Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. This is the word of the Lord. I read this passage because today's lesson, as we look at the history of American Presbyterian history, we're going to come to 20th century leaders and movements. In the 20th century, as after kind of looking at these people and reflecting on them, I realized a lot of the focus has been given to the doctrine of Scripture, to the work of apologetics and evangelism, and to the responsibilities of Christians in culture and society, especially as American Christians have had to discern their place in a society and culture in which the Christian foundations seem to be crumbling more and more. You know, how do we communicate the truth to the place that we are, to the world around us, to our particular context? How do we sometimes re-engage where we should have been more engaged in society and promoting a Christian view of things, being that salt and light in the world, and defending the doctrine of Scripture against those who would want to water it down, you know, to accommodate to the culture and its presuppositions. And so these are areas where there has been work done, and perhaps more work needed, but Christ has called his disciples to be salt of the earth, the light of the world, that's who we are, and therefore informs how we ought to act, to maintain the saltiness, the distinctiveness in following Christ, which also is rooted in God's word, as Jesus went on to say, But then also to not hide it, you know, to be not retreating from society, but to bear this witness in and for that society. Before I get to these figures, and there's 12 of them in 30 minutes, so we'll have to go relatively quickly, but a lot of them are theologians, pastors, but of course not all Presbyterians are theologians and pastors. Presbyterians of all levels have been involved in various work in the 20th century, so I want to more briefly, it's not in your notes, mention a few For example, Will Hayes of the Hayes Code that regulated the film industry from 1930s to 1966, he was a Presbyterian elder, as was actor Jimmy Stewart. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, you might have heard of them, were evangelical Christians who were members of a Presbyterian church, which at least by now has left the main line and is in Echo. Peter Marshall was a pastor in D.C. during World War II and was chaplain of the U.S. Senate afterwards, featured in a movie, A Man Named Peter. And he was a Presbyterian minister, as was his son, Peter John Marshall, who wrote, is probably best known for some of the history books that he wrote. Dwight Eisenhower was a president who was baptized upon profession of faith into a Presbyterian church shortly after becoming president. Now, I don't know the details of his theological beliefs, but that's pretty significant, and not knowing much more than that seems to be a good thing, right? Also, there are some past and present senators who are in the PCA, Presbyterian Church in America, like Ben Sasse, Jim Talent, Jim DeMint, Marshall Blackburn, also our Senator Josh Hawley, last I heard was in the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. So there are Presbyterians who are involved in various aspects of media and culture and politics. that go beyond simply the involvement of the pastors and theologians. We want to equip the saints for their various callings, and that's just a little taste of many different callings that they engage in. But let's go back a little bit earlier in the 20th century and start with one who's not a good influence, but certainly is a influence, an important influence, and that was Karl Barth. Karl Barth and Neo-Orthodoxy. Karl Barth was actually not American. He was a Swiss theologian and was an important founder of what became called Neo-Orthodoxy. In the aftermath of World War I, neo-orthodoxy critiqued the old liberalism that Machen had fought against, the very naturalistic approach. But neo-orthodoxy did not go back to orthodoxy either, and instead kind of remained in ambiguity, paradox, subjective experience. It kind of wanted the old-time religion without the old-time doctrine, and ended up being very Van Til and Schaefer and others called it the new modernism. Not quite the same as the old modernism, but often similar airs. It was picked up by some Americans, including Reinhold and Richard Niebuhr. who were born and raised for a time in Wright City, Missouri, just down the road. A little UCC church there where their father was a pastor. But later they taught at Eden and Union and Yale's seminaries. And neo-orthodoxy would become influential among mainline Presbyterians as well. So Neo-Orthodoxy taught that the Bible is not divine revelation. Now, you and I would hold the belief, right, that the Bible is divine revelation, is God's word. But they taught that the Bible is not divine revelation, but a merely human record of or witness to divine revelation. Barthes wrote, the Bible witnesses to a revelation from God. And he goes on to say the prophets and apostles were actually guilty of error in their spoken and written word. So, of course, he denies biblical inerrancy. He doesn't believe in inspiration in the same way as we would, although he'll use that term. Neo-Orthodoxy taught that Jesus is the Word of God. Of course, we would assert that too, but they meant it in a more exclusive way, that Jesus is the Word of God rather than Scripture. That Scripture is a witness to Jesus, that divine revelation. And so it taught that God uses the Bible to create an encounter between the reader and Christ, so that in that case, when that happens, the Bible becomes the Word of God to you. And so it's more of a subjective experience where God might speak through scripture, but it's not the same as saying that everything scripture asserts is God's