Written by Carl R. Trueman |
Wednesday, December 15, 2021
Even in the last three weeks, I have taught classes on campus criticizing the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision and Bruce Jenner’s gender transition—career-damaging lectures at almost any other institution of higher education in the United States. And I have for many years been one of the most vocal opponents of the way in which identity politics, particularly that of the LGBTQ+ movement, has damaged our culture and public life. I have received nothing but support from the college administration as I have continued to speak up on such matters.

“Do I teach at a woke school?” was not a question I seriously considered until one evening last week when I received an email from a friend assuring me of his prayers for me in my workplace. The reason was an article he had just read on a website, The American Reformer, entitled “Wide Awoke at Grove City College?”  The background to the article was a petition launched some weeks ago by parents of Grove City College (GCC) students and alumni concerning what they perceived as a woke drift on campus. The GCC president had responded to the petition in a way that I myself had thought was solid but American Reformer dismissed as “limp” and, by implication, disingenuous. I do not know if the author of the article has ever set foot on the campus which he writes about, but I confess that had he not told me he was writing about GCC, I might have struggled to recognize the ethos of my institution in the way he described it.
Now, wokeness is surely a serious problem in American higher education. Parents and alumni of all schools are right to be concerned about how various institutions are responding. I am not persuaded that petitions are ever the best way to address such problems but I can certainly sympathize with those anxious about their children or about their beloved alma maters. I myself am passionately committed to saving education from wokeness. I am a member of the James Madison Society at Princeton University and the National Association of Scholars, both of which have a keen interest in maintaining the importance of academic freedom and excellence on campuses. I am a contributing editor at the decidedly anti-woke First Things and a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, one of the best-known conservative think-tanks in Washington, D.C. I am acutely aware of the struggle many friends face at this difficult time and I understand why parents and alumni are disturbed when they hear stories (or, in this case, mostly misguided rumors) about their institution. They are right to ask questions and raise concerns. They need to know if the colleges that take their money are providing the education they claim to be doing.
At the heart of academic institutional excellence is, of course, academic freedom. That can be tricky at a school that holds a stated religious position, such as a Christian college like Grove City College, but it can be done. The way a Christian school can hold to its beliefs yet give students a good education is to hold faculty to a standard of belief but then ensure that they engage other viewpoints in the classroom, host speakers from a variety of political and philosophical traditions, and encourage students to wrestle honestly with the great ideas and the hard questions of the past and the present. For example, as I recently told the Religious News Service, I declare my classes to be free-speech zones (something none of the more progressive figures interviewed said about their classes). I do not require students to agree with me in order to get a good grade. But if they dissent from my view they need to do so respectfully and give me an argument as to why I am wrong. For me, education is not about cloning myself intellectually in the classroom (as it is becoming at so many woke schools); it is about giving the students the skills to think for themselves.
At the center of the storm surrounding GCC was an invitation to Jemar Tisby to speak in chapel. Hindsight is 20/20, of course, and in retrospect inviting Tisby to give a chapel address may have been a mistake. A chapel address carries a certain institutional imprimatur that a simple guest lecture does not, though inviting guest lecturers to campus to engage our students on critical topics such as race, in this current culture, is an important role of any college or university. But that is not a criticism of my colleagues who invited Tisby to speak in chapel. One of the hallmarks of wokeness is cultural amnesia—the swift forgetting of what was true the day before yesterday in order to demonize those who still hold, say, to the importance of biological sex for gender. Conservatives need to be careful not to play their own version of the woke-amnesia game when it suits them. Tisby is a good example. He was first given a platform by Reformed Theological Seminary where he had been a student on its Jackson, Mississippi campus. That is a flagship conservative reformed institution. Indeed, as recently as 2015, he was appointed director of the African-American Leadership Initiative at RTS. He was described at the time by the RTS Chancellor, Ligon Duncan, as follows: “a man I trust … a dear friend … an educator and a churchman…. His commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture, the Reformed faith and the gospel ground all his efforts towards our honoring the image of God in all people.” Ligon Duncan is no woke progressive, as anyone who knows him will attest.
