My task here is to offer some ruminations from the viewpoint of a historian—neither a pastor nor a theologian—about why the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary (RPTS) has remained faithful to the Scriptures and to the Reformed faith when a majority of colleges and seminaries that were established as biblical and Reformed are no longer so. How did this small seminary, serving a tiny denomination, maintain its biblical orthodoxy for 200 years? In the story of RPTS are found some phenomena that suggest at least a few relevant factors.

Of the reasons one might suggest, the only one of which I am confident is this: God has preserved this institution as a witness for the blessing of the Church of Jesus Christ. No other explanation is totally adequate.

In acting in the affairs of men and women, however, God normally uses people and events as secondary causes, acting through both their wise and their foolish actions and decisions to accomplish His will. Let me suggest four ways that secondary causes have contributed to the theological stability of RPTS.

First, Invisibility. Because of the size of the seminary and the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the seminary has always “flown beneath the radar” in American educational and theological affairs. We were small enough that the leaders of great movements could remain unaware of our activities and our theology. Even today, the large seminaries of the major denominations attract the attention of the media; their controversies are magnified, their policies scrutinized, their decisions praised or blamed by unbelievers according to current fashion.

For example, in recent decades Concordia Seminary (Lutheran) in St. Louis and all of the Southern Baptist seminaries have been pressed by the media and the public to adopt more liberal positions and suppress conservative theology. Orthodoxy has been mocked and orthodox faculty and trustees excoriated.

The Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary has simply been too small for notice. While we have been blessed with knowledgeable, wise, respected and godly faculty, on the whole we have not had faculty who were famous in the eyes of the world, none whose reputations could lift them up in pride or arouse the envy of their colleagues. Without question, being small has its advantages.

Second, Purpose. The purpose of RPTS for two centuries has been to prepare pastors rather than theologians. To be sure, the seminary has always insisted on scholarship, as the denomination has insisted on an educated ministry. Students study biblical languages, systematic and biblical theology, and related disciplines, but RPTS has never forgotten that the purpose of these disciplines in a seminary, in contrast to a university, is to produce men who can preach soundly and can shepherd souls. Some other seminaries have forgotten that purpose and aim to produce scholarly experts who will write learned tomes that win the admiration of other experts. Scholarship, need it be said, is a calling of God and makes use of His good gifts. The Church has often been edified and strengthened through the work of scholars. Some of the most foolish and most dangerous books by scholars, however, are those written to impress other experts. A theological seminary must be rooted in the practice of Christian theology if it is to remain true to the spirit and goal of Christian theology.

Third, Control. The Synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church has always exercised a firm but not oppressive hand guiding the seminary. Much of this guidance has come through a board elected by the Synod, and this board has always been actively involved in all aspects of the seminary.

The original constitution of 1807 provided for the election by Synod of three “superintendents” to oversee virtually every aspect of seminary operations. There was, after all, no administrator and only one professor to teach the entire curriculum. By 1845, this board was reorganized and called the Board of Inspectors. Part of their responsibility was to conduct the end-of-year examinations that helped to ensure orthodoxy on the part of the faculty as well as the students. In the 1820s, at least, these examinations lasted from a week to ten days, but by the 1890s only three days.

When the seminary was revived in 1856 after a brief hiatus, a Board of Superintendents was elected. Their responsibility in the examinations was reduced to that of observers as the faculty conducted the oral examinations. From 1882 to 1888, every member of the board also graded all of the written examinations, a reform soon abandoned for practical reasons. Until well into the 20th Century, the board selected or approved the textbooks for most of the subjects.

As the seminary matured and the faculty increased, and as the social and legal status of theological institutions changed, the responsibilities of the board evolved from being essentially a standing committee of Synod to being fiduciaries for a legal entity—in a word, trustees. Not until 1976, however, was the title changed.

Regardless of title, the board, Janus-like, has functioned in two directions: toward the seminary, conveying the directives, policies and advice of the Synod; and toward the Synod, apprising the church of the needs and progress of the seminary and serving as the advocate for the faculty and students in the courts of the church. The movements toward new or remodeled facilities have been led by the trustees—for example, the sale of the Memorial Building on the North Side in 1922 and the purchase of the Durbin Horne estate in 1924; the remodeling and renovation of the building in 1960-65; and the construction of the library in the 1970s. Fundraising efforts, whether for routine expenses in the long years before 1919 (the creation of “Synod’s Budget”) or for capital campaigns, have been spearheaded by the trustees. A committee of the board worked closely with the faculty to redesign the curriculum in the early 1950s, as they had in the past as well.

The board, in short, has been sensitive to the welfare of the students and faculty and to the needs of the instructional program. Within the tight circle of friends and extended family in the Synod and the denomination, any move toward heterodoxy could be identified and eliminated expeditiously.

