The legacy of Machen and his enemies

Dr. Scott Clark offers cogent analysis and application of the Presbyterian Controversy at the Heidelblog.  Machen’s Warrior Children are still battling with the latitudinarians because the temptation of indifferentism for the sake of influence is present in all of us.  Read it here.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Statement to the Committee Investigate Princeton Pt 2

This is part two of a piece that Machen wrote in 1926 to defend himself against character assassination.  It reveals him as an earnest contender of the faith.  Part one can be accessed here.

According to the chairman, it had been asserted in the presence of the committee that I am spiritually unqualified to hold the post in question and teach goodwill to students, that I am temperamentally defective, bitter and harsh in my judgment of others and implacable to brethren who do not agree with me.  Obviously, this characterization of me – which, if true, casts a serious stain upon my moral character – is of too general a kind to be refuted until information is given as to the specific facts upon which it is based.  I am sure, at any rate, that it is not acquiesced in by all the students who have attended my classes during the last twenty years.  On the contrary, I have been greatly touched by the many expressions of gratitude and affection from alumni and students of the seminary that have come to me in the trying days since the last meeting of the Assembly.  Those expressions have led me to hope, despite the recent attack upon me and despite my own consciousness of faults and failures, that my life has not been altogether in vain.

But obviously I am not qualified to testify with regard to my own personal characteristics.  All that I desire here to do is to set forth the facts as regards the one specific matter which has given rise to the chief objections to me and has therefore been the occasion for the appointment of the present committee.  I refer to the disagreement between President Stevenson and Dr. Erdman on the one hand, and myself, with the majority of the faculty, on the other.  That matter will be treated in its broader aspects in a statement to be presented with supporting evidence by another member of the faculty.  Here I shall endeavor to present it principally as it concerns the personal relationships between Dr. Erdman and myself.

In doing so, I shall endeavor to show (1) that there is a serious divergence of principle between Dr. Erdman and myself, and (2) that personal unpleasantness was introduced into the discussion of this divergence not by me but by Dr. Erdman.

"I need my Machen fix!"

The divergence of principle appeared in the clearest possible way so early as 1920, when President Stevenson and Dr. Erdman advocated a “Plan of Organic Union,” which, as I have publicly pointed out, relegated our historic Confession of Faith to the realm of the nonessential, and sought a basis for church union in a preamble couched in the vague language of modern naturalism.  The adoption of that plan by the presbyteries would have resulted logically in driving out the Presbyterian church not only myself but also every man of evangelical convictions who detected the real nature of what had been done.  It would be difficult, therefore, to imagine a more serious divergence of principle than that which appeared at that time between President Stevenson and Dr. Erdman on the one hand and the majorty of the faculty, including me, on the other.

But there was no reason why that divergence of principle should have resulted in unpleasant personalities, and I certainly did nothing to introduce such unpleasant personalities into our relationships at Princeton.  I continued to have the highest personal respect for Dr. Erdman, and there seemed to me to be not the slightest reason why he should not continue in the pleasantest personal relations with his colleagues.  The fact that he differed from the majority of the faculty about important matters of ecclesiastical policy did not at all prevent me from regarding him as an honored member of our body and as a valued associate.

In 1924, Dr. Erdman was nominated for the moderatorship of the General Assembly.  I was opposed to his election and voted for the other nominee, Dr. Clarence Edward Macartney.  Apparently this action has been made the basis of attack upon me; for in The New York Herald Tribune of June 3, 1926, in the report of President Stevenson’s speech at the last Assembly, it is said: “Dr. Stevenson frankly accused Dr. Machen of opposing Dr. Erdman in the moderatorship election last year…”  It is perhaps unnecessary to ask whether this newspaper report is at this point verbally accurate; for in any case, my opposition to Dr. Erdman’s candidacy for the moderatorship, both in 1925 – the year to which Dr. Stevenson here refers – and also in 1924, has certainly been the underlying cause, even where it has not been the express ground, of widespread attack upon me throughout the church.

"I gotta have my Machen fix!"

But was it a crime to oppose Dr. Erdman as a candidate for the moderatorship?  If it was, then certainly I stand convicted; but to hold that it was is, I think, to destroy all liberty of conscience in the church.  My opposition to Dr. Erdman’s candidacy for that particular position was necessarily involved in convictions that are at the basis of my whole life; for me to have made an opposite decision would have been to desert what I was fully convinced was my duty to the church and to God.

Tune in next week for Part 3 of this exciting series!

Review of Sean Michael Lucas’ biography of R.L. Dabney

Jonathan Moersch reviews Lucas’ account of the Southern Presbyterian at the Detergere blog.

