The Early History Of Peniel Bible Conference (Part 2): A Theological Mutiny (1938–1950)

By Caroline Weerstra

[Caroline Weerstra is a member of Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Schenectady, N.Y., and the author of the Westminster Shorter Catechism for Kids series and other Sunday school curriculum. Part 1 of her historical examination of the relationship between Peniel Bible Conference and the OPC appeared in WTJ 75 (2013): 297–315.]

In the early 1930s, Peniel Bible Conference was composed of a small band of young Methodists with big dreams. Their church of origin—First Methodist Church in Schenectady, New York—probably expected that the entire enterprise would die out within a couple of years. The foolhardy purchase of the Wayside Inn had exposed the group’s inexperience and shortsightedness. Now that the inn had burned down and the Penielists were once more pitching tents on a hillside, Peniel seemed to have lost what small gains it had made.

Failure would have been a virtual certainty if Peniel had remained in the shadow of its reluctant Methodist mother church. In the aftermath of the disastrous fire at the Wayside Inn, the rebellious youth group finally split away from the main church body. Under the leadership of Westminster Seminary graduate Raymond Meiners, Peniel applied to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church under the evasive name “Calvary Presbyterian Church.” The unwitting Presbytery of New York and New England cheerfully accepted the new congregation and installed Ray Meiners as its first pastor.[1] The Presbytery would soon regret its hasty decision, but for Peniel Bible Conference, the founding of Calvary OPC turned out to be highly fortuitous. Until June of 1938, Peniel had no plans to start a church, and even as they applied to the OPC in September of that year, no one except Meiners knew anything about Reformed doctrine and Presbyterian government. It was a random decision forced upon them by necessity—a hasty measure to fill the void left by the departing Methodists.[2]

Yet Peniel thrived. By sheer dumb luck, the Penielists had stumbled upon the perfect formula to expand their influence. The church in Schenectady and the camp in Lake Luzerne acted as a reinforcing loop funneling new members in both directions. A vibrant group of young people in Schenectady under the leadership of an energetic seminary-trained pastor quickly attracted local college students and employees of the nearby GE plant. In the summer, the church closed most of its programs down, and the pastor and nearly all congregants relocated to Camp Peniel. The camp was close enough for those working at the GE plant to commute, while it provided summer entertainment and social activities for the youth. The camp, in turn, drew young people from the whole region, including Schenectady. When Peniel closed its programs in the fall and Meiners returned to pastoring Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, he often found many new converts from the summer camp in attendance.

As the church grew, the camp grew; and as the camp grew, the church grew. Peniel soon launched a highly successful family camp for adults with children. In the early 1940s, the group built a chapel and cabins, and they purchased several lodges to house those who would not be able to cope with long-term camping. In 1947 the camp constructed a large dining hall. While expansion progressed in Lake Luzerne, Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church purchased its own building and renovated it to accommodate 150 worshippers. In 1942 Ray Meiners performed his first wedding—Jacob and Eleanor Lederman. Jacob hailed from a devout Jewish family. Like nearly all the early Penielists, he was led to Christ through the teaching of the camp. Jacob brought his girlfriend with him to attend Calvary OPC, and soon they both professed faith in Christ and were baptized. The decision was a costly one for Jacob; his parents considered his conversion to be a rejection of everything he had been brought up to believe. They held a funeral to mourn him as though he had died, and thereafter, they never spoke to him again. Undeterred, Jacob married Eleanor, and they both became members of Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church.[3]

The evangelistic success of Peniel cannot be denied. The story of Jacob and Eleanor Lederman is only one of dozens of similar accounts. Calvary OPC drew in teenage twin sisters Norine and Kolene Hager who had grown up in a non-Christian family. It was instrumental in the conversion of Lois Sjogren and several of her friends through a Bible study for nurses at a local hospital. It held a VBS program that brought in twin brothers Arnie and Stanley Glover and their mother. It even rescued Nell Caley from her abusive husband, and supported her young sons as she struggled with life as a single mother. The church was packed with new Christians, and it shuffled them all to Peniel to “meet with God.”

In 1943, a young man entered the church office in Schenectady to inquire about the summer camp program that his college friends had mentioned. He was unremarkable in appearance—short, dark-haired, with a round, boyish face. His name was Grover Travers Sloyer, but his friends all called him “Trav.” Mildred McCullough was on hand to greet the newcomer. By the mid-1940s, she was raising two young daughters, and she no longer taught classes at Peniel. However, the McCulloughs still lived in an apartment adjoining the office at 242 Union Street in Schenectady, and Mrs. McCullough considered it her particular responsibility to show hospitality to all who came through the door. Travers Sloyer remembered that very well, so that years later he wrote to her:

How can I, Trav, forget the day in 1943 when I returned from Chicago’s Moody Bible Institute and entered your apartment in “242” to be wrapped in love and welcome in Christ that have never ceased to this day? Your home has always been my home away from home. Your fellowship and friendship have exceeded what I have known in my own family.[4]

Sloyer was much in need of a welcoming embrace. He had grown up in Philadelphia, the middle child in a troubled home. At age five, Sloyer suffered a severe case of rheumatic fever that left him with a permanently damaged heart. Probably as a result of this defect, he was always small for his age. What he lacked in size, he made up for in mischief. He first tried cigarettes at age ten. By his teenage years, he was a chain smoker. He ran wild with other teenage boys and got into various escapades. He was also an avowed atheist. Sloyer’s mother had enough religious training to drag him to church on major holidays. It was Easter when an 18-year-old Travers Sloyer shook hands with an elderly parishioner in a local congregation and heard the words that would change his life, “Oh, don’t we have a wonderful Savior!”[5]

The words uttered by the parishioner haunted him. Sloyer began a spiritual search. He frequented various religious meetings. He briefly attended a Pentecostal revival, where congregants laid hands on him and called upon the Spirit to fill him so that he would speak in tongues. Sloyer found the experience chilling, and he hastily moved on. He attended Moody Bible College in Chicago. Eventually his search led him to 242 Union Street, where Mrs. McCullough was happy to introduce the young man to her wonderful Savior. She also invited him to the summer camp in Lake Luzerne.[6]

All would have been well if Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church had lived up to its Reformed reputation. As the 1930s rolled into the 1940s, however, Calvary OPC was still managed by the Prayer Council of the Peniel Bible Conference, and it retained all its Penielist mysticism. Even the external show of Presbyterian government did nothing to change that. The pastor, Raymond Meiners, had been on the Peniel Prayer Council two years before he was ordained in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In 1940 Calvary OPC appointed its first elder—Robert McCullough, also on the Peniel Prayer Council, and one of the camp founders.[7]

Overall, Peniel had no interest in Reformed theology. If not for the application to the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination, there would have been no reason to believe that Calvary OPC was involved in a Reformed organization at all. None of the early writings of Ray Meiners, Robert McCullough, or other members of Calvary OPC make much reference to Reformed doctrine or Reformed writers. Instead, they teach methods for finding the “leading of the Lord,” and they quote F. G. Huegel and Jessie Penn-Lewis. No Reformed books were among those listed as sold at Peniel Bible Conference in the 1940s.[8]

Jessie Penn-Lewis was undoubtedly the strongest influence on the teachings of Calvary OPC and Peniel Bible Conference in the early part of the decade. It is unclear whether her writings had formed the basis of Peniel doctrine from the beginning, or whether she was simply discovered to conform to ideas already being taught at Peniel. However, by the mid-1940s, her influence was strong and pervasive among Penielists. Jessie Penn-Lewis, like the Penielists, emerged from a Methodist background. She became deeply involved in the Welsh revival of 1904–1905, and she was a close personal friend of Evan Roberts, one of its primary leaders. Although she felt that much of the Welsh revival was a work of God, Mrs. Penn-Lewis was troubled by certain aspects of it, which she viewed as demonic. In her writings, she urged Christians to open themselves to spiritual experiences to receive special revelation from God, but she cautioned that Satan could appear as an “angel of light” to deceive them. Mrs. Penn-Lewis warned her followers that they must always engage in active resistance to Satan in order to prevent themselves from being deceived by the forces of evil masquerading as messengers of God.

