From the website:
” the founders of Park Street Church pronounced the standard upon which they could not compromise: Jesus Christ was no mere messenger sent from God—He was God himself. This stance on the divinity of Jesus had fallen out of favor in the early 1800s, in favor of the doctrine of Unitarianism. Unitarians believe that Jesus was a good moral teacher rather than being one with God Himself. The election of Henry Ware, a firm Unitarian, to the chairmanship of Harvard Divinity School in 1805 confirmed the momentum of the “Unitarian wave.” At its founding, Park Street Church found herself only one of only two churches out of 17 in Boston that still rigorously adhered to belief in the tri-personal nature of God.”
The establishment of the American Board of Foreign Missions is deeply intertwined with Dr. Griffin and Park Street Church. “[T]his relation which has existed between us is not a relation alone between one organization and another. We were born together, as has been said, the Board and Park Street Church, the children of one mother…”
Although individual support for missions was common at the time, Griffin’s church-wide backing of some of the earliest missionaries sent out from the United States is believed to be a first. On October 15, 1819 at Park Street Church, fifteen people bound for the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) were given official recognition as the “Sandwich Islands Church.” The relationship between Park Street Church and the resulting Hawaiian churches—Mokuaikaua Church in Kailua Kona, Kawaiaha’o Church in Honolulu, and Waimea Church in Kauai—continues to this day. …. a children’s choir performed the hymn “America” (My Country, ‘Tis of Thee) set to music by Park Street’s own director of music, Lowell Mason….
Ockenga had a deep love for Boston, and Park Street Church turned out to be an ideal site from which he could launch his initiatives. While serving as senior pastor, Ockenga helped organize Christianity Today magazine, was the founding president of the National Association of Evangelicals, founded the War Relief Commission (now World Relief), was a founding father and the first president of Fuller Theological Seminary, was host to an unprecedented Billy Graham crusade in 1950, and authored 12 books. After his retirement he orchestrated the merger of Gordon Divinity School and Conwell School of Theology and served as the first president of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
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