Church Growth Plan for Reformed Churches

Schuller and Hayford, all you need to know

That’s right, Reformed churches have jumped on the church growth bandwagon.  It took us a while.  We move a little slowly.  We’re usually about 400 years behind the times.  Many people accuse us of being stuck in the ’50’s.  What they don’t know is that we’re stuck in the 1650’s and not the 1950’s.

But we have adopted a church growth strategy.  It might not be the typical growth plan that you’ve seen before advocated by George Barna or Rick Warren.  We’re not going to canvas the neighborhood and interview non-Christians to see what they would like church to be.  We aren’t going to implement slick marketing campaigns with direct mailers advertising our new sermon series that rips of television shows like Sex in the City entitled “Sex in the Suburbs: God wants you to have good sex.”  (I actually received that in the mail, no joke.  I couldn’t make that up.)  

The typical Reformed church growth plan was delineated this past Lord’s Day at Oceanside United Reformed Church by Pastor Danny Hyde.  Without warning and with little fanfare he unleashed this turn the world upside down strategy: OPEN THE BIBLE AND GET OUT OF THE WAY!  That’s it.  Let the Word do its work.  Let the Holy Spirit use the Word of God to preach faith into hearts.  

A "church" advertises its Easter service

This strategy has worked for two millennia despite all of our efforts to help it along with man-made strategies.  It has survived contributions from the papacy, Medieval Mysticism, Anabaptism, Pietism, Revivalism, Protestant Liberalism, Fundamentalism, and Evangelicalism.  All of which tried to assist the Word in its work.  But the Word of God is powerful enough to withstand man’s best efforts to accelerate progress.

A "church" that encourages you to attend their "worship experiences" via the internet. Do the bread and wine come in jpegs? How do I join the boycott?

The issue is this: where is the power?  Is the power in the Word of God or in marketing and surveys?  Many who profess that the power is in the Word deny it by assisting the Word with all of these strategies.  Does that mean that we do not evangelize or use new media to proclaim the gospel?  Of course not.  We should use whatever means are available to us to preach the gospel, but not replace the gospel.  What we win them with is what we win them to, as James Boice used to say.  If we get them to church through slick marketing and high production value, they will believe that that is the point of the church.  People come to be entertained, laugh, and hear an interesting story that makes them want to be better people.  But if we preach the gospel and the Holy Spirit uses the Word to impart faith, they will come back to hear it again and again.  I go to church to hear the gospel and receive the sacraments.  The Holy Spirit uses the Word to enact and confirm faith in the hearts of its hearers.  That is our church growth plan.

Martin Luther: “I only urged, preached, and declared God’s Word, nothing else.”

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Statement to the Committee to Investigate Princeton – Part 1

This piece was submitted to the Committee Appointed by the Action of the General Assembly of 1926.  It reveals Machen at his warrior best as he seeks to defend himself against personal attacks as he was refused promotion at Princeton.  This statement is contained in the Selected Shorter Writings edited by D.G. Hart.  Check back next week for another excerpt.

 

Warrior

After twenty years of service in Princeton Theological Seminary as instructor and assistant professor, I find myself by the action of the last General Assembly subjected to the extraordinary indignity of having the propriety of my promotion to a full professorship questioned if not as yet actually denied – an indignity almost without precedent in the entire history of our church.  The indignity was aggravated by the grounds on which, according to the address of the chairman of the Committee on Theological Seminaries, presenting the majority report, unfavorable action had been advocated before the committee, in particular by the public appearance against me on the floor of the Assembly of two of my colleagues in the faculty of the seminary, President Stevenson and Professor Erdman. 

 

In presenting the majority recommendation to postpone confirmation of my election, the chairman of the committee is credibly reported to have said that there were charges that the professor-elect was “spiritually unqualified to hold the post in question and teach goodwill to students, that he was temperamentally defective, bitter and harsh in his judgment of other and implacable to brethren who did not agree with him.”  Almost equally derogatory to my good name were the speeches of my colleagues, President Stevenson and Dr. Erdman.  President Stevenson not only reported a conversation in which he had said to Dr. Maitland Alexander: “You know this man has serious limitations,” but also opposed the confirmation of my election on the ground that I was implicated in certain objectionable actions of the faculty.  Finally, Dr. Erdman said: “What is questioned is whether Dr. Machen’s temper and methods of defense are such as to qualify him for a chair in which his whole time will be devoted to defending the faith” – thus using language which recalls somewhat a public attack, which, as will be seen in a moment, he himself had made upon me a year and a half before.  It is obvious, I think, that by the action itself, as well as by the grounds upon which it was advocated, I have been subjected to serious obloquy.  

