John Calvin Explains the Origin of Bishops

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At the time of the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther, John Calvin, and other leaders were attempting to reform the abuses of the Roman Catholic Church.  Many rules and traditions had been added to the church since the time of the New Testament and the Protestant Reformers wanted to correct those abuses by returning to the time of the early church.  One of the traditions that developed over time was the office of bishop.  The Roman Catholic Church claimed that the office of bishop as practiced in the Middle Ages was necessary and ordained by God.  Furthermore, the Catholic Church claimed that the Apostle Peter was the first bishop of Rome and therefore, Peter was the first pope.
 
In his book "The Institutes of the Christian Religion", John Calvin explained that bishops in the early church did not have the same power and status as that held by Roman Catholic bishops in the Middle Ages. The office of bishop was originally established for the sake of settling arguments and promoting efficient administration.  The bishop was originally more like an administrator and facilitator than an authoritative ruler.  Along with church elders, he was a leader among equals, not an authority who could command them all what to do.
 
A lot more could be said about the origin and development of the office of bishop and the original meaning of the words commonly translated as "bishop" or "elder".  However, I want to share the short passage below written by John Calvin because he explains well the role and function of bishops in the early church era after the time of the apostles.  The section below is from Calvin's Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 4, Section 2 from the English version of the Institutes translated from Latin by Ford Lewis Battles. A Thai translation is available here.

Written by Karl Dahlfred.

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Video ~ Evangelism, Home Visitation, and Open Air Meetings in Thailand (1932)

In this 1932 movie clip, we see American Presbyterian missionaries and Thai co-workers conducting rural evangelism, home visitation, open-air evangelism at Ban Phachi train station in Ayuthaya province, and an open air church service. From 1840 to 1940, the vast majority of Protestant missionaries in Thailand were American Presbyterians.

This clip is excerpted from "Siam, Land of the White Elephant”, produced in 1932 by the Publication Department of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church (USA). For more information and to view the full 34 minute video, click here. 

 

Don't See the Video? Click Here to Watch on You Tube

 

Written by Karl Dahlfred.

That Time That The Bell Tower at First Church Chiang Mai Was Used as a Gun Turret

During World War II, Japanese troops seized church properties in Thailand, including schools and hospitals. The bell tower of historic First Church, Chiang Mai was used to mount an anti-aircraft gun. Though some institutions stayed open, Thai Christians were under intense pressure during the war and needed to meet quietly in private homes since public worship was banned.
 
The building in this drawing is the original church building (google map location) which is currently used by a Christian school. It was drawn from the memory of Kru Sanoh Chikarat (ครูเสนาะ ชิกรัตน์), an art teacher at the Prince Royal's College in Chiang Mai who was a student at the time of the war.  The bell tower was built with only a deck until it was topped off with roof and a cross in 1923.  During the Japanese invasion, troops removed the roof and cross in order to mount the gun. After the war, the roof and cross were replaced and remain to this day. In the late 1960s, the congregation of First Church moved to a building just up the street (google map location).
 
Photo 1st church Chiang Mai WW2 church tower gun turret for JapaneseImage Source: Historical Hall at First Church Chiang Mai, Thailand
 

Written by Karl Dahlfred.

Evander McGilvary's Translation of Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts into Lao (1895)

For a few short years in the early 1890s, Evander McGilvary (son of pioneer missionary Daniel McGilvary) worked in the Chiang Mai area of what is today northern Thailand.  But at the end of the 19th century, the people of that area were linguistically and culturally Lao and McGilvary's primary ministry task was translating the New Testament into the Lao language. He never completed that task due to his 1894 resignation from ministry which I have written about in "Evander McGilvary in Northern Thailand: An Honest “Heretic” and the “Conservatives” Who Wanted to Keep Him," Journal of Presbyterian History 100, no. 1 (Spring / Summer 2022): 4-19.

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When I did the research for that article, I learned that McGilvary hoped to continue working on that translation when he returned to the United States.  However, I never saw evidence of how far he got in his translation.  When looking for images of Evander McGilvary recently, I found that he actually got pubished his Lao translation of Matthew, Luke, John, and Acts.  And it has been digitized!   You can find it at the Hathi Trust via this link and I have also attempted to embed the document below.  Print copies can be found via WorldCat.

Written by Karl Dahlfred.

"An Appeal for Sound Missionaries in Siam" by Boon Mark Gittisarn (December 29, 1949)

In the late 1940s, the Protestant churches in Thailand were in transition. American Presbyterian missionaries who had left during the war had returned and expected to pick up where they left off in 1941. However, they failed to sufficiently account for the wishes and expectations of Thai Christian leaders who had overseen their own churches for many years during the missionaries' absence during the war.
 
Boon Mark Gittsarn was one of those Thai leaders who was not content for missionaries to call the shots. Boon Mark left his denomination, the Church of Christ in Thailand, and resigned his pastorate at Second Church in Bangkok to start a new, independent church simply called Bangkok Church. The American Presbyterian Mission, which had founded and was heavily invested in the Church of Christ in Thailand, was headed in an ecumenical and modernistic direction that de-emphasized evangelism in favor of schools, hospitals, and development work.
 
But Boon Mark was all about evangelism and had strongly fundamentalist leanings. As indicated in the article below, at the end of 1949, Boon Mark connected with the International Council of Christian Churches (ICCC), an organization started by American fundamentalist Carl McIntire in direct opposition to the World Council of Churches. This connection provided for Boon Mark an avenue to amplify his complaints about the American Presbyterian Mission to a broader American Christian (fundamentalist) public who would have been sympathetic to his concerns. The article below was written by Boon Mark and appeared on page 4 of McIntire's newspaper, "Christian Beacon" on Dec 29, 1949.
 
 

Written by Karl Dahlfred.

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