Danny Olinger, John Muether, Darryl Hart, and Camden Bucey explore the life and legacy of J. Gresham Machen, discussing Richard E. Burnett’s provocative book, Machen’s Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton. Burnett seeks to reframe Machen as both modern and orthodox, portraying him as a “conservative modernist” who employed modern intellectual methods while remaining firmly committed to Reformed theology. This episode critically examines Burnett’s thesis and evaluates its contribution to understanding Machen’s theological and historical significance.

While Burnett rightly highlights Machen’s struggles in Germany and at Princeton, the panel critiques his more contemporary definition of the terms “modern” and “modernist,” noting they often diverge from Machen’s own vocabulary and theological focus. They emphasize that even the younger Machen remained theologically orthodox and discerning of heterodoxy, as seen in his critiques of figures such as his professor Wilhelm Herrmann.

Furthermore, the panel questions Burnett’s emphasis on Machen’s early crises over his later, defining contributions—such as founding Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church—arguing that this framing risks downplaying Machen’s lifelong theological battle against liberalism, which he saw as denying God’s direct intervention in history and thus undermining the gospel.

This episode sheds light on Machen’s enduring legacy and his vital contributions to Reformed orthodoxy. Overall, the panelists contend that Machen’s hope was centered on God’s supernatural action in history, a hope Machen famously summarized in his final words: “So thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.”

Links

• D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America
• Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir
• The Presbyterian Conflict
• D. G. Hart and John Muether, Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church
• Richard E. Burnett, Machen’s Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton
• Camden M. Bucey, “Thoughts on Machen’s Hope by Richard E. Burnett“

Watch on YouTube and Vimeo.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:05:00 Machen’s Significance
• 00:25:13 Machen’s Family Background
• 00:41:44 Machen at Marburg
• 00:48:31 Machen, Vos, and History
• 00:54:54 Machen’s Mentors
• 01:05:28 Assessing Machen
• 01:20:53 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Darryl G. Hart, John Muether

Introduction

Richard Burnett’s Machen’s Hope: The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton represents an ambitious effort to offer a fresh perspective on a significant Presbyterian figure—one who is central to my own ecclesiastical tradition, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Burnett engages extensively with primary and secondary sources, sharing significant portions with the reader.

Burnett’s approach, much like James Eglinton’s work on Bavinck and Bruce McCormack’s on Barth, seeks to portray Machen as both modern and orthodox. The author focuses particularly on Machen’s crisis during his time studying in Germany and his later struggles at Princeton University and Princeton Seminary, as Machen sought to chart a scholarly course according to modern intellectual methods. Machen defied the common stereotype of fundamentalists, though he himself never embraced the label.

Modernity and Orthodoxy: A Familiar Narrative

Burnett highlights Machen’s modernity while affirming his orthodoxy, casting him as something of a “conservative modernist,” as Molly Worthen notes in her review of the book for First Things.

In the book, Burnett frequently challenges the interpretations of previous biographers like D. G. Hart and Ned Stonehouse. I find it curious that Burnett positions himself against Stonehouse, who was both a student and, for seven years, a close colleague and friend of Machen. Stonehouse’s work, though sometimes criticized for being hagiographic, also maintains critical distance at points. On balance, I would still give Stonehouse the benefit of the doubt when it comes to understanding the inner life of Machen.

Having more than 80 years of critical distance on a historical figure can be a great advantage. However, it can also skew certain considerations. For example, Burnett’s use of the terms “modern” and “modernist,” does not seem to align with how Machen himself used these terms. Machen consistently used “modernist” to describe a theological position that denied essential supernatural elements of the Christian faith. Burnett, however, seems to employ a different sense (perhaps one more widely used in current scholarship), which fits his narrative of Machen as an advocate and practitioner of modern scientific and intellectual methods..

While this alternative definition may serve Burnett’s purpose of portraying Machen as a modern intellectual with orthodox commitments, it risks misunderstanding—or downplaying—Machen’s actual theological battles, particularly his staunch opposition to liberal theology, which he saw as fundamentally incompatible with historical Christianity.

The “Later” Machen Reveals His Hope

The author does not address the most critical events in Machen’s life, such as the founding of Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929, the establishment of the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions in 1933, and the OPC’s formation in 1936. I recognize that the author seeks to emphasize Machen’s crisis of faith and vocation, along with his attempts to “modernize” academics at Princeton. Yet, Machen’s later battles reveal his heart and spiritual priorities, and provide significant context. This is especially evident in his 1923 work Christianity and Liberalism.

The Core Debate: Machen on Supernaturalism and History

Burnett emphasizes Machen’s affinity toward modern rigorous methods of study, yet he tends toward separating his supernaturalist theology from his historical scholarship. This approach, reminiscent of Barth’s influence, is especially evident when Burnett quotes figures like Lyman Abbott and contrasts their views with Machen’s. Burnett (pp. 539–540) discusses how individuals like John Grier Hibben, Albert Parker Fitch, and Lucius Hopkins Miller, while affirming the supernatural, positioned themselves as advocates of “supernatural Christianity.” Burnett seems to suggest that Machen misunderstood their perspective.

This overlooks the core issue Machen was addressing. His concern wasn’t merely about acknowledging the supernatural in a mystical or dimensional sense; it was about affirming that God is actively and directly involved in history—something Machen believed his modernist opponents often failed to grasp.

Machen’s concern was not simply with the historical Jesus or a general study of history. He was adamant that God acts supernaturally and directly within history. These acts of redemption do not occur solely in personal experience or in another dimension, such as Geschichte or “God’s time for us.” They happen in our world, in our time. This was “Machen’s hope.” His final words, capturing this sentiment, were dictated to his friend, John Murray, in a telegram: “So thankful for active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.”

Conclusion

The book raises significant questions regarding Machen’s place in twentieth-century theology and presents a provocative perspective on his legacy. However, the author’s reframing of Machen as a modern historian who remains orthodox glosses over key aspects of Machen’s theological commitments. I sense that the author is seeking to identify an “early Machen” who ought to have embraced a mystical or dimensionalized Christianity—one that aligned with the thought of Herrmann or American Presbyterians like Fitch, Hibben, and Miller (or somewhat anachronistically, Karl Barth). Burnett appears to suggest that if only Machen had embraced this approach, he could have remained happily within the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA). I remain persuaded that, in the final 16 years of his life, such a version of Machen would have been unrecognizable to his colleagues, friends, adversaries, and perhaps even to Machen himself. Moreover, the mature Machen casts important interpretive light upon his younger self.

In the first issue of The Presbyterian Guardian, the editors shared their desire and justification for the new paper.

We hope that this paper will make its way on merit among Bible-loving Christians, in fact among all who like their Christian journalism fresh and unhackneyed,—or not at all. (PG, October 7, 1935, p. 3)

This concise statement is intriguing in part because of what it does not say. It does not comment at all on the events that led to the founding of The Presbyterian Guardian. Samuel G. Craig, the publisher of Christianity Today, resigned from the board at Westminster Theological Seminary over the Presbyterian Constitution Covenant Union, which was an affinity group preparing to form a new denomination if necessary.

Since Craig and others viewed such measures as premature and unwise, Machen and his sympathizers would need to find a new outlet for their editorial voice. One might speculate whether the brevity of the editorial statement stems from politeness, discretion, or some other reason. Regardless, in one sentence, the editors effectively established the publication’s editorial tone—especially when considering the historical and ecclesiastical backdrop.

In 1936, at the first General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of America—later renamed the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)—official greetings were received from the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). These greetings were a boon for the fledgling church in her struggle against modernism. Cornelius Van Til recounts, “The Synod of the Christian Reformed Church of America immediately sent a telegram to the renewed and revived Presbyterian church wishing them God’s blessing. That was heartening to the brothers. Much opposition is being encountered. Just as it was during the Doleantie, the synods are doing everything they can to oppose the new movement.”[1] The Doleantie was a secessionist movement in the Dutch Reformed Church led by Abraham Kuyper in 1886, postdating an earlier secession in 1834 known as the Afscheiding. Van Til recognizes that the purpose for the secession in the Netherlands was basically the same as for the Presbyterian Church of America: not to fall away into modernism but to preserve a truly Christian witness in the world.

It was Van Til who initiated contact with the Synod of the CRC. In the Acts of Synod 1936 of the Christian Reformed Church, we learn that Van Til and R. B. Kuiper sent the following telegram to the Synod: “Presbyterian Church of America, organized yesterday as true spiritual succession of Presbyterian Church U. S. A. General Assembly meeting now. Will conclude its sessions tomorrow. Machen is Moderator. Our Synod could strengthen hands of brethren by sending greetings.”[2] The Synod received the telegram and sent the following reply:

The Synod of the Christian Reformed Church, in session at Grand Rapids, Mich., conscious of the tie that binds us in the propagation and defence of our common Reformed faith, and convinced of the uncompromising devotion to that faith which has led to your organization, extends its Christian greetings and commends you, together with all who stand with you, to the guidance and blessing of the King of the Church. May He lead you as leaders and those who follow with you by His Spirit, strengthen you, and increase your numbers, and gird you on in the battle against our common foes of apostasy and unbelief in these critical times. Synod officially invites a fraternal delegate to attend its sessions next week.[3]

J. Gresham Machen comments,

One of the most joyful moments at the recent first General Assembly of The Presbyterian Church of America was the moment when we received the official greetings of the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church. From no ecclesiastical body in the whole world could greetings have been more welcome, both because of the deep debt of gratitude that we already owe to the Christian Reformed Church—I need only mention the fact that that church has given to Westminster Seminary R. B. Kuiper, Cornelius Van Til and N. B. Stonehouse—and also because of the noble testimony which that church has carried on in the defense and propagation of the Reformed Faith.[4]

Machen proceeds to list five things about the life of the CRC at that time “which have kept it from falling away into the dominant Modernism and have been instruments in preserving its truly Christian witness.”[5] These things remain vital for the church and her witness in the world today. Modernism falsifies religion by situating autonomous man at the center of all things so that even God exists for his sake. But what follows are helps for the church in preserving her truly Christian witness that God is at the center of all things and that man exists for his sake. (The words in quotes in each heading are taken directly from Machen.)

1. “Separation for the Sake of Faithfulness” or Do Not Drink the Cup of Demons

Questions about the legitimacy and necessity of ecclesiastical separation have been around since at least the Reformation. According to Machen, to separate from a compromising association or denomination is not schism but the avoidance of schism. It is the compromising association that is guilty of schism, having separated itself from the true church of Jesus Christ in its doctrine and life. To separate from a compromising association is not to separate from the true church but to return to it. “It is separation undertaken not in the interests of schism but in the interests of the true unity and purity of the Church,” writes Machen.[6] In other words, it is separation for the glory of God and for the sake of faithfulness, even if it costs influence, numbers, and financial security. This was the story of the Afscheiding and Doleantie in the Netherlands and then of the Presbyterian Church of America. It was also for this reason that a group of churches found it necessary to separate from the CRC in the 1990s to form the United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA), as the continuation of the church that Machen once commended.[7]

2. “Theological Consistency” or Do Not Be Merely Christian

“The Christian Reformed Church,” observes Machen, “has never been content with being vaguely ‘evangelical’ or ‘conservative’ or ‘fundamentalist,’ but has always endeavored to be truly ‘Reformed.’”[8] The church that is content with mere Christianity or lowest-common-denominator Christianity will inevitably lose its footing and fall away into modernism. It is like a person crossing a river by leaping from one small rock to another instead of by walking across a sturdy bridge—he is bound to land on a slippery rock and lose his footing. It is the church that holds firmly “to that glorious system of revealed truth which is summarized in the great Reformed confessions of faith” that preserves a truly Christian witness in the world.[9] Our Reformed confessions guard the church against gaps and inconsistencies in her theology that would otherwise weaken her walls against the bombardments of modernism.

3. “Indoctrination by the Pastors” or Do Not Teach in a Desultory Way

The practice in the CRC was for the pastor to preach one sermon every Sunday from the Heidelberg Catechism moving consecutively through its three parts of sin, salvation, and service under the theme of our only comfort in life and in death. The catechism was divided into fifty-two Lord’s Days so that it could be taught throughout the year and repeated the next and the next and so on. This resulted in the congregation being “soundly and systematically indoctrinated.”[10] But this orderly method of catechetical preaching contrasts with the popular desultory method that jumps and skips around from one idea to another. The latter method assumes that our theology ought not to be an organized system but a jumble of disconnected ideas. The danger is that it is much easier to smuggle an enemy into a crowded store with people bustling in every direction than into a battalion of soldiers marching in perfect sync. The systematic orderliness of the marching lines reveals when someone is out of place.

4. “Church Discipline” or Do Not Join the Church to the World

The aim of church discipline is the opposite of modernism’s. Modernism aims to join the church to the world. Church discipline aims to separate the church from the world. The holiness and purity of the church can only be maintained when church discipline is properly exercised in accordance with the Word of God. While Machen commends the CRC for exercising church discipline, he still warns that modernism knocks at the door of every church no matter how pure. “Pray God that the door may be kept locked to such an enemy as that!”[11]

5. “Christian Schools” or Do Not Give Covenant Children a Non-Christian Education

The necessity of a thoroughly Christian education for covenant children was ingrained in the mind of the CRC. Machen writes, “In an overwhelmingly predominate way . . . , [the Christian Schools] are conducted and supported by the people of the Christian Reformed Church. . . . . They love God and love their children too much to allow Christian instruction to be tagged on one day in seven as a kind of excrescence upon an education fundamentally non-Christian. They have tried to make the education of their children Christian throughout.”[12] It was often the case that wherever a CRC was planted a Christian school soon followed. While many good things vied for their time, it was for good reason that Van Til, Machen, and others devoted much of their efforts to the promotion and furtherance of Christian education. It honored the God of the covenant whose promises are for us and our children.

Conclusion

Machen recognized that on account of these five things—separation for the sake of faithfulness, theological consistency, indoctrination by the pastors, church discipline, and Christian schools—God had wonderfully blessed the efforts of the CRC. God continues to bless the efforts of those churches today whose ecclesiastical lives are characterized by the same. By them, they are prevented from falling away into modernism and preserve a truly Christian witness in the world for God’s glory.

[1] Cornelius Van Til, “The Presbyterian Church of America,” De Reformatie vol 16, no 46 (14 Aug 1936): 392, my translation.

[2] The Acts of Synod 1936 of the Christian Reformed Church, 19: https://library.calvin.edu/ld.php?content_id=71769097.

[3] The Acts of Synod 1936 of the Christian Reformed Church, 19–20. According to the Minutes from the First General Assembly, “The telegram extended an invitation to the Assembly to send a fraternal delegate to the meetings of the Synod of the Christian Reformed Church.” Van Til was appointed as that fraternal delegate.

[4] J. Gresham Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” The Presbyterian Guardian 2, no. 8 (20 July 1936): 170.

[5] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

[6] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

[7] This is not to say there were no faithful churches that remained in the CRC to continue the struggle, but the denomination began to teach doctrines that contradicted its own confessional standards—that is, the Three Forms of Unity. It moved away from the inspiration and authority of Scripture and taught the Arminian view of the love of God. Some held that women could hold ecclesiastical office, advocated evolution, and denied some parts of Scripture as the Word of God. This led to thirty-six churches forming a federative unity. In 1996, these churches held their first Synod and adopted the name The United Reformed Churches in North America (URCNA).

[8] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

[9] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

[10] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

[11] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

[12] Machen, “The Christian Reformed Church,” 170.

In this episode, we commemorate the centennial of the Auburn Affirmation, exploring its profound impact on the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the broader Christian community. We explore the theological crossroads of the early twentieth century, marked by the rise of modernism and the publication of The Fundamentals. We discuss the significant events that led to the Auburn Affirmation, including Harry Emerson Fosdick’s influential sermon and the subsequent controversies that reshaped American Protestantism.

Reflecting on these historical developments, we consider the ongoing relevance of confessional fidelity and integrity in today’s church. Join us as we examine how the Auburn Affirmation’s call for theological tolerance challenges our understanding of doctrinal adherence, and how we can navigate these waters with a commitment to both truth and unity. This episode offers valuable insights into maintaining the church’s distinct witness and enduring relevance in a pluralistic society.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:06:46 The Background of the Auburn Affirmation
• 00:17:16 The Affirmationists’s Desire for Tolerance
• 00:24:28 The 1923 General Assembly
• 00:33:07 Confessional Fidelity and Integrity
• 00:39:49 Machen, Vos, and the Significance of God’s Redemptive Acts in History
• 00:45:33 Biblical Eschatology
• 00:51:59 Liberals, Conservatives, and American Culture
• 00:58:55 Responding to the Auburn Affirmation
• 01:07:40 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

Since 2008, we have been taking time around New Year’s Day to bring you some of the top moments from the preceding year. We have several great clips lined up for you today.

The Top Episodes of 2023 (by YouTube views)

1. Dan Ragusa — Preterism and 2 Peter 3 (YouTube)
2. Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock — A Theological Introduction to Neo-Calvinism (YouTube)
3. Greg Beale — The New Testament Use of the Old Testament (YouTube)
4. Carlton Wynne — Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion (YouTube)
5. Camden Bucey — The Importance of Cornelius Van Til for Today (YouTube)
6. Jim Cassidy — Introducing and Interpreting Karl Barth (YouTube)
7. Danny Olinger — Christianity and Liberalism: Introduction (YouTube)
8. Lane Tipton — Exitus and Reditus in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas (YouTube)
9. Jonathan Master — Reformed Theology (YouTube)
10. Michael Beck — Covenant Theology and Cultural Engagement in the Thought of Meredith G. Kline (YouTube)

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:26 The Top 10 Episodes of 2023
• 00:15:13 [Dan Ragusa] Preterism and 2 Peter 3
• 00:24:22 [Gray Sutanto and Cory Brock] A Theological Introduction to Neo-Calvinism
• 00:30:14 [Greg Beale] The New Testament Use of the Old Testament
• 00:39:28 [Carlton Wynne] Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion
• 00:46:58 [Camden Bucey] The Importance of Cornelius Van Til for Today
• 01:00:24 [Jim Cassidy] Introducing and Interpreting Karl Barth
• 01:12:16 [Danny Olinger] Christianity and Liberalism: Introduction
• 01:16:59 [Lane Tipton] Exitus and Reditus in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas
• 01:25:09 [Jonathan Master] Reformed Theology
• 01:34:52 [Michael Beck] Covenant Theology and Cultural Engagement in the Thought of Meredith G. Kline
• 01:40:52 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Carlton Wynne, Cory Brock, Dan Ragusa, Danny Olinger, Greg Beale, Jim Cassidy, Jonathan Master, Lane G. Tipton, Michael Beck, Nathaniel Gray Sutanto

Lane Tipton and Camden Bucey reflect on the recent Reformed Forum Theology Conference on J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism before turning to a discussion of their new booklet, Unfolding Redemption: Exploring the History and Order of Salvation.

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:03:35 Reflecting on the 2023 Reformed Forum Conference
• 00:08:27 Machen and Denominational History
• 00:17:02 The Church and Culture
• 00:28:09 The History and Order of Salvation
• 00:35:41 The Unchanging Person of the Son
• 00:42:29 Jesus Declared to Be the Son of God in Power
• 00:55:05 The Benefits of Adoption
• 01:07:44 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

On the 100th anniversary of the publication of Christianity and Liberalism, we consider J. Gresham Machen’s critique of the liberal theological perspective on Jesus Christ, contrasting it with the traditional, orthodox Christian view. Machen argues that liberal theology often misrepresents Christ as a mere teacher of righteousness and neglects his divine aspects and teachings. He counters that Christ is not merely an example, but the very object of Christian faith. He also challenges liberal theologians’ struggle to reconcile Jesus’s sinlessness with their evolutionary worldview and argues against a deistic view of God, advocating instead for theism which allows for both God’s works of creation and providence. Machen discusses the issue of miracles in relation to Christian faith, asserting that one cannot selectively believe in parts of Christ’s life, such as dismissing the virgin birth. Ultimately, Machen invites the reader to believe upon Christ as portrayed in Scripture.

Chapters

• 00:07 Introduction
• 04:15 Reflecting on Machen and the Doctrine of Christ
• 10:47 Machen’s Writing Style
• 19:02 The Messianic Self-Consciousness
• 24:07 Modern Christologoy
• 32:16 Jesus Is Not a Mere Example but the Object of Faith
• 38:23 Miracles and the Supernatural Kingdom
• 44:41 Addressing Perennial Errors
• 48:40 Pastoral Considerations
• 56:34 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism. Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey speak with Lane Tipton about the third chapter of Machen’s classic, which addresses the relationship between God and man.

In this chapter Machen responds to the theological views of Schleiermacher and Von Harnack, which focus on religious experience rather than God’s supernatural acts in history. Machen argues that the doctrine of God and man revealed in Scripture is the basis for the gospel. It forms the presuppositional substructure of Christianity, to which modern liberalism is diametrically opposed. He affirms a natural knowledge of God in conscience and history. Jesus’ use of the words of prophets and psalmists reveals the character of God and gives significance to the Old Testament heritage of Jesus’ teaching. Machen envisions this revealed theology as the “root of Christianity,” not a natural religion, and one that rests on the teaching of the Old Testament as interpreted by Jesus Christ and his apostles.

Links

• D. G. Hart, Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy (YouTube playlist)
• Audio version of Christianity and Liberalism, chapter 3
• Lane Tipton, “Pantheism in Contemporary Scholarship” (video)

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:07:34 Machen and the Shorter Catechism
• 00:12:12 Schleiermacher and Von Harnack
• 00:30:15 Liberalism, Barthianism, and Knowing God
• 00:35:49 The Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of Man
• 00:44:54 The Problem with Liberalism’s Doctrine of God
• 00:53:00 Machen Considered Liberalism as Pantheistic
• 01:02:08 Christian Experience with the Living God
• 01:08:07 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Lane G. Tipton

This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism. Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey welcome D. G. Hart to discuss the second chapter of Machen’s classic, which addresses doctrine. The heart of the matter is that Christianity is a supernatural religion built on the fact that Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God, accomplished redemption for his people in history. Machen understood that both are essential: the supernatural and the fact that it occurs in history. Machen wrote:

But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In other words it was based upon doctrine (Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 20).

And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. “Christ died”—that is history; “Christ died for our sins”—that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity (Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, 27).

Links

• OPC Ruling Elder podcast
• D. G. Hart, Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy (YouTube playlist)
• D. G. Hart, Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism (Christ the Center, episode 609)
• Audio version of Christianity and Liberalism, chapter 2

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, Darryl G. Hart

Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey discuss the preface and introduction to J. Gresham Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism. This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of this important work. In this episode, we discuss the historical circumstances that led Machen to address the Ruling Elders Association of Chester Presbytery. His address was eventually expanded to become this classic work.

Links

• Robert Tarullo’s audio recording of this chapter.
• J. Gresham Machen, “Liberalism or Christianity.” The Princeton Theological Review 20.1 (1922): 93-117.
• D. G. Hart, ed. J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings
• D. G. Hart, Machen and the Presbyterian Controversy
• Lefferts Loetscher, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869
• John Updike, “Pigeon Feathers“

Chapters

• 00:00:07 Introduction
• 00:01:55 The Significance of the Book
• 00:07:17 Historical Background
• 00:27:43 Conservatives and Moderates
• 00:40:19 Modernity
• 00:51:42 Modern Art, Science, and H. G. Wells
• 00:57:31 The Rights of Individuals
• 01:06:23 What Christianity Is
• 01:09:25 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

Jeff McDonald discusses Melvin Grove Kyle and the growth of the League of Evangelical Students (LES) founded by J. Gresham Machen and Princeton Seminary students in 1925. Both Kyle and Machen were scholarly leaders in the LES and served on the organization’s board together. In his paper on the subject, Dr. McDonald establishes the importance of Melvin Grove Kyle as a leading evangelical scholar and biblical archaeologist. He also explains the origins and growth of the LES and how various Presbyterians influenced the organization and sought to advance a broader evangelical Protestant intellectual life in the difficult period of the 1920s and 1930s.

Dr. McDonald is pastor of Avery Presbyterian Church in Bellevue, Nebraska and the author of John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism in Modern America (Wipf & Stock, 2017).

Links

• Jeffrey S. McDonald, “Advancing the Evangelical Mind: Melvin Grove Kyle, J. Gresham Machen, and the League of Evangelical Students“
• Christ the Center episode 599 — John Gerstner and the Renewal of Presbyterian and Reformed Evangelicalism

Chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 09:39 Historical Context
• 11:34 United Presbyterians and Xenia Seminary
• 20:15 Evangelical Cooperation
• 26:52 Evangelicals and the Life of the Mind
• 32:26 Pan-Presbyterian Dissent from Theological Liberalism
• 39:50 The Enduring Legacy of Melvin Grove Kyle
• 47:22 Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism
• 51:09 Additional Projects
• 52:55 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Jeff McDonald

This the second installment of a quarterly series of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Lane Tipton, Fellow of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Reformed Forum and pastor of Trinity OPC in Easton, Pennsylvania, sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss his conversion through a Leviticus 16 sermon on TV, his zeal for Christian education and global missions, and his joyful service of the Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum as the George Bailey of Glenside.

Lane, I’m familiar with your background and how you came to know the Lord, but it’s always a joy to hear of the old, old story of the gospel and how the Lord brings the finished work of Christ to bear effectually upon his people. Would you tell us how you were converted and then eventually became a minister in the OPC?

I grew up in a Southern Baptist home. My mother was a devout and godly woman. Her parents were both wonderful Christians. My father was not a believer, but my mother would have us attend worship with her every Sunday morning. From the earliest time I can remember, I was sitting under the gospel, but I did not accept and embrace it. After I hit about age 13, my mom did not require me to go to church but gave me the opportunity to either go or not go, and I decided I wouldn’t go. I went through my junior high and high school years without really going to church at all, without attending any worship services at all. I played a year of football on a scholarship out of Tascosa at Eastern New Mexico State University. I was thinking about pursuing a law degree and thought when I came home that summer that it would be a really wise thing to read my Bible and get a little bit of familiarity with the Judeo-Christian ethic, given the fact that I was wanting to pursue law.

I turned to Jesus’ denunciation of the Pharisees almost instantly where he was denouncing them in Matthew 23 and following for being whitewashed tombs, clean on the outside, but inside full of dead men’s bones. I recognized that he was speaking in his word to me, and that I was in danger of the judgment. A few days later on a Sunday morning, I turned on the television, and a man was preaching on Leviticus 16 and the Day of Atonement. He then talked about the blood of a sacrificial offering, a sin offering, being brought into the most holy place and satisfying the wrath of God. He talked about a scapegoat, having the sins of Israel confessed over its head and being driven outside the camp, bearing away the guilt of God’s people. He said these were types of Jesus. And I instantly recognized that my release from my sin, and my fear, and my guilt, and my burden was found in the wrath-propitiating, blood sacrifice of Jesus who bore away my sin. I saw instantly in that typology that Jesus was like the scapegoat, who had taken my sin away from me as far as the east is from the west. He had shed his blood for my sin and satisfied God’s wrath. And I repented of my sin; I asked the Lord to forgive me. I was elated. I thought, goodness, how could I have not seen this all of these years? I instantly told my mom who just came into the room and was weeping tears of joy. She had been praying for this for 19 years. And the Paul Harvey aspect of the story is that of all people to preach that sermon, it happened to be Jimmy Swaggart, believe that or not.

So I was converted and within a few months had found my way toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I had received through some men, who were in Amarillo at the time, interested in Reformed theology, some literature that led me toward the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. As I read systematic theologies—Louis Berkhof, some B. B. Warfield, a little bit of Van Til—I was very quickly led by conviction to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. I came to appreciate immensely Machen’s commitment to the spirituality of the church, his critique of liberalism as a different religion, the militancy of the OPC, its self-conscious embrace of being a pilgrim people, maintaining faithfulness to the gospel, not seeking cultural influence or affluence, but seeking rather to worship the Lord as engaged pilgrims, taking every thought captive, making it obedient to Christ, seeking the things above by faith, entering Sabbath rest, and being concerned most of all for the worship of the Triune God and giving a consistent, faithful witness to the world and calling all men and women, boys and girls everywhere to repent. That sent me on a path toward going to seminary.

It was a strangely quick movement from my conversion to pursuing the OPC and coming to a profound appreciation of Machen and his militancy and humility, and the church as it has been called by Charlie Dennison, “the church of the brokenhearted,” the church that mourns. This is not the norm, this kind of policy and worship and doctrine and this heavenly-mindedness. I have been in the OPC years and years now. I joined the Abilene congregation in 1989, if my memory serves, so it’s been a while.

I rejoice to hear of the Lord’s grace in your life afresh, not only that he was pleased to raise you from the deadness of your sin, but to grant you such rapid growth and maturity, even that you would see Christ in all of Scripture from day one and then dive right away into the deep end of Reformed theology with Machen and all the greats. This is truly a wonderful grace and profound mercy. I’d love to hear about the Lord’s gracious work in your family, as well. Would you introduce us to the Tiptons and share with us how the Lord is leading you all through this current season of life?

