influence of Kuiper and Vos from the Dutch tradition? Or was it to be more a church of the American mainstream, evangelical but tolerant of Arminianism, Dispensationalism and Prohibition of alcohol? Those who wanted to move the OPC more into the mainstream were very clear on the influence they wanted to remove. It was the Dutch influence. Twice the OPC has chosen in those fifty years to be Reformed. The cost has been the departure of two groups who were closer to mainstream American evangelicalism.

The OPC has therefore had a sense of loneliness on the American scene. That loneliness has grown as its relationship to the Christian Reformed Church has become more distant. Partly that is a product of the Christian Reformed Church’s attempt to move more into the mainstream. With that has come less of an interest in the Kuyperian tradition of a distinctive Christian world view, especially as that tradition is represented by Van Til. Another factor is concern in the OPC about apostacy in the Netherlands and the influence of that sort of thinking on the Christian Reformed Church.

The new factor in the picture is the PCA. Liberalism in the southern Presbyterian church was not as pervasive as in the north. Hence when the eventual split came, the conservative church that resulted was much larger. That is the PCA. In addition, many churches of Presbyterian background from the north have joined it, rather than the OPC, which they see as being too strictly Reformed.

The PCA is also a mixed church. It has many strongly Reformed men. It has an element of Arminians, Dispensationalists and Masons. Its history has shown something of a movement in a more Reformed direction. Yet is has been without the polarization and division that has characterized OPC history. It is really far closer to the mainstream American tradition.

Hence the question: what should the future be for the OPC? Should it continue as an increasingly isolated Reformed church? Should it join with a much larger church that is closer to the American center?

May I suggest that there are parallels here with the crisis of identity facing the Reformed Churches of Australia. In the past the ethnic character of the church and the conviction of the superiority of the Dutch Reformed tradition to anything in Australia has largely ensured isolation. That is no longer the case. Are the Reformed Churches just another part of the mainstream of the Australian evangelical world or does their Reformed character set them apart? That question can no longer be decided by ethnic factors because the contemporary influence from the Netherlands would move the Australian Reformed Churches even beyond the evangelical mainstream into the camp of the Australian liberal churches. Indeed the Netherlands churches are now saying what the Australian liberals were saying twenty years ago.

We sense a strong affinity with the Australian evangelicals. They serve the same Lord as we do. That affinity has often been reflected in working together in Christian schools. Yet we must ask whether Australian evangelicalism is any less impoverished than when the Reformed Churches were first begun in this country. Nevertheless, as one speaker put it, who argued for joining the PCA, “It is kind of cold and lonely out here where we are. I would like some brethren to warm me up.”

Perhaps one factor to be considered in this context is a paradox of Westminster Seminary and the OPC. Their international influences have probably been greater than their American influence. They have been members of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod. In that Synod they have been prominent in urging a facing of the issues of apartheid in South Africa and theological apostacy in the Netherlands. Indeed a factor in this recent debate was the fact that joining the PCA would have ended the OPC’s membership in the Reformed Ecumenical Synod. Thus they would not have been able to carry through to conclusion their concern that the RES place before the GKN the clear choice: return to your Reformed heritage or leave the RES.

The OPC and Westminster’s influence in places like Korea is well known. The OPC has begun commendable steps to become a church of the ethnic minorities in America: the blacks, the Hispanics, etc., not by forming ethnic churches but by forming mixed churches.

The paradox of the OPC’s ministry outside America and to the unassimilated within America is really no paradox. The closer a church is to the very centre of American culture; the more “American” it is; the harder it is for it to make an impact outside of America. The great advantage the OPC has had is the advantage of being a church isolated from the American mainstream not by ethnic factors but the theological conviction. If the OPC and the Reformed within the PCA can bring that dynamic to work on the PCA, then the PCA with its greater size and resources may be a blessing not just to America but to the world. If the Reformed distinctiveness is lost, then it will be a sad day for all.

And what of us in Australia? Do we know what we want to be? Dutch liberals, mainstream Australian evangelicals or Australian–Reformed?

What is Good for General Motors . . .

We tend to think of America as the land where the businessman is king. Perhaps we should say it is the land where the organization man is king. Efficiency of organization is the secret of American business. That has also influenced the American church.

is a most inefficient church. The proposal to join the PCA was debated for two days with a total of 59 speeches. Out of it all came no clear resolution. That was true of several other issues discussed.