One of the most troubling aspects of the teachings of Jessie Penn-Lewis was her insistence that Christians could be possessed by evil spirits if their resistance lapsed or proved ineffective:

Christians are as open to possession by evil spirits as other men, and become possessed because they have, in most cases, unwittingly fulfilled the conditions upon which evil spirits work, and apart from the cause of wilful sin, given ground to deceiving spirits, through (1) accepting their counterfeits of the Divine workings, and (2) cultivating passivity, and non-use of the faculties; and this through misconception of the spiritual laws which govern the Christian life. 

It is this matter of ground given which is the crucial point of all. All believers acknowledge known sin to be ground given to the enemy, and even unknown sin in the life, but they do not realize that every thought suggested to the mind by wicked spirits, and accepted, is ground given to them; and every faculty unused invites their attempted use of it.[9]

Jessie Penn-Lewis’s claim that Christians could be not only influenced, but even possessed by evil spirits was horrifying enough. The declaration that this could occur not only because of sin, but even because of unwitting acceptance of “counterfeits of Divine workings” only added to the tension. According to Peniel teachings, divine guidance must be sought for every action in life. Failure to receive divine guidance indicated a “blockage” caused by sin.[10] Yet messages received might be from Satan rather than from God, and failure to properly discern the difference may lead to demon possession of even a baptized and believing Christian.

Practically, this worked out to a situation in which guidance was frantically sought, but average Penielists feared to disagree with the “leadings” suggested by the members of the Prayer Council. Young Penielists also developed a strong dependence on the more “spiritual” members, seeking them out for prayer over every decision to avoid straying into demonic territory.[11] The members of the Prayer Council, who sincerely wanted to help and believed themselves to have much discernment experience, added to the strain by issuing warnings to those who acted against their advice. In response to a career setback Herman Petersen suffered in 1942, Susan Beers wrote to him:

You needed a severe jolt to make you realize that you have not been walking in the Spirit as you should. I trust you see it now. My prayer is that you may see where you have been out of the Spirit and why you have been out of the Spirit. You need to understand your own flesh if you would be guarded against the subtle advances of the enemy. If undiscerned flesh has been laid hold of by the enemy, we may go on in the motions of walking in the Spirit and deceive ourselves. . . . 

If you had been more willing to listen to your brothers and sisters in Christ, this might have been avoided. One and another expressed to me a concern about you and when I asked them if they had spoken to you, they always replied, “He won’t listen to us.” 

I know that we can’t listen to everyone and that the enemy can use what people say, but when those who know something about walking in the Spirit and are somewhat proficient in discerning the wiles and devices of the devil have a common burden, you ought to have some respect for what they say. The persons who spoke to me were all members of the Prayer Council and their concern was a kindly concern. Besides, the fact that they spoke to me, the Spirit of God Himself laid a heavy burden upon me for you, a burden that was almost intolerable that last week of camp. So I know there was a real need in your life and ministry.[12]

The scathing rebuke in Susan Beers’s letter illustrates another serious error in Peniel’s teaching. In the search for clues to help them “discern,” Penielists often latched onto ordinary misfortunes as symptoms of satanic activity. Those who suffered physical or psychological ailments were particularly vulnerable to accusations. Bertha Ives Petersen was expecting a baby in 1948, when she suddenly went into premature labor while her husband was out of town. After the birth of her tiny daughter, she wrote to her husband Herman about the accusations of the other Penielists:

The delivery room was quite a trial. The news went to the “grape-vine” first. Al couldn’t get Hills like I asked him to, and since he knew Comstock’s he called them. Next in line they called T.E. (you might expect). He called Edith, who called Leona. She and Nancy rushed in Sat. night, very strained. It all made the trial sore as the “Accuser” tried to tell me I was “off.”[13]

Since the Penielists believed that anyone—even Christians—could be possessed by devils, they were highly suspicious of anything that brought dissention into their ranks, especially challenges to the beliefs of Peniel Bible Conference. Those who questioned Peniel’s teachings were sometimes met with shouted commands for Satan to “come out” rather than any sort of reasoned answers.

In fact, Peniel taught that direct confrontation with Satan was necessary on a regular basis. Penielists often spoke to Satan and his demons in their prayers, commanding the dark forces to leave the church and the minds of those gathered for worship.

As harsh as Penielists could be against those who were suffering difficulties, their approach was more indiscriminate than truly malicious. Penielists saw themselves as guardians of each other’s salvation, and they wanted to urge one another on to victory. In their zeal, they stood up to Nell Caley’s abusive husband and Bertha Ives Petersen’s premature delivery with equal rigidity. Satan must be resisted, they reasoned, whether he revealed himself in drunken beatings or terrifying birth pangs.

Peniel never viewed its teaching as bizarre or outside the sphere of normal Christian doctrine. The fact that nearly all Penielists lacked a Christian upbringing or much church experience rendered them incapable of recognizing their own peculiarity. They persisted in believing that their teachings did not differ in any substantive way from those of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, with the only exception being that Peniel’s spiritual experiences were a little deeper. Peniel was eager to share the secrets of “divine guidance” with their new OPC allies.

The first opportunity to advance Peniel within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church appeared immediately. At the Presbytery meeting on November 4, 1938—the same at which Peniel’s “Calvary Presbyterian Church” was accepted into the denomination—the moderator was a certain Rev. John C. Rankin, pastor of a small OPC church in Worcester, New York. The location of the church interested Ray Meiners immediately; it was only about an hour’s drive from Schenectady. The Penielists realized that the proximity of Worcester to Lake Luzerne made it possible to transport congregants to summer camp activities. They began to pray about opportunities to work in Worcester.

In 1939 Peniel seemed to receive an incredible answer to prayer. Rev. John Rankin fell seriously ill. No longer able to preach, he began sending his congregants to Schenectady for Sunday worship. Ray Meiners wrote to his friend Herman Petersen, then a student at Westminster Theological Seminary, about the situation:

Rev. Rankin is still away and probably will be for some time. The folks have been coming up every Sunday but many of them can’t come and they have no Sunday School or young people’s meeting. So they’ve been thinking of getting a supply. We’ve stood that they won’t get someone who won’t give them the cross.[14] . . . I have thought of the possibility of my preaching there Sunday afternoons and although it would make a heavy day for me, I may be able to do it.[15]

Herman Petersen had been converted at Peniel Bible Conference in 1938. When he expressed interest in ministry, the Peniel Prayer Council told him that God had revealed that he must attend Westminster, as Meiners had. They warned him that, although the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was like Peniel in almost every respect, he might find that the professors did not teach “in life” and that he must be cautious to maintain his Penielist convictions on guidance.[16] With Petersen finishing his first year of seminary studies, and with a vacant pulpit open in Worcester, Meiners saw an opportunity to keep “the cross” at Worcester during the time that he must be away at camp. He wrote to Petersen:

I think it’s a matter for serious prayer whether the Lord has anything for you in Worcester this summer. It will take you away from camp of course as well as me and I’ve been wondering if you can handle the situation. I can’t explain it in detail now but carnal preaching has caused a royal mess in Worcester and since Rankin’s absence there have been a number of people left the church. Families are divided and there are some bad situations because of preaching in the deadness of the letter.[17] When I began this letter I felt there was a great deal in your taking the work for a few weeks but since I’ve had prayer and talked with some of the folks I wonder in view of the situation there whether you are able to do it. I don’t mean to shove myself forward and disparage your preaching, Herman, but I think you see what I mean. I’ve had more experience in preaching the cross and I’ve been preaching to these Worcester folks and know the situation there.[18]