I met my wife, Charlene, when I came back from Southwestern Oklahoma State University. She has five uncles who have been or still are Orthodox Presbyterian ministers. We met in Abilene, Texas in 1992. About 10 months later, we were married. Everyone was saying, you guys need to get married. And I was all excited about us—you didn’t have to encourage me! She’s a beautiful, godly, intelligent, wonderful woman. Soon after that, we went to seminary, Westminster California. And by the time 1998 came around, we had our first child, Lauren; a few years later, Lyle; a few years after that, Trevor; a few years after that, Katie or Kaitlyn. And so we have four children. The oldest, Lauren, is now married. Lyle and Trevor are at Geneva playing basketball. And I will admit, tearing it up, and I’m very thankful for that. They’re godly young men walking with the Lord. Katie is class president just flourishing at Phil-Mont school founded by Cornelius Van Til. It’s all worked out in an amazing way.  Char and I are coming up on our 30th anniversary this next year. She works in the OPC home offices. She has been working there for several years now and does a fantastic job.

We’ve been here in Glenside since 1998, and it’s wonderful. I’m serving at Trinity OPC in Easton. It’s about 50 minutes from here. The family is doing great. They are a delight to my heart. They love the Lord and are all flourishing. I am so thankful. I’ve joked around before; I’ll adapt it, transpose it into this: I’m the George Bailey of Glenside, brother. I am just so thankful, so happy, and so richly blessed to have this family. They are, outside of the Lord, just the truest and purest joy of my heart.

Now as long as you mentioned Phil-Mont Academy and Van Til, I’ve got to ask, did you and Char have a devotional yet over that 1961 Van Til editorial I shared with you? The one that was published by Willow Grove Christian Day School, “The Whole Armour of God”?

Not yet. But talk about a letter that just states all that my wife has said before! Char has said before a number of times that she loves obviously loves Van Til. She and I married in part around a passionate commitment to Christian education. When I was in seminary out in California, Char taught at a Christian school. She taught years before that in Reformed Christian schools. She is just a fantastic teacher. We homeschooled our children. But when we first met, she and I read Van Til’s Essays on Christian Education as devotional literature and would marvel at the wonderful, robust, Reformed Trinitarianism, and Covenant Theology, and antithesis, and understanding of common grace, and the proper and indispensable role of Christian education from a Reformed world-and-life view. We fell in love around that. And so when we came to the Philadelphia area, and Phil-Mont was within ten minutes of our house, founded by Van Til—it’s just wonderful. So we’ll get around to that essay. I’m sure we’ll have numbers of discussions about it. Char has said, and I agree in certain ways with this, that Van Til might be at his very best when he’s talking about Christian education. You know, there’s a lot of “best” about Van Til, but one of his brightest points is talking about a consistently Reformed theological education for covenant children.

I couldn’t agree more. Now, you mentioned that you’re currently serving as pastor of Trinity OPC in Easton, Pennsylvania. What is your beloved congregation like and how is the Lord using the ordinary means of grace to gather and perfect the saints at Trinity?

I’ve been at Trinity in Easton for around a decade. Right before I arrived, the pastor left to join the Roman Catholic communion, which was a devastating blow to the congregation. For the past decade, I’ve had the unparalleled privilege of pastoring and shepherding and encouraging the saints in their walk with the Lord. As I said, apart from the Lord, my family is my chief delight, but just right in there, just as an unqualified delight is the service of the saints at Trinity. The elders, Charlie DeBoer, Joe Olliff, Luke DeBoer, Ian Parkin—a dear brother passed away about a year ago, went to be with the Lord—serving alongside those dear brothers in such a loving and giving congregation has been an oasis in the wilderness for me. I have delighted in my service, to know and love the congregation, to preach, teach, and serve alongside those brothers on the Session. The congregation over the years has grown to be what I would consider now to be a thriving, vibrant congregation filled with delightful people. I don’t want to overuse the George Bailey allusion, so I’ll change here, but I’ve been spoiled. And there is no end in sight from my side in terms of the service there. It continues to be an increasing joy for me. To see the way the Lord blesses through slow, steady, self-conscious means of grace, through Word and sacrament, through visiting and getting to know them as brothers and sisters in the Lord, walking beside them, bearing burdens, turning them to the sufferings and the comfort that are in Jesus Christ. I’ve always wanted to be a pastor; I was never initially aspiring to be a professor. And the Lord has granted me one of the deepest desires of my heart. Once again, I’m just so thankful for it.

That is tremendous, brother. To follow up for those who don’t know, who is George Bailey? And would your elaborate a bit upon what you’re preaching and teaching through these days and share any particular insights you might have from your studies in the Word?

If you remember, Jimmy Stewart played George Bailey in an all-time Christmas classic, It’s A Wonderful Life. And the long story short is that he finds that the money, the influence, the opportunity for notoriety, that all of those things pale mightily in comparison to having a group of people, family and friends, who gather around and love you and rejoice when you rejoice and mourn when you mourn. I don’t want to spoil it in case there are some younger folks out there who haven’t seen it, but at the end of the movie, when everyone’s coming into the house, doing something that’s just beautiful—I can’t resist the analogy. It’s delightful, whether it’s you brothers at Reformed Forum, whether it’s a number of dear brothers throughout the world, my loving family, the dear congregation, the Lord has just blessed me. And so I really do mean it, partly as a joke, but partly true: I’m like the George Bailey of Glenside, brother. I’m very thankful for it.

I’ve been preaching for some time on the book of Ephesians. I took about a one-year break and did some work on Hebrews 12 during the pandemic to talk about the unshakable kingdom. No matter what happens in this world, we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Over the past several months, I’ve been preaching through the armor of God and Ephesians 6, which is Christ, and have looked at how that armor is fundamentally putting on Christ, his ordinances, his Word, his Spirit, and by faith rising up with his people to fight against the principalities and powers of this present evil age, to set forth the truth of the gospel and its antithetical, full-orbed glory, and to recognize that no matter what happens in terms of the escalation of evil around us in the culture or in the world, Jesus Christ has established his Church. The gates of hell will not prevail against it because the Lord who is our armor has gone before us, destroyed his and our enemies and is in the process of making them a footstool for his feet, which will reach its climax in his glorious, visible second coming.

It’s been a delight to preach through that that book, and I’m kind of coming up on the end of it. You never know; I can’t ever calculate how many more sermons are in the hopper for it. But we’re moving toward the end of the Ephesians 6, and it has been an unusually rich feast for me to preach through. You think you understand the text until you work on it week in and week out for weeks, months, or years, and so it has been peculiarly rich for me. I’ve been very encouraged doing it. Of course, I have—I don’t want to diminish any other congregations in the world—but I might have the most patient and loving congregation in the OPC. They have stayed through it all, and we’ve taken a slow, careful look at that text and just feasted on the Christ who is revealed in it. It’s been a delight.

Now you’re a bit unusual as a minister in the OPC because you not only have the privilege of preaching twice every Lord’s day and doing Sunday school and visitation and serving the saints in Easton, but you’re also a Fellow of Biblical and Systematic Theology at Reformed Forum. How are you actively engaged in the Colossians 1:28 mission of Reformed Forum in that particular capacity?

Let me begin by saying Reformed Forum has been and always will be a pure labor of love for me. You do not find anything like it anymore. In the past, there were some that were striving for this, but the combination of militancy and love, distinctive commitments to the Confession, Van Til, Vos Kline, and the development of what you might call the old Westminster theology or the first generation OPC theology, enriched by people like Kline, Gaffin, Strimple, and others—that’s unique to Reformed Forum. The ministry is so distinctive, while at the same time not succumbing to these biblicist, mutualist perversions that you find in the evangelical and ostensibly “Reformed” world of contemporary vintage in the last 20 years. At Reformed Forum you’ve got a catholic, Reformed, robust ministry of Reformed theology with Colossians 1:28 as the mission, seeking to present everyone mature in Christ.

My service, whether it pertains to the Reformed Academy and teaching courses on Van Til, Reformed Forum conferences—we’ve got one coming up that I’m so excited I can barely contain myself over—or the books that I’ve been graciously given the opportunity to write for Reformed Forum—Foundations of Covenant Theology, the Van Til book [The Trinitarian Theology of Cornelius Van Til], and several on the way—all continues to be a joy in the Lord. I don’t feel like in any of this that I’m working. I’m serving with joy, gladness, and peace and would not want to be anywhere in the whole world serving in except Reformed Forum. So again, I said about pastoring that the Lord’s given me the desire of my heart. Serving with Reformed Forum, though, it’s just been a delight that the Lord has brought. There are people that I won’t mention by name, but they have engaged in extraordinary giving and continue to give in ways that astound me to enable this kind of ministry. They have my deepest gratitude and admiration in the Lord. So, brother, as long as the Lord continues to cause Reformed Forum to flourish, and I have the ability and capacity and strength to serve, the duty is delight. They go right together.

To have over 3800 students in 75 countries involved at Reformed Forum, and to see it exploding in terms of worldwide outreach and ministry and serving the global church so profoundly, that especially gives me unbridled joy in the Lord. I pray that the Lord will continue making Reformed Forum this growing servant of the universal, worldwide Church. I love everything about Reformed Forum, but that, in particular, really is close to my heart to be able to serve brothers and sisters in different countries, under great persecution, who otherwise don’t have access to this kind of theology. To be able to serve them with rich, Reformed theology in the way that Reformed Form enables, and with the quality in terms of the platform and the presentation, as men committed to the deeper Protestant conception, it’s very exciting. I’m thankful to be a part of it, and I’m thankful to see the way the Lord has been blessing it. I’ve been amazed at the way that the Lord is causing Reformed Forum’s ministry to explode throughout the world. And it’s all of the Lord, so we give him glory.

In terms of that worldwide explosion, would you at liberty to share about any of the work that you’ve done with our brethren in China or Cambodia?