I cannot, therefore, accept the light estimate which Dr. Erdman placed upon the matter at the conclusion of his speech before the Assembly.  ”It seems pitiful and painful,” said Dr. Erdman, “that we are delaying the Board of Foreign Missions to debate a little question of this kind as to whether we shall decide now or next year in the case of a professional appointment.”  Perhaps the unparalleled indignity to which one of his colleagues, who has served the seminary with him for twenty years, has been subjected may seem to be a “little matter” to Dr. Erdman, but it does not seem to be a little matter to the one whose good name has thus been attacked.  And I am not sure even that it should seem to be altogether a little matter to the Presbyterian church, for not only does it entail derangement for at least an entire year of the work of one of our largest seminaries but also it involves principles of rather far-reaching importance.  

In view of these considerations, I very respectfully request the committee to receive my present statement, with the appended documents.  If, indeed, the position of professor in Princeton Seminary were within the electing power of the Assembly, I should not presume to appear in my own behalf, for then the Assembly could freely choose the man whom it deemed best fitted for the position and other persons would have no right to complain against their being passed by.  But as a matter of fact, the Assembly has no such electing power.  It cannot elect a professor, but can only veto an election made by the board of directors.  Such a veto throws the work of the institution for the time being into confusion and is a very extreme measure.  Obviously, recourse should be had to it only for the most imperative of reasons.  In the case of an election, the burden of proof rests upon those who favor the entrance of any particular person into an office; in the case of a veto, it rests upon those who oppose the person already elected.  

I shall not, of course, make the slightest attempt to establish my own fitness for the chair of apologetics and Christian ethics in Princeton Seminary.  According to the board of directors I am a fit person, but whether the board was wise in choosing me I certainly do not presume to say.  I am keenly conscious, at any rate, of many faults and failings; no doubt I have made many mistakes.  If the professorship of apologetics and Christian ethics demands an incumbent who shall even approximate perfection, then obviously I am not the man for the place.  But I do request the privilege of defending myself against certain specific charges which have been brought against me.  

In such defense I am seriously embarrassed by never having been confronted with my accusers of furnished with a copy of the precise charges against me.  I have heard vague rumors of charges that have been made – and most extraordinary they seem to me to be – but they have been made almost exclusively in my absence.  My good name has been gravely injured without any opportunity having been given me to cross-examine or even to answer in any way those who have carried on the attack.  I regretted very much, therefore, that the testimony of persons who appeared against me in the Committee on Theological Seminaries was not given full publicity on the floor of the Assembly and incorporated in the record of its proceedings.  Without questioning in the slightest the propriety of the chairman’s action or the considerateness that he exercised in his effort to keep my name from being discussed at length before the Assembly, I may yet say that it seemed to me more desirable from my point of view that the charges against me should be made fully known to the church.  In that case opportunity might at least have been given to refute the charges if they were false.

As it is, I can deal only with such indications as to the nature of the charges as appeared in the public speeches of the chairman of the Committee on Theological Seminaries and of President Stevenson and Dr. Erdman.  

Tune in next week for Part 2.

Someday We’ll Go All The Way!

Eddie Vedder (born in Chicago) has written an outstanding song about the ups and downs of being a Cubs fan in the style of an Irish drinking song.  Has someday arrived?

Is Jesus Art Ok?

This Sunday (and every Sunday) at Oceanside United Reformed Church, the congregation will be able to receive the only admissable image of Jesus, the Lord’s Supper.  Every other image of our Savior (and likewise the Trinity) is idolatry and a violation of the Second Commandment.  Reverend Danny Hyde explains why here.

Mary is the Theotokos, or Mother of God

Many Protestants of Fundamentalist ilk have bristled at the notion that Mary is the theotokos, or mother of God.  They believe this doctrine to have originated in the Roman Catholic Church and that it is an example of Mariolotry.  They claim that Protestants who use this terminology have been duped by Rome and are unwittingly falling into idolatrous worship of Mary.  Calling Mary the mother of God of course leads one down the slippery slope into viewing her as the Mediatrix who was a perpetual virgin that was brought forth through the immaculate conception.

The only problem with the notion that the Roman Catholic Church has covertly inserted this idolatrous understanding of Mary as the mother of God into Protestant theology is that this doctrine has been confessed by all Christians since the 5th Century.  That’s right, the Definition of Chalcedon (A.D. 451) describes Christ as “born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.”  This does not mean that Mary is in some way responsible for the divinity of Christ and that by calling her the mother of God we are guilty of idolatry.  The point of the phrase is not to honor Mary at all.  It is to explain the union of the deity and humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. 

The very same God who created the universe became a man and was formed inside Mary’s womb.  The God who has no beginning and no end was connected to Mary by an umbilical cord.  This omnipresent God passed through the birth canal and was born just as any other human baby. 

When properly understood, this doctrine in no way elevates Mary to divine status; rather, it helps us understand Jesus’ true human status.  If she is not the mother of God we are Gnostics who believe that Jesus just appeared to be human, but was really only divine.  Or we become adoptionists, who think that the mere man Jesus was at some point (usually his baptism) filled with the Holy Spirit and then became divine.  These positions are both heretical.  In order for Jesus to be the God-man, Mary must be the mother of God.

