In the last issue, we considered how Reformed Presbyterians have sought to express unity with believers outside the RP Church family. We will now consider how a sense of unity has been fostered between the various denominations in the global RP Church.

International Support and Encouragement between Covenanters

There were, of course, personal links among Covenanters in Scotland, Ireland, and North America even before the formation of the various Reformed Presbyterian denominations. Congregations in what are now the United States and Canada were formed as Covenanters emigrated from the Old World to the New, with pastors sent from Scotland and Ireland to minister to them. The first American RP Presbytery was formed in 1774 by four immigrant Irish and Scottish RP ministers. In 1858, the first RP congregation in Australia was started after an Irish RP licentiate was sent as a colonial missionary.

While the majority of Covenanter ministers who crossed the Atlantic in the 18th Century did so permanently, there were also some who visited for the sake of mutual encouragement before returning home. In 1789, Rev. James Reid was given leave from his duties in southwest Scotland to visit America, returning the following year with a call from South Carolina, either to himself or to any other member of the presbytery—which they all declined. This practice of mutual eligibility—a minister in one RP denomination being free to receive a call from a congregation in another RP de-nomination—has continued without controversy to the present day.

As time went on, traversing the Atlantic became less of an ordeal. In fact, in 1844, Rev. John Sprott (a Scottish RP licentiate who had become a Seceder minister in Nova Scotia) commented that “crossing the Atlantic is now an easy matter” as it took only 10 days. In 1860, Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland (RPCS) minister John Graham, having recently become a minister in Liverpool, went to America and came back with $3,000, which enabled his new congregation to finish their church building. Irish RP minister Thomas Houston spent four months in the States in 1856, and an American obituary stated “his friends and admirers on this side of the Atlantic were as numerous as those in the country of his birth.” William Milroy was the first RPCS minister to train for the ministry in North America, studying at the university of Toronto, before being licensed by the RP Presbytery of Pittsburgh in 1861 and immediately returning home to accept a call in Scotland.

RP International Conferences

Opportunities for unity between the various RP denominations, particularly in the form of conferences, began in 1896, and really took off in the second half of the 20th Century. Obvious reasons for this were the availability of air travel—journeys that had once been measured in weeks and then days, now took only hours—as well as better economic conditions in the English-speaking world.

Another reason is that by the time of the first international conference in 1896, it was clear that institutional unity with other denominations would be impossible for RPs unless they gave up their distinctive principles. The second half of the 1800s was a time when there was a great push for the different denominations to unite. As discussed in the previous article, these efforts at visible unity were something for which Reformed Presbyterians had a great deal of sympathy. Some of the lead-ing RPs of the 19th Century were noted for their catholicity and warm personal friendships with those in other denominations. However, they were not in favor of unity at any cost.

In Scotland, the majority of the denomination, which had split off in 1863, united with the Free Church in 1876, which in turn merged with the United Presbyterian Church in 1900 and then the Church of Scotland in 1929. In 1872, RPCS minister Torrens Boyd, speaking at the Irish RP Synod, had prophetically warned that such unions were like chaining two ships together—when the waves begin to roll “they will rasp each other’s sides off, tear open each other’s hearts and go down together.” At the same Synod, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland (RPCI) received a proposal from the mainstream (and still exclusively psalm-singing) Presbyterian Church in Ireland to discuss a potential union. They replied, acknowledging their Christian kindness and love in initiating the proposal, declared their “earnest concern and desire to have the divisions of the Church speedily healed, on the grounds of Scriptural truth and duty,” but concluded that, given their ministerial and membership vows, any discussions were unlikely to produce the desired un-ion.

Against this background, the First International Convention of Reformed Presbyterian Churches was held in Scotland in 1896. The purpose was “to examine the distinctive doctrines that were held by the three Churches and to renew their commitment to these common principles.” The book published to commemorate the conference lauded its success in this regard: “The first International Convention in her history has infused new life into the Church, and cheered her ranks.” Another benefit of the conference was that “Covenanters from the Old and New Worlds met each other for the first time face to face, and clasped hands warmly together in a friendship which will endure while life lasts.”

