The legacy of Harvie Conn, home and foreign missionary for the OPC, and longtime member of the WTS faculty, is less contested than it should be. A blog, though dormant of late, has been dedicated to preserving Harvie’s insights about contextualization and globalization. One former WTS Old Testament professor has also recently been posting a series of Conn quotations on mission and theology that were somehow the inspiration for appropriating Ancient Near Eastern Studies in OT interpretation (imagine how a paper on missions would go over at the Society of Biblical Literature).

Despite these progressive appropriations of Conn, another side of the man exists, the one that informed his efforts first as a home missionary for the OPC in Stratford, New Jersey. The following quotations come from “Where is Everybody Sunday Night?” Presbyterian Guardian (March 15, 1959).

One of the thorns in the flesh that plagues every home missionary is the Sunday evening service. From what I’ve heard, it also gives many a sleepless night to other pastors as well. Actually, the Sunday evening service isn’t the problem. The problem is: where are the people at the Sunday evening hour set for meeting in God’s house? Why do people make a habit out of not coming? . . . .

Remember the blessedness of being in God’s house on all His day. Look at what the man with the withered hand would have missed if he had skipped church the time Jesus was there to heal him. Anticipate the added blessing of the evening hour. Ask yourself if you are hungering and thirsting for truth. If you are, why aren’t you present also Sunday night to be filled? Or maybe your appetite isn’t what it ought to be, but it will increase if you go where the food is being served! Jesus said that the Sabbath was made for man. It is for our use and blessing.

Makes me wonder if I could take theological progressivism better from someone who kept the entire Lord’s Day holy.