Meiners’s misgivings about Herman Petersen’s ability to “handle the situation” to his satisfaction turned out to be justified. In fact, Petersen was already becoming disillusioned with Peniel’s teachings on guidance.[19] Although he had been assured that Peniel’s doctrine was not at odds with Reformed theology, Petersen found this increasingly difficult to believe. He quickly came to view the perfectionist and guidance teachings of Peniel as aberrant and opposed to the standards of the Westminster Confession of Faith. Petersen had one great advantage over Ray Meiners—he had not been involved in Peniel for very long before he departed to attend Westminster Theological Seminary. While Meiners had been immersed in Peniel teaching for years prior to his venture into Reformed theology, Petersen had been exposed to it for only a few weeks. Furthermore, the bonds of the Peniel community were not as strong for Petersen as they had been for Meiners. Petersen’s only potent tie to Peniel was his correspondence with his Penielist fiancée, Bertha Ives, and when he shared his new Reformed convictions with her, she readily accepted them.[20]

Despite his hesitation about Petersen, Meiners’s duties at Peniel’s summer camp prevented him from supplying the pulpit in Worcester during the summer of 1939. At Meiners’s urging, Herman Petersen was invited to preach there instead. Meiners saw this as a means of ensuring that Worcester continued to receive Penielist teaching, but in reality, it had the effect of further distancing Petersen from Peniel Bible Conference since he was unable to regularly attend summer camp activities.

When summer ended, Petersen returned to his studies in Philadelphia, and Ray Meiners began traveling to Worcester every Sunday afternoon to preach. He always took with him a group of Penielists who were instructed to “uphold him in prayer and make contacts for Peniel.”[21] The Penielists grew increasingly frustrated with the reluctance of the Worcester congregation to alter their loyalties. While some Worcester parishioners attended Peniel activities, a substantial portion did not, and some actively disparaged Peniel’s efforts to convert them. As the Penielists continued to make the weekly drive to Worcester, pressure grew for the effort to bear fruit. With so much time and energy invested, no one at Peniel wanted to see the Worcester pulpit returned to Rev. Rankin and the whole plan come to nothing. In the fall of 1940, as Ray Meiners again took up pulpit supply duties in Worcester, the Peniel Prayer Council intensified their prayers about the work. The opportunity that had once been seen as a great answer to prayer had now become a burden, and victory continued to evade them. Rev. Rankin remained ill, but he still hoped to recover. The church had not set their pastor aside to usher in Penielist revelations.

The Prayer Council sought divine guidance on the problem. The answer they produced seemed as though it would solve all problems simultaneously: Herman Petersen must become pastor of the OPC church in Worcester.[22] It all seemed to fit perfectly. Petersen was well-liked by the Worcester congregation, and he was now completing his final year of seminary. When he graduated, he would need a call, and the call would come forth from Worcester, thus putting a Penielist in the pulpit once and for all, while also freeing Ray Meiners from the tedious task of traveling there every Sunday afternoon.

Amid the rejoicing over the pleasant “word” which supposedly came to them from on high, Peniel was jolted by most unwelcome news: Rev. John C. Rankin’s health was improving. Ray Meiners wrote a frantic letter to Herman Petersen:

Yesterday I didn’t preach in Worcester. The reason was that Mr. Rankin took charge of the service. He consulted his doctor and was advised to try one service to see if his physical condition would stand it. They have already written a letter to you asking you to consider coming there as pastor, I believe. But they’re not trying to find out the Lord’s will of course and so Mr. Rankin is making a try at a comeback. If he succeeds, then they’ll think it’s not the Lord’s will for you to come as pastor but that Mr. Rankin will continue. We haven’t heard any report as yet about the service yesterday but one thing we all know (The McCulloughs, Miss Armstrong, Miss Beers, Edith and I) is that this attempt is satanic. Rankin doesn’t belong in Worcester and this attempt to take over again is not of the Lord but of the Devil. . . . I didn’t go to Worcester yesterday but Edith and I went down to the McCullough’s and with the McCulloughs and Bert we spent three hours in prayer for the Worcester situation, standing against this attempt of Mr. Rankins’ to get back in and standing for the one of God’s choice to get in, and that’s Herman T. Petersen.[23]

Week after week, as Rev. Rankin struggled to preach, the Penielists hoped for a catastrophic failure to put Petersen back on the fast-track for the Worcester pastorate. Bertha Ives wrote to her fiancé that they must “stand against” Rev. Rankin’s recovery,[24] adding in a subsequent letter:

Hold the ground which is ours in Worcester while I pass on news from the front. Mr. R. could scarcely get through yesterday’s sermon. Mrs. Rankin broke down and cried in Sunday School class, and said she felt he could not go on there and that they had better send for you and me. That is what she seemed to have had from the Lord the other time, and could it not be that God has used this period to convince that when He speaks and guides He is to be followed and not questioned?[25]

In spite of all the “words” and “leadings,” Rev. Rankin’s health continued to improve. The simmering frustration over the dismal outlook of the Penielists’ plan found a target in Herman Petersen. Petersen had confided his doubts about Peniel’s teaching to his friend Ray Meiners. Initially, Meiners did not take these concerns very seriously. He merely assured Petersen that Peniel and the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination believed essentially the same doctrines, and that his confusion was doubtless fueled by the stifling atmosphere of Westminster Theological Seminary. When a rumor reached Meiners that Petersen had discussed his doubts with Rankin, however, Meiners was very disturbed. In his letter decrying Rankin’s attempt to return to the pulpit, Meiners also chided Petersen for discouraging Peniel’s efforts in Worcester:

So you see the situation in Worcester? They all think that we folks (all the Peniel group including me) are wrong on guidance and are therefore not to be trusted in anything so far as the work of the Lord is concerned. When I preach the Word there Mrs. Rankin squirms in her seat, Mr. Rankin gazes around at the ceiling, and Mr. Crippen hardly speaks to me at all.[26] There’s a definite barrier and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it. You’re the only one who can straighten it out because it’s your snarl. They respect you and like you because you’ve sided with them against Peniel, you see. I don’t mean that you’ve really taken their position but you’ve given them some ground to stand on by saying you can’t be sure. That’s all they need because that’s the thing that hits them in what I believe and what Peniel teaches, what the Word of God teaches—the certainty of the knowledge of God’s will. 

In closing, Herman, let me repeat that we’re standing with you 100% that you’ll get into the place of the Lord’s choice for you—Worcester, N.Y. And I believe the Devil would try to put lies into your mind to bring division between us and to keep you out of there. But by the grace of the Lord we’ll press the battle thru until you’re installed there. And if Satan has been lying to you along these lines, then it’s your job to recognize it and take your stand with the Lord against it.[27]

Ultimately, the Worcester project failed. Rev. Rankin recovered, and he resumed his pastoral duties. Peniel pulpit supply was no longer needed. With the Worcester project finally definitively lost, Peniel turned its fury on the doubter, Herman Petersen. When he arrived in Schenectady to visit his fiancée over spring break, they called him before the Prayer Council. The Council even notified Susan Beers, who lived in New Jersey between camp seasons, and she traveled up to Schenectady to join in the confrontation. Petersen later recalled, “They dealt with me many long hours at this time until finally I was reconvinced that the light of the Holy Spirit in our minds was perfectly from the Lord.”[28]

Petersen and his fiancée returned to the Peniel fold, but the question of his call still remained. At first, Petersen suggested that it might be God’s plan to send him to pastor Lisha Kill Reformed Church near Albany, New York, a congregation that had a strong Peniel following and an empty pulpit. However, after nine months of struggle, those efforts also came to nothing. Finally Petersen (with the support of the Peniel Prayer Council) decided to launch a new church in west Albany. The thirteen founding members of the new congregation were all Penielists, most of them splitting away from Lisha Kill Reformed Church.

