From the Easy Chair

Presbyterian Church Reforms

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Conversations, Panels and Sermons

Lesson: 123-214

Genre: Speech

Track:

Dictation Name: RR161CM165

Year: 1980s and 1990s

Dr. R. J. Rushdoony, RR161CM165, Presbyterian Church Reforms, from the Easy Chair, excellent colloquies on various subjects.

[ Rushdoony ] This is R. J. Rushdoony, Easy Chair number 275, September 29, 1992.

Otto Scott and I are here at the Presbyterian Theological Center in Sydney, Australia. We are here for 10 days speaking to various groups at the invitation of Ian Hodge. All of you heard Ian some months back when he was with us in Vallecito. Ian, it is a privilege to be here with you. Will you introduce our other guests and our subject?

[ Hodge ] Thank you, Rush. And it is my pleasure to be able to bring yourself and Otto to this country for this series of meetings that you have been participating in.

Today we have with us the reverend John Davies who is principal and head of Old Testament studies here at the Presbyterian Theological Center. He is joined by the reverend Paul Cooper who is head of pastoral theology and the reverend Chris Bowser who is head of New Testament and lectures in theology as well.

Part of the purpose of this meeting today is to look at the Presbyterian Church in Australia and some of the rather exciting reforms that have been going on in this denomination over the past few years. But before we get on to that I thought I might help the listeners to the Easy Chair tapes try to understand a little bit about Australia and its perspective and or its situation in the world and especially the role of the Church and religion in this nation.

Unlike America we don’t have a history of strong Calvinism that formed the ... the... that was part of the founding roots of this country. As I like to say it, America was started by Calvinists and Australia was started by convicts. But whichever way we go, the church here definitely had a strong influence.

Paul, I am going to address the first question to you for our listeners and that perhaps you might like... might like to make a few comments how you saw the church in the early days of the settlement of Australia and what do you think its particular role is as to whether you saw it as primarily an evangelical church or a more social institution that was aligned with the polit... political groupings of the day.

[ Cooper ] Well, I think originally the first ministers who came to Australia were in the service of the over government in many ways. They were there to help encourage good morals amongst the convicts. That is how the government saw their activity. And though some of the very early ministers who were Church of England were evangelical in perspective, they were vastly intimidated by the great distances, the great numbers, the work that they had to do and I think that they were generally regarded as... as moral policemen, I think, while the {?}.

As the colony grew they were ... a growth in the churches. From our perspective in the Presbyterian Church there were many Scottish settlers who came and they brought with them their Presbyterianism. And Presbyterian churches were formed and, I think, in the early days of Australian settlement in the 1800s the theology of the church at that stage was conservative. It was reformed and reflected the background from Scotland from whence they came.

Later on towards the end of the 19th century they same sorts of decline that took place in the Church of Scotland in terms of theology, in terms of the reaction of the rise of biblical criticism, the rise of modern science was sort of felt in Australia as well and there was a move to more liberalized attitudes toward the Bible which gained pace towards the end of the 19th century and in to the early 20th century and then in the early part of the 20th century through the 1920s, 30s, 40s Liberalism gained a great hold in the Presbyterian Church of Australia.

[ Hodge ] Rush, how do you say that the Church in American while it became modernist in its approach was not the product of the Enlightenment, but the product of Unitarianism? Am I correct in that?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes. During the War of American Independence the Calvinistic clergy was most active. They were basically the motivating force for the war. One British agent in the States reported to London that the war was Scotch Irish Presbyterian rebellion. That is an aspect of it that is rather neglected by historians at this time. This meant that, first, the Calvinistic clergy was very active in the military. They were the chaplains. Very often they commanded regiments.

As a result, their churches were the particular target of the British mercenary troops. Their churches were burned down. Their Bibles, their hymnals were tossed into a bon fire. And when the war was over the Calvinist cause was the one that had suffered the most. They returned to their home churches to find them burned to the ground. It took them some years to rebuild and to recapture lost ground. And this gave the Unitarians who had been the moderates within the church an opportunity as they had first drifted to the left and become Arian and Unitarian, to gain control of the scene. They had the churches that continued to operate. They grew. And they turned in time Unitarian.

