Date of Award
1-1-1966
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Religion
Abstract
If any one event in history were caused by any other single event, or indeed if any trend of events were caused by any other single trend, historical research would be a relatively simple matter. But history is not so simple. A history of government does not involve politics alone, nor does a history of baseball involve simply the quality of the pitcher's and batter's techniques. Likewise the history of a church includes far more than the Sunday sermons, however important these may be.
The complexity of a given historical institution can perhaps be typified by the subject of the present study: the Reformed Presbyterian Church. As a church, this one is not at all typical, but as an historical problem, it rates well. Economic, cultural, social and geographic factors intertwine its growth, while through the years it has stood as a theological thunderbolt and a political peculiarity- Small though the physical features of this church may be in comparison with the immensity of certain other organizations, the breadth and depth of its history is just as great.
The complexity of a given historical institution can perhaps be typified by the subject of the present study: the Reformed Presbyterian Church. As a church, this one is not at all typical, but as an historical problem, it rates well. Economic, cultural, social and geographic factors intertwine its growth, while through the years it has stood as a theological thunderbolt and a political peculiarity- Small though the physical features of this church may be in comparison with the immensity of certain other organizations, the breadth and depth of its history is just as great.
On the other hand, although in tracing the history of the Reformed Presbyterian Church it would be possible to establish its Biblical foundations through the Old and New Testaments and the early Christian era, and theoretically feasible to follow the line of pure teaching through the Middle Ages and to the times of Huss, Wycliffe, and Lefevre, such a study, valuable as it certainly is, lies beyond the scope of this paper. Indeed Calvin, the master theologian who expresses perfectly the beliefs of every twentieth-century Reformed Presbyterian, and Knox himself, the conqueror of the Scottish soul, can scarcely be mentioned personally at all. The subject must be limited.
Thus, this paper is at once a limited yet a very complex study: limited in time and space, complex in issues.
Recommended Citation
Clark, Nancy Elizabeth, "A History of the Reformed Presbyterian Church" (1966). Graduate Thesis Collection. 300.
https://digitalcommons.butler.edu/grtheses/300