word. And so that would influence the Presbyterian confession of 1967 by the mainline denomination and be the new modernism that would be encountered in the 20th century. Out of the main line, you had Westminster Seminary, founded by Machen and others, and its early faculty was pretty important, and I'll just mention three of them. All three of these were OPC ministers as well in our denomination. and Westminster professors. First was Cornelius van Til. He was a Dutch-American professor of apologetics. He was born in Holland, raised in Indiana, came from the Christian Reformed Church into the OPC, and he pioneered the development of presuppositional apologetics. apologetics that deny that there's neutral ground, but rather that all the ground out there is Christ's, and the unbeliever might borrow from our worldview in living in God's world, but in principle, there's this antithesis between a Christian worldview and that which is in rebellion against God, and we seek to press the issue by showing that You know, that the Christian worldview is true, is consistent, is in fact presupposing the authority of Christ and the fear of the Lord, and in that way we are able to live and move and reason. That to reject God is to reject the ability even to reason and to live in God's world. And so that's just a very basic explanation of that system, but it would be called presuppositional apologetics. John Murray came from Scotland, from the Free Presbyterian Church, and he came into the OPC. He taught systematic theology for many decades. Later on, after a long career, he got married and moved back to Scotland and served as a pastor of a church there in his quote-unquote retirement. and had at least one child, I think children. But he wrote books like Redemption Accomplished and Applied, Principles of Conduct, which is on ethics, Christian Baptism. His commentary on Romans would be pretty important. And the other one I'll mention here is E.J. Young, who is from California, which is actually part of the United States, so he's not foreign born. But E.J. Young was one who taught Old Testament. He had a very interesting educational career, which involved studying in the Middle East and traveling on camels. And he ended up picking up 26 languages that he could either read or speak. and would defend orthodox approach to scripture in the Old Testament and engaging with the higher criticism that would try to pick it apart. So Van Til, Murray, E.J. Young, others part of that Westminster faculty. Now, later on, kind of a second-generation Westminster faculty member would be Meredith Klein. Meredith Klein would also be an OPC minister, an Old Testament professor, first at Westminster Seminary, also at Gordon-Conwell, later on at Westminster West. Westminster West is in Escondido, California, and a lot of his followers would remain there at Westminster West. And his thought developed over time. I have one of his commentaries on Deuteronomy, which I think was from early on, which seems to be pretty helpful. But as his thought developed, he took distinctive positions, sometimes somewhat original positions, including on creation days. He promoted the framework hypothesis. I would see it more as a literary structure than a straightforward historical text. On Sabbath and law, for example, the idea that the Lord's Day is not the Christian Sabbath and or part of the moral law. Ideas on culture and eschatology, what would become known as radical two kingdom approach. And also on covenant theology, the idea that the Mosaic covenant is in some sense a republication of the covenant of works. And he went beyond in some sense. He had his own idea of what that meant, although it's a little hard for people to figure out. And even in the OPC report on this issue, it proposes two interpretations of what Klein taught on that matter. So there's a little debate. Some of these ideas were furthered by some of his disciples. I mentioned in a previous lesson that one of his followers, Lee Irons, got into trouble in the OPC later on. So it would prove somewhat controversial, and I would disagree with these distinctives of his. Yes? Just a quick question. Lee Irons was very honest and upright about what his view of the law was, and that's why he died. He was clear, you're saying. Sure, well I'm not sure why he wouldn't have been and it is possible that he wasn't as clear and these things were partially his ideas and partially where his followers took the ideas. Sure, sure. Yeah, and like with republication, probably on that issue too, there's debates on what exactly his position was. And so there's Klein, and there's also kind of Kleinian school of thought that would come from that, but perhaps develops beyond in some ways. So kind of thinking of the system of thought or the tradition that followed from him, it does kind of begin to form a system. If the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of works in some sense, then the theocratic culture of Israel was entirely unique, an example of what you might call intrusion ethics. and so would fit with the idea that culture is not normally supposed to be distinctly Christian, and if the Mosaic Covenant is a covenant of works, and therefore the Ten Commandments are not directly binding on us as as such, and the Sabbath as a mosaic institution is then not binding on us, and the Lord's Day is only for Christians, should not be enforced on non-Christians. That kind of fits with the idea, too, that the creation narrative that undergirds the Sabbath is a literary structure to teach us more than a description of how it happened. I'm not saying necessarily all these points were drawn together by Klein, but that you do start to see some consistency among some of these ideas. I think a Mosaic covenant was an administration of the covenant of grace, pretty simply so. It's