So this began one of the factors in the decline. All the same, the reformed influence revived. It moved southward out of New England. In New Jersey it established a tremendous base at Princeton University and the theological seminary there. It became very strong in the southern states and it there retained more of early Theonomic character of the Presbyterian Church. Some of the men at Princeton began, by the 1840s and 50s to abandon their Theonomic character. And there reformed faith still retained an influence until the beginning of this century when Woodrow Wilson became president of Princeton. And although his father had been a Presbyterian minister, he himself regarded the state as the true church. In fact, he wrote a book entitled, I believe, simply The State.

Is that not true, Otto?

[ Scott ] Yes, that is true.

[ Rushdoony ] And in the course of that it became apparent in his thinking that the true church for modern man was the state and the state is the source of grace. And Woodrow Wilson is perhaps the father of the 20th century. And he created a massive shift away from the reformed faith to a statist faith so that we had a better beginning in the States than in Australia, but we have had a tremendously difficult century.

[ Hodge ] Otto, I am going to direct the next question to you, because you have not long finished what I consider a most important book, The Great Christian Revolution which was dealing with the decline of the reformed faith in England and the events from roughly the start of the 16th century up to the year 1660. Now our church in this country and, of course, this country has predominantly English in its background rather than American. Have you gone past the 1660s where you have seen the decline of the reformed faith due to the rise of Arminianism?

Are you able to give me a brief description how you saw the English side of the Church through the 18th century? Because that is the key, I think, to understanding how Australia fits in to the world wide scene of the... and its religious context.

[ Scott ] Well, of course, the restoration of Charles II ushered in a period of persecution for the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterians were fooled by Charles. They thought he was going to give them a Presbyterian England and it was an absurd belief because of ... he didn’t like the Presbyterians at all. They had been {?} with him when he was a refugee in Scotland during the period of his banishment. And as soon as he got back into control in England they set up, the English set up together with Commons, the present Church of England which is Protestant and Catholic, you know, Anglican and ... and Protestant.

The Presbyterians were cast into outer darkness and actually persecuted and so were all the other dissenters as they called them. I won’t go into it. You know, I am sure you know all about it. It was very unpleasant, very difficult and it sent a great many people to the American colonies. Most of the leading families of the American War of Independence, the Lees, the Washingtons and so forth were descendents of the family ... the Calvinist families that fled to the colony.

And that exodus continued for several generations. England or the British Isles, you might say, populated the American colonies. The Irish Catholics, of course, were a little bit different. They went into Maryland and a few places like that, but the dominant influence was Calvinist. The Calvinists themselves did a very curious thing in my position or... or in my opinion. They more or less after their tremendous defeat of the revolution in Great Britain or in Scotland and England more or less abandoned politics and went into commerce. They were really the motivating group for the industrial revolution from the American continent. And commerce, of course, was a stewardship of the earth and its resources. There was a good theological reason for turning into that. They lifted, as part of the industrial revolution, they assisted in lifting the living standards of the globe. The French Revolution came after our War of Independence and very soon lost the sympathy that the Americans originally had for it. And I would say that through the 19th century, through at least up to our Civil War there was a very strong religious, Presbyterian element in the United States which was very important in the manufacturing and trade area.

After the Civil War, however, there was a great retreat. For a long time up until let’s say the 1920s the ... what Weber called the Protestant ethic prevailed in the United State, but by the 1920s we had lost, let’s say, the Calvinists had lost religion. Christianity had lost. Christianity had lost in the 1890s the control of education in the United States. The... almost all of our schools had been established by denominations and mostly Protestant denominations including a number of Calvinist denominations, Presbyterian denominations. By the 1890s clergymen had been knocked out of the head of these schools everywhere except Princeton and Princeton was finally taken over by Woodrow Wilson and displaced reverent Patton, the last clergyman to head a major American university, main line university.

