G. C. Berkouwer’s book on the providence of God looks at his subject from a post-Second World War perspective and he comments about how difficult it was to speak of providence following the Nazi death camps and the Holocaust. I wonder if there is not a possible book or dissertation that could be written to answer the question, “How does catastrophic war affect theology

James E. McGoldrick, with R. C. Reed and T. H. Spence, Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History, Grand Rapids: Reformation Heritage Books, 2012, 566 pages including index, cloth, retail price 40.00.

Unfortunately, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Myanmar (formerly Burma), Presbyterian Church of Cameroon, Reformed Church of Christ in Nigeria, Evangelical Presbyterian and Reformed Church in Peru, and the Czech Reformed Church are probably not churches that would jump to mind for English speaking members of Reformed denominations with Presbyterian polity when they think of world Calvinism.

However, thanks to James E. McGoldrick’s latest book, the history and development of churches of Calvinist and Presbyterian brethren around the world is accessible in a single volume.

Dr. McGoldrick is currently professor of church history at Greenville Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Taylors, South Carolina, and before his current position, he taught general history for nearly thirty years at Cedarville University in Ohio. His expertise with general and ecclesiastical history has contributed to provide a perspective on Reformed Christianity that weaves the political and social history of the many nations with the account of their seeding with the Word of God beginning with the Reformation, the resultant fruit, and the continued growth presently.

The author’s book is a revision of R. C. Reed’s History of the Presbyterian Churches of the World, 1905, which has been updated and expanded using the contributions of both Dr. McGoldrick’s own research and an unpublished manuscript by Thomas H. Spence, who before his death in 1986 was for many years the director of the Presbyterian Historical Society of the Presbyterian Church in the United States (PCUS), which was located until its closing a few years ago in Montreat, North Carolina.

The book is divided into thirty-four chapters including a brief introduction and a briefer conclusion. The story begins, appropriately, in the land of Calvinism—Switzerland, moves across the western and eastern portions of the continent of Europe to Scotland, Ireland, England, and Wales, and then includes Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia in the chapter on the British Empire.

The author continues the story with several chapters concerning the American churches, moves down through Mexico and Central America, continuing with the Caribbean, and then South America.

An extensive presentation of the churches on the continent of Africa is provided, followed by the Middle East, then India, and the several nations of the Far East including China, Korea, and Japan.

The global survey ends with the lesser Pacific islands. Each chapter includes a selected but helpful bibliography of sources for further reading. Though members in the churches mentioned and church historians might contend with some of the lesser points of Dr. McGoldrick’s presentation, the book provides an accessible, clearly written, and extensive survey of his subject, but more importantly, it helps readers expand their understanding of the worldwide scope of Calvinist churches. The way the book is organized and the inclusion of an extensive index facilitates its use for reference purposes.

One aspect of Dr. McGoldrick’s book that particularly impressed me was how many churches of the world were involved in doctrinal conflict between the two world wars. The tendency is to think of the Fundamentalist/Modernist controversy as involving issues only being contested in the United States, but this book helps the reader to see that similar issues arose across the surface of the globe.

In the years following the First World War, into the 1920s, and on into the thirties, the book points out doctrinal issues and divisions in many of the churches. Church historians, such as George Marsden, have generally recognized that the American Presbyterian mind changed following the Civil War in that theological differences did not seem to be so different any longer. The Presbyterian reunion of the Old and New Schools in 1869 was due to, at least in part, a change in thinking about conflict over theology, polity, and the nature of the Bible.

Could it be that following the First World War a similar mindset developed? After all, the carnage of the War Between the States was minuscule when compared with the catastrophic global carnage of The War to End all Wars. G. C. Berkouwer’s book on the providence of God looks at his subject from a post-Second World War perspective and he comments about how difficult it was to speak of providence following the Nazi death camps and the Holocaust. I wonder if there is not a possible book or dissertation that could be written to answer the question, “How does catastrophic war affect theology?”

The cover of the paperback edition of Niall Ferguson’s book Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power is illustrated with a world map titled “Highways of the Empire.” The nations that were part of the British Empire at the time of the map’s original publication are clearly designated with bright red in contrast with the dull yellow of the remaining portions of the globe. The map illustrates why the saying “the sun never sets on the British Flag” was apropos.

However, as history has shown, empires come and go, and the same was true for Britain.

The cover of Presbyterian and Reformed Churches: A Global History is also illustrated with a global map, but there are no national borders and the land is presented topographically in earth tones as if to say the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. The picture is of God’s world covered with his church, and as James E. McGoldrick shows in his book, it is a world covered with Presbyterian and Reformed Christians.

Though earthly powers rise and fall and empires decay from within, the Reformed and Presbyterian churches continue their ministry laboring to build Christ’s kingdom through the sovereign grace gospel of Calvinism and the essential ecclesiology of rule by elders through connectional polity.

Dr. Barry Waugh is a member of Second Presbyterian Church in Greenville, S.C. (PCA) where he serves as a church historian He holds an MDiv and PhD from Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. He has written articles and reviews for the Westminster Theological Journal and The Confessional Presbyterian. He is the author of Westminster Lives: Eight Decades of Alumni in Ministry for the seminary’s 80th anniversary.