On April 8, 1943, the Presbytery of New York and New England recorded in its minutes:

It was moved and carried that the recommendation of the committee be adopted. The recommendation of the committee was that the West Albany group, as represented in their petition of September 3, 1942, be organized as a particular church of the OPC. 

It was moved and carried that the Rev. Raymond Meiners be appointed Moderator of the Session of the West Albany Church, and that Elder McCullough of the Calvary Church of Schenectady be appointed to serve as the Session ad interim.[29]

The church was named “Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant.” Herman Petersen was installed as supply, pending his ordination by the Presbytery. And just like that, Peniel produced another Orthodox Presbyterian church.

By the mid-1940s Peniel had existed for more than a decade, and yet it had never really suffered as a result of its errant doctrines. Peniel had been blessed with extremely good fortune in many difficult situations. Even the disaster of the burning of the Wayside Inn had ultimately proved necessary. With the benefit of hindsight and experience, the Peniel Prayer Council admitted that they had bitten off more than they could chew in that deal. Even Mildred McCullough, who had been so smitten by the luxurious beauty of the inn, confessed that Peniel never could have afforded to maintain it over the long term.[30] They had received enough insurance money after the fire to buy a campground. The return to camp living, as disappointing as it had been, had not stalled Peniel’s growth. On the contrary, the work had blossomed and spread. Peniel had founded a church in Schenectady, and then a second in Albany. Ray Meiners and other Penielists maintained good standing in the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. Peniel suffered a few disappointed dreams, but it never really sustained damage in its early years. “Leadings” and “words” which proved unfeasible (such as the witness regarding the Worcester congregation) simply fell by the wayside and were forgotten amid the next big “word” leading them onward.[31]

In the mid-1940s, however, Peniel’s streak of luck began to run out. For years, the teachings of Peniel had troubled various local pastors, as well as parents of youth who attended Peniel. Peniel sailed blissfully through all of it, dismissing criticism as “attacks of the devil” and those who questioned their work as “being out of the Spirit.” The first heavy blow to strike Peniel came from an entirely unexpected direction.

Ruth Paxson served as missionary to China during the early 1900s. In 1928 she authored a book much admired by the Penielists, Life on the Highest Plane. During the 1940s, Miss Paxson toured the United States, speaking at various churches and Bible camps to raise awareness of the work of the American Bible Society. In 1946 Peniel invited her to stay for a week and teach a series of messages at their summer camp. Miss Paxson had no prior relationship with Peniel Bible Conference, and she casually accepted as she would any other stop on her speaking tour. The Penielists were thrilled to schedule the great Ruth Paxson, whose books had taught them so many “spiritual truths,” and whom they never doubted moved “in the Spirit.”[32]

When Miss Paxson arrived, however, the week did not progress at all as either side expected. Miss Paxson was disturbed by the never-ending mantra about guidance that seemed to exclude teaching on any other topic. She was horrified to hear the Penielists addressing lengthy prayers to Satan, rebuking him for acting against them and casting his demons out of themselves and other Christians.

The Peniel Prayer Council sensed the uneasiness in Miss Paxson, and they were disappointed in her teaching. Toward the end of the week, the Prayer Council made a wildly inappropriate—but very Penielist—decision. They decided to “deal with” Miss Ruth Paxson. She later recounted the story:

One evening, three of the leaders came to talk with me.[33] They told me that they had looked forward to my coming to Peniel but very frankly said “they were very disappointed” for they had not felt fellowship with me. I suggested that they tell me with Christian frankness the reason for their disappointment. Instead of answering me, they asked me if I had felt liberty with them. I very honestly said that I did not know what they meant by some of their expressions and terms and so could not wholeheartedly follow them; that I felt the emphasis in the teaching was negative and that the teaching was unbalanced. They admitted these things had been said to them by others, but they refused to accept them for they were not true. 

Then I asked them to tell me why they did not feel fellowship with me. One said, “We did not feel the flow of life.” I asked her to put that expression in plain language and give me a concrete illustration. She then said she questioned whether or not I knew the Holy Spirit as a Person. . . . 

In seeking to find out the reason for her doubt of my relationship to the Holy Spirit, it was revealed to me to be because I had not prayed directly to the Spirit; had not prayed against the powers of darkness as I should; had prepared a series of messages months beforehand instead of being given by the Spirit, a day by day message, on the spot; and that I had not had the Spirit’s guidance in a personal experience of which they knew nothing except by hearsay and which they really had no right to touch.[34]

Peniel had made a grave error in their “dealing with” Ruth Paxson. She was not an easily manipulated youth, as were most of the people the Prayer Council normally “dealt with.” Furthermore, she had an expansive audience. Within a few months of her visit to Peniel, a letter detailing her disapproval of the teachings and practices of Peniel Bible Conference began to circulate. The results were nearly immediate. Several Peniel-affiliated missionaries were recalled from the field. Several pastors declined to permit Peniel to enroll their youth in the summer camp programs.[35]

Peniel reacted in confusion. They wrote to Ruth Paxson, appealing to her to reconcile with them and asking her to explain her rejection. She responded with a lengthy letter detailing her points of disagreement, but she refused to retract her statements.[36] Peniel leaders tried to shrug the incident off, but it was a staggering blow to the Peniel mindset. Ruth Paxson, whose books they had read and lauded, had turned against them. Furthermore, when she did so, she gave clear reasons which they could not answer. The confrontation of the Prayer Council, which had been designed to free her into more fellowship with the Spirit, had instead produced an enormous embarrassment to the conference.

In June of 1947, under intense pressure to explain themselves, Peniel Bible Conference took a very unusual step: they published a statement of faith. Only a few paragraphs in length, it was theologically sloppy, mingling Reformed terminology and Scripture with Peniel slang and aberrant ideas. Peniel was unaccustomed to expressing theological ideas, and they seemed to have little idea how to go about it. Among other problematic portions, it described the Trinity as “one God Who has manifested Himself in three equal and distinct persons,” and it claimed that any person who accepted Christ as Savior would be “then able to comprehend God’s plan and purpose for his life.”[37] If the members of the Peniel Prayer Council were trying to calm the storm by proving themselves theologically orthodox, they failed miserably, and a second crisis was already looming over them.

Over the course of the 1940s, Peniel Bible Conference had experienced a drastic change in demographics. In the early years, Peniel had been composed almost exclusively of women, and it had served almost exclusively unmarried youth. Male leadership at Peniel was rare and generally relegated to business management. Bible interpretation and spiritual leadership were left primarily to the women. In 1938 Ray Meiners broke the mold by graduating from seminary and returning to pastor Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Herman Petersen followed him and founded the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant. After this success, the trickle of young men from Peniel Bible Conference to Westminster Theological Seminary turned into a steady stream. Amid the religious zeal of Peniel’s summer camp, commitments to a life of ministry were commonplace and highly encouraged. The Prayer Council eagerly confirmed “God’s leading” on all such ideas. Young men were pointed in the direction of seminary, and young women were pointed in the direction of young men in seminary. Throughout the 1940s the rolls of Westminster Theological Seminary swelled with Peniel names: Herbert Van DuMont, William Goodrow, Raymond Commeret, G. Travers Sloyer, and Harry Meiners (younger brother of Ray Meiners).[38]

As the young men returned from seminary (many seeking ordination in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church), the balance of power at Peniel began to shift. Peniel was proud of its seminary graduates and eager to put them to work teaching at the camp and filling pulpits. As the influence of the pastors grew, Mildred McCullough, Susan Beers, and Rhoda Armstrong no longer held absolute sway. Furthermore, many of the young men had limited exposure to Peniel’s teaching before they were immersed in Reformed theology at seminary. Penielist ideas might sound plausibly scriptural to new Christians with limited knowledge of the Bible, but they held up poorly against sound doctrinal training. A theological mutiny was inevitable.