true the law was republished in it, but it had a different function in that covenant. The theocratic culture of Israel is unique in some ways, but it was also supposed to be a model to the nations. You know, what nation has laws so good as this? So it's not entirely unique. The Sabbath is a creation ordinance, part of the moral law. and rooted in Genesis 2-3, and thus the Lord's Day is the Christian Sabbath. Creation Week is not simply a literary device just to teach Israel, but it's a historical week in which God finishes his work of creation and rested. So that would be my response to that. But those would be discussions that would be provoked by Meredith Klein. Another strain of thought would be that represented by R.J. Rushtuni and Greg Bonson and what would become known as Christian Reconstruction. R.J. Rushduni was born to recently arrived Armenian refugees. He was conceived while they fled from the Armenian genocide, born in New York. They settled in California. His father was a Presbyterian minister, having been introduced to Presbyterianism by missionaries in Armenia after his father, who was a priest, had been killed by the Turks. Rush Dooney, R.J. Rush Dooney, became a Presbyterian minister in 1944. He served first as a missionary on a remote Shoshone Indian Reservation in northern Nevada. Then he was a pastor of a church in Santa Cruz, California. He was an early champion of Van Til and wrote in his defense and promoted those ideas of presuppositional apologetics. And he led, here's a typo in the notes, it's not the member, the members, he had more than one member, led the members of his PCUSA church into the OPC in 1958. Later on, he stepped down from the pulpit to devote himself to writing, and he founded the Chalcedon Foundation in 1965. Later, he'd also served as pastor of an independent church, Chalcedon Chapel. But he wrote and spoke to advance what he called Christian reconstruction. Well, he had some odd takes here and there, and that might have been encouraged by later being independent. He was an insightful and motivating writer, cultivating a positive vision for Christian thought and culture. One of his articles, he describes how when he was 11, he went to the movies and saw this silent film and realized the people in this movie don't live like God exists, and was horrified by that thought. And later on in university, he realized that We have some responsibility here to promote a Christian worldview, to live like God exists in every area of life. And then that was furthered by encountering Van Til's writings and continued to develop that idea. He was also an important figure in the start of the Christian school movement, the homeschooling movement. He was like the HSLDA before the HSLDA existed, even showing up in court trials. Also, I mentioned his involvement in the creation science movement. One young man who was influenced by Rashtuni was Greg Bonson, who was raised in the OPC, wrote for Chalcedon a little bit, studied under Van Til and Murray at Westminster, and then served as an OPC minister and scholar, mostly in Southern California, until his untimely death at the age of 47. He would become known for his work in presuppositional apologetics, reform theology, Christian worldview, theonomic ethics, and post-millennial eschatology. So would be more of the churchy branch of Christian Reconstruction that wanted to be a good churchman as well as promoting this approach to culture. There were other branches perhaps of Christian Reconstruction that didn't emphasize being a confessional good churchman as well. But that wasn't without controversy either, just to be fair. A figure that's more widely known that would also be influenced to some degree by Rushduni, but a little more mainstream, would be Francis Schaeffer. Anyone heard of Francis Schaeffer? Yeah. So Francis Schaeffer was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania. He was at Westminster Seminary when the OPC was founded. His mother was a founding charter member. He was away at a summer camp leading that. But he then left the OPC with the Bible Presbyterians and served as the pastor of the first Bible Presbyterian Church in St. Louis in the 1940s. Later on, the Independent Board sent him to Europe post-World War II, ministered to children there. Developed in 1951, he experienced a spiritual crisis and renewal, leading to an emphasis that would stay with him through the rest of his life on emphasizing both truth and love. Standing for truth and orthodoxy as well as warmth and love and spirituality, hospitality, In 1955, he and his family founded Labrie, which means the shelter, in Switzerland, where hospitality, apologetics, culture, evangelism emerged. Especially young people, college students, or college dropouts would come and stay there and have their questions and discuss. And it was apologetics on the ground. And they would investigate and grow in their faith. And that would be through the 1960s and that cultural moment. In the late 60s, he began to publish recordings in books that flowed out of that ministry. His trilogy that would be known for is Escape from Reason, The God Who Is There, He Is There and He Is Not Silent. Later on in the 70s, he released How Should We Then Live, which is made into a film series as well. He also did whatever happened to the human race in a book, A Christian Manifesto. And in those, he called for Christians to bring their Christian worldview into cultural engagement, to take a stand for life, especially the unborn, to engage the abortion issue, to oppose abortion, also stand against a growing totalitarianism in society. So basically seek the good of your society, because you have all these good ideas as Christians, these principles, and so we should bring that in and seek to convince our society to live in these good ways. A couple years after his denomination, the RPCES joined the PCA, he died in 1984. Another man who lived at that same time was D. James Kennedy. D. James Kennedy was from the South, born in Georgia, and he was converted by listening to a preacher on the radio in 1953. The preacher on the radio said something like, if you were to die tonight and go to heaven, and God asked, why should I let you into my heaven, what would you say? And that would be a question that he would later use on in his own evangelistic ministry. He was ordained in that southern mainline church, the PCUS, in 1959. And he served as the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from that time until his death in 2007. So that's a long, long ministry. And it would become a very big church. He and the church joined the PCA in 1978. In the 1960s, he developed and launched evangelism explosion as a method of evangelism, something that he had worked at in his church. In 1970s, he founded a Coral Ridge Ministries and a weekly TV program, Coral Ridge Hour, later on a radio program. truths that transform. He is said to have been the most listened to Presbyterian minister in the world, of all time. I don't know if you can verify that or not, but a lot of people listened, including, I guess Melody's not here, Melody's family listened to Kennedy regularly until he died. In fact, my great-uncle told me about how after Vietnam, he was in a very low place, not going in a good direction, and in part through listening to Kennedy, as well as, I think, Jerry Falwell around the same time, that really turned around, started to be a committed Christian, then also was influenced by Francis Schaeffer, started homeschooling back in the 80s, you know, if not earlier, and that influenced my parents to homeschool us. And it's through listening to reform speakers at homeschool conferences that we ended up here. So all this influence trickles down. And you all might have similar stories with some of these figures. But D. James Kennedy founded a lot of institutions, Westminster Academy, Knox Seminary, was on the board of Moral Majority, helped found Alliance Defending Freedom for the Defense of Religious Freedom, the Center for Christian Statesmanship as an outreach to those in government in D.C. Now, after his death in 2007, his church, Coral Ridge PCA, went through a bit of a rough spot. You know, after such a long, prominent ministry, it's going to be hard for any church. And then their next minister, Tulian Tevigian, who was Billy Graham's grandson, had a very different take on an approach to culture, kind of seeing that as culture war stuff that we didn't want to do and had a more antinomian tendency in some of his teaching. And people didn't like that. Then he resigned after confessing to adultery, and so that was all a bit of turmoil for Coral Ridge. But today, it looks like Coral Ridge PCA has regained its footing. It carries on the work of evangelism, worship, discipleship, and equipping the saints for their cultural responsibilities. So it carries on that legacy. Any questions at this point with some of the figures that we've talked about? Yeah, so first, the one that Schaeffer pastored later was named Covenant Presbyterian Church, and they moved to Ballas Road, so close to the seminary. And later, part of it wanted to move further west, and so that became Twin Oaks Presbyterian. So both of those are kind of descendants of First Bible Presbyterian. But yeah, part of the PCA now. So another man you might be familiar with is R.C. Sproul. R.C. Sproul, I didn't realize this, he was actually R.C. Sproul III. The middle initial actually always stands for a different name, but it's always Robert, something that starts with C, and then Sproul. So his son is also R.C. Sproul. He has a son, R.C. Sproul. But R.C. Sproul Sr. was actually the third. He was born in Pittsburgh and converted while attending a progressive Presbyterian college. His girlfriend Vesta, whom he had planned to marry since the first grade, also came to Christ shortly afterwards, and they were married in 1960. He attended Pittsburgh Seminary and studied under John Gerstner, who I mentioned earlier in a different lesson. Despite Sproul's initial reluctance, he was eventually convinced of Reformed theology under Gerstner's instruction. And after he did some further studies, also started teaching in some academic contexts, realized that that wasn't quite his fit, and then he moved to Stallstown, Pennsylvania in 1971 to lead and teach the newly established Ligonier Valley Study Center, which was modeled after L'Abri, a place where people could come and study and study theology, doctrine. And that led to writing and speaking engagements. He introduced a lot of people to Reformed theology and was part of this resurgence of Calvinist theology in the late 20th century. And in 1975, he left the mainline denomination to join the PCA. Table Talk newsletter or magazine was 1977. 1984, it was renamed Ligonier Ministries and moved to Orlando, Florida, where it is today. 