I’ll give you just one example. I’ve had an opportunity with a dear brother to talk to numbers of brothers in China, engaging in the training of pastors. I’ve taught a course to brothers in the Lord who are serving and pastoring. I just recently recorded some sermons that will be a part of a conference coming up, and I believe that there are going to be around 1200 people attending. For the last decade, I’ve had opportunities pre-COVID to go to Hong Kong to engage in service of these Chinese brothers and sisters. I can just testify to this: the Lord is giving them extraordinary grace and deep conviction. If Reformed theology in seminaries in this country is on the decline, which it is, and if the broad evangelicalism of this country is strangling true piety and vibrant doctrine, which it is, if liberalism and Barth and the post-conservative evangelical, post-liberal movements are divesting the system of doctrine of its vitality and substance, which it is—as you see a relative decline in the West, these brothers are on fire. The persecution that they are receiving is only causing more and more joy and vigor and militancy to make Christ known and to have an opportunity to serve. I’m going to stop because this gets me choked up, brother, but to have the honor and the privilege to serve such brothers whose hearts are so clearly cruciform and cross-stamped, serving the Lord, not seeking treasure on Earth but in heaven, it’s amazing. That opportunity and ongoing attempts to partner with those brothers, it’s just a delight.

Amen, brother. What you’re saying resonates in a peculiar way with me as I’ve had the great joy of regularly corresponding and working with many brothers and sisters in mainland China and Taiwan through our Reformed Academy. I’m consistently blown away by how they are willing to joyfully lay their lives down for the gospel. They often suffer much hardship for the sake of our Savior in their families and work, and yet at the end of the day, they still have the Spirit-wrought energy and zeal do the difficult work of translation and subtitle correction for us at Reformed Forum. They labor for nothing but for the glory of God and to see the riches of the Reformed faith flourish in their land. I’m truly in awe of what the Lord is pleased to do in bringing Reformed Forum these connections with saints that weren’t on my radar, but they were on the Lord’s radar. He is bringing the Church, his global family, together even while the world is at war. Chinese believers and Western believers are loving one another and are growing unto perfection in Christ.

It is of the Lord. They are the dearest of brothers and sisters, so praise the Lord for them.

As we come to the close of our interview, how might our friends and supporters around the world pray for you and your ministry?

I really appreciate you asking. Pray for my wife to continue to flourish and for our relationship to grow; for my children to continue to flourish and walk with the Lord as they’re doing; for faithfulness in ministry at Trinity, preservation of the elders and growth of the congregation. Pray also for the work at Reformed Forum to move forward with people recognizing that we give all of our resources up front for free. Pray that the Lord would raise up people to support Reformed Forum’s work so that this global outreach, these 3800 plus students from 75 countries, could continue to be served. Pray that the Lord would make Reformed Forum faithful in serving the church and not be distracted by any other mission outside of the mission of Colossians 1:28, to seek to present everyone mature in Christ through the presentation of what the Scriptures teach as received and expounded and enriched in our Reformed confessional tradition. Prayer along all those lines, and that the Lord would make me personally faithful in love and in truth for the sake of Christ would be deeply appreciated.

On May 21, 1922, Harry Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon titled “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” that helped spark the modernist-fundamentalist controversy.

Fosdick was a Baptist minister serving as an associate at First Presbyterian Church in New York and a faculty member at Union Theological Seminary. He was well-known and had published several popular religious books. Ned B. Stonehouse remarked, “the fact that a minister not even subject to the authority of Presbytery and General Assembly should have used a Presbyterian pulpit to make what was widely regarded as an attack upon the constitution disclosed a situation bordering on lawlessness” (Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir, 302).

Dr. Darryl G. Hart joins Camden Bucey to speak about this infamous sermon and a new course on Machen that Dr. Hart recorded last week for Reformed Academy.

Chapters

• 0:00:00 Introduction
• 0:01:03 Dr. Hart’s Forthcoming Course on Machen
• 0:09:54 Harry Emerson Fosdick in Context
• 0:20:49 Presbyterians and Broad Ecumenism
• 0:23:53 New York and Philadelphia in Presbyterian History
• 0:28:25 A Baptist in a Presbyterian Pulpit
• 0:33:19 Fosdick Preaching from Acts 5:38–39
• 0:38:40 Fosdick and Modernity
• 0:45:07 The Soft Middle
• 0:50:02 Machen, Orthodoxy, and Modernity
• 0:56:17 The Spirits of Fosdick and Machen Today
• 1:08:06 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart

This the first installment of a quarterly series of interviews highlighting the Lord’s work in the lives and ministries of our Reformed Forum faculty. Up first is Jim Cassidy, president of the Reformed Forum board of directors and pastor of South Austin OPC in Austin, Texas. He sits down with Ryan Noha to discuss growing up Roman Catholic, giving up his life for the gospel, and serving the Lord in his family, church, and the work of Reformed Forum.

Jim, we have many longtime friends and supporters at Reformed Forum who know you well, but for those who are just meeting you for the first time or haven’t heard about your background, tell us how you made your way from Roman Catholicism into the OPC. How were you converted, and then how were you “born again” as one of Machen’s Warrior Children?

I appreciate that question. I think that growing up Roman Catholic has given me a particular perspective on the Reformation. When I was growing up Roman Catholic, the emphasis was very much upon the rules and doing what you’re supposed to do so that you don’t displease God. And if you don’t displease God, then you can get yourself out from underneath his wrath. So everything was geared towards this work of merit, whether it’s in the participation of the sacraments, going to church, not talking in church to your friends, kneeling properly, being an altar boy—you got some extra points for that. Now, they didn’t put it in those terms. But that’s sort of the message that was communicated.

As I was growing up and into college, I was under the impression that if you did enough good works, or if you did more good works than bad works, then you would go to either purgatory or heaven. But if you were a particularly nasty sort that did more bad deeds than good deeds, you would go to hell. Now, nobody I knew, despite the depravity that we exercised in our lives, thought that they were so bad as to be going to hell. And when they did something that was particularly bad, and they knew it, they would joke around and laugh and say, “Ha, I’m going to hell!” But it was not really taken seriously. I had this impression going into college.

It was there in college that I met a Baptist believer who was ministering to me and praying for me. His church’s youth group back home was also praying for me. And he was witnessing to me telling me about the gospel. When I told him my understanding of Christianity as I just explained it, he said, “No, that’s not how you get to heaven. You get into heaven by having a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.” And now, we know, and I know from hindsight, that that’s not itself the gospel: “Having a personal relationship with Jesus.” That’s more of an evangelical way of saying that it’s not on the basis of your works or your goodness that you get into heaven but by faith in Jesus Christ. And so I remember going to bed that evening and saying to Jesus that I wanted to have a relationship with him. I woke up the next day, and I began to read my Bible and basically haven’t looked back since.

Now at that time, I didn’t fully comprehend the gospel. I knew nothing of the Reformation. So my intent was to be a Catholic—a good Catholic—and to stay in the Catholic Church. My intent was to go around telling everybody that they need to have a “personal relationship with Jesus” because that’s what I was taught. At that point, a Reformed person who was part of a Protestant Bible study took me aside. He began to explain to me the differences between Catholicism and Protestantism, and he told me a little bit about the Reformation and “faith alone” and “grace alone” and all of that stuff. And when I went home over Christmas break during my sophomore year, I began to read Galatians. It blew my mind because Paul was articulating everything that I did not believe or that I was not taught growing up. In fact, it was the exact opposite of what I was being taught as I was growing up. It absolutely transformed and renovated my way of thinking about sin and salvation, the gospel—the whole nine yards. I quickly became very angry at the Catholic Church when I thought about the way that they were misleading me. My soul, and the souls of millions, was dependent upon the church proclaiming the truth and the true gospel, and Rome wasn’t doing that. It upset me very much.

I’ve gotten over my anger, but speaking to the issue of Machen’s Warrior Children, perhaps the reason that I am so dogmatically committed to Reformed theology is because I believe that it is as Warfield put it: “Christianity come to its own.” And if Reformed Christianity is “Christianity come to its own,” then we absolutely must stand for it; we must fight for it. Souls are at stake. I would never want our church to lose that message. I think Machen felt that way, too, even though he wasn’t raised Catholic. He was raised within the Presbyterian Church, but he was militant about the truth because he knew that it was a life-or-death situation. And I know it’s a life-or-death situation. So I believe in the Reformed faith and in zealously maintaining it, promoting it, preaching it, and teaching it because I believe truly that lives are at stake.

Amen, brother. I never tire of hearing how the Lord has brought a person to the understanding of that life-giving gospel: the gospel of Jesus Christ crucified, risen, ascended, and coming again. It’s only through union with him that we have any hope of salvation. It’s really that simple. We aren’t Reformed because we’re pugilistic, but because the Reformed faith is the only faith worth contending for. It’s radically consistent with Scripture, and that’s why we love it. That’s why we agree with Machen when he said on his deathbed, “Isn’t the Reformed faith grand?”

Yes. I think everybody has it within them to give their lives for something. We all know the brevity of our lives, and I think I think everybody wants to give their life to something that that counts, that makes a difference. Most of the time people identify the wrong thing to give their lives for. When I found and discovered the truth of the gospel as it was recaptured and re-articulated by the Reformers, I found something where I could say, I’m willing to die on that hill. I’m willing to surrender my life for the sake of that message because it has eternal consequences, even as the message itself is eternal as it says in the Book of Revelation, the “eternal gospel.” Without that understanding, we don’t have the gospel. We only have a man-made imitation of it as Paul says in Galatians, which is “no gospel at all.”

It’s really important for us to understand that we don’t want to be Machen’s Warrior Children, as it were, for the sake of making other people’s lives difficult. Or if we’re being just obnoxious, having a reputation for being that pugilistic guy who’s always looking to fight—we don’t want that. We don’t fight for the sake of the fight; we fight for the sake of the faith. We fight the good fight of faith. It’s important for us to keep our eyes on that because it’s that faith which will bring Christ’s children to maturity. And that’s part of what our goal is at Reformed Forum: to declare the whole counsel of God unto the people of God so that everyone in the church can be brought to the point of maturity in Christ, all to the glory of Christ, for the good of his church, and the evangelization of the lost. That’s something that we have to bear in mind.

