Biblically directed

Immanuel Orthodox Presbyterian Church
Collingswood, New Jersey
September 23, 2007

So far in this project I have attended one church service in the Bible Presbyterian Church (BPC) denomination, and one in the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) denomination, both more conservative offshoots of my own mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) (PCUSA) denomination. Today I wanted to visit an Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC), about which I knew little except that this is the group that is less culturally conservative than Bible Presbyterian (ie, they do not preach total abstinence from alcohol). Also, I have known some very, very nice members of the OPC church, and so I had a generally favorable impression of them.

First I checked Wikipedia. The OPC split off from the mainline Presbyterians in 1936, when J. Gresham Machen and other conservative Presbyterians met in Philadelphia to form a church they at first called the Presbyterian Church of America. The mainline group (PCUSA) filed suit against them for their choice of name, contending that it was too close to theirs, and in 1939 the conservatives renamed themselves the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (I guess they lost the lawsuit). At any rate, OPC churches are awfully close to PCA churches (they came close to reuniting in the seventies), and, according to Wikipedia, the OPC is pursuing ecumenical relations with the BPC. I’m sure the distinctions among the three are painfully clear to their members, but to mainline Presbyterians it seems as though it’s just us (reasonable and right) against all three of them (unreasonable and wrong). It probably looks the same way, in reverse, to them.



At any rate, OPC is a fairly small group, with 255 congregations and about 20,000 adult members in 2005 (that works out to an average congregation of 80 adults).

Next I went to the church's website. The overall impression I got was concern for right thinking, which makes sense given the name of the group (Orthodox). They make no bones about their desire to “document the apostasy” in the mainline Presbyterian Church, which they trace back as early as 1801, when a doctrine called Hopkinsianism reared its head in the church, resulting in the trial for heresy of two Presbyterian ministers. As best I can tell, Hopkinsianism seems to have been a less severe understanding of the doctrines relating to free will, election, and predestination. Quarreling about these issues continued for years, resulting in lots of unhappy Presbyterians. Information on the denominational website recounts many other instances of apostasy among the mainline Presbyterians, all leading to a capitulation with evil modernism. The website has a nice little Q & A section, with responses to questions about the church’s position on various topics. Apparently anyone can send in a question, and you can click through the archives to see what questions have been asked and answered. One interesting one was, “Can a wife teach her husband if she is more knowledgeable?” (The brief answer is “Yes, with qualifications.” Go to their website for the longer version.) Another question was, “Are Seventh-Day Adventists Christians?” The answer is that it’s possible that some of them may be Christians, but their theology is very defective. (Which is basically what almost all Christian groups say about all other Christian groups.)

The site contains lots of book reviews and many links to books and booklets you can either read online or order (Presbyterians – of every stripe-- tend to be big readers), and a daily devotional reading from the works of John Calvin. There are also links to audio sermons (literally hundreds of them) preached by OPC pastors around the country. I used the handy Church Locator feature to find an OPC congregation near my home, and it took me to the website of Immanuel OPC in Collingswood. At this site (which has since 2007 been changed considerably; most of the material is now gone) I learned that in 1936 the Collingswood congregation voted to renounce the jurisdiction of the apostate PCUSA. The result was that the presbytery deposed the pastor without trial, “violating all rules for judicial process.” Presbytery tried to take control of the pulpit, but members of the congregation barred them from the church premises. Presbytery threatened to go to court in order to take possession, and after about four months the local group gave up their fight for the property and decided to meet elsewhere.

The congregation began meeting in a local movie theater, and they were a healthy number: 180 in the morning service, 150 in the evening service, and 166 in Sunday school. Ground was broken for a new building in 1938. The church began a “parent-controlled Christian day school” in the forties, and this seems to be still ongoing, with three campuses. It wasn’t clear to me if the school has become a separate entity or if it is still connected somehow with this congregation. The church history ends with a curiously ethnic but very honest assessment of their current concerns: “Immanuel Church sprang originally from sturdy Scottish-Irish Presbyterian stock, with a not inconsiderable Church of England flavor from Cornwall. This northern European influence is still alive and well in the thirty-six percent of the congregation who are now senior citizens, and it is our earnest prayer that as younger hands begin to take hold of the plow, Immanuel’s people may in the good providence of our sovereign Lord continue to walk the center line of historic Presbyterianism.”

I learned from the website that they have a new pastor, Glen Clary, who was raised in Sulphur, Oklahoma. (Could a pastor have come from a more forebodingly named town?) He has been at the church for about two years, and there is a photo of him wearing his black Geneva gown, holding a Bible, and sitting in front of well-stocked bookshelves (now that is a Presbyterian photograph). There are photos of two elders and two deacons, all men. One of the deacons is a young black man named, improbably, Sammie Davis.