One of the resolutions at the conference was to ask the Synods to hold a similar convention in 1899. As it turned out, it was almost four decades before a similar conference was held in 1938—marking the 300th anniversary of the signing of the National Covenant of Scotland. The conference—once again held in Scotland—was organized by Revs. A. C. Gregg, W. J. Moffett (RPCS), and J. Boyd Tweed (an American pastor who had recently been installed as pastor in the Glasgow RP Church). The number of delegates totaled 630, with more joining them for the various public meetings.

Once again, it was hoped that a series of conferences would follow, but World War II and its aftermath delayed plans. International Youth Conventions were held in Scotland in 1962 (with 35 Americans chartering a plane) and Ireland in 1964.

The first all-age International Conference of the modern era was held in 1966 at Carlton College in Minnesota. Between 60 and 70 Irish RPs chartered a flight to attend, with a total attendance of 1,352. A conference planned for Scotland in 1968 did not take place. Further International Conferences in the U.S. were held in 1970, with the planned 1974 conference moved to 1976 due to fuel shortages. Since then, International Conferences have been held in America every four years, with the venue changing to Calvin College in Michigan in 1996 and then Indiana Wesleyan University (IWU) in 2012. The conference planned for 2020 was initially postponed for a year due to the out-break of COVID-19, before being canceled altogether. God willing, it will return to IWU in 2024.

International Conferences organized by the Irish RP Church have been held every four years from 1982, initially at Kerrykeel (County Donegal), then Portrush (County Antrim), Termonfeckin (County Louth—five times), Gartmore (Scotland—twice) and in 2018 at the Gold Coast in County Waterford.

The current arrangement means that an International Conference is held every two years, alternatively in the USA and the UK/Ireland. As the years have gone by, the number of countries represented has increased dramatically, given new RP works in Asia and South America.

Opportunities for RP Global Service and Ministry

The Geelong Bible Conference is held in Australia every two years and has featured speakers from the RPCNA, RPCI, and RPCS, as well as those from outside the global RP Church. Due to their relative proximity, the Australian RP Church has taken a particular interest in the Japan Presbytery of the RPCNA, sending and receiving mission teams, as well as sending ministers to teach at Kobe Theological Hall (as other RP denominations have also done).

A Consultative Committee of the Three Covenanting Churches met three times during the 1966 conference and discussed efforts by the Synods toward drawing the three churches together. They discussed the following issues: Praise (namely the possibility of an international psalter), Christian Education, Magazines, Exchange of Personnel (in the form of pulpit exchanges and stated supplies, as well as Irish RPs teaching and studying at RPTS (Pittsburgh) and RTC (Belfast), Foreign Mis-sion Work, International Conferences, Pensions, and Reciprocity in Doctrine.

A joint meeting of ministers and elders representing the churches in Scotland, Ireland, and America was due to be held in July 1972 in Portrush but was canceled due to the outbreak of the “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland. In our own day, the RP Global Alliance seeks to continue these efforts to facilitate cooperation between the various denominations.

Since 1997, congregations in the various RP denominations have benefited from hosting RP Mis-sion Teams, organized by the RPCNA, but with opportunities for others to serve as well. Irish and Scottish young (and older) people have served together on Go Teams. Young people from the U.S. and elsewhere have had the opportunity to experience the wider RP Church through formal initiatives like the Covenanter Summer Institute and Semester in Scotland, as well as through attending church camps in Ireland. Irish young people have taken part in Theological Foundations Backpacking trips in Colorado. Seminary students have taken advantage of the opportunity to do internships in RP congregations on other continents.

Many of us have been personally enriched by these connections, and, while we feel the smallness of our own denominations at times, we are more than compensated by being part of a global body with an international vision and an abundance of opportunities for service and fellowship together.