And shortly after the loss of the main line universities, I would say, Presbyterianism began to decline as a force in the American culture. And today it is a peripheral force.

[ Rushdoony ] If I could interject something on a less note of high seriousness, you made a reference to the convict past of Australia. And I want to clarify that for our American listeners. They were not convicts for the most part in the historic sense as you folks know, but as Americans do not. The British policy was that they wanted the colonies to be populated. And over 200 death penalties were introduced for very trifling things in most cases. And those convicted had the choice of either being hung or being shipped to the colonies. They are not much more than poor people. As a matter of fact, orphans or homeless children were rounded up and shipped over here and the last shipment was as recently as 1967.

So the only offense of most of these so-called convicts was poverty and that is true of those that were sent to Canada and to other areas. So they were people who were like everybody else, only they were poor. But it did alienate them from the church, because they found no real strength or comfort from the Church when they underwent so tragic a development occasioned by no greater offense than poverty.

[ Hodge ] It seems to me the Church generally in England at that time missed a great opportunity.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Hodge ] To bring to bear a word that you have been using a lot here, Rush, and that is the word justice.

[ Rushdoony ] Yes.

[ Hodge ] The sentences that were imposed for these minor offenses were clearly unjust no matter what standard you use to ... to look at it and especially when you look at it in the light of the Scriptures. And yet you have these events that have... that have taken place at the end of the 18th century and, I guess, in some ways it is probably the American War of Independence that gave England some impetus to look for some other place to help off load some of its citizens.

[ Scott ] I would like to add one more word on my comments on the Presbyterians in the United States and that is the Presbyterian Church split north and south during the Civil War. And after the Civil War and up to fairly recent times I would say that the Presbyterian Church in America and throughout America, throughout the United States became associated with the high bourgeoisie. Not to quite the same extent as the Anglican, but very close.

[ Hodge ] You are saying it wasn’t the church of the ordinary folk.

[ Scott ] That is right.

[ Rushdoony ] Ironically, in the States the church that was best represented among upper, middle and lower classes was the Episcopal Church, but it has lost that character in the past 50 years.

[ Hodge ] Chris, how does that compare with the church here in Australia of the last century? Were the Presbyterian Church have been the church of the common man or an upper class church?

[ Bowser ] Well, I think in the first instance, the Anglican Church, the Church of England was the church of the aristocracy such as there were in here in Australia, certainly the church of the governors although there was at least one Scottish Presbyterian governor. Certainly the church of the military. If they wanted a church, which I suspect they did not, but they were given a church by the British government anyway, mainly the Church of England, the Presbyterian Church was founded from the Scottish {?} as Paul has mentioned and these were mainly tradesmen, artisans, farmers, that sort of thing. There were a number of wealthy Presbyterians in the latter part of the 19th century who endowed a number of churches and so on. But my observation of the Presbyterian Church in Australia compared with a short spell of ministering in a Presbyterian Church in the United States some years ago is that at least the Presbyterian Church of the USA represents a higher stratum of socio economic society than the Presbyterian Church of Australia does. And I think that has probably always been the case. It think in Australia the Anglican Church has been the Church, by and large of the aristocracy and or its equivalent and the Presbyterian Church has been one step down from that.

[ Voice ] Could I just add to that? It has bee mentioned of the... the Scotch Presbyterians. We shouldn’t neglect the fact also that there were other strains which came into Australian Presbyterianism, particularly the Presbyterians from Northern Ireland, but I... I would agree with Chris’ comments there that on the whole the ... the social stratum that is represented is not such a wealth stratum on the whole. Many of them farmers and as they settled in Australia the types of farming were... was quite different from the farming that they were used to, many of them, say, in the north coast of New South Wales became cane farmer, growing sugar cane. And it is a hard life, the dairy farmers, not something that you grow rich quick on.