The first rumblings arose from a familiar quarter—Herman Petersen. Although Petersen had withdrawn his previous objections, his doubts about Peniel’s guidance practices remained. Following his ordination in the Presbytery of New York and New England, Petersen accepted the call to the church which he had founded with thirteen other Penielists—Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Albany, New York. Within a few years, the church added two elders—Arthur Comstock and G. Travers Sloyer. Comstock was a loyal Penielist. Together with his wife Betty and two daughters, he had separated from Lisha Kill Reformed Church to help Herman Petersen organize a new Peniel congregation. Sloyer was also involved in Peniel, but his relationship with the conference differed markedly from that of the Comstock family. While Art Comstock lived in upstate New York and attended Peniel meetings all year, Sloyer was a summer Penielist. His college studies took him away from New York much of the year. Sloyer did, however, greatly value his Peniel friends. He also began courting Helen Schwenker, the choir director at Calvary OPC in Schenectady. When Sloyer completed his undergraduate studies in 1947, he applied immediately to Westminster Theological Seminary. Despite his appointment to the Session of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, Sloyer lived in Philadelphia most of the year.

Although the Albany church seemed to be flourishing, Herman Petersen grew increasingly frustrated with Peniel’s constant interference, which he blamed for problems in church administration. Petersen claimed that he found it difficult to plan church events because he had to work around Peniel’s unpredictable schedule. On one occasion, when the church sent out invitations for a special program, Mildred McCullough called to inform them that their “leading” must have been wrong, because she had a spiritual impulse to plan an event of her own on that day and invite some of the same people. Not only was the church forced to retract their invitations and reschedule, but it also created suspicion that Satan was at work among them putting false ideas into their minds.

Petersen bitterly complained that “guidance” undermined his authority in the church. Since all parishioners presumed themselves capable of receiving direct communication from God, they were free to demand anything they liked with the claim that God had spoken it. Some of the ideas Petersen judged distasteful or impractical, but he could not say so without appearing to be “out of the Spirit.”[39]

Peniel leaders, on the other hand, began to accuse Petersen of acting in a proud and schismatic manner. Since the details of their discussion are lost, it is impossible to know how much truth lay in this allegation. Certainly, Peniel had a history of accusing people of spiritual pride for refusing to accept their “leadings,” but the subsequent actions of Herman Petersen do provide some basis for believing that he was prone to act in a rash and high-handed manner against those who disagreed with him. As in most disputes, lamentable behavior cropped up on both sides.

The reason that the quarrel reared its head again in 1947 is unclear, but it is easy to suppose that the fallout from the Paxson fiasco fueled the fire. Petersen was no longer isolated in his opposition to the Prayer Council. When he had faced them in 1942, he had done so alone, frightened by the prospect of losing his Penielist fiancée if he was declared “out of the Spirit.” Five years later, the situation had drastically changed. His fiancée, Bertha, had become his wife, and her loyalty to him was absolute. He was an ordained member of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in the Presbytery of New York and New England. Furthermore, he had learned that the Prayer Council was struggling with several other ministers who had once been firmly under their control—especially William Goodrow, a young Westminster Seminary graduate who had recently been ordained as an OPC minister, and Steven Barabas, pastor of Ballston Center Presbyterian Church and editor of Peniel’s newsletter.

The reasons for the trouble between Peniel and Steven Barabas are unclear. Barabas later complained about Peniel’s propensity to infiltrate and take over churches. It is uncertain whether pressure on his own congregation caused the rift. Barabas had been a regular speaker and writer for Peniel throughout the mid-1940s, but the relationship abruptly soured in 1947.[40]

The conflict between William Goodrow and Peniel appeared to be more theological in nature. Goodrow had attended Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church as a youth and had married Penielist Margaret Sedivy in 1946 after his graduation from Westminster Theological Seminary. Margaret was so affected by guidance teachings that she suffered psychological strain. At the height of her involvement in Peniel, she would pray each morning over which shoes she should wear, and the anxiety of the effort to feel God’s choice on the matter sometimes led her to wear mismatched shoes.[41] Whether this played a role in Goodrow’s separation from Peniel is uncertain. Goodrow’s complaint against Peniel Bible Conference never mentioned personal grievances, but he addressed theological problems in detail, accusing Peniel of attempting a false distinction between “spiritual Christians” and “carnal Christians,” and of making redemption by the cross of Christ so indefinite that it became a “moment by moment affair.”[42]

According to Herman Petersen’s testimony, he first requested a conference with the Peniel Prayer Council in the summer of 1947, but his request was not granted. It is possible that the Council was simply overwhelmed with the problems already resulting from Ruth Paxson’s statement, but regardless of the reasons, Petersen interpreted their silence as a snub. He was granted a private interview with Robert McCullough in the spring of 1948, but he deemed it insufficient.

Shortly after Petersen’s conference with McCullough, pastors Petersen, Goodrow, and Barabas joined forces. Together they held a joint conference with the other Peniel ministers, Raymond Meiners and Herbert Van DuMont.[43] The conference, while having little effect on the situation, presented a bizarre scenario. It was the first known conference to take place apparently at Peniel and yet only among ministers. The absence of other members of the Prayer Council—especially Mildred McCullough and Susan Beers—illustrated the drastic shift in authority underway at Peniel Bible Conference. However, the conference also illustrated the extent to which Peniel pastors belonged to Peniel first, ahead of the Orthodox Presbyterian denomination. Four of the five ministers present were ordained (or in the process of ordination) in the Presbytery of New York and New England. Yet despite lengthy ongoing problems involving several churches, none of them had brought any of these situations to the attention of the Presbytery.

Herman Petersen later claimed that the ministers’ conference failed because of his opponents’ unwillingness to change. He blamed DuMont and Meiners for their stubborn loyalty to Peniel and their total inability to admit that their understanding of “guidance” was flawed. In retelling the story later, however, Petersen failed to mention his communication with G. Travers Sloyer. Although Sloyer was away at Westminster Theological Seminary, he remained in communication with Petersen, and the correspondence is difficult to reconcile with Petersen’s subsequent testimony. To the Presbytery, Petersen asserted that his rejection of “guidance” and his insistence upon respect for Scripture drove him into battle against Peniel in the summer of 1948, and that he and his wife stood all alone in the fight. The letters to Sloyer throw both aspects of that claim into question. In March of 1948, Petersen wrote as someone already deeply entrenched in a battle. He acknowledged Sloyer’s humble repentance for some perceived wrong and expressed his gratitude for Sloyer’s support:

The trial is still sore but we are trusting God for the victory. Your letter was a joy and rejoicing in my heart in praise to God for his faithfulness. It seems very evident that God has begun the work of deliverance in this terrible conflict. . . . I am thankful to God for the ground that has already been reclaimed, and you need not fear, dear Trav, that I have not forgiven you, for my prayer has been over and over again, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”. And Trav, I really do forgive you without reservation. I have really felt from the beginning that you and the others were sincere but that you were deceived and I tried to reach you, but the door seemed closed. So all I could do was pray and trust God for his deliverance.[44]

After this promising start, the letter lapsed into a horrifying jumble of Peniel-speak, filled with personal grievances:

As a matter of fact, Trav, though we have gladly received everyone as we always earnestly endeavored to do, it now becomes very apparent that there are others in the church who have not received us in the Lord. For example, Truman this past Sunday did not receive our witness. I believe God gave us real strategy in the Holy Spirit. We had invited him to dinner, having no definite intentions of dealing with him, yet knowing very well that in God’s own time we needed to speak to him, and were standing for the opportunity. In the afternoon the Holy Spirit gave a very clear witness that it was time to speak. I brought the matter before him not accusingly, but asking if everything was clear between us. He immediately acknowledged that things were not clear between us, but he quickly went on to say that he knew he hadn’t sinned in the matter. . . . It seems to us there is an element of religious flesh in which he has hidden pride. . . . 

