J. Gresham Machen (0:00)

You can believe whatever you want to believe, but you can't believe whatever you want to believe and call it Christianity. If it is a denial of everything that defines Christianity, make no mistake about it. Liberalism is not a version of Christianity. Liberalism is not Christianity.

Nathan W. Bingham (0:27)

That is the defining legacy of J. Gresham Machen that liberal Christianity isn't Christianity at all. Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Renewing youg Mind. I'm your host, Nathan W. Bingham. If you live near Katy, Texas, I'd like to invite you to a free event on May 15, renewing youg Mind Live. It will be an evening of teaching, fellowship giveaways, and an opportunity to meet other Renewing youg Mind listeners. It's free to attend, but as space is limited, you need to register@renewingyourmind.org Katie will be in other cities across the US and even have plans for events in Australia later this year. So check ligonier.org events for cities and dates near you as more dates will be added throughout the year. Before we continue the story of machen, request the 100th anniversary edition of his classic book, Christianity and liberalism@renewingyourmind.org with your donation of any amount. The message of this book is just as relevant today as when it was first published in 1923. Well, here's Dr. Nichols on the second half of Machen's life.

J. Gresham Machen (1:44)

Last episode we were talking about Machen coming back from the war, and I thought it would be helpful just to add a little bit of texture to that experience that Machen had in World War I to read from some letters that he wrote home. He was talking about how his feet were wet all the time, just through the rain and the mud. And so he writes this paragraph, but finally I salvaged a dry pair of socks. Do you understand the word salvage? It's a great word. In the army, when you see anything good lying around and you appropriate it for yourself, that's not stealing, it is salvaging in the army, he says. You may laugh and you may think I am irreverent, but I can say in all seriousness that one of the most fervent prayers that I ever offered in my life was the prayer of thanksgiving that I prayed that night in my dugout when I pulled on those dry, warm socks. He also would visit right up to the front, and at one time he writes out in the dressing station, this is where the wounded were cared for, out in the dressing station when the shells were falling close around, I somehow gained the conviction that I was in God's care and that he would not try me beyond my strength. That courage would keep pace with danger or rather that danger, for I confess it turned out rather that way, would keep pace with the limits of courage. In short, I understand the eighth chapter of Romans better. This is Machen. He's a New Testament scholar. He's been a lecturer in the literally ivy covered buildings on the Tree laned campus of Princeton Seminary teaching the New Testament. And now he finds himself in dugouts in the trenches on the front line of World War I. And he finds himself understanding the eighth chapter of Romans and the more depths of it than he had as a professor. Of course, we all know the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918 and Armistice and the end of World War I. Machen writes about that too. He says, the Lord's name be praised. Hardly before have I known what true thanksgiving is. Nothing but the exuberance of the Psalms of David, accompanied with the psaltery on an instrument of 10 strings could begin to do justice to the joy of this hour. Bless the Lord. O my soul. It seems to me as though the hills must break forth into singing Peace at last. Praise to God. He says this talking about the. At one point he talks about the ceaseless noise of the war, the constant noise din of bombing. And then he says after the armistice. But we heard something greater by far in contrast with the familiar roar of war, namely the silence of that late misty morning. I think I can venture upon the paradox that was a silence that really could be heard. I suppose it was the most eloquent, the most significant silence in the history of the world. Well, shortly after that, Machen comes back home, comes back to Princeton. And I do find Machen is now finding his purpose in life. A key moment is about to happen to Machen as we move from Princeton 1 to Princeton 2. That key moment comes in 1921 and it is the death of Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield. Now, Warfield in many ways was a mentor to Machen and in fact their lives follow a similar trajectory and career path. Warfield is from Kentucky. Both the Breckenridges and the Warfields were storied families. Warfield's family were horse breeders in Kentucky. His father actually wrote books on horse breeding and he too loved the classic texts. Machen would read the Greek classics and the Latin classics. And Warfield, while he was a teenager and a young man sent out to tend these massive herds of cattle of his fathers would take with him the Greek poets and the Greek historians and be out there reading the Greek and Latin texts. And Warfield was a scholar. He also started off as a New Testament professor at what was then Western Theological Seminary. Do you know where Western Theological Seminary was in the late 1800s? Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Because that was the west, right? The rest was wild frontier country. So he started out in Pittsburgh as a professor there in that epicenter of Presbyterianism where all those Scotch Irish settled there in Pittsburgh. And then he went to Princeton, and he traveled from being a New Testament professor to a professor of apologetics. He was known as the lion of Princeton. He was the last of what we call old Princeton. And his death in 1921 had a significant impact on Machen. Warfield loved to walk around Princeton. He rarely left Princeton. His whole world was confined to that seminary campus. And Machen, as the young professor, the young scholar, looked up to Warfield, the mentor. And they would often take walks together. And I can picture this one particular walk. I can picture Machen. You know, he's going to spend time with Warfield. He's thinking about it. He might be thinking, this could be a moment to maybe impress my mentor. So I need to think carefully and maybe construct some really profound statement that I could present to Warfield. And he will just be very impressed at my profundity at such a young age. And so Machen and Warfield are walking, and Machen says something to the effect of likening the current status in the Presbyterian Church with the rise of liberalism within the Presbyterian Church. Machen likens it to dead wood. And he says, I sense that there is coming this split in this tree of Presbyterianism. And he just drops it for the effect, for Warfield to be impressed. Well, Warfield turns to Machen and he looks him square in the eye and he says, you can't split dead wood is Warfield's response to Machen. His point is this. Warfield's point is this. This denomination is probