Many of us can name a church that we were part of when we were growing up. Mine was in a small, farming community called Bloomingdale, Pennsylvania. The church was then called the Bible Protestant church, but its history was rooted in the days of Charles and John Wesley, who founded the “Methodist” denomination, although they did not intend to do so.
The Bible Protestant church, not to be confused with the Bible Presbyterian church, was once a part of the Methodist-Protestant denomination, founded in 1828 by former members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Historically, it was Wesleyan in doctrine and worship and traced its roots to John Wesley.
In November 1830, it changed its name to the Methodist Protestant church, which was further fractured as a result of the Civil War and in my boyhood was known in my area as the Bible Protestant denomination. Its website refers to itself as a “King James Bible-believing church, that is dispensational and premillennial.” And coded in that description, lay a forthcoming problem for Joice and me.
The description fits perfectly with its dogma. About 15 years ago, Joice and I were effectively excommunicated as missionaries of the Bloomingdale church because we used a version of the Bible (NIV at the time) other than King James. Despite an attempt to explain why as Bible translators we used several English versions, the pastor refused to debate the matter. We were, in his opinion, liberal and so was the Wycliffe Bible Translators.
In a nutshell, that is our rather sad history with the Bloomingdale church, a church where I believe I was the only “native” missionary ever supported by the church. I had preached at the church, former pastors had been our friends, and we had neighbors who attended the church. However, dogma has a way of canceling even friendships in order to preserve strongly held views. In due time, there arose a preacher who did not know the missionary Franklins and decided we were too liberal for the church.
There were, in fact, two churches in the small community of Bloomingdale during my youth, and there are now three. Besides the BP church (as others called it), there was a “true” Methodist church and now a more contemporary and almost (but not quite) charismatic church.
My mother and her siblings were brought up in the Methodist church in Mossville, Pennsylvania, named after Mr. (probably not Mrs.) Moss so, when I was young, my mother did not attend the BP church. The BP church was much like other country churches of the area, except that it was not located near the cemetery. The Methodist church held that honor.
Our church was rectangular in shape with a steeple and had small congregations, generally about 30, including children, but it could “swell” to 50 or so during Christmas and Easter. Across one part of the front of the church was a railing where sincere members would go, kneel, and confess their sins prior to communion. The altar had an engraving on the back area that said, “We would see Jesus,” and behind the altar were two flags—the so-called Christian flag and a U.S. flag. There was also a very old and out-of-tune piano that one woman pounded mercilessly as we attempted to sing.
Near the church was the hall, which had been built above four or five large stalls on the ground level that once accommodated horses and buggies. Stairs led up to the inside of the hall, with its long table and small stage. Special events, such as a child giving a piano or violin performance, were common and during the second World War, military men (I don’t remember any women) were honored with suppers and parties. We were very patriotic.
There were several of us young men who attended Sunday School (never church) faithfully, but we were mainly interested in the latest major league baseball scores. The Sunday School teachers were older women who told stories that were somehow related to the Bible.
It gets very cold in northeastern Pennsylvania during the winter, so the furnace had to be lit early to allow parishioners to remove their coats and gloves. For a few years, I would go to the church early, get some wood burning, later apply coal, and get the sanctuary reasonably warm. I would be given 50 cents each time I did this.
My relationship with the church and God changed when I was a senior in High School. A young preacher, full of zeal, arrived, and the Holy Spirit worked in the hearts of several of us, and we became Christians. The church took on a new meaning for me, and I was somehow immediately convinced that I should become a missionary.
My decision led me to a Christian college in Delaware, where I met Joice, who in time became my wife. The rest, as they say, is “history.”
The little church in Bloomingdale, influenced in history by Charles Wesley, became the first stepping stone in my missionary and linguistic career.
The King James was a great Bible, translated in the 1600s, but I no longer talk in its dialect (nor does the New King James Bible.)
Karl Franklin
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