Another person who has not received me when I have asked for prayer in this conflict has been Mrs. Kress. . . . I wonder if this isn’t where your scriptures apply and perhaps if you had been able to discern this when God gave them you would have not fallen into the sin that you confessed in your previous letter.[45]

In addition to rebuking Sloyer’s supposed lack of discernment, Petersen’s letter also periodically questioned the elder’s loyalty, dwelling repeatedly on Sloyer’s concern that Petersen may be power-hungry. Throughout the meandering three-page letter, Petersen claimed to be receiving “witnesses” from the Holy Spirit and feeling “life” in certain thoughts. He talked about “dealing with” those who failed to “receive his witness,” and accused them of hidden sin if they failed to heed his “leadings.” In short, when speaking to Sloyer about the handling of the church, Petersen freely admitted to doing everything that he accused the Peniel Prayer Council of doing. The disagreement appears more like a duel between conflicting Penielist “leadings” than a real rejection of Penielist guidance principles.

Regardless of the real issues, it is evident that negotiations with the Peniel Prayer Council failed. In his testimony to the Presbytery of New York and New England, Herman Petersen declared that it was at this point that he began to consider calling for outside help among the Westminster faculty at General Assembly.[46] However, Petersen’s testimony again omitted certain facts. Petersen’s first contact outside of Peniel was not made at General Assembly. In fact, the suggestion to approach the Westminster faculty came from none other than Rev. John C. Rankin, pastor of the OPC church in Worcester and victim of Peniel’s pulpit-grasping scheme several years earlier. Rankin approached Arthur Kuschke and requested a private dinner meeting away from the activities of General Assembly.

Arthur Kuschke, librarian at Westminster Theological Seminary, had a reputation for engaging in theological controversy with eagerness and dogged ferocity. When he heard that ministers were asking for help with a doctrinally questionable sect in New York, he found participation irresistible. He agreed to the meeting. Accordingly, later that evening over a fish dinner Rankin introduced Kuschke to Herman Petersen.[47]

Kuschke never made public the advice he gave to Petersen in the course of the dinner, but whatever it was, the result was nearly immediate. Within days of the 1948 OPC General Assembly, Petersen, Goodrow, and Barabas composed a joint statement for public release. On Sunday, June 6, 1948, the bulletins of all three churches boldly proclaimed:

We believe we should make public certain convictions to which we have come as a result of intimate association with the Peniel Bible Conference: 

1. We believe that Peniel’s teaching on and practice of guidance is not in accord with the Word of God. 

2. We believe that it is not in accordance with the Scriptures to assume infallibility in guidance and to hold to an immediate inward witness as the only method of Divine guidance, as we are convinced is taught and practiced by the Peniel Bible Conference. 

3. We believe that there are other doctrines that are carried by Peniel beyond what Scripture warrants. 

We speak with great hesitancy because of the sincerity of the Christians involved, but because we believe great harm has been brought to the spiritual life of those associated with the Conference and to the Church of Christ at large, we regard it as our duty as Christian ministers to make it known that we cannot support the work of the Peniel Bible Conference, and to warn others of the dangers of its teachings. 

Steven Barabas 

Pastor, Ballston Center Presbyterian Church 

William C. Goodrow 

Stated Supply, West Charlton United Presbyterian Church 

Herman T. Petersen 

Pastor, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant, Schenectady

It is unclear how the statement was received at Ballston Center and West Charlton, but the Session of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant was flabbergasted. Petersen had taken great pains to conceal his plan, even demanding secrecy from the church secretary. He had also carefully concealed his meetings with Rankin and Kuschke. The repudiation of Peniel caught the Session completely by surprise.

With the whole church in an uproar, the Session hastily requested that Petersen inform the congregation that he had acted completely on his own, and that the statement had not yet been voted upon by the Session. Petersen flatly refused, coolly noting that they were mere elders and had no authority regarding announcements from the pulpit. He further forbade them from making any official objection to his statement, threatening disciplinary action if they did not comply.[48]

While Goodrow and Barabas seemed to move on after the publishing of the statement, Petersen’s behavior grew increasingly erratic. In a letter to Art Kuschke, he rambled about his hope of taking the pastorate of Goodrow’s church which seemed so much more “promising” than his own, and he asked whether he must meet with his Session or whether he could simply postpone them indefinitely.[49] In a letter to John Skilton, Petersen complained that he was being watched “like a hawk,” and he voiced suspicion of people who took notes during his sermons.[50]

When Petersen appealed to members of the Presbytery to investigate his congregants, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant rebelled. At a congregational meeting, they voted Herman Petersen out of the pastoral office. Petersen was furious, and the matter was promptly brought before the Presbytery of New York and New England, along with a petition from the Worcester congregation regarding Peniel’s aberrant teaching and its attempt to force Rev. Rankin out of the pastorate.

The Presbytery, obviously caught off-guard, reacted hesitantly. They appointed a committee to investigate the Worcester allegations.[51] After some consideration of the statements regarding Peniel’s views, they restored Petersen to his pulpit, optimistically directing the church and Petersen himself to study the OPC standards together and work through their issues.[52]

Petersen’s return to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant was a disaster. Back in authority in his former congregation, the embittered pastor demanded that his Sunday school staff appear before the Session for questioning. The meeting took place on March 22, 1949. Although Herman Petersen recorded the events on reel-to-reel audio, the Peniel-affiliated elders showed no evidence of any awareness that they were being recorded. The transcript kept by Petersen reveals the discomfort of Sloyer and Comstock regarding the apparent lack of recordkeeping, while Petersen and his supporter Stein assured them that there was no need for any manner of verification:

Comstock: Mr. Petersen, at this point I would like to say that, that I believe that each and every question which you put to these people tonight shall be in written form . . . 

Petersen: I don’t think that—I don’t know that you would be able to take notes as freely as I hope that the discussion might be made. I want this discussion to be very free and open and cordial and charitable in every way and I am afraid that that might hamper the freedom of this whole meeting. 

Sloyer: May I suggest that Mr. Comstock take notes, full notes, on the questions and answers and then have 3 or 4 of the elders sign his notes as being in their opinion what has gone on here. 

Stein: I am against that. This here—this is supposed to be an open meeting and I don’t see why we should take notes and have elders’ signatures and all that stuff, and when it is supposed to be an open meeting. We are just simply asking these people to come here and to ask them a few questions.[53]

When the inquiry began, the questions were random and unsettling. Petersen and his supporters, Stein and Hill, initially asked teachers whether they taught Penielist ideas in their Sunday school lessons. Unsatisfied with the responses, they spun the inquiry in other directions. Petersen questioned whether the teachers were loyal to him. He inquired of a young female teacher whether she was willing to meet with him alone, and he took offense at her hesitation. He asked the teachers not only what they taught, but what they might have omitted. When Leona Eckerson quickly denied teaching anything except the lesson “as it was printed,” Petersen pursued another direction:

Petersen: I suppose it might be well to ask some [sic] along this line: Would you instruct your children at any time not to attend the church services? 

