March 2 Today in OPC History

On March 2, 1936, at the Presbytery of Philadelphia meeting of the Presbyterian Church USA, the Rev. Ned B. Stonehouse gave notice of a proposed overture to the General Assembly. The overture concerned the Board of Christian Education, in view of the multiple examples of Modernism that had been uncovered in the Board's program and policies. The text of the proposed overture was as follows:

The Presbytery of Philadelphia respectfully overtures the General Assembly of 1936

1. To take care to elect to the Board of Christian Education only persons who are aware of the danger in which the church stands of losing its historic Christian witness, and who are determined to insist upon such verities as the full truthfulness of Scripture, the virgin birth of our Lord, His substitutionary death as a sacrifice to satisfy Divine justice, His bodily resurrection and His miracles as being essential to the system of doctrine to which the Presbyterian Church is committed by its Constitution,

2. To instruct the Board of Christian Education that no one who denies the absolute necessity of such loyalty to the Bible, and to the Confession of Faith, shall serve on its staff,

3. To instruct the Board of Christian Education to publish only literature that is true to the historic witness of the Church, and to cease the publication of literature that departs from this witness,

4. To instruct the Board of Christian Education to cease co-operation with organizations or individuals that show by their publications or other activities that they are not insisting upon the full truthfulness of the Bible and upon the other evangelical verities.

Picture: Ned Stonehouse