Camden Bucey and Danny Olinger continue their discussion of Fighting the Good Fight, D. G. Hart and John R. Muether’s history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, by turning to foreign missions and the life of Bruce F. Hunt. They explain how the modernist program described in Rethinking Missions made J. Gresham Machen’s critique of liberalism concrete and why the proclamation of salvation from sin through Jesus Christ stood at the heart of the controversy that gave rise to the OPC.
The conversation traces Hunt’s break with the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., his service under the OPC’s Committee on Foreign Missions, and his ministry among Korean Christians under Japanese occupation. Camden and Danny recount Hunt’s refusal to accommodate emperor worship, his imprisonment and torture in 1941, and his return to Korea after the Second World War to teach, evangelize, and encourage a faithful indigenous church.
They conclude by considering Hunt’s church-centered missionary theology, confidence in the preached Word, commitment to Korean leadership, and extraordinary personal courage. His ministry illustrates both the cost of Christian witness and the OPC’s aim in foreign missions: to help establish mature churches that become missionary-sending churches themselves.
Chapters
- 0:00 Introduction
- 3:13 Machen, Liberalism, and Foreign Missions
- 6:28 Rethinking Missions and the Modernist Program
- 7:09 The Christian View of Missions
- 12:20 The Independent Board Controversy
- 17:28 Bruce Hunt and the OPC Foreign Missions Committee
- 24:50 Japanese Shrine Worship in Korea
- 29:39 Imprisonment, Witness, and Wartime Release
- 36:59 A Church-Conscious and Indigenous Mission
- 40:34 Hardship and the Growth of the Korean Mission
- 46:06 Education, Discernment, and a Mature Church
- 49:03 Bruce Hunt’s Character and Historical Legacy
- 52:13 The Continuing Call to Foreign Missions
History for a Pilgrim People is a podcast of the Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.