Your Weekly Machen Fix: Student Days at Princeton

The following is an excerpt from “Christianity in Conflict” originally published in 1932.  This most autobiographical of Machen’s works can be found in Machen’s Selected Shorter Writings, edited by D. G. Hart.  

So I entered Princeton Theological Seminary in the autumn of 1902.  In doing so, I was encouraged particularly by Francis L. Patton, who was just coming to the presidency of the seminary.  He had been a guest repeatedly at my father’s home in Baltimore.  I admired him then greatly, and I came afterwards to love him with all my heart.  With infinite patience he brought me through my doubts and helped me in my difficulties.  Never did a doubter and a struggler have a better friend than I had in this wonderfully eloquent and brilliant man.  

From the start, when I went to Princeton, I was impressed by William P. Armstrong, the head of the New Testament department, who later became my most intimate friend.  I had been in contact at the Johns Hopkins University, with modern scientific method applied to the study of ancient books.  That same method was applied by Armstrong to the New Testament.  No student in his classroom who knew anything whatever of modern methods of philological and historical research could help seeing that he was a modern university man of the very highest type.  It seemed significant to me then, as it seems today, that, applying such modern methods of criticism to the New Testament, he could arrive at a result confirmatory, and not destructive, of the trustworthiness of the New Testament books.

 

Princeton Seminary

One of Armstrong’s strongest points is that he combines detailed knowledge of critical and historical questions with an understanding of great underlying principles.  His wide reading in philosophy enables him to show the connection between schools of New Testament criticism and various schools of modern philosophy, but above all, he is able to exhibit the connection between the supernaturalistic view of the New Testament and the theistic view of God and the world upon which the Christian religion depends.  I think that this union between detailed scholarship and an understanding of great principles was characteristic of the old Princeton Seminary.  Princeton differed from other seats of conservative scholarship in that more clearly than was done elsewhere it found the center of the curriculum in the department of systematic theology.  For my part, I have always regarded the study of the New Testament, to which I have given my life, as ancillary to that other department.  New Testament study has its own methods, indeed; but ultimately its aim should be to aid in the establishment of that system of doctrine that the Scriptures contain.

 

At Princeton the chair of systematic theology was occupied by a man who effected a personal, as well as a logical, union between that department and the departments devoted to biblical research.  B. B. Warfield had won his reputation as  New Testament scholar.  In the field of textual criticism he had been among the first to recognize the epoch-making importance of the labors of Westcott and Hort, and he had supplemented those labors by independent research.  In New Testament exegesis his contributions were highly valued in Great Britain as well as in America.  Then, with his coming to Princeton, he turned to the field of systematic theology, bringing to that field the broad exegetical and critical foundation without which the systematic theologian is hampered at every turn.  Warfield became one of the greatest authorities in the history of doctrine, and it may certainly be said, in general, that he had a truly encyclopedic mind.

When I was a student at Princeton I admired Warfield, as we all did, but I was far from understanding fully his greatness both as a scholar and as a thinker.  I was stilly playing with the notion that a minimizing apologetic may serve the needs of the church, and that we may perhaps fall back upon a biblical Christianity which relinquishes the real or supposed rigidities of the Reformed system.  Subsequent investigation and meditation have shown me, as over against such youthful folly, that Warfield was entirely right; I have come to see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend, and that consistent Christianity – the only thoroughly biblical Christianity – is found in the Reformed faith.

Something Wicked This Way Comes

The following is an excerpt from the September/October 2008 issue of Modern Reformation: “[t]he Alberta Human Rights Commission handed down a draconian decision against the Rev Stephen Boissoin.  In 2002, the Alberta pastor wrote a fire-and-brimstone letter to a local newspaper condemning homosexuality.  After a drawn-out tribunal, the Alberta Human Rights Commission fined him $7,000 and, per the language of the decision, the pastor is forbidden from making “disparaging “remarks about homosexuality – including repeating biblical injunctions, for the rest of his life.  (Not that this was entirely unexpected, as the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission had previously fined a newspaper for printing an advertisement containing Bible verses condemning homosexuality.)”

Like hockey, Alex Trebek, and William Shatner, our northern border will not contain the assault against those who would proclaim the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality.  There will be litigation like this in the United States; it is only a matter of time.  The question is, how will the church respond?  Will we boldly preach the Word of God or will we suddenly find a new interpretation that is less offensive?

There is another alternative.  We can overemphasize homosexuality to the exclusion of the rest of the Law.  We can become pious Pharisees as we condemn these sinners and take pride in our own self-righteousness.  Or will we love homosexuals as our neighbors and share the gospel with them in gentleness and respect?