Eckerson: No. 

Petersen: Would you urge them to attend our church services at the present time? 

Eckerson: Well, I have taught—urged them to attend church, but not especially at this time, if that is what you are going to add to it . . . 

Petersen: Don’t you think that it would be in the best interests to the unity and peace [sic] of the church to be negligent about urging them? 

Eckerson: Well, my duty is to teach the Sunday School lesson, not to urge children to come to church. That is not our purpose. 

Petersen: Don’t you think it is the purpose of the Sunday School to raise up seed to the Kingdom of God?[54]

Throughout the inquiries, Sloyer repeatedly pleaded for the examinations to cease, pointing out that the Presbytery still had the whole Peniel matter under study and had reached no definitive decisions. Herman Petersen rounded on him furiously, denouncing Sloyer for “heresy.” Sloyer replied that he should take that accusation to the Presbytery, if he believed it to be true. Petersen grudgingly backed down.[55]

Not surprisingly, Petersen did uncover some Peniel bias among his Sunday school staff, but his battle lost the war. The teachers, along with the other Peniel-affiliated congregants, fled the church and took refuge with Rev. Meiners at Calvary OPC in Schenectady.

Having alienated most of his congregation and lost his financial support, Herman Petersen took a call to National City, California, in 1949. He served there for only five years before resigning the pastorate of that church as well.[56]

The disappearance of Herman Petersen did not put an end to the inquiry of the Presbytery of New York and New England. The committee appointed to investigate sent a series of questions to the Penielists asking for clarification of their theological beliefs. The response from Peniel was signed by six OPC pastors and elders, including Raymond Meiners and G. Travers Sloyer. It was the first coherent effort at a theological defense of Peniel, and it differed markedly from any previous Peniel document. Instead of F. G. Huegel and Jessie Penn-Lewis, it quoted the Westminster Confession of Faith, Charles Hodge, and John Calvin. It referred to guidance as “illumination” and denied that special revelation was possible.[57]

When the Presbytery dispatched a subsequent list of questions inquiring about events involving the Worcester church, Robert McCullough responded alone. He uncomfortably admitted that certain unfortunate things might have been said by Penielist individuals, but he denied that Peniel made such judgments.[58] In short, the response was a frantic and transparent attempt to distance Peniel from a situation that, however glorious it might have seemed to Penielists at the time, appeared shameful seven years later.

Given the evidence, the Presbytery of New York and New England was not fooled. The committee of three appointed to investigate Peniel’s teachings and practices acknowledged Peniel’s denial of responsibility regarding the attempted overthrow of Rev. Rankin. However, the committee concluded that the actions against Rankin had “emanated from a certain climate of feeling, thought, attitude, and conviction which existed within and was fostered by the Peniel Bible Conference Group.”[59] The Presbytery of New York and New England stopped short of charging any of its members with heresy or misconduct, but it expressed uneasiness over Peniel doctrine. The sunlight poured on the teaching and behavior of Ray Meiners and other Peniel-affiliated ministers grew uncomfortably bright and hot, and it proved to be a disinfecting influence. Never again did Peniel attempt a take-over of an OPC institution. From that point on, its teachings focused more on Scripture, as the emphasis on infallible personal revelation gradually fell into disfavor even among the majority of Penielists.

Defenders of Peniel have sometimes suggested that all the allegations produced against the Peniel Prayer Council were lies, slander, and misunderstanding. Anti-Penielists such as Arthur Kuschke have retorted that Peniel lied about its beliefs in order to hide its ongoing cultic activity and further infiltrate the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Both perspectives have a measure of truth to them, but neither is completely accurate. Penielists who claim that accusations of arranged marriages, extreme fanaticism, and heresy were untrue are generally people who attended the camp after 1949. By the time the 1950s rolled around, campers arrived to meet Rev. Ray Meiners, the Reformed minister, who quoted the Westminster Confession and dressed in a Geneva gown. They listened to Rev. G. Travers Sloyer, who loved the writings of Charles Hodge and wrote tracts against the Charismatic movement. They saw Rev. Harry Meiners struggle with polio, but heard him accept it as the sovereign will of God, rather than an attack of Satan. They knew nothing of the Peniel that had once tried to run John Rankin out of his pulpit based on a “leading.”

Chuck Blowers, a young man at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in the 1960s, later recalled Ray Meiners’s response when he asked to start a church youth group:

He made me write out a doctrinal statement, get interviewed by the Session, jump through all kinds of hoops. It was ridiculous. But he just wanted to be sure that we weren’t up to anything. He said that you never know how it can be with youth groups when they get a young, charismatic leader—they can get into all kinds of funny teaching.[60]

Yet the anti-Penielists could not imagine that people who once manipulated every detail of the lives of their followers would suddenly turn around. They suspected a vast cover-up, an insidious evil still lurking amid the purity of the Reformed faith. And in some measure, they were correct. The change, as drastic as it was, was painfully slow and never complete. Some Penielists—especially Mildred McCullough and Susan Beers—claimed special revelation until the day they died. Yet, when Mildred McCullough passed away, Steven Barabas, who had condemned her heresy in 1948, wrote to console her husband Robert:

Your note telling of the home-going of Mildred just came, and it came as a shock. The news was so unexpected. I feel with you in your loss, but rejoice with you in the knowledge that she is happy with our Lord. She was a marvelous person. I doubt that anyone could have loved the Lord more.[61]

Peniel Bible Conference was built on the enthusiasm of ignorant people who genuinely loved the Lord. In the fifteen years it took to start righting the Peniel ship, the errant teaching inflicted much damage. For those who attended Peniel prior to 1949, the mingling of good and bad in a place that both converted and confused them is hard to explain.

Rev. Paul Caley, who as a child in the 1940s was rescued from an abusive father along with his mother and brothers, credited Peniel with saving his family and teaching him to love Jesus. “You have to understand,” he explained anxiously. “Back then, Peniel was full of people who really, sincerely were seeking God. Whatever else they were doing, they really wanted to follow God.”

When asked whether the stories about arranged marriages and special revelation were true, he paused painfully, unable to deny it. Finally, he blurted out in a tone of agony, “Yes, maybe they were true. Yes, maybe. But let me ask you this . . . was Kuschke divinely perfect? Did he never make a terrible mistake?”[62]

The terrible mistakes of Peniel Bible Conference may have been confined primarily to the 1930s and 1940s, but the consequences would carry on for decades. The controversy spawned by Peniel’s doctrinal errors and erratic behavior would lock Peniel and the OPC in battle for more than thirty years. Ultimately, the ax would fall indiscriminately, missing Ray Meiners and Robert McCullough entirely, but striking a ghastly blow on G. Travers Sloyer, arguably the most orthodox and conscientiously Reformed pastor ever produced by Peniel Bible Conference.[63]

Over time, Peniel circled the wagons and withdrew into itself, fearing that any information offered to the OPC church courts would be used against them. Many Penielists left the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, but others remain even today. Yet in the OPC, little is understood of Peniel’s origins. Even Arthur Kuschke, Peniel’s most ardent opponent for decades, had only a vague impression of the camp’s history and impact. In 1991, he erroneously declared that Peniel had been founded by Susan Beers, and he cheerfully asserted that Calvary OPC in Schenectady no longer maintained any substantial Peniel connections.[64] In reality, Penielists Arthur Comstock, Warren Chader, and others remained on the Session of Calvary OPC throughout the 1990s.

