9
August 1944 A.D. Mr.
(Rev. Dr.) Gordon Haddon Clark was ordained to the Orthodox Presbyterian
Church.
August 9: Gordon Haddon Clark: A Christian Philosopher. Also, his
connection to the Reformed Episcopal Church is found at: http://reformationanglicanism.blogspot.com/2013/08/9-aug-1944-gordon-haddon-clark-ordained.html
A Google search on the name of
Gordon Haddon Clark will bring up reference after reference for you to
read. One of them is from the PCA Historical Center, where his manuscript collection is preserved; a biographical
sketch is posted there as well.
Gordon
Clark had the advantage, after his birth in 1902, of being reared in a
Christian home, and indeed being the son of the manse. His father, the
Rev. David Clark, was a graduate of Princeton Seminary in 1887, where he had
studied under the great Reformed thinkers of that era. Not surprisingly
then, young Gordon was raised in a home where the Westminster Shorter Catechism
was taught. In addition, with his father’s library at hand, he had the
opportunity to read Reformed masters like Calvin, Warfield,
and Hodge. It was a providential training which would bear
tremendous fruit in his later pastoral and educational work.
Dr. Clark
served as a Professor of Philosophy first at the University of
Pennsylvania and then at Wheaton College from 1929–1944. It was on August 9, 1944 that he was ordained
as a teaching elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church by the Presbytery of
Philadelphia of that denomination. Unhappily, that ordination was opposed
by some in that church until finally Dr. Clark left the OPC to join
the United Presbyterian Church of North America.
It was
during this same time that Dr. Clark became a faculty member of Butler
University, serving as a Philosophy professor from 1945
to 1973. Many of his best known books were written during
this time at Butler University. Retiring from Butler, Dr. Clark entered a
new phase of his ministry in 1974, when he began teaching at Covenant College.
He continued teaching there for about ten years, while also finding time to
teach at both Sangre de Christo Seminary in Colorado, and Reformed Episcopal
Seminary in Philadelphia.
When
the UPCNA joined the Presbyterian Church in the USA in 1958, Dr. Clark and
the church he was the pastor of, in Indianapolis, Indiana, affiliated with
the Reformed Presbyterian Church in North America, General Synod. The
latter group joined the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and became the
Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod. Then in 1982, they
joined the Presbyterian Church in America, but Dr. Clark joined with the
unaffiliated Covenant Presbytery. Dr. Clark thus had a remarkable
relationship with many of the Reformed Presbyterian denominations in
the United States.
He passed on to glory in
1985.
No comments:
Post a Comment