March 19 Today in OPC History

On March 19, 1969, members of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod, gathered at Calvary Reformed Presbyterian Church in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania to participate in an open forum about a potential merger of the the two churches. Richard Gray, pastor of Calvary Church, moderated an afternoon panel discussion on "The Pros and Cons of Union in Our Time" with some one hundred individuals present. Representing the RPCES during the panel discussion were Stephen Smallman, Paul Alexander and William Mahlow. OPC representatives were Calvin Cummings, Robert Eckardt and Luder Whitlock.

In the evening session, OPC minister and Westminster Seminary president Edmund Clowney and RPCES minister and Covenant Seminary president Robert Rayburn spoke on the theme, "The Urgency of Our Times and the Question of Union."

Six years later, at the Forty-second (1975) General Assembly meeting at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, the OPC commissioners voted by super majority to join the RPCES. The RPCES Synod also meeting at Geneva College at the same time voted down the merger. In 1982, the RPCES would merge with the Presbyterian Church in America.

Picture: Edmund Clowney and William Mahlow.