The PCA assembly runs quite differently. All matters are digested by a powerful committee before they come to the assembly floor. One has to be quickly to one’s feet to prevent the recommendations of that committee being simply rubber-stamped. Indeed the recommendations are not even voted upon unless there is objection to them. Many of the delegates were not even at the assembly meeting proper. They were in committee meetings or informal caucuses elsewhere. It is efficient but . . . is it cricket?

Those who approve the PCA style argue that the rambling free debate of the OPC can only work with a small church. If the OPC ever wanted to be big it would have to organize like the PCA. Inefficiency is a luxury only the small-time can engage in. Those who disapprove the PCA style warn that the church is in danger of being taken over by a few men. In such structures the full time denominational employees wield enormous power. One of the issues causing polarisation [SIC] in the Christian Reformed Church in North America is complaints against the denominational employees. It is complained that policy is increasingly being set by the denominational secretaries and their staffs rather than by the synod.

Maybe we in Australia are too small to face such problems. Nevertheless there have been calls for the appointment of some sort of full-time missions administrator. As we grow we will probably have similar proposals. Let us consider the problems ahead of time.

Part of the advantage the full-time church executive has over the synod or assembly comes from the command he has over information, staff time and his own time. It stems also in part from the short-sightedness of many ministers and elders. They do not put time into wider and more long-range issues and leave that to the full-time church executives. Then in retrospect they complain that policies are being forced upon them from the top down by the administrative hierarchy which develops to fill the void.

Those who are favorable to a church effectively run by full-time executives have a counter. They argue that since the church will put its best men into such positions, there is no real problem-if they set the course for the church. The simplest answer to that is Jotham’s parable about the trees in Judges 9. The point of the parable is that people who are successful and blessed in their present function are not attracted to ruling positions. Often denominations end up with the successful men on the mission field who would not leave their post being frustrated by office executives who set policy for a calling they themselves could not fill. Once a church is committed to executive leadership, it has to fill the positions whether suitable men are available or not.

There are several other problems which commonly accompany the executive approach. One is a priority of administrative concerns over doctrinal concerns. The old Presbyterian church which put out the founders of the OPC presented a paradox. It was sending out missionaries who denied that Jesus was the only Savior for lost mankind. It put out of the office those who would not support such missionaries. Yet that church probably had a majority of people who would have regarded themselves as Evangelicals. The solution to the paradox lies in a certain mentality. It is the mentality which sees unity as the highest goal. A concern for doctrinal truth threatens that administrative unity. Hence the doctrinally orthodox are seen by the executive leadership as a threat.

Another problem is connected to this. If one avoids the time-wasting pursuit of detailed discussion one can end up with slogans. A tendency towards somewhat superficial slogans rather than thorough understanding flows from the business and advertising world into general American culture and then into the church.

Is there a solution? Do we have to choose for inefficiency rather than be controlled by bureaucrats? There are at least two N.T. passages which seem to bear on the question. Acts 6:1–6, the story of the choosing of seven to administer food distribution, shows a clear set of priorities. The ministry of the Word and prayer is the most important. That is confirmed by the order of the gifts in 1 Cor. 12:28. Teaching and exhorting gifts head the list and “administrations” is further down the list. These two passages show also another side of the question. “Administrations” is a gift of the Holy Spirit. The apostles selected out, according to Acts 6:3, men “full of the Spirit and of wisdom.”

Part of the problem American churches are having with this question seems connected to a failure to relate the denominational executive to the Biblical structures. Is he an administrator chosen to relieve the ministry of the Word? If that is the case he still has to be full of the Spirit of God. How often do churches, just on a congregational level, have a problem of placing unspiritual but domineering men on boards of management? The damage is multiplied if it is done on a denominational level. Or is his ministry part of that ministry of the Word itself? To whom then does he minister? He becomes an effective bishop with all the problems that result. Thus we find tensions in Presbyterian and Reformed churches because they have full-time executives who play a role quite contrary to the theory of their church government.

Can we avoid su ch problems as we grow? There seem to be two essential steps we need to take. One is to define clearly the role of any denominational employee as administrative assistance to the ministry of teaching and prayer. Another is for congregations and sessions to realize the need to encourage their ministers and elders to have wider interests and concerns than the local congregation. Unless they do that and grant them the time to do it, we will be under pressure to become a church on the model of the American corporation with denominational executives running the board room.

Dr. Noel Weeks is a professor at the University of Sydney. Australia. He recently spent a half year in the U.S., where he was a fraternal delegate of the Reformed Churches of Australia at the Orthodox Presbyterian 50th anniversary General Assembly. His report is reprinted from the October, 1986 (Australian) Trowel and Sword, with which we have a reciprocal agreement.