[ Voice ] The debate, though, in the last century in this country, then, amongst the Christians seemed to be very... develop along the times, if I am right, of ... of the ... of the debate amongst denominations rather than a debate of the faith versus, you know, some other faith so that you see, perhaps, say, in the founding of our constitution and ... and earlier in... in the events of the early colony the involvement of, say, the Presbyterians, the Anglicans and the Catholics and maybe some other groups as well.

But very much a ... a development of... of religious thinking that was designed to prevent the other denomination getting an upper hand. We see this in some of the funding issues that were going on, you know, in the last century when we had the establishment of... of, you know, of public education and in this country.

[ Rushdoony ] I think, Ian, it would be an important to move into what has happened here in Australia and by way of preface to that, let me say that the two churches in the United States that were the last to go under, to succumb to Modernism were the Presbyterians and the Lutherans. And there was a reason for this. They were, at the time, both confessional churches. There was still a great deal of teaching of the confessional standards, of Catechism and the like. And that gave strength to those two communions that made it difficult to subvert them. And so they were the last to go.

[ Scott ] Would you include the Catholic in that?

[ Rushdoony ] Yes as long as the Baltimore Catechism was widely used in the Catholic parochial schools there was a great deal of resistance to they change. And the change came in the American Catholic, not from the people as much as from the clergy and the seminaries were responsible for that. They subverted the clergy and the clergy moved the Church to the left. And, of course, Vatican II left the American Catholic Church in a state of shock.

For a time there was a tremendous departure and some years the parochial schools that closed down by the hundreds and there was a great deal of bitterness over that in the laity.

I know in Los Angeles there was one parochial school with about 2000 members. The nuns told the parents to put their children in evangelical schools, because they were shutting down. They would not comply with the orders to go modernist. And slightly more than half of those children wound up in evangelical Christian schools.

So it was a rather bitter thing. There has been a swing back under the present pope John Paul II but no real recovery of any substantial sort as yet. What will happen, I don’t know. But Presbyterianism has had a resilience because when it is faithful it has the most specific and detailed confession of faith and the most extensive, the longest catechism for children to memorize so that where the old standard of Scotland was followed, baptize, chastise and catechize, the Presbyterian Church has had a resistance.

The reason why we are here at the Presbyterian Theological Center this evening meeting with these men its hat a very important development in 20th century Church history is taking place here. And these men are at the center of it.

In a century when there has been a dramatic decline in the faith and in the theological position of the various churches, Australia has seen a dramatic turn around in the Presbyterian Church. As a result, I think it is important for us to understand the character of this turn around because it is one related to the confessional stance to a biblical faith and, therefore, is grounded in the proper perspective.

Ian, do you want to take it from there and tell us a bit more about this?

[ Hodge ] Thanks, Rush. I would like to address the issue to John Bailey who is the principal of the college here to perhaps just spend a minute or two giving the listeners an idea of what the church was like prior to 1977. In 1977 we had a split within the Presbyterian Church when a group went off to form what is now the Uniting Church, which, by the way, has made infamy this weekend, of course, by coming out in your presence here, Rush, and has now endorsed abortion on demand.

But, John, perhaps you could give us a ... just a brief perspective of what the church was like prior to the split so that we can understand what has been going on in the past 15 years in the Presbyterian Church which in the last few weeks and months has caused some of us to get a little excited in the... in the clear direction now of the denomination and its movement.

[ Voice ] Well, the Presbyterian Church in Australia throughout most of this century has been characterized by various forms of liberal theology. It came to a peak in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly her in New South Wales where the form of Liberalism which was dominant in Germany and Europe at that time was transported here. Subsequent to that period the Church adopted a more Neo Orthodox or Barthian stance in theology, very much dependent on who was lecturing within the theological colleges at that time. And at the time, prior to the formation of the Uniting Church along with two other denominations here, the Methodist Church and the congregational churches, the Presbyterian Church was very much a... an ecumenical body with strong affiliation with the World Council of Churches. It reflected the .... the majority position among Protestant churches here at that time. And as those Presbyterians left, over half of the Presbyterian Church left at that time in 1977, we were left with a ... a much reduced body of congregations, members and of ministers who remained Presbyterian, but for perhaps a variety of reasons. Some for reasons of wanting to adhere to a more robust form of subscription to our constitutional theological document, the Westminster Confession, others perhaps for more traditional reasons.

