Our Southern Zion, Old Columbia Seminary (1828-1927), by David B Calhoun, published by the Banner of Truth Trust, hardback, 402 pages, £16.00, obtainable from the Free Presbyterian Bookroom.
The author has previously written two highly-interesting volumes on Princeton Theological Seminary, from its inception in 1812 until it was transformed into a more liberal institution in 1929. He has now turned his attention to a smaller, but still significant, seminary, which for almost all the period described in this book was located in South Carolina. “The title, Our Southern Zion,” the author explains, “is an expression used by Presbyterians in the Old South for their church and its institutions, including Columbia Seminary” (p xv) – as in: “Remember Thy congregation . . . this mount Zion” (Ps 74:2).
Among the prominent names associated with the Seminary were the theological giants: J H Thornwell, B M Palmer and J L Girardeau; they all have at least one chapter to themselves. Thornwell became professor of theology in the Seminary in 1856. The following year he commented that those who are training students are aiming “to prepare a ministry for the whole Church and for a dying world . . . until the whole body of Christ shall be gathered and the bride be adorned to receive her Husband at His second coming in glory and majesty and power”. “Who is sufficient for this work?” he asked. And he answered his own question: “With profound impression of the truth I say it, Not I! And like Moses, as I buckle on the armour of a graver warfare than I ever waged before, I utter from the heart the prayer of conscious weakness: If Thy Spirit go not with me, carry me not up hence” (p 103).
It is worth quoting too Thornwell’s words after he returned from his mother’s funeral to find that his nine-year-old son also had succumbed to typhoid fever: “Although I have suffered. . . as I hope never to suffer again, yet I can truly say that I was not conscious . . . of rebellion against the providence of God. I could trust Him in the deepest darkness which surrounded me. The gospel which I have long believed, and preached because I believe, was a very present help in time of trouble. I felt its truths, and was strengthened by its grace” (p 104). The author notes that “Thornwell believed that his little son gave evidence that he understood and accepted the gospel”.
One student reported that Thornwell’s “lectures on theology were always delivered with the utmost solemnity, reverence and earnestness. They were like sermons from the pulpit, and the students felt their solemnising, worshipful power as they heard him” (p 115). Thornwell may have been the ablest and best-known of the Seminary’s professors, but there were others who taught effectively, to the glory of God.
We are told that, from 1876 till he retired in 1895, J L Girardeau “was the greatest influence at the Seminary”. Even at the time of his ordination, he declared in a sermon: “Looking unto Jesus . . . is the grand secret both of freedom from wrath and holiness of life” (p 223). A student expressed his appreciation of how Girardeau helped him “by his gift of analysis and of clarifying things by making distinctions”. Girardeau had strong views on the regulative principle, leading him to write the book, Instrumental Music in the Public Worship of the Church. Preaching at his Church’s General Assembly, he declared, “We have the principle tinctured with the blood of our Puritan, Covenanter and Huguenot forefathers – that what is not commanded, either explicitly or implicitly in the Scriptures, is prohibited to the Church,” for “the Scriptures, as the Word of Christ, are the complete and ultimate rule of faith and duty” (p 236).
Probably the most serious event in the early history of the Seminary was the controversy over evolution, which lasted for at least 10 years, from around 1882. James Woodrow, an uncle of the First World War President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, was Professor of Natural Science in Connection with Revelation, at the Seminary. He argued that the Bible does not say whether God created “a finished world of sea and land”, or whether He used “nebulous matter which He endowed with properties such that it would pass through successive changes until it reached the condition in which we now see it” (p 266) – leaving plenty of room for an evolutionary viewpoint. In the end Woodrow resigned, but the Seminary was seriously weakened by the controversy between, on the one hand, him and his supporters and, on the other hand, those, such as Girardeau, who took a more scriptural view of the matter. Indeed the Seminary had to close in 1886 and, when it re-opened a year later, there were only 14 students.
The professors who moved on with the Seminary to Decatur, Georgia, in 1927, “kept alive the old teachings”, we are told, “for another 50 years, but gradually the seminary’s interests and emphasis shifted to more modern views” (p 365). This is what had happened in Princeton also, but probably more quickly.
In this volume we have an account of the provision that was made, in God’s providence, for the training of young men in an area where, in the nineteenth century in particular, there was a great deal of devotion to scriptural truth. The author may not be able to maintain quite the degree of interest that pervades his earlier work on Princeton Seminary; the main reason is that there seems, in later years, to have been some difficulty in retaining staff in Columbia Seminary, and many professors flit in and out of the later pages of the book.
The training of students for the ministry is a work of great importance. In our generation, liberalism has made further strides towards destroying the Church. Accordingly we should pray that the Lord would continue to make provision for the training of the ministry, in all parts of the Church, that would be to His glory and consistently in line with revealed truth.
Protestant View
Stepanic the Criminal to Be Made a Saint
The Vatican’s intention to make Aloysius Stepanic of Croatia a saint will revive painful memories among the Serbian people. His murderous activities in the early 1940s are well documented. As Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia, he collaborated with the Ustashi in the killing of more than 500 000 Serbs, plus Jews and Gypsies. He also oversaw the forced conversion to Roman Catholicism of 244 000 Serbs.
The Ustashi – a fanatically Roman Catholic, Fascist and terrorist organisation, founded by Ante Pavelitch – had Stepanic as its “supreme military apostolic vicar”, and even had Roman Catholic priests among its officers. In a pastoral letter in 1942, Stepanic said that what was happening in Croatia was “the Lord’s work”. However, he was found guilty in 1946 of high treason and war crimes and sentenced to 16 years in prison. The Vatican, on the other hand, made him a cardinal in 1952.
Those horrendous events in Croatia confirm the old saying that “Rome in the minority is a lamb, Rome as an equal is a fox, Rome in the majority is a tiger”. Behind its present benign facade, generated by the geniality and apparent humility of the present Pope, Rome has not abandoned its centuries-old policy of intolerantly extending its power worldwide, and depriving Protestants of their religious liberty.
That Rome is still intolerant, especially where it is ascendant, is seen in a Christian Solidarity Worldwide report in February: “Twenty-five Protestant families in Unión Juárez, a town of 14 000 in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, had their electricity and water disconnected after they refused to contribute to a Catholic religious festival.”
Protestants are deluded if they do not realise that Rome’s calls to Protestants for unity are based on Rome being in the driving seat. The Pope’s recent statement, “I am yearning that this separation comes to an end . . . And let us pray to the Lord that He unites us all,” sounds good to many, but the reality is, as the French Roman Catholic writer, Louis Veuillot, an ardent champion of papal supremacy, frankly said to Protestants, “When you
are in a majority we ask for religious liberty in the name of your principles. When we are in a majority we refuse it to you in the name of ours.” “The simple believeth every word: but the prudent man looketh well to his going” (Prov 14:15).
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