All Articles For Stewart, Angus

Rev. Stewart is a missionary in the Protestant Reformed Churches, currently working in Northern Ireland. In John Wycliffe’s day (c. 1324-1384), most of Europe professed to be Christian. The Roman church was dominant in the west and the Orthodox churches in the east. Godly Waldensians worshiped in the Alps and their environs, and there were also heretical groups in diverse places. In Europe, only Lithuania yet remained pagan, and southern Spain was under Muslim control.  Babylonian Captivity, Papal Schism, and Black Death Two major events lowered the status of the papacy in the fourteenth century. First, during the “Babylonian captivity”...

Rev. Stewart is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. It was not that long ago that the SB carried a report on the 2006 British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Family Conference at Cloverley Hall in England, and already it is providing information about the 2008 BRF Conference. Speakers and Subjects The biennial general meeting at last August’s BRF conference settled upon the speakers for the next conference: Professors Engelsma and Hanko, who have served us so well in the past. The theme too was decided: “The Work of the Holy Spirit.” We are already looking forward to six quality...

Jesus Christ, the exalted head of His church, has sent forth another pastor-teacher to labor in His harvest and to fight in the service of the kingdom of heaven! That laborer and spiritual warrior is well known to many SBreaders: Martyn McGeown, who spent four happy years in Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church, brought a word of edification in many PR congregations, served a six-month internship in Southwest PR Church, graduated from the PR Seminary, and sustained an exam before the PR Synod in June. Now he has begun his life’s calling as an ordained minister of the Word and sacraments! May...

Rev. Stewart is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. Previous article in this series: October 15, 2008, p. 40. The Declaration on Religious Freedom (1965) According to Pope Paul VI (1963-1978), the Declaration on Religious Freedom, produced at Roman Catholicism’s Vatican II (1962-1965), is “one of the major texts of the Council.”¹ American Jesuit John Courtney Murray goes further: “the document is a significant event in the history of the Church” (p. 673).² Of all the 16 documents of Vatican II, the Declaration on Religious Freedom is the one that most clearly evinces the spirit of...

Ichabod! The glory has departed! Let that never be said of this church! That was the thrust of Prof. Herman Hanko’s moving sermon at the official dedication of the new church building of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church (CPRC) in Northern Ireland (5 August, 2010). The Ballymena congregation was joined on this special occasion by family and friends, neighbors, our building contractor and quantity surveyor, as well as saints from the Protestant Reformed Churches (PRC) in America and the Limerick Reformed Fellowship (LRF), plus Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. In fact, this was the first CPRC service attended by Anganeta...

Rev. Stewart is pastor of Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. Previous article in this series: December 1, 2008, p. 112. The Vatican The logical place to begin a discussion of the political power of the Roman Catholic Church today is, of course, the Vatican, a sovereign city-state within the city of Rome. Established in 1929, the Vatican City is the world’s smallest state, both by area (108.7 acres) and population (c. 800). Its citizenry is 100% Roman Catholic, its highest functionaries are Roman clergy, and its non-hereditary, elected monarch is the pope. Jesuit Thomas J. Reese mentions several...

Rev. Stewart is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. Previous article in this series: November 1, 2008, p. 55. Images from Rome’s Political History The Roman Church’s rise in, and exercise of, political power through the ages has been detailed in many books and could rightly merit a Standard Bearer article or two. For our purposes, though, we shall just mention some of the most outstanding instances and images, before moving on to Rome’s current policies. * Pope Leo I’s saving the city of Rome from Attila the Hun by his last-ditch mediation (452). * the...

Rev. Stewart is pastor of the Covenant Protestant Reformed Church in Northern Ireland. he key to understanding the political pretensions of the church of Rome lies in her understanding of herself as the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church headed by the pope, who is not only the “Successor of Peter the Prince of the Apostles” and the “Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church” but also the “Vicar of Christ” and the “Holy Father.” Is not the triune God the absolute sovereign of the universe? Has not Christ been invested with all authority in heaven and in earth (Matt. 28:18)...

“The Nearest Conjunction and Uniformity in Religion” The assembly of divines or theologians meeting in Westminster Abbey in London in the 1640s was passionately concerned with true church unity.¹ King Charles I (1625-1649), with his “divine right of kings,” and William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury (1633-1645), with his “divine right of bishops,” zealously sought to impose a different sort of unity in Britain: a unity in Erastian, Episcopalian, high church, ritualistic, Romanising Arminianism! Eventually the opponents of Charles I and Laud—Presbyterian Scotland and, south of the border, the Puritans (chiefly for religious reasons) and the parliamentarians (mainly on political...

Croeso i Gymreu. This is Welsh for “Welcome to Wales!” Wales—the land of the ancient Britons and the origin of King Henry VIII, Puritan John Owen, war Prime Minister David Lloyd-George, and “the Doctor” (Martyn Lloyd-Jones)—is the venue for the 2010 British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Family Conference (7-14 August). Although perhaps little known by most Standard Bearer readers, and possessing a human population only a third that of its number of sheep, the natives quip that, if it were flat, Wales would be larger than England! “The Word of God for Our Generation” Profs. Engelsma and Hanko are the main...