Duncan’s eulogy is a reminder that Tisby has been on a long journey, from RTS poster child in 2015 to working for Ibram Kendi’s outfit in 2021. Indeed, even The Color of Compromise, a book with which I have some stated disagreements, is surely not representative of where he is today. The fact is, the summer of 2020 appears to have been a radicalizing watershed for Tisby as for many others on both sides of the political divide. The college can hardly be blamed for failing in 2019 to predict the radicalization of the RTS graduate who had recently been seen as the emerging African American bridge-builder in conservative reformed Presbyterianism.
In an email exchange, the editor of The American Reformer expressed concern to me that Grove City College was platforming Tisby while not platforming faculty like me on woke issues. Well, Tisby came to campus for one day and (I believe) spoke twice. Then he left and has not returned. As for me, I lecture for several hours every day on campus to classes that are full. I speak in chapel every year. I write things almost weekly at places like First Things and World that whack wokeness. The college launched its Great Lectures series by showcasing me on identity issues as they culminate in today’s identity politics. The college arranged for me to speak to a Washington D.C. group of Capitol Hill staffers twice in the last 18 months—once on sexual-identity issues, once on race. Even in the last three weeks, I have taught classes on campus criticizing the Supreme Court’s gay marriage decision and Bruce Jenner’s gender transition—career-damaging lectures at almost any other institution of higher education in the United States. And I have for many years been one of the most vocal opponents of the way in which identity politics, particularly that of the LGBTQ+ movement, has damaged our culture and public life. I have received nothing but support from the college administration as I have continued to speak up on such matters. And from my vantage point, the same could be said of my colleagues who share my support of GCC’s Christ-centered mission, but do not come down on every hard issue where I do.
That makes Grove City College, even with all of its mortal failings and human flaws, a remarkable place. My wife and I recently hosted students at our house for a dessert evening. One of them asked if I hoped to stay at Grove City College until I retire. I responded yes, because I love the college and, more significantly, because my writings and lecturing have made me likely unemployable almost anywhere else in this age of the woke. As evidence, I told them about a Christian college where I gave a lecture by Zoom in the last year. The professor who invited me to speak asked if he could record the session because he expected to be the subject of a complaint that he had created an unsafe learning environment by having someone of my views speak. And that was a Christian college. A Christian college. That would not happen at Grove City College.
Is Grove City College perfect?  No more than I am. But I am a conservative and a Christian and that means that I believe certain things are true. For example, I believe that no institution can ever make no mistakes and do the right thing every time. And the larger the institution, the more likely it is that issues will arise. With nearly 200 faculty, a large staff, a student body of more than 2,000, and more than 800 courses taught each semester, GCC is too big for even the most perfect administration to micromanage. Built from the crooked timber of fallen humanity, Grove City College, like all institutions, reflects our own failings and weaknesses. But if the test of people’s character is not whether they live a perfect life but how they handle their mistakes and failings, then the test of an institution’s integrity is how it addresses those things which have not gone as planned or have proved unexpectedly counter-productive. GCC’s management of this continuing challenge is smart and effective. It strives to hire excellent scholars with solid Christian convictions. There is no tenure; everyone gets a one-year contract requiring affirmation of the college’s mission and values. When occasional issues arise, direct and constructive conversations take place with the expectation of missional alignment. That is why it is sad that the college’s recent statement about its commitment to addressing the matters raised by the petition has met with such cynicism from an ostensibly conservative Christian source.
I do appreciate my friend praying for me. I hope that he prays that all of us at Grove City College will stand firm for God’s truth, academic freedom, and intellectual integrity in this storm of wokeness that surrounds us. But above all, I hope that he gives thanks that I and my colleagues work at a place where we have the freedom to be faithful in our callings, a freedom that exists in few other institutions of higher education today.
Carl R. Trueman is professor of Biblical and Religious Studies at Grove City College. This article is used with permission.