Synod’s guidance of the seminary has also been more direct. A key factor in the faithfulness of the seminary has been that the entire Synod elects every full-time professor from among its own ranks. This ensures that the faculty have the confidence of the Synod with respect to orthodoxy as well as gifts; a “stealth candidate” is nearly impossible in the small circle of the Synod. The fact that all the faculty are elected for renewable terms—three years initially and seven years thereafter—ensures that they continue to enjoy the confidence of the Synod. Virtually all of the professors have had extensive pastoral experience. The majority of institutional funding has historically come from the denomination as well, with no large endowments or gifts from wealthy industrialists, to tempt the seminary to back away from denominational positions on issues.

Denominations that have kept only a loose rein (or none at all) on their seminaries have left them open to theological drift and partisan takeovers. Seminaries that have been founded as independent, nondenominational, or interdenominational have too often drifted out of the current of orthodoxy. Those that have sought famous theologians or philosophers for their faculty have found that philosophy and academic theology do not substitute for faithful orthodoxy.

But being guarded and guided by a denomination is no guarantee of theological faithfulness if the denomination slips out of the current. Methodist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal seminaries that have had close ties to their denominations have lost their theological integrity, roughly simultaneously with that same loss in their denominations. In some cases, the seminaries have been the catalysts for drift as their graduates have imbibed the spirit of faculty “liberalism” and led their churches astray. In other cases, the seminaries have followed the lead of their denominations in decline and defection. Princeton Theological Seminary was the most prominent bastion of orthodox Calvinism through most of the 19th Century, but when the Presbyterian General Assembly embraced toleration rather than biblical orthodoxy, the seminary was reorganized (1929) to dilute Reformed doctrine and make it only one voice among many. If RPTS has remained faithful, it has been possible only because the denomination has remained faithful.

Some defections have come about through denominational mergers rather than carelessness. For example, Service Seminary was founded in 1794 in rural Beaver County, Pa., to serve the Associate Presbyterian Church. It was moved successively to Canonsburg, Pa.; Xenia, Ohio; and St. Louis, Mo. When the Associate Presbyterian Church merged with the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church to form the United Presbyterian Church in 1858, their seminary was merged as well, creating the Xenia Theological Seminary (later Pittsburgh-Xenia), which was still reasonably orthodox. When the United Presbyterian Church merged with the Presbyterian Church in the USA in 1958, Pittsburgh-Xenia was merged with Western Theological Seminary to form the present, and far more liberal, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Fourth, Scottish stubbornness. The Reformed Presbyterian Church was forged in the struggles for political and religious freedom in Scotland in the 16th and 17th Centuries. The bitter controversies of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany and the Wars of Religion in France were matched by the bloody persecution of Covenanters in the Killing Times (1660-88) in Scotland. When the nation finally threw off the yoke of Stuart oppression in 1688, a significant majority of the nation turned away from the religious controversies altogether and adopted a “broad” approach in the national church.

Only a minority maintained their original principles, and this minority became the Reformed Presbytery. During the previous decades, some 18,000 of them had suffered torture, death, imprisonment and banishment for religious and political liberty; and when the Revolution came they refused to yield religious liberty to Parliament just as they had refused to yield it to the king. The majority of Scots were soon swept up in the Scottish Enlightenment, which dominated education, society and economics for generations and influenced the Church of Scotland away from the gospel and toward the goddess Reason. While Reformed Presbyterians were not impervious to the seductions of the Enlightenment, they were relatively unaffected, because only members of the established church were allowed to attend the universities. Reformed Presbyterian ministers were trained largely in the Netherlands.

When brought to America, either as immigrants or transported as prisoners, they maintained their familiar mindset, which included a focus on biblical truth and an insistence that, although human learning is valuable, it is always subject to correction by Scripture and not by the state or by fashion. This has remained a hallmark of Reformed Presbyterian thinking for three and a half centuries, and it has been implemented in its theological education. It still is.

Thus, the fidelity of RPTS to biblical and Reformed doctrine through two centuries does not reflect an ignorance of or a disdain for new theories, information and philosophies. It reflects a stubborn determination to hang on to what is valuable about the old and not to be seduced by the new and untried. It reflects sponsorship by a small denomination determined to maintain “the faith once delivered to the saints.” It reflects a close sense of Christian community marked by mutual accountability. It has remained faithful to the scriptural proverb: “Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set” (Prov. 22:28).

This article was originally printed in the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s bicentennial book To God Alone Be Glory (2008), available for purchase from the seminary. Proceeds benefit RPTS. The author also served as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary from 1981-93. He wrote the prior history of the seminary, Spare No Exertions (1986).