However, when asked about the reasons behind the odd doctrine of the Penielists, Kuschke’s comments finally found the mark:

All of the [Penielist] students at Westminster Seminary—you might say ‘almost all’—came out of weaker backgrounds than the strong doctrinal background they found when they arrived at Westminster Seminary. . . . They simply hadn’t been trained for it. And that is true of many [Penielists] who survived the experience of three years at Westminster Seminary. They still didn’t begin to understand the Reformed faith in a thorough-going fashion. They hadn’t been able to outgrow their old views. 

And sometimes it takes a person a lifetime to outgrow his position on some of those things. Let us hope that all of us do keep growing.[65]

Notes

1. Presbytery records suggest that Calvary OPC in Schenectady was particularized as a church in 1938 despite lacking ruling elders, with no apparent oversight from another OPC Session.
2. The exact circumstances of Peniel’s separation from First Methodist Church are unclear. Various reports indicate that the Peniel group was set outside the church, or that the Penielists departed voluntarily having deemed Methodist modernism too suffocating to tolerate any further.
3. Eleanor Lederman, personal interview by author, May 28, 2012.
4. G. Travers Sloyer to Mildred McCullough, December 1, 1973.
5. Robert Sloyer, phone interview by author regarding the life of G. Travers Sloyer, May 23, 2012.
6. Ibid.
7. Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, Minutes of the Congregational Meetings, meeting of October 14, 1940.
8. William C. Goodrow, “A Statement Concerning Certain Teachings That are Distinctive of the Peniel Bible Conference of Schenectady, New York,” September 7, 1948, 2.
9. Jessie Penn-Lewis, War on the Saints (New York: Thomas E. Lowe 1986), 69. Italics in original.
10. Ida Van Ritter, “A Record of My Experiences While Attending Camp Peniel for One Week, July 1949, and Attending the Philadelphia Bible Study Group,” date of composition unknown, 6.
11. Herman Petersen, quoted in “Complaint and Statements of 13 Members of the Redeemer Orthodox Presbyterian Church,” 25.
12. Susan Beers to Herman Petersen, October 15, 1942. Underlining in original.
13. Bertha Ives Petersen to Herman Petersen, May 18, 1948. Grammatical errors in original.
14. Penielists often referred to guidance teachings as “getting the cross.” In their doctrinal view, the cross of Christ must be accepted as a spiritual link to enable the believer to receive direct communication from God.
15. Raymond Meiners to Herman Petersen, June 30, 1939.
16. Herman Petersen, “Testimony Regarding Peniel Bible Conference,” submitted to the Presbytery of New York and New England, August 10, 1950, 1.
17. “Carnal preaching” was a term Penielists used to describe any preaching that did not promote special revelation. An exclusive focus on Scripture was described as “preaching in the deadness of the letter.”
18. Raymond Meiners to Herman Petersen, June 30, 1939.
19. Petersen, “Testimony Regarding Peniel Bible Conference,” 5.
20. Ibid., 6.
21. Ibid., 3.
22. Ibid., 3-4.
23. Raymond Meiners to Herman Petersen, February 17, 1941.
24. Bertha Ives to Herman Petersen, February 3, 1941.
25. Bertha Ives to Herman Petersen, March 31, 1941.
26. George Crippen was a ruling elder at the OPC church in Worcester.
27. Raymond Meiners to Herman Petersen, February 17, 1941.
28. Petersen, “Testimony Regarding Peniel Bible Conference,” 7.
29. Minutes of the Meeting of the Presbytery of New York and New England, April 8, 1943.
30. Mildred McCullough, “The History of Peniel, 1933-1976” (speech delivered at the 40th anniversary of the founding of Peniel Bible Conference, Lake Luzerne, New York, August 10, 1973), audio recording.
31. Petersen, “Testimony Regarding Peniel Bible Conference,” 9-10.
32. Ruth Paxson, quoted in “Statements Concerning the Peniel Bible Conference,” circulated at Westminster Theological Seminary, 1953.
33. In a letter written to Hazel Chase in 1947, Ruth Paxson named these three Peniel leaders as Mildred McCullough, Rhoda Armstrong, and Susan Beers.
34. Paxson, as quoted in “Statements Concerning the Peniel Bible Conference.” Underlining in original.
35. Hazel Chase to Ruth Paxson, March 20, 1947.
36. Ruth Paxson to Hazel Chase, April 10, 1947.
37. Peniel Bible Conference, “Statement of Doctrinal Belief and Teaching with Supporting Scriptural Texts,” June 1947. Margin notes on rough drafts indicate Raymond Meiners was the primary author.
38. Peniel Bible Conference continued to send young men to Westminster Theological Seminary for decades. The exact total is uncertain, but conservative estimates claim at least thirty Peniel-affiliated individuals were eventually educated at WTS.
39. Herman Petersen, “Testimony Regarding Peniel Bible Conference” (submitted to the Presbytery of Philadelphia of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church regarding the transfer of G. Travers Sloyer, August 10, 1950), 9-12.
40. Steven Barabas, as quoted in “Statements Concerning the Peniel Bible Conference,” circulated at Westminster Theological Seminary, 1953.
41. “Statements Concerning the Peniel Bible Conference.” The author of this portion of the statement is unlisted.
42. William C. Goodrow, “A Statement Concerning Certain Teachings That are Distinctive of the Peniel Bible Conference of Schenectady, New York,” September 7, 1948, 2-6.
43. Herbert Van DuMont was a seminary graduate licensed to preach in the Presbytery of New York and New England. He was ordained in September 1948, shortly after the Peniel ministers’ conference.
44. Herman Petersen to G. Travers Sloyer, March 9, 1948.
45. Ibid.
46. Petersen, “Testimony Regarding Peniel Bible Conference,” 13.
47. Arthur Kuschke, interview by Rev. Charles Dennison regarding the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, January 28, 1991.
48. Herman Petersen to Arthur Kuschke, June 10, 1948.
49. Ibid.
50. Herman Petersen to John Skilton, June 23, 1948.
51. Minutes of the Meeting of the Presbytery of New York and New England, March 24-25, 1948.
52. Minutes of the Meeting of the Presbytery of New York and New England, September 16, 1948.
53. “Transcripts of Portions of the Session Meeting of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church of the Covenant,” March 22, 1949, 6.
54. Ibid., 7-8.
55. Ibid., 1.
56. After resigning his second pastorate, Herman Petersen worked as a teacher in California until 1969, when his teaching license was revoked for unknown reasons. He withdrew from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in November of 1969. Herman Petersen died on June 27, 1999.
57. Minutes of the Meeting of the Presbytery of New York and New England, April 11-12, 1950. The writing style of Peniel’s response strongly suggests that it was composed primarily by G. Travers Sloyer.
58. Minutes of the Meeting of the Presbytery of New York and New England, September 12, 1950.
59. Ibid.
60. Chuck Blowers, interview by the author regarding the history of Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church, July 11, 2012.
61. Steven Barabas to Robert McCullough, January 3, 1980.
62. Paul Caley, interview by the author regarding the history of Peniel Bible Conference, June 8, 2012.
63. G. Travers Sloyer transferred to the Presbytery of Philadelphia to take the pulpit of Redeemer OPC, a strongly Penielist congregation in Manoa, Pennsylvania. Despite his success as a minister and his influence in bringing Peniel Bible Conference into more stable Reformed theological understanding, Sloyer spent the better part of the 1950s embroiled in controversy. Arthur Kuschke, convinced that Sloyer’s Peniel connections posed a danger to churches in the Philadelphia Presbytery, pursued him relentlessly through the Presbytery and General Assembly courts. The pressure forced Sloyer to withdraw from the OPC in 1959. He continued in ministry in the RCA until his death at the age of 57 from effects of his lifelong heart condition.
64. Arthur Kuschke, interview by Rev. Charles Dennison regarding the history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, January 28, 1991.
65. Ibid.