My family had the joy of being in Pastor Frank Breisch’s Bethel Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1963-1966 in Wheaton Illinois. The evangelical Wheaton College dominated the area, and many future leaders of Christ’s church were encouraged and blessed by Frank’s gospel preaching, about half of all the students there on weekends. What I heard was: ‘if you understood today’s world as clearly as Frank did, then God’s Word would touch your heart more from him than ever before.’
The Northwestern Railroad went through Wheaton, with African-Americans to the North of the tracks and others to the South. Frank was the only evangelical Christian on the group unifying an integrated Wheaton, where he made his decided mark.
Regrettably the OPC denomination came to believe that Frank’s position on the Sabbath was not in agreement with their view, ‘the whole day,’ although fitting the great Reformed insights of the Heidelberg Catechism. Frank believed that Sabbath rest is more than a weekly event, but now gloriously present in the whole gospel-epoch of Jesus. Because of that difference his further ministry would continue in the Christian Reformed Church and the Presbyterian Church in Canada. Many of the people at Bethel had identified with Frank and went on to found Immanuel Presbyterian in Warrenville Illinois in the Evangelical Presbyterian denomination. This church continues the vigorous interaction of the gospel with the culture of today that Frank had begun, ongoing within the Wheaton College community.
D. Clair Davis, Dr. theol., retired professor at Westminster Theological Seminary