There is one service on Sunday morning, at 11:00 am.Immanuel OPC turns out to be in a pleasant residential neighborhood, and the church building looks remarkably like a house with a steeple.

As I enter the building I pick up a bulletin from a greeter. But where’s the sanctuary? Stairways on either side of the entrance lead to a second floor, and I ask the greeter if church is upstairs. She says yes. What a peculiar design. Definitely a problem in this age of handicapped-accessible buildings.

Upstairs, the sanctuary is a bright, airy space with white walls and wooden beams. The clear glass windows give us a nice view of treetops gently waving. It’s cool and pleasant up here. There are about ten rows of pews along a middle aisle, and the front of the sanctuary features a central pulpit and a Communion table in front of the pulpit with a large Bible positioned, open, in the middle. I see the American and Christian flags, a small choir area off to the left, an organ to the right, and three large wooden chairs arranged behind the pulpit area. There are fresh flowers. I think the sanctuary would seat about 180 or so, and there are about 60 people here this morning. Everything is, as I have now come to expect from all churches, immaculately well-kept.

A woman introduces herself and asks me if I have met the pastor. (This seems an odd first question; when I answer in the negative, she just smiles and sits down.) I find a seat in an empty pew and look around. The women are not wearing head coverings, and I notice that a few are wearing pants. I have worn a skirt today, because I thought that this might be a group that prefers more formal attire. Some of the men are wearing suits, but several are not. I see that the church uses the King James Version of the Bible (I’ve become more sensitive to the issue of which Bible is in the pews since last week.) I glance behind me, and see that someone a couple rows back is craning forward, trying to see who I am. Visitors are somewhat noticeable in a church this size.

The pastor steps into the pulpit, wearing his handsome Presbyterian Geneva gown, and says, “Good morning, saints! Greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!”

The order of service seems very traditional; it's what I’m used to from years in the PCUSA. The sermon is thoughtful and well-crafted, as I would expect from a Presbyterian pastor, especially from someone who studied at Westminster Theological Seminary in Dallas (recently renamed Redeemer Seminary). The text is Galatians 4:12-20, and the sermon is titled “Paul’s Personal Appeal.” I see from the bulletin that an evening service is scheduled, at which the sermon will be from the Old Testament.

Financial information to date is posted briefly in the bulletin, and it looks as though this is a congregation very good at sticking to a budget. Through 8/31/07 they have budgeted $60,871.90, and have spent $56,709.56. Budgeting to the last penny kind of tickles me; again, I have that comfortable feeling – Presbyterians are my kind of people.

After the service several people greet me. Someone makes sure I get a Visitor’s Information Packet, which is a blue folder containing a letter, a pamphlet explaining the church’s beliefs and practices, a regional newsletter, the December 2006 issue of the denominational magazine, New Horizons, and two booklets: The Shorter Catechism and What is the Reformed Faith?: High Points of Calvinism.

Again, I’m tickled by the utter and unapologetic Presbyterianism of this approach. They gave me a book – two books really – and they are not easy books, either. The book explaining the Reformed Faith begins with an explanation of why the Reformed Faith is the “most consistent form of Christianity,” which is a first argument that only a certain kind of mind gravitates toward.

At home, I read through the Shorter Catechism, from “What is the chief end of man?” to the final “What doth the conclusion of the Lord’s prayer teach us?” It strikes me anew as a brisk and refreshingly unsentimental document; love is not mentioned until question 36 (What are the benefits which in this life do accompany or flow from justification, adoption, and sanctification?). How very different from most modern statements about God and faith.

The Visitor’s Packet materials, too, are not as effusive as most church visitor packet materials. There is nothing about how I will find new friends at Emmanuel OPC, or become part of a new family, or won’t hear boring sermons, or will discover all kinds of new activities in which to become involved. Instead, the welcome letter begins, “”We are glad to have you visiting with us in our worship service. We hope that your time with us today is enjoyable and edifying.” They list their three main purposes: 1. To glorify God through sincere worship that is faithful to Holy Scripture, 2) edify believers through the faithful preaching and teching of the Bible and 3) reach out to those who are not Christians with the free offer of salvation in Christ.

I’m never going to join a church in which women wear the invisible hijab (just one of several disagreements with the denomination); nevertheless, I really like this denomination’s frank and non-sensational presentation of their solemn, sober, serious ideas about who God is and why He should be worshipped. It seems to me that they will likely not grow much over the next few decades, but if they do go down in numbers, they will go down with eyes wide open, accepting the consequences of their beliefs with faith – and with consistency!