Ultimately though, the last names chosen for the OPC and the PCA are probably better than their first. And the tortuous church-naming process the two bodies endured offers a warning to any would-be splitters or leavers: choosing (and keeping) a new denominational name may be harder than anyone expects. And think of all the stationery that might have to be thrown away!

Today, neither the Orthodox Presbyterian Church nor the Presbyterian Church in America bear their first chosen names. Different as the two denominations are, the reasons for their name changes and even their slates of rejected names are quite similar. And the names—those chosen and those passed over—say a good bit about the aspirations and outlooks of the two churches at the tumultuous times of their formation.
The OPC formed on June 11, 1936 when 34 ministers, 17 ruling elders, and 79 laymen met in Philadelphia to constitute the new church as the Presbyterian Church of America. This founding few left the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA), the rapidly-liberalizing Northern mainline church, with their leader J. Gresham Machen, whose 1935 conviction was upheld by the 1936 PCUSA General Assembly. Among Machen’s crimes (besides being irritatingly effective at pointing out the PCUSA’s slide into unbelief) was his role in an independent missions board meant to support only orthodox missionaries.
Though the number of “orthodox” ministers and churches that left the PCUSA with Machen was small, their vision and hopes were large, thus the OPC’s first chosen name was the Presbyterian Church of America.
The fledgling assembly (whose full number would have fit into two or three buses) proclaimed in their Act of Association:
In order to continue what we believe to be the true spiritual succession of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., which we hold to have been abandoned by the present organization of that body, and to make clear to all the world that we have no connection with the organization bearing that name…do hereby associate ourselves together with all Christian people who do and will adhere to us, in a body to be known and styled as the Presbyterian Church of America.
Was the “of” chosen because of some fancy that the eventual OPC was in fact the Only Presbyterian Church for the USA? Probably not, but it must indicate…something. Maybe it was chosen to be as close to their progenitor’s name as possible while still providing differentiation.
At any rate, the first PCA did not remain so denominated for long. Their wayward strumpet of a “mother” church was then well supplied with lawyers, politicians, movers, and shakers so there were plenty of suits ready to swing into action when the PCUSA decided that a tiny church with the words “Presbyterian,” “Church,” and “America” in their name threatened their mammoth brand. The legal letters began to fly and the tiny, cash-strapped PCofA had to give in.
A general assembly (the first of two in 1939) was called expressly for the purpose of re-denominating the three-year-old church. The minutes disclose an astonishing slate of proposed noms d’église:
The following names were suggested: The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, The Evangelical Presbyterian Church, The Presbyterian and Reformed Church of America, The American Pres. Church, The Presbyterian Church of Christ, The Protestant Presbyterian Church of America, The Seceding Presbyterian Church (of America), The Free Presbyterian Church of America, The True Presbyterian Church of the World, The American Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
It took at least four ballots to finally choose The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, a name that seemed to guarantee that the church would forever be known as both odd and highly doctrinal. Who can but regret that The True Presbyterian Church of the World was not chosen? Such a name might have at least helped the OPC avoid their several failed flirtations with church union. And did rejection of The Evangelical Presbyterian Church presage the OPC’s “sideline” understanding of itself as a pilgrim church?  Interestingly, that name was adopted in 1961 by an offshoot of the OPC’s early fundamentalist offshoot (the Bible Presbyterian Church) and by other more patient (though unrelated) mainline refugees in 1981.
The loss of their founder (Machen died barely six months into the church’s life), the loss of church property (for most), and the loss of their first chosen name  might have demoralized the infant communion—yet they persisted.
In 1973 the OPC’s Southern cousins (wearing wide ties and earth-tone polyester) left another expression of liberalizing mainline presbyterianism, the Presbyterian Church in the United States. This church’s conservatives were used to nice things, respectability, and cultural influence, and their first chosen name for a continuing church reflected their great expectations: The National Presbyterian Church. But the mainline struck again, though not in the form of a denomination but of a local mainline congregation. And quite a locality it was. The ultra-modern National Presbyterian Church in Washington, DC (the cornerstone of which was laid by former President Eisenhower on October 14, 1967) was a sort of last gasp of truly Christian nationalist pretensions. And it was considered the flagship church of the clunkily named Northern mainline body, The United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (UPCUSA), later to join with the PCUS to form the current PCUSA.  The local church was jealous for its name, and they, too, could afford great lawyers.
One of the first actions of the National Presbyterian Church’s second assembly (1974) was to find a new name and thus lose the unwelcome legal troubles. The list of proposed names was a wonder to behold:

National Reformed Presbyterian Church
The Presbyterian Church of America
International Presbyterian Church
Vanguard Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church in America
Presbyterian National Church
Historic Presbyterian Church
Evangelical Presbyterian Church
International Reformed Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church of the Covenant
Nationwide Presbyterian Church
Continuing Presbyterian Church
National Continuing Presbyterian Church
American Presbyterian Church
Christian Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church of Jesus Christ
Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States

Some looked back, some looked forward, a few were identical to names on earlier OPC lists, many were quite American or national. Conspicuous by its absence was the term “Southern.” The new denomination’s expansive vision was obvious—they would be a regional church no more.
On Tuesday evening (the assembly’s first day) the name National Reformed Presbyterian Church was chosen. The year-old church had a new name by the addition of only one word. The church’s legal counsel was immediately tasked with clearing the new name with the offended Washington, DC congregation.
The next morning—either because of communication with the DC church or because of second thoughts—the Rev. Kennedy Smartt moved that the name be reconsidered. A gang of eight names included a few that were more international or mission-oriented than national:

Presbyterian Church in America
The Presbyterian Church
International Presbyterian Church
Grace Presbyterian Church
Mission Presbyterian Church
National Reformed Presbyterian Church
American Presbyterian Church
Presbyterian Church of the Americas

The assembly overwhelmingly selected Presbyterian Church in America—a name very close to the OPC’s original name but with the all-important “in” rather than “of,” reflecting the Southern church’s spirituality-of-the-church convictions. By the end of its second assembly the church was on its third name, but this one would stick.
So what is in a church name? Maybe a little, maybe a lot. The old saw says that seeing the sausage made is not a good idea. Seeing it made quickly and under duress may be an even more unpleasant proposition. Ultimately though, the last names chosen for the OPC and the PCA are probably better than their first. And the tortuous church-naming process the two bodies endured offers a warning to any would-be splitters or leavers: choosing (and keeping) a new denominational name may be harder than anyone expects. And think of all the stationery that might have to be thrown away!
This article originally appeared in the Nicotine Theological Journal and is used with permission. Read more from the NTJ here: https://oldlife.org/2022/06/15/it-may-not-be-april-but-it-is-still-spring-in-time-for-ntj
Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, TN, co-host of the Presbycast podcast, board member of MORE in the PCA and the Heidelberg Reformation Association and is a co-editor of the Nicotine Theological Journal.
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Matthew tells us that Jesus is the son of Abraham, by which he means not merely that Jesus is a descendant of Abraham, but that He is the promised seed of Abraham, the One in whom all the nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 22:18; 26:4). This “all nations” reach of the salvation that Jesus brings is very subtly introduced in the genealogy (Matt. 1:2–6) by mentioning four women: three of whom are gentiles (Tamar, Rahab, and Ruth) and the last of whom is the wife of a gentile (Uriah the Hittite, 2 Sam. 11:3). Then, after the birth of Jesus, we find that God has summoned gentile wise men by a star to come worship the One who is born the King of the Jews (Matt. 2:1–12, alluding to Isa. 60:1–7). When it comes time for this King to begin His public ministry, it is done in “Galilee of the Gentiles” for it is an “all nations” salvation that He brings (Matt. 4:12–17, fulfilling Isa. 9:1–2).

The first verse in Matthew’s gospel tells us three important things about Jesus that sum up a great deal of what follows.
1. Matthew is about Jesus, the Christ.
Matthew is a book about Jesus “the Christ,” that is, the promised Anointed One of the Old Testament, the Messiah (1 Sam. 2:10; Ps. 2:2; Dan. 9:25ff; see also Matt. 1:16–18; 2:4; 16:16, 20; 22:42; 23:8–10). Matthew’s gospel continues the story of salvation revealed in the Old Testament and is, most appropriately, our doorway into the New Testament. Matthew repeatedly refers to the Old Testament, even writing in its style.1
Matthew is, however, more than just a continuation of that story; it is its fulfillment—a point that is made with great emphasis. Ten times Matthew points out that what happened in the life of Jesus is the fulfillment of what the prophets had spoken (Matt. 1:22ff; 2:15; 2:17ff; 2:23; 4:14; 8:17; 12:17; 13:35; 21:4; 27:9). Similarly, there are ten miracles in chapters 8–9 that demonstrate Jesus has complete power to bring His people the healing and salvation promised by the prophets (Matt. 8:17, citing Isa. 53:4; cf. Isa. 35:5). Matthew highlights this by his distinctive way of reporting on Jesus’ miracles, “healing every disease and every affliction” (Matt. 4:23; 9:35; 10:1). It was not enough for him just to say, “every disease and affliction,” for he wanted to underscore that nothing could thwart His power—so, he repeats the adjective twice, “healing every disease and every affliction.” By the frequent use of the name “son of David” in connection with healings done by Jesus (Matt. 9:27; 12:23; 15:22; 20:30), he shows that His kingdom is one of complete blessing and deliverance for His people. Truly, He is the anointed Servant (Matt. 12:18–21, citing Isa. 42:1–3), the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, the fulfillment of all that the prophets foretold.
2. Matthew is about Jesus, the son of David.
Jesus Christ is also the promised son of David, the One whose kingdom would have no end (2 Sam. 7:13; Ps. 89:3ff; Isa. 9:7).
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