We’re supporting the Great Commission of the church. We’re not the church; we’re not doing the Great Commission. Rather, we’re seeking to come alongside the church to support its mission to preach the gospel. And without understanding exactly what it is that the Scriptures teach about the gospel, we have nothing to offer the world. We have no evangel, no gospel to preach, unless we are clear, concise, and accurate in our proper reading of the Scriptures, aided by the Holy Spirit through the testimony of the church in the past and all the greats upon whose shoulders we stand. Without that, we don’t have a message that is worth living for. It’s not worth dying for. It doesn’t aid in the work of evangelism.

That’s right. Without that message, it’s not even evangelism at all. Now, on that note of discipleship, I’d love to hear how this all works out in your family life. Would you give us portrait of your family and then share a bit about how you seek to lead in such a way that the Lord would draw your wife and children into these glorious truths that we hold so dear?

My wife, Eve, is a great helpmeet to me. She has been there by my side in ministry for the last 20 years. I’m so very grateful. We’ve known each other longer than that, but we’ve been married in ministry for 20 years. We have three wonderful children, Caitlyn, Ian, and Anna, and they’re all great kids. I love them dearly. In terms of your question about discipleship, it’s a little bit different now because the kids are older. Eve has a job outside the home, and I have a job, of course. So we’re all going every which way, and our time together for regular, regimented family worship is not in the same pattern as it was when the kids were younger. We were very regimented. After our evening meal, we would have Bible reading, catechesis, and prayer. Now, my pastoral instinct to try to mitigate the awkward schedule of having older kids, one of whom is in college, is to take every opportunity to talk to them about the things of the Lord and to pray with them. I drive my daughter to school every day and we pray on the way to school; we talk about the things of the Lord and about the church. My kids are inquisitive, so they like to ask questions. I try to maximize those questions to illuminate the faith.

It’s much more dynamic, living as it is now in terms of ministry to the family, but I have to emphasize the importance of catechesis. My kids have a bedrock, a foundation, in the Catechism that they learned when they were younger. If I were to be honest and sober, I would say that they probably wouldn’t be able to recite word for word the vast majority of the Q and A’s that they learned as they were growing up, but the substance is there. And there are a few very key questions and answers that the kids still very much have burned or etched within their memories, such that it would go rote if I were to ask the question at random. Sometimes I’ll say, “What does every sin deserve?” in the course of conversation, and the kids instantly say, “the wrath and curse of God,” which is from the Children’s Catechism. There are some of those questions that are really familiar: Who made you? What’s your chief end? And however you might rephrase that question, they’ve got it; they know it. So it gives us something to build on as they as they grow older and as they mature in the faith.

Catechesis was the kind of thing that I did not grow up with. Catholicism would say, we do catechesis; the Catholic Church has a Catechism. But really, catechesis is a Protestant Reformational practice. When I was growing up, we read very little Bible. Even in Catholic parochial school, which I went to from first grade right through college, we studied very little in the Scriptures. And we certainly didn’t get regular, regimented catechesis, learning questions and answers in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. We were not well instructed at all. Despite the fact that we had religious training all throughout, we didn’t learn the faith systematically.

Nonetheless, that’s a beautiful thing that you can look back on God’s faithfulness today and see how he has worked through the “foolishness” of catechesis in your own family, in the next generation. You can share in the great joy that the Apostle John spoke about when he heard that his children, his flock, were “walking in the truth.” Tell us about your own church, your own flock. Where do you serve and how is the Lord using the means of grace to gather and perfect his people there?

Thank you for that. I love my church very much. And it’s a joy to be able to talk about the congregation and the work here in South Austin. I came here in 2014. The congregation in Pflugerville, Texas, which is just to the northeast of Austin, not very far outside city limits—that was the original South Austin Presbyterian Church actually. They were originally meeting in locations on the south side of the city. Then they were able to get a piece of land and build a building, but it was to the northeast in Pflugerville. They ended up moving up there, leaving the south side somewhat untended in terms of Reformed witness. Glen Clary was the pastor there before I arrived at Providence in Pflugerville. And they had a group at that church that was meeting for Bible study down on the south side. There were about 20 to 25 people that were traveling north from South Austin up to Pflugerville for worship on Sunday, and they were desirous of starting a work on the south side.

That Bible study had been going on for five years when they finally called me to come as a church planter. We started worship services in July of 2014, and we became a particular congregation in 2015. From there we began to grow and to develop as the Lord continued to add to our numbers. A couple of years ago, we were able to purchase the building where we now carry out our ministry. Not long after we started worshiping, after we particularized, we had a couple of families come to our church from the New Braunfels area, which is about 45 minutes south of here towards San Antonio. We ministered to those families, and they were desirous of starting a work in New Braunfels. This was funny, because we were praying from the very beginning that the Lord would allow us to become a church-planting church plant. We didn’t want to wait very long to start praying and thinking about the next church plant. And so that’s what ended up happening. Within five years, we ended up starting the work down in New Braunfels. And now in a couple of weeks’ time, Lord willing, the New Braunfels church is going to particularize as a new and regular congregation. We’re really excited about that.

South Austin OPC itself is a very mature congregation. The folks are very serious about the word. They’re absolutely committed to Reformed worship, to the inclusion of Psalms in worship—not exclusively, but inclusive psalmody—and to Reformed orthodoxy. Our elders are very good shepherds. They take good care of the people and are very attentive, patient, kind, and loving. Our deacons are the same. They’re attentive to the needs of the congregation and have done a great job tending to the flock. Anyway, that’s a little bit about us. It’s a congregation that I’m so very much in love with.

What are you preaching and teaching through these days in terms of sermon series or Sunday school, and what fruit is your ministry bearing in the congregation?

In the morning, we are going through the book of James. That has been very useful for all of us, myself, especially. James’ exhortation with regard to the use of our words has been transforming for me, and I think for others, as well. As Reformed Christians, we are a very principled people, and rightly so. We believe that we are to live on the basis of God’s Word, and so we live in a very principled way. And we believe that we can know God and how he wants us to live. But sometimes, when a principled mindset combines with the old nature, we can very quickly allow our zeal to overtake our holiness, our self-discipline, and our restraint. Then sometimes we speak out of a desire to be principled, to stand for the truth, but we do so perhaps in a way that’s not loving and kind and proper and biblical.

James’ exhortations on what it means to suffer have also been a tremendous help to me personally. He’s one of the few places outside of the Book of Job that you can find reference to Job. James is very concerned to instruct the congregation who is obviously suffering. They are suffering persecution and opposition from the world, and James is concerned to teach them what it means to suffer righteously. Sometimes, suffering righteously means guarding your words in such a way that when you’re attacked, you don’t return attack for attack and so forth and so on. That’s been very helpful, I think, to the congregation.

In the evening, I’ve been preaching on 1 Chronicles. We’re going to get to 1 Chronicles 5 this Sunday, Lord willing. The congregation has been remarkably receptive to that series. I thought it would be a flop, quite frankly, because, as you know, the first nine chapters of 1 Chronicles is just a list of names except in chapter four where you have the prayer of Jabez. Of course, much has been made of that by some. I did a two-part series on chapter four, focusing exclusively on the prayer of Jabez. There were some little polemics in those sermons, which is appropriate in this instance.

The emphasis that I’ve been trying to underscore, however, is that we are the people of God. Our identity in Jesus Christ is found with the people of God under the old covenant. So when we read these genealogies, we have to understand that they are our genealogies. We’re living in a day and age where there seems to be a renewed interest in family lineage and genealogy. You can take a prick of blood or saliva, send it to some company, and they’ll tell you who your people are. But that’s DNA. We’re talking about something that’s deeper than DNA, which is the covenant of grace. We’re emphasizing our unity in the covenant of grace with the people of old and now showing the way in which the people of God are a people of every tribe, nation, and tongue.

During Sunday school, we’ve been working through R. B. Kuiper’s book on the doctrine of the church, The Glorious Body of Christ. And I talked about that a little bit recently on a Christ the Center episode. That’s been really helpful, especially in the area of church authority and power. I think there’s a lot of confusion out there about what church power and authority is or is not. Kuiper gives us a tonic to avoid an evangelical sort of no-churchism on the one hand, and then a kind of Roman Catholic-authoritarian-dominating kind of approach to authority and power on the other. He gives us the Reformed position. That’s been very helpful and sparked a good deal of interesting conversation in our congregation.

Another area where Kuiper is so good is on the indestructibility of the church. Persecution not only does not destroy the church, but persecution is actually the seed bed of the church. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. The church grows from persecution. The world can’t destroy the church; rather persecution will only advance the cause of Christ in this world. When we suffer righteously, we are identifying most intimately with our savior in his sufferings. The pinnacle point at which we are to imitate Christ is precisely here, in our willing suffering. That doesn’t mean that we go out and ask for it or look for it. Some of the early church fathers were somewhat guilty in this regard, but normally nobody wants to suffer. At the same time, we are willing, like Jesus, and as he calls his disciples to do, to lay our lives down for our friends, the glory of Christ, and the building of the church.

That foolishness of the cross will never become less foolish to the world, but to those who are God’s elect, it is the power of God unto salvation. So keep preaching it, brother! Now we could continue discussing and rejoicing in the Lord’s good work through your ministry in the local church, but I’d love to hear how you are also striving to serve the church in her Colossians 1:28 work through your labors here at Reformed Forum.

My role at Reformed Forum is somewhat supportive, which is great because that’s what I think I’m good at that. I’m not the sort of person that excels at leadership and taking charge and making things happen. Our dear brother Camden, our Executive Director, is excellent at organization, administration, execution of tasks and what not. He’s got the big vision; he knows what he’s doing. I’m here simply as a board member, and as the president of the board, to support him and our faculty—to cheer everybody on and to assist in anything that needs to be done to accomplish our mission.

As a faculty member, I’ve been working on a number of things, including a class on the Gospel of John that I hope to be able to roll out sometime later this year. I also do blog posts and Christ the Center episodes. I try to encourage our Van Til cohort students on Discord (our chat platform). I just see myself as playing a supporting role, throwing myself in anywhere that the Lord opens up for me to encourage, help, and assist. Everybody over there at the new office is doing a great job in terms of getting my material for the Westminster Shorter Catechism classes [Qs. 1–38 and Qs. 39–107] into published, book form. I’ve been working on that manuscript, and hopefully that will come out later on this year.