[ Voice ] {?} What are some of the events that would have... or the key events that would have taken place in the last 15 years, do you think, that have helped the church come to a position where in the most recent general assembly of Australia the church was able to over turn a former decision on the ordination of women? Can you give us perhaps... what... what do you consider are the key events in the past 15 years that led to that?

[ Voice ] Well, I wouldn’t want to put the ordination of women as ... as the most significant accomplishment although reversal of that decision, rather as... as the significant accomplishment of the past 15 years. I would rather put that into a ... a perspective. I think the ... we have seen a remarkable turn around in terms of our commitment to the Scriptures. It is the authority of the Scriptures which is paramount. I think very early on within that period in the immediate years after 1977 the conservative evangelicals within the church were able to gain positions in the theological halls or colleges and there are three within our denomination, one in Brisbane, one in Sydney, one in Melbourne. And around that period or shortly thereafter that period through a growing number of... of evangelical voices in our assemblies, those positions came into the hands of those who upheld the authority of the Scriptures. And then there has been a steady stream of men going into the ministry over the last decade, 15 years, and having an influence on the life of the Church and really I don’t want to exaggerate the ... the role that we here at the college or our colleagues in the other colleges have had. It has really been a work of God and a work of grace.

[ Voice ] But clearly the formation of a conservative college and training center for ministers had to be a key ingredient that has helped create the environment and the ... and the more conservative clergy within the denomination.

[ Voice ] It certainly has been a very significant factor used by God, yes.

[ Rushdoony ] I would say one of the reasons for the destruction of the Presbyterian Church in the USA was that the liberals captured the seminaries and then forbade the creation of independent seminaries and with that they throttled off protest and captured the church.

[ Voice ] Besides {?} happened here in Australia, it was just {?} under the providence of God church union intervened and changed the balance of power in the denomination over night so that the theological training in Australia was able to come under the control of conservatives again for the first time in almost 100 years.

[ Voice ] Probably another factor also in New South Wales that we ought to mention and that is the existence of the Sydney Dioceses Anglican Church which is conservative and reformed in its theology which gave great aid and comfort, I think, to the Presbyterians that they have been most encouraging and most helpful and I think that has had a big impact upon the... the Christian witness certainly in Sydney and I think many Presbyterians will testify that their early nurturing and encouragement and maybe even conversion certainly in my case, was under God through the ministry of these Anglicans who have held to the Scriptures and who have been of great encouragement to us and to the great assistance.

[ Rushdoony ] Here is an important question to me. In your churches who has title to the church property, the local congregation or the presbytery or denomination?

[ Voice ] The denomination.

[ Rushdoony ] That was a legal fact that created much trouble in the States in one church after another. Prior to 1860 the local congregation whether Catholic or Protestant controlled the church, had title to the property. Abraham Lincoln used his power to alter that dramatically so that the central authorities or the hierarchy of the church now had title to property. And this became a powerful impetus to stifling off reform, because when it came to a showdown as in the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America the lead was taken originally by some of the biggest churches in the country. But when it came to a showdown, will we walk out and leave our property, or will we remain in the church? They remained. And the break therefore was on the part of young seminarians predominantly.

[ Voice ] This is why I said that in the providence of God it was church union that was instrumental in turning this around because church union could only come into ... into effect by new acts of parliament being passed to allow for union and to allow for property rights for minorities. And so those who wish to remain Presbyterian if 33 and a third percent or more of voting members of a congregation wish to remain Presbyterian that property was retained.

[ Rushdoony ] Well, speaking as one who believes very strictly in predestination, I would have to say that that means that God has great things in mind for the Presbyterian Church here.

