The first generation of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was genuinely heroic. When they left the old Presbyterian Church in the USA, they embraced a radical change (something always difficult for presbyterians) in order to hold on to the Gospel. Moreover, they embraced radical sacrifice, sacrifice too radical for many sympathetic brethren to endure. Congregations lost buildings and endowments: inheritances left to them by faithful forebears which they had to leave in the hands of faithless and vindictive liberal presbyteries. Pastors lost homes, salaries, pensions, and what little financial security they had. Seminarians lost secure careers. Almost no one in 1936 who joined what would become the OPC suffered no loss.
Left with nothing, they built from the ground up. In a country still wracked by the Great Depression, they sacrificed still more to erect Church buildings and manses. Pastors worked a secular job (or two or three) in order to shepherd small congregations. Those congregations gave and gave in order to fund Christian education curricula and foreign missionaries and new Church plants close to home. The first generation of the OPC built the OPC: without their heroic sacrifices, we would have no Church today.
The fathers were heroes.
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