With the busyness of the pastorate and family, finding time to be able to execute on those projects that I have on my desk is something that is moving along way too slowly. I wish that I was able to produce more as a faculty member, but I remain blessed. The Lord has been gracious and kind. I love what Reformed Forum is doing. To be involved at all is a privilege and an honor. I’m sort of like the free safety in football—just kind of standing by waiting to make an interception or to maybe a tackle. I’m looking to be there when I’m needed and then to fill in that gap as those needs arise. But really, if I aspire to anything, it’s to become the water boy.

That’s one thing that I love about working with you. And the same is true for the other brothers at RF. You have a servant heart. You’re just seeking to live coram Deo and to serve the church. I love that that’s in our mission statement. It’s in our blood, our spiritual DNA. We don’t want to be big shots or to replace the church; we want to be servants to her and to labor unto the glory of our Head, even Jesus Christ, who by his Spirit and word perfects his bride. It’s such a joy to labor with you as a like-minded brother in Christ, to know the bond of peace that we have by the Spirit.  

Psalm 133. It’s better than the oil going down Aaron’s beard and robe. Amen, and amen. And the feeling is mutual brother. Thank you for the great work here that you’re doing for Reformed Forum. We are exceedingly grateful and regard you as a gift from the Lord.

All that I’ve received is from him, and I praise him for that. As we look together unto the Lord to provide the increase for all of our labors, are there any particular things that our listeners and supporters can lift up in prayer on your behalf?

We always covet prayers, the prayers of the saints wherever they may find themselves, for our church and ministry in South Austin. We covet the prayers of God’s people everywhere for the ministry of Reformed Forum for everything that we’re doing, from recording classes to rolling out books and blog posts. Pray that the work of Christ by His Spirit would continue. And I would ask even that it would increase in my heart, so that as I become more like Christ, I will be more effective at showing others how to walk with Christ.

In 1992, Charles G. Dennison published three articles in the Mid-America Journal of Theology. These were based upon a series he delivered at Mid-America Reformed Seminary. Dennison identifies three eras between 1936 and 1962—tragedy, hope, and ambivalence. The era of tragedy is focused on the figure of J. Gresham Machen. Cornelius Van Til and Ned B. Stonehouse represent the eras of hope and ambivalence, respectively.

In this episode, Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey discuss this first article in the series while considering broader questions about the identity of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and its relation to other Reformed and Presbyterian churches and evangelicalism. Rev. Olinger serves as General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education for the OPC.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 5:40 Ned Stonehouse
• 11:37 Machen and the Church’s Identity
• 30:16 The OPC and the CRC
• 37:51 Divisions among Fundamentalists
• 45:01 Ecumenical Relations with the CRC
• 56:25 The Church as a Pilgrim People
• 1:00:40 Machen, Culture, and the Church
• 1:15:52 Conclusion

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger

Danny Olinger and John Muether join Camden Bucey to speak about the early history of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and the forces within the young ecclesiastical body desiring broader influence throughout the culture.

J. Gresham Machen gathered a broad coalition of “fundamentalists” in leading a charge against modernism at Princeton Theological Seminary and then throughout the Presbyterian Church (USA). After many within this coalition were pushed out or left to form what would become the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, different agendas arose. A significant event—involving what would come to be known as the Committee of Nine—at the 1941 and 1942 General Assemblies would set the tone for the future of the young church.

For further study:

• Hakkenberg, Michael A. “The Battle over the Ordination of Gordon H. Clark.” In Pressing toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, edited by Charles G. Dennison and Richard C. Gamble, 329–50. Philadelphia: Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986.
• Woolley, Paul. “Discontent!” The Presbyterian Guardian 13, no. 14 (July 25, 1944): 213–14.
• Minutes from the ninth General Assembly of the OPC (the reports of the committee begin on p. 28)

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, John Muether

Camden Bucey and Lane Tipton discuss Lefferts A. Loetscher, The Broadening Church: A Study of Theological Issues in the Presbyterian Church Since 1869 (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1954). This book is indispensable as a thoughtful and well-researched rationale for the reorganization of Princeton Seminary in 1929. It is a history told from the perspective of the mediating conservatives, who viewed Machen and other fundamentalists as “extreme conservatives.”

From the Publisher:

The far-reaching social and intellectual changes in the United States since the Civil War have had a definite effect upon the religious thought of American churches. In this volume, a distinguished scholar and theologian has undertaken an inductive study of theological issues in one of the major denominations, the Presbyterian church in the United States of America. Since this church was in the thick of the social and intellectual ferment that changed the living and thinking habits of Americans, much that transpired in it finds broad parallels in other leading American churches. Thus, the story of the Presbyterian church is, in essence, a kind of theological barometer of American history. Avoiding sweeping generalizations, Lefferts A. Loetscher briefly traces the history of the Presbyterian church from its founding by New England Puritans on Long Island in the 1640s to the disruption of 1837 and the “wedding day” of Old School and New School Presbyterians in 1870, following the reunion of 1869. From this point, he examines in detail the development of the church, analyzing the controversies that occurred over the years, interpreting the various theological issues that led to disputes.

Lefferts A. Loetscher was Professor Emeritus of American Church History at Princeton University. He is the author of A Brief History of the Presbyterians.

Links

• George M. Marsden, Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism
• Lane G. Tipton and Jeffrey C. Waddington, eds. Resurrection and Eschatology: Essays in Honor of Richard B. Gaffin, Jr.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

Dr. William Dennison, pastor of Emmanuel OPC in Kent, Washington, speaks about J. Gresham Machen’s theological method as disclosed through his radio addresses just a few years prior to his death. Machen understood that the modern world and the church were in a state of emergency. While many of Machen’s listeners would have thought about the economic volatility of the depression or perhaps the political unrest of fascism and communism. Moreover, many of these listeners would have expected Machen to discuss solutions to these ailments along the lines of those advocated by progressive modernists. Yet, Machen called his listeners to Christ and his kingdom, which transcends this visible world.

Machen speaks often about the benefits of reason, experience, and common sense. In these radio addresses, however, he states clearly that all these elements are to be viewed in subordination to the truth of God’s Word. Specifically, they function in the manner that God, the Creator and Ruler over all things has created them to function. We know this from the Bible.

Dennison, “J. Gresham Machen’s Theological Method”

Machen rejected a general appeal to categories such as reason, experience, empirical facts, common sense, and rhetoric as a means of establishing common ground because of his deep understanding of the effects of sin upon all of man’s faculties. Dennison connects this aspect of Machen’s theology to that of his colleague at Westminster Seminary, Cornelius Van Til.

As a man whose theology appears to still be under development, Machen was neither blindly following the evidentialist tradition of Old Princeton leaning upon Thomas Reid and Scottish Common Sense Realism nor that later mature apologetic system of Van Til.

Further Reading

• William Dennison, “J. Gresham Machen’s Theological Method” (PDF article)
• Machen, J. Gresham. Things Unseen: A Systematic Introduction to the Christian Faith and Reformed Theology. Glenside, PA: Westminster Seminary Press, 2020.
• Bahnsen, Greg L. “Machen, Van Til, and the Apologetical Tradition of the OPC.” In Pressing Toward the Mark: Essays Commemorating Fifty Years of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, edited by Charles G. Dennison and Richard C. Gamble, 259–94. Philadelphia: The Committee for the Historian of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 1986.
• Hart, D. G., and John R. Muether. “Why Machen Hired Van Til.” Ordained Servant 6, no. 3 (July 1997): 65–68.

Participants: Bill Dennison, Camden Bucey, Lane G. Tipton

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads from his 1923 edition of J. Gresham Machen’s classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 7, The Church.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads from his 1923 edition of J. Gresham Machen’s classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 6, Salvation.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads from his 1923 edition of J. Gresham Machen’s classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 5, Christ.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads from J. Gresham Machen’s 1923 classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 4, The Bible.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads from J. Gresham Machen’s 1923 classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 3, God and Man.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week on Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads from J. Gresham Machen’s 1923 classic work, Christianity and Liberalism, Chapter 2, Doctrine.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

Darryl G. Hart speaks about J. Gresham Machen’s classic work, Christianity and Liberalism. In becoming familiar the content and historical context of this book, people will gain an understanding not only of twentieth century Presbyterianism but also of global Christianity to a degree. And in contemplating the lessons of this era, people will also be better equipped to meet the challenges that face the contemporary church.

Westminster Seminary Press has issued a new edition of Machen’s classic work and has included new essays by the faculty of Westminster Theological Seminary, the institution Machen founded in 1929 after the reorganization of the board of Princeton Seminary.

Dr. D. G. Hart is Distinguished Associate Professor of History at Hillsdale College and the author or co-author of many books on American religious history, including  Seeking a Better Country: 300 Years of American Presbyterianism, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America, and The Selected Shorter Writings of J. Gresham Machen.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart, Jim Cassidy

This week on Theology Simply Profound, we begin a series of readings of J. Gresham Machen’s 1923 classic book, Christianity and Liberalism.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

On February 5, 1923, J. Gresham Machen addressed the Moody Bible Institute Founder’s Week Conference in Chicago with a lecture entitled, “Christianity vs. Modern Liberalism.” This week on Theology Simply Profound, with Rob out of town, Bob reads this lecture from the Moody Bible Institute Monthly.

Participants: Robert Tarullo

Rev. Danny E. Olinger lectures on the connection Geerhardus Vos and J. Gresham Machen. This lesson was taught at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois as part of the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference.

Participants: Danny Olinger

Camden Bucey delivers the concluding address at the Reformed Forum 2018 Theology Conference at Hope Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Grayslake, Illinois.

On this week’s episode of Theology Simply Profound, Bob reads J. Gresham Machen’s address as printed in The Princeton Theological Review, Volume 11 issue 1, 1913, “Christianity and Culture.”

