Your Weekly Machen Fix: Attack on Princeton Seminary, Continued

The following excerpt was originally published in 1927.

But what is it that the Bible contains?  That question brings us to our second point.  We have just said that Princeton Seminary stands for the full truthfulness of the Bible.  In the second place, it stands for the Reformed or Calvinistic faith as being the system of doctrine that the Bible contains.

The Bible, let it be noted, contains, on our view (which is also the view expressed in the ordination pledge of ministers and elders in our Church), not merely this doctrine or that, but a system of doctrine.  A system differs from a mere agglomeration in the inter-relation and mutual necessity of its parts.  And so we cannot agree with those who isolate one part of the system from the other parts as being alone necessary as a basis for Christian work.  Very profoundly, for example, do we differ from those who omit the doctrines of grace – the Bible teaching about sin, the Bible answer to the question, “What shall I do to be saved?” – from the things that they regard essential as a basis for co-operation among various ecclesiastical bodies at home or on the mission field. 

As over against such a reduced Christianity, we at Princeton stand for the full, glorious gospel of divine grace that God has given us in His Word and that is summarized in the Confession of Faith of our Church.  We cannot agree with those who say that although they are members of the Presbyterian Church, they “have not the slightest zeal to have the Presbyterian Church extended through the length and breadth of the world.”  As for us, we hold the faith of the Presbyterian Church, the great Reformed Faith that is set forth in the Westminster Confession, to be true; and holding it to be true we hold that it is intended for the whole world.

But it would be the greatest mistake to think that the issue with regard to Princeton Seminary stops there; it would be the greatest mistake to suppose that the difference concerns merely the question whether we are to stand for the full heritage of our Reformed Faith or are to content ourselves (in the statement of what is essential) with some lesser creed.  No, the difference cuts even deeper than that.  It concerns not merly the question as to the content of the doctrine that we are to set forth, but rather the attitude that is to be assumed with regard to all doctrine as such.  It concerns not merely the question whether we are to teach this or that, but the question whether what we teach we are to teach with our whole hearts and in clear-cut oppostion to the present drift of the times.

The policy of President Stevenson with regard to Princeton Seminary has sometimes been represented as an “inclusive” policy.  There is certainly an element of truth in such a representation.  Never has Dr. Stevenson given any clear indication, by the policy that he has followed at President of the Seminary, that he recognizes the profound line of cleavage that separates the two opposite tendencies within the Presbyterian church, and the necessity that if Princeton Seminary is to be true to its great heritage and true to the moral obligations involved in the distinctive basis upon which it has alway appealed for support, it must, in this great contention, definitely and unequivocally take sides.  Such recognition, which we seek in vain in President Stevenson, would not necessarily prejudge the question whether both tendencies should be tolerated within the Presbyterian Church; but it would certainly mean at least that Princeton has the right and indeed the very solemn obligation of maintaining a distinctive position within the larger unity of the Church.  It is true, then, that Dr. Stevenson’s policy is in a very important sense an inclusive policy, and that such an inclusive policy is contrary to the obligations which, on account of its entire history, Princeton Seminary has very solemnly assumed.

But although in one sense the policy with which we disgree is an inclusive policy, in another sense it is not inclusive at all.  Formally it is inclusive, but in its deeper meaning and in its practical applications it is very exclusive indeed.  No one who has observed with the slightest care the policy of the President can think that if that policy prevails any man who is consistently conservative or evangelical in the ecclesiastical issue of the day will have the slightest chance of being elected to a chair in Princeton Seminary.  The only men who will be tolerated in the Faculty will be men who hold a complacent view of the state of the Church, who conceal from themselves and from others the real state of religious opinion in the world, and who consent to conform to the opinions of the party dominant for the moment in the councils of the Church.  The Seminary under the new policy will be inclusive of those who obscure the great isssue of the day; but it will be exclusive of those who have determine to warn the Church of her danger and to contend earnestly for the faith.

If that policy becomes dominant in Princeton Seminary, then the Princeton position has very definitely been given up.  And if the change is wrought by ecclesiastical action, then all the high-sounding words which have recently been uttered about peace and tolerance will be mocked.  In that case, there will be liberty in the Presbyterian Church for Modernists, but none for conservatives; and those who hold the conservative view will have to go elsewhere for the maintencace of those convictions that are dearer to them than life itself.