1985, he published The Holiness of God, one of his many books. And Renewing Your Mind, the daily radio program, began in 1994. He was also called as the Senior Minister of Preaching and Teaching at St. Andrew's Chapel. The church itself, I think, was independent, but its ministers were part of the PCA and continued to be active until his death in 2017. Now another Pittsburgh native who began in the UPC USA and later went into the PCA was James Montgomery Boyce. He graduated from some more liberal universities, Princeton Seminary and University of Basel, but then he served as the pastor of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia from 1968 to 2000. Again, pretty long ministry. It's been said by Rick Phillips that the first part of his ministry, roughly to 1980, focused on defending biblical inerrancy against liberalism and neo-orthodoxy. The second part, to 1993, on teaching reformed theology in an evangelical context. And the third part on the sufficiency of scripture for the church's evangelism, holiness, guidance, and cultural impact against the temptations of worldliness and compromise. And so that would be till his death in 2000. And that might be oversimplified, but, you know, roughly speaking. His preaching was spread to a larger audience by the Bible Study Hour, a radio program. He founded the Philadelphia Conference on Reformed Theology in 1974, and that's been held every year to the present, would be also part of this resurgence of Calvinist theology in America. He co-founded the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals in 1994, and that's kind of served then as an umbrella for some of these continuing ministries like that conference to the present day. Now, Boyce was the chairman, and Sproul was the president of the International Council on Biblical Inerrancy. That was from 1977 to 1988. That produced the Chicago Statement on Inerrancy in 1978. for the organization came about at a conference held by Jay Grimstead, a friend of ours, with Bonson, Gerstner, Geisler, and Sproul in attendance. And later on, the council would include Schaefer and J.I. Packer And that statement was drafted by Sproul and worked on by a committee that included Boyce, and they finished and approved it by a group of 200 evangelical leaders. So that was part of that stand for biblical inerrancy against the new modernism of neo-Orthodoxy. The last man that I want to mention I might not have a lot of time, and I'm not really as familiar with him as some of these other figures, but that would be Tim Keller. Tim Keller, who just died last year, so again, his legacy is still being thought about and debated today. But he was born, like many of these guys, in Pennsylvania. a lot of Presbyterians in Pennsylvania, although he wasn't raised Presbyterian. He was raised Lutheran Church in America, was involved in the Evangelical InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at college. And after going to seminary, he served as pastor of a rural PCA church in Virginia. And then he went back to Westminster to teach as a professor there and attended New Life Presbyterian Church. So Professors Ed Clowney and Harvey Kahn, Pastor Jack Miller would be really strong influences on his later ministries. As New Life was moving out of the OPC in 1989, Tim Keller was moving to Manhattan in 1989 to found Redeemer Presbyterian Church in the PCA. A lot of people were skeptical that a confessional Presbyterian church could grow there, but his church grew from 50,000 to 5,000 by 2008. And that's when he published his book, The Reason for God, and many books would follow after that. So he had this initial period of ministry. His broader ministry to the larger church through publications would really take place more in the 2000s. Along with D.A. Carson, he founded the Gospel Coalition in 2005. On the one hand, Keller was pretty good at communicating the gospel and Calvinist theology in an understandable and winsome manner, especially to the younger, at least in his day, the younger generations, Gen X or Millennial. He also cast a vision for Christians to seek the good of their city. Of course, he meant literally New York City, where he was. But to seek the good of the city, apply the faith to their vocations, engage the culture, On the other hand, he had some weaknesses, and he's been criticized sometimes fairly, sometimes unfairly, sometimes for where his disciples took different ideas. Sometimes it's hard to know, did this person who studied under him later embrace women pastors because of Keller's influence or despite Keller's influence? Was that already where he was headed? But sometimes I think his emphasis on the danger of legalism, his priority of winsome evangelism sometimes overrode other considerations, led him to sometimes an imbalance or a soft position or problematic positions. you know, leaning towards theistic evolution, for example, or his approach to third-way politics, which in itself is right. I mean, Christianity has its own distinctive position. It's not exactly identical with any political party, but whether he taught this or other people took it this way, it's like, well, there's a little good in the Democrats, a little good in the Republicans. If that's what third-way politics means, then that's right. Not a great approach. So like I said, his legacy is still being discussed. But overall, a lot of reasons for appreciation as well, especially, I think, given his context. His ministry was pretty heavily contextualized to a rather liberal city in Manhattan and New York. And that probably should be taken into account and not necessarily apply the same approach to every other place. A few other people who've recently passed to glory, G.I. Williamson and Leonard Koppus, whom I both met in the Presbytery of the Dakotas, two OPC figures, and Harry Reeder, a PCA pastor in Birmingham, all of those passing away either this year or last year. So any questions here? In other words, a lot to cover, but trying to bring us up closer to the present now, some of these influential figures in the last century. All right, well let's, next week we're gonna finish the series, and we're going to look at where we are today, the 21st century, and bring this series to conclusion. Join with me in prayer. Dear Father, we thank you for your word and we thank you for your work through your people. We ask that you would continue to maintain your church and your truth, that you would help us to be faithful and to be wise to meeting the challenges of this day. We pray that you would continue to raise up one generation after another. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.