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The Reformation in the Czech Lands, Bohemia and Moravia (Pavel Černý)

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The Reformation in the Czech Lands, Bohemia and Moravia (Pavel Černý) 1 INDEX Australian Calvinism (Peter Barnes): .................................................................................................. 2 Australian Presbyterianism - AN OVERVIEW (Peter Barnes) ......................................................... 7 The Reformation in the Czech Lands, Bohemia and Moravia (Pavel Černý) ............................... 9 Protestanism In France And Its Future And Relevance (Pierre Berthoud) ............................... 17 The Legacy and Present State of the Reformed Movement in Germany (Jurgen B. Klautke) 28 India: A Brief Exploration (Matthew Ebenezer) .............................................................................. 35 The World’s Largest Muslim Country (Indonesia) Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra ................................. 42 The Legacy and State of the Reformed Movement in Israel (David Zadok) ............................... 47 The state of the Reformed movement in Italy By Leonardo De Chirico ..................................... 50 The Influence Of The Reformed Faith In Latin America (Paul Gilchrist) .................................... 52 State Of The Reformed Movement In Madagascar (Ndriana Rabarioelina): ............................ 54 Iglesia Nacional Presbiteriana de Mexico (Danny Ramirez) ......................................................... 60 The Reformed Churches In Puerto Rico And In Cuba (Woody Lajara) ....................................... 63 SCOTLAND (Fergus Macdonald) .......................................................................................................... 69 union Des Eglises Presbyterienne Au Congo(Safari Kanzeguhera Dieudonné) ....................... 71 Presbyterians in the Punjab (Philip DeHart) .................................................................................... 85 Sudanese Reformed Church (Kewy Ismail Geng) .......................................................................... 110 AUSTRALIAN CALVINISM: AN IMPRESSIONISTIC SNAPSHOT ON THE 500TH ANNIVERSARY OF CALVIN’S BIRTH By WRF Member Peter Barnes Snapshots of history have their charms and their dangers, and perhaps snapshots of contemporary Calvinism in Australia may have more dangers than charms. For a start, Calvinism is capable of numerous definitions. To many, it is simply soteriological, and refers to the a belief in the Five Points of Calvinism (TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible Grace, Perseverance of the Saints). To many Sydney evangelicals, the Five Points have been reduced to four, with limited atonement being the one that misses out. In the Stone lectures delivered at Princeton University in 1898, Abraham Kuyper portrayed Calvinism more broadly, in terms of a life-system.1 B. B. Warfield was equally adamant: ‘Calvinism is just religion in its purity. We have only, therefore, to conceive of religion in its purity, and that is Calvinism.’ He saw Calvinism in terms reminiscent of Jonathan Edwards, as a way of life in which all ‘thinking, feeling, willing - in which the entire compass of ... life-activities, intellectual, moral, spiritual, throughout all ... individual, social, religious relations’ were animated by divine awareness.2 ‘It begins, it centres, it ends with the vision of God in His glory: and it sets itself before all things to render to God His rights in every sphere of life-activity.’3 One detects a similar outlook in the comment of Malcolm Prentis: ‘Calvinism brought to Scotland a new sense of order in both religious and civic life, as well as promoting the usual Calvinist virtues: moral seriousness, piety, frugality, respect for learning, worldly asceticism and a high view of statesmanship and civic affairs.’4 So far as Calvinism in contemporary Australia is concerned, it might be best first to paint something of the backdrop. The mid-1960s were nothing short of catastrophic for all the Churches, despite the fact that Stuart Piggin views the 1959 Billy Graham Crusades as the time when ‘Australia came closer than at any time before or since to a general spiritual awakening.'5 Later, he is more decided: 'It was a revival, all right, and a great one.'6 The foundations, however, were decidedly weak. For many churchmen, evangelism had little to do with theological content, and much to do with the survival of the Church as an institution. In the 1960s Sunday School numbers plummeted, and churches were forced to face the fact that so much of the population's adherence to Christianity was nominal rather than real. The age of William Barclay and Norman Vincent Peale was giving way to that of John Robinson and Peter Carnley. Reformed bodies In these unpromising circumstances there was some rediscovery of the Reformed faith. In the aftermath of World War II, a number of Dutch Reformed Christians emigrated to Australia, with the 100,000th Dutch immigrant arriving in October 1958, although probably over 40% of these were Roman Catholics.7 In September 1950 the Christian Reformed Church (GKN) sent out Rev. Jan Kremer who reported grave misgivings about the state of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, due to its theological liberalism and its connections with Freemasonry.8 By 1951 the first Reformed Churches of Australia were established, which are 1 Cf. Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, Michigan: Eerdmans, reprinted 1976, especially pp.9-40. 2 Cited in David N. Livingstone and Mark A. Noll, ‘B. B. Warfield (1851-1921): A Biblical Inerrantist as Evolutionist’ in Journal of Presbyterian History, vol. 80, no. 3, Fall, 2002, p.158. 3 B. B. Warfield, Calvin and Augustine, Phillipsburg: P & R, 1956, p.292. 4 Malcolm Prentis, The Scots in Australia, Sydney: UNSW Press, 2008, p.19. 5 Stuart Piggin, Spirit of a Nation, Sydney: Strand Publishing, 2004, p.125. 6 Stuart Piggin, Spirit of a Nation, p.171. 7 J. W. Deenick (ed), A Church En Route, Geelong: Reformed Churches Publishing House, 1991, p.22. 8 J. W. Deenick (ed), A Church En Route, Geelong: Reformed Churches Publishing 2 now known as the Christian Reformed Churches. Reformed Christians - although not the Reformed Churches as such - were major players behind the setting up of parent-controlled Christian schools, the first one being Calvin Christian School at Kingston in Tasmania which was opened on 20 January 1962 with 77 students and three teachers. A number of Baptists were brought to embrace the doctrines of grace, particularly in Tasmania in the late 1950s and early 1960s.9 Rev. J. Laurie Lincolne, formerly principal of the World Evangelization Crusade College in Launceston, embraced Reformed Baptist views, but many other became paedobaptists, and this led to the formation of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in 1961 After some controversies, the EPC clarified its stand in 1964 as it rejected the notions of common grace (God’s favour to the non-elect) and any well- intentioned offer of the gospel (that God wished in any way to save all people).10 Calvinistic Presbyterians came to be increasingly found in the Presbyterian Church of Australia after the formation of the Uniting Church of Australia in 1977. The new Church - or continuing Church - removed itself from the World Council of Churches, and went on in 1991 to reverse an earlier decision to allow the ordination of women into the ministry, and to accept a report which asserted that Christianity and Freemasonry were incompatible. In the following year the Presbyterian Church of New South Wales successfully prosecuted the Principal of St Andrew's College in Sydney University, Dr Peter Cameron, after his repudiation of the authority of the apostle Paul in a sermon on women ministers. Relations improved with the smaller Reformed bodies like the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia (the Psalm-singing ‘Free Kirk’) and the Presbyterian Reformed Church (which had split from the PCA in 1967 after the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand had exonerated Professor Lloyd Geering of heresy despite the fact that he regarded the resurrection of Christ only as ‘a symbol of hope’. Lest Calvinistic Presbyterians in the PCA become too optimistic about an antipodean version of John Knox’s description of Geneva in Calvin’s day as 'the most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the Apostles', in 1994 A. T. Stevens produced An Appraisal of the so-called ‘Five Points of Calvinism’.11 Despite being a Presbyterian minister, Stevens argued that ‘most of “the five points” are simply not true’ and “‘The tulip theory” is also a doctrine of disunity.’12 In a similar vein and in the same year, Rev. H. A. Stamp produced The Word of God in the Bible, a work which claimed that the Bible is inspired in some sense, but not infallible or inerrant.13 Rev. Professor Douglas Milne of the Presbyterian Theological College in Melbourne ably replied to these works, but no church discipline resulted.14 Evangelical - and sometimes Calvinistic - Anglicanism continued to be strong in the Sydney diocese, under the leadership of successive bishops - Marcus Loane, Donald Robinson, Harry Goodhew, and Peter Jensen. The Anglican communion in recent times has groaned to find some form of identity for itself. In all that, the Sydney diocese - ‘the whale in the Sydney evangelical bath-tub’, to cite Mark Hutchinson15 - has flexed its muscles, and opened up 'independent' Anglican churches in areas outside Sydney where evangelicalism is not strong. In addition, men like Paul Barnett and John Woodhouse were prepared to take House, 1991, p.24. 9 cf. Ken R. Manley, From Woolloomooloo to ‘Eternity’: a History of Australian
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