Participants: Robert Tarullo

This week’s Theology Simply Profound provides another reading from the works of J. Gresham Machen. Since we’ve begun a series on the Biblical teaching of the atonement, Bob is reading Machen’s, “The Active Obedience of Christ.” This was delivered on December 20, 1936 as part of a series of radio addresses given shortly before Machen’s death on January 1, 1937.

Participants: J. Gresham Machen, Robert Tarullo

With Rob nursing a cold, this week’s Theology Simply Profound provides another reading from the works of J. Gresham Machen. Since we’ve begun a series on the Biblical teaching of the atonement, Bob is reading Machen’s, “The Doctrine of the Atonement.” This was from a series of radio addresses given shortly before Machen’s death on January 1, 1937.

Participants: J. Gresham Machen, Robert Tarullo

With Rob on assignment at the T4G conference, this week’s episode of Theology Simply Profound provides a reading of J. Gresham Machen’s essay, “The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age.” This remarkably relevant work originally appeared in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1933.

Participants: J. Gresham Machen, Robert Tarullo

Darryl G. Hart speaks about J. Gresham Machen and his use of media throughout the modernist-fundamentalist controversy. Westminster Seminary Press has recently published a series of radio addresses by Machen titled, The Person of Jesus. Hart is Distinguished Associate Professor of History at Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan. He is the author of numerous books, including Defending the Faith, Calvinism: A History, and Damning Words.

Links

• Putting the “Protest” in Protestant
• Old Life Theological Society
• Listen to D. G. Hart’s course, “An Introduction to J. Gresham Machen“

Previous Episodes with D. G. Hart

• Awakening the Evangelical Mind
• Revivalism and Reformed Piety
• With Reverence and Awe
• Calvinism: A History
• The Reorganization of Princeton Seminary
• The Regulative Principle of Worship
• Machen’s Warrior Children
• Presbyterian and Reformed Family Trees
• Assessing Machen
• Deconstructing Evangelicalism
• J. Gresham Machen

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, we reflect upon the life and ministry of her oldest minister, 103 year-old Rev. John P. Galbraith. Galbraith was a student of J. Gresham Machen’s at Westminster Theological Seminary and present during the founding of the OPC, before it was called the OPC. In 1948, Mr. Galbraith was called to serve as general secretary of both the OPC Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension and the OPC Committee on Foreign Missions. He served as general secretary of both committees until 1961, when he became the first full-time general secretary of the Committee on Foreign Missions. He served in that role through 1978. Mr. Galbraith gave the next thirty years of his life to what was effectively a full-time retirement, serving on many committees and ecumenical organizations. Listen as Camden Bucey speaks with Rev. Galbraith and Rev. Danny Olinger about the life of a small, but vibrant denomination told through the ministry and experiences of one of her faithful servants.

Links

• William Shishko, “A Tribute: The Rev. John Galbraith, Mr. OPC”
• Bruce F. Hunt, For a Testimony

Participants: Camden Bucey, Danny Olinger, John Galbraith

Darryl Hart reviews Awakening the Evangelical Mind: An Intellectual History of the Neo-Evangelical Movement written by Owen Strachan and published by Zondervan. Hart is Visiting Professor of History at Hillsdale College and is the author of many books on church history.

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart

James W. Scott speaks about the question of whether Machen himself wrote a history of the Presbyterian conflict that led to his defrocking, and accidentally, his death. His articles “Machen’s Lost Work on the Presbyterian Conflict,” Parts 1 and 2, introduce the idea that Edwin Rian’s book, The Presbyterian Conflict, drew on heretofore undiscovered work by Machen himself. Jim Scott is Managing Editor of New Horizons in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Publications Coordinator for the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC. His first article is available online via Westminster. Edwin Rian’s book can be found online.

Participants: Camden Bucey, James W. Scott, Jim Cassidy

In light of the recent discussion on “The Future of Protestantism,” I thought I would post Machen’s take on church unity as he deals with this topic in his classic work, Christianity and Liberalism:

We are not dealing here with delicate personal questions; we are not presuming to say whether such and such an individual man is a Christian or not. God only can decide such questions; no man can say with assurance whether the attitude of certain individual “liberals” toward Christ is saving faith or not. But one thing is perfectly plain—whether or not liberals are Christians, it is at any rate perfectly clear that liberalism is not Christianity. And that being the case, it is highly undesirable that liberalism and Christianity should continue to be propagated within the bounds of the same organization. A separation between the two parties in the Church is the crying need of the hour. Many indeed are seeking to avoid the separation. Why, they say, may not brethren dwell together in unity? The Church, we are told, has room both for liberals and for conservatives. The conservatives may be allowed to remain if they will keep trifling matters in the background and attend chiefly to “the weightier matters of the law.” And among the things thus designated as “trifling” is found the Cross of Christ, as a really vicarious atonement for sin. Such obscuration of the issue attests a really astonishing narrowness on the part of the liberal preacher. Narrowness does not consist in definite devotion to certain convictions or in definite rejection of others. But the narrow man is the man who rejects the other man’s convictions without first endeavoring to understand them, the man who makes no effort to look at things from the other man’s point of view. For example, it is not narrow to reject the Roman Catholic doctrine that there is no salvation outside the Church. It is not narrow to try to convince Roman Catholics that that doctrine is wrong. But it would be very narrow to say to a Roman Catholic: “You may go on holding your doctrine about the Church and I shall hold mine, but let us unite in our Christian work, since despite such trifling differences we are agreed about the matters that concern the welfare of the soul.” For of course such an utterance would simply beg the question; the Roman Catholic could not possibly both hold his doctrine of the Church and at the same time reject it, as would be required by the program of Church unity just suggested. A Protestant who would speak in that way would be narrow, because quite independent of the question whether he or the Roman Catholic is right about the Church he would show plainly that he had not made the slightest effort to understand the Roman Catholic point of view. The case is similar with the liberal program for unity in the Church. It could never be advocated by anyone who had made the slightest effort to understand the point of view of his opponent in the controversy. The liberal preacher says to the conservative party in the Church: “Let us unite in the same congregation, since of course doctrinal differences are trifles.” But it is the very essence of “conservatism” in the Church to regard doctrinal differences as no trifles but as the matters of supreme moment. A man cannot possibly be an “evangelical” or a “conservative” (or, as he himself would say, simply a Christian) and regard the Cross of Christ as a trifle. To suppose that he can is the extreme of narrowness. It is not necessarily “narrow” to reject the vicarious sacrifice of our Lord as the sole means of salvation. It may be very wrong (and we believe that it is), but it is not necessarily narrow. But to suppose that a man can hold to the vicarious sacrifice of Christ and at the same time belittle that doctrine, to suppose that a man can believe that the eternal Son of God really bore the guilt of men’s sins on the Cross and at the same time regard that belief as a “trifle” without bearing upon the welfare of men’s souls − that is very narrow and very absurd. We shall really get nowhere in this controversy unless we make a sincere effort to understand the other man’s point of view. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2009), 136–37.

The Christ the Center panel met with Dr. Barry Waugh, editor of the recent publication Letters from the Front: J. Gresham Machen’s Correspondence from World War I, about the fascinating topic of Machen’s service as a YMCA secretary near the frontlines of action in France during WWI. Dr. Waugh discussed the content of some of the letters, Machen’s reasons for service, how Machen sought to situate himself in the midst of French culture, his desire to serve as a faithful gospel minister, and the discussion concluded with consideration of some of the legacy of Machen’s wartime service.

Participants: Barry Waugh, Camden Bucey, Jeff Waddington

I just received a copy of Barry Waugh’s new book of Machen letters. Letters from the Front: J. Gresham Machen’s Correspondence from World War I (P&R Publishing) looks to be a fascinating collection of letters Machen wrote while serving with the YMCA during the Great War. If you’re at all familiar with this type of work, you’ll know what an incredible service Waugh has done for us in transcribing and editing these letters for our benefit. I hope more volumes of this sort will be available in the future. We’ll certainly want to treat this in detail on Christ the Center, and I’m sure we’ll have opportunity to explore this significant time in Machen’s life with the usual suspects. But until then, listen to Darryl Hart’s series on Machen or get copies of his books Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestant and J. Gresham Machen: Selected Shorter Writings.

Darryl G. Hart visits with the panel of Christ the Center once again. On this episode Dr. Hart speaks about his latest essay found in Always Reformed, a festschrift written in honor of Dr. Robert Godfrey.

Links

• Old Life Theological Society
• J. Gresham Machen resources at Old Life

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart, Jared Oliphint, Jim Cassidy

Bill Dennison discusses the possibility of a personal acquaintance between J. Gresham Machen and Rudolf Bultmann. Both men are key figures in opposing wings of Protestantism. Machen being the figurehead of conservative Presbyterianism in the early 20th c. as he founded Westminster Theological Seminary and led the movement to begin the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Rudolf Bultmann, on the other hand, pioneered the Second Quest of higher biblical criticism. Dr. Dennison is Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, GA and Professor of Apologetics and Systematic Theology at Northwest Theological Seminary in Lynnwood, WA. Dennison is the author of The Young Bultmann: Context for His Understanding of God, 1884-1925.

Links

• Comparing J. Gresham Machen and Rudolf Bultmann: Reflections upon the Marburg Experience, 1905–06
• Rudolf Bultmann’s Review of J. Gresham Machen’s, The Origin of Paul’s Religion
• J. Gresham Machen’s Letters Home from Marburg, 1905–1906
• Christ the Center episode 53 with Dr. Dennison on The Young Bultmann
• Photo of the University of Marburg by maywaskind

Participants: Bill Dennison, Camden Bucey, Jared Oliphint

Panel

• Darryl G. Hart
• Gary L. W. Johnson
• Jeff Waddington
• Nick Batzig
• Camden Bucey

Links

• Ararat
• Accordance Bible software
• The Gospel Coalition
• Fosdick’s sermon “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?“

Bibliography

Participants: Camden Bucey, Darryl G. Hart, Gary L. W. Johnson, Jeff Waddington, Nick Batzig