In the United States any new group starting—and this has been an impetus to starting new church groups, has been only if we begin afresh and only if we legally enter into our bylaws the title of the church belonging to the local congregation can we allow a church to retain control. So they have to meet a strict legal formula there.

[ Voice ] We have not been too anxious about property, those of us who are in this room, but there was much heart ache and anguish amongst many Presbyterians of our property. We would like to see the property business well and truly behind us and to get on with the preaching of the gospel.

[ Rushdoony ] How about the theology of the church today?

[ Voice ] Our denomination is still mixed theologically. Our constitutional position is very clearly Calvinistic. But we have a number of people in our denomination who are representative of what the church was like prior to 1977 theologically and who wish it to return to that theological position.

[ Rushdoony ] Where do most of the seminary students go? Where do they study?

[ Voice ] Most of the seminary students study at one of the three seminaries owned and operated by the Presbyterian Church of Australia or at Moore Theological College which is operated by Evangelical and Reformed Anglicans. Well, in fact, that is where virtually all of this... all of the seminary, seminarians would study at one of those four places.

[ Voice ] I think probably it would be true to say that probably in excess of, say, 70 percent of ministers who are now in parishes, had they trained since 1977 so that what we see in the Presbyterian Church of Australia is an increasing theological commitment on the part of ministers to the standards of the Presbyterian Church, but that is probably not true amongst the eldership which has been a lot slower in coming along with where its ministry is now. I think its ministry has moved to there quite quickly. In 15 years we have seen a significant change in the emphasis within the ministry, but, of course, the eldership has come along much more slowly and changes are being seen there. But much more slowly. And by virtue of our system of government, of course, with equal representation in church courts, the decisions are shared by both minister and elder and therefore, in some respects three is a lagging of the chain of it in the eldership, but we are seeing changes there as well. And changes, really, in the congregational life. I think the... the ministry in the Presbyterian church is basically young and I think the changes that are taking place will accelerate and particularly as it is effective amongst the eldership.

[ Rushdoony ] Otto?

[ Scott ] Well, the church... all the Christian churches in the United States are having a great deal of trouble with the American government. The judiciary is ruling against us on issue after issue. And the intervention of the government into ... into church activities is becoming very threatening. What is the situation here?

[ Voice ] Well, we are very fortunate in the light of what you just told us. We have had two recent court rulings, one to do with a matter in the Anglican Church and one to do with a matter in our denomination where the court has virtually said, “We will not interfere.” And we are very grateful to God for those decisions, both of them, even though they were... they went in opposite directions.

[ Rushdoony ] I would like to throw out a suggestion. About 30 years ago when I was in a particular Presbyterian denomination I realize that a weak point was the eldership. So at every session meeting the first half hour was given to a study of a particular article in the Confession of Faith and then the catechism so that every month there was a half an hour of systematic study, questions and answers in order to train them to be able to understand with maturity what they were upholding.

[ Voice ] Well I did that every month for 15 years in my last parish.

[ Rushdoony ] Wonderful.

[ Voice ] I don’t think it is a common occurrence, though.

[ Rushdoony ] I think it should be required, however, because it does make it a better situation for the pastor when he does that and it makes the church as a whole stronger. When a pastor leaves a congregation is better enabled to call a new man if they have elders who are trained.

[ Voice ] Certainly.

{?} reform here in the church has come from the leadership of the church rather than from the grass roots movement of the church.

[ Voice ] Certainly. That is true.

[ Scott ] Well, that is a proper role to the clergy. One of our other problems in the United States and a very large one is the determinately vocal, obvious anti Christian nature of our media which does everything it can to denigrate the Christian community. How is that... how is that situation here?

[ Voice ] Well, we have a few complaints about he media here, two, but not to the same level as you... as your comments have just... have just been. I... I am clasped by my colleagues as being the media spokesman. I am the one they interview when they want some comment about something. And they always warn me that the media are out to get me, but I take the point of view that a person is innocent until proved guilty and I have head a fairly good deal, really, with them.

[ Scott ] Oh, I am happy to hear that.

[ Rushdoony ] I think part of our problem in the past 20 to 25 years has been that as a result of a shock of seeing the culture disintegrate the churches have been experiencing an inner renewal, a theological renewal. And as they have grown stronger, the media which in 1952 agreed with the U S Supreme Court when they as one lawyer told me, concluded that Christianity was dead in the United States and they could dismantle the Christian structure of the legal system. Snow suddenly they are finding Christianity very much alive and they are reacting with hostility and anger. So a good deal of the problem we have is simply because we are alive and kicking.

[ Voice ] Oh, I wouldn’t describe the media in Australia as actively hostile. I think apathetic to mildly critical probably would be how I would describe it. I think you can get a fair go of them, but I don’t think that they often understand the Christian point of view nor represent it very well when they report it, but I wouldn’t describe it as actively hostile.

[ Voice ] A good case in point would be the recent discussions on the ordination of women where they are coming at it from a purely secular framework and not understanding on the whole and not... not really giving any space to it on the whole, the theological issues involved. They are simply looking for a way of presenting conflict and it is really an entertainment industry.

[ Voice ] Well, they are looking for a story. And if they... if they can find an attention grabbing aspect of church life, they will deal with it. If they can’t, they won’t.

[ Rushdoony ] How about the women in the church? Have they been inclined to the Feminist perspective and not all together happy the recent development?

[ Voice ] Many would be in that category, I think.

[ Rushdoony ] That has been a problem in the States and I have been rather distressed again and again to see how many women in reformed circles where they are orthodox are implicitly or explicitly feminist. They have been unduly influenced by the cultural around them.

I am afraid part of the responsibility for that rests with the churches, because as they saw these various tempers rising they did not deal with them. The Pietism in too many of the churches led them to regard abortion, homosexuality, Feminism as social gospel issues and they avoided them.

[ Voice ] I don’t think it would be true to characterize the decision that the general assembly took to reverse our stand on the ordination of women so we now longer ordain women to the ministry has been immediately taken by ... meekly accepted by many of the women in the church. I think it has caused a great deal of upset and I would say it goes about to say anger on their part. And I think that the challenge will be in the next five to 10 years is to see how the Presbyterian Church is going to weather this internal storm now the decision has been made, how... what the reaction is going to be and how in the next few years this issue is going to affect the life of the church seeing it is such a ... a momentous decision has been made. But I... I don’t think that the ordination of women is such a... a such a... is not the issue. I think the... the issue is there is a lot of reaction against the change of direction in the Presbyterian Church. Those who remained, who like to fondly call the bagpipe and haters brigade who were culturally part of Presbyterianism, have found a lot of the changes very difficult to take because it seems to have caught them right at the heart of their own cultural understanding of Christianity and I think the Presbyterian Church has now got a much greater emphasis on the Bible, a much greater emphasis on our confessional position, much greater emphasis on evangelism, on outreach and these things are difficult for many of our old members to accept.

[ Rushdoony ] We have just a few minutes. I would like to call attention to one aspect of this whole question which I think is very important. In the United States up to 1900 75 percent, I believe, of all the colleges and universities were established by Presbyterians and more than that by Scots whose emphasis on education was so great. And as a result, as long as the Presbyterian clergy retained a theological, confessional emphasis, it meant that they were the intellectual leaders in the United States so that if you look at the church of the 19th century, well, let us say to 1920, all the great thinkers within the Christian church were from the reformed ranks. They were predominantly Presbyterian. Since then, of course, we have still provided leadership in the person of Cornelius Van Til and one or two others so that your school here is very important, because you represent the intellectual content of the faith. And therefore to train up a clergy that will begin to command leadership intellectually in Australia places you at the center of the future and its importance.

Well, thank you for the contributions you have made and we want to thank all of you who are listening and God bless you all.

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