Last Sunday, I took the liberty of a nice early morning to visit a huguenot church on Staten Island, Reformed Church of Huguenot Park, It was a disappointment. They are looking for a pastor, so they had to invite guest speakers. One of the lady there, Carol, who's supposedly to know more about the church history than others, doesn't seem to grasp the real essence of Reformed church.
When I asked her about the history of the huguenot community on Staten Island, she told me she doesn't know much except that there are carvings on the walls in the sanctuary honoring the memories of some of the huguenots who came to this island. And when I inquired about how that church was influenced by the huguenots, or whether there's any other shred of huguenots evidence in the church, she assumed I understood that all reformers are huguenots and presuming that I did not know enough about the reformed movement by asking me to check out the history RCA website. She mistook the fact that I wasn't asking about reformed history, nor huguenot history, but merely the huguenot influences in where she has been worshiping every Sunday. A place where not just a park, but even a town and a street were named after huguenots.
Not only so, her understanding of huguenot history was erred. I had to give a brief couple sentences on the history of the reformed movement to correct her misunderstanding of the reformed history. She thought the reformed movement happened independently with some amazingly coincidental timing in different countries and that not all Huguenots are Reformers. She also thought that the Walloons (ethnic group in Belgium) means Huguenots. I do not know what her definition of huguenots are. Moreover, her understanding of the reformed movement was erred too. Something similar I have seen in another american reformed church. Where the elder ladies seem to treasure catholic tradition more than God's words. Which was why the pastor of the other church left. I realized there could be a common misconception of their doctrine after listening to her. The term "catholic" of "Holy Catholic Church" in the Apostles' Creed does not mean the Roman Catholic church. In fact it has nothing to do with the Roman Catholic church at all. The word "Catholic" comes from Greek, meaning "Universal". For all churches are the same body of Christ, in spite of the different denominations we see.
Another common thing they had was racism. She told me there used to be a Taiwanese Reformed church renting their space, but when the church grew, it moved out for a new place. She commented that they were "newly converts", because the gospel was preached to the Chinese later than the Europeans. I wished to reply:" Newly converts? Like your daughter-in-law?" who is a Filipino. But I realized it would only waste my time. I was reminded by a seminary lecture I once attended:"The western christians love to send missionaries out to other countries, they are still dreaming, we should start sending missionaries back to this fallen, full of immorality and unethical nation."
Overall, I was disappointed to see how the town having the huguenots name yet found little or not of its reformed influence in the community today.
I loved the architecture however. It was built in a way to remember the secret hideouts of the Huguenots for meeting in France during the persecution. Perhaps the only thing I should be grateful for this lady for sharing this to me. And I also loved the service, the hymnals sung. Unlike many Chinese Reformed churches I've seen here that have thrown away the good old classic hymnals and replacing them with Hong Kong Taiwanese pop style garbage musics.
After that, I visited Great Kills Park. View wasn't that great. Very dull beach, nothing else to see. Perhaps a good, relatively open and remote place for stargazing at night.
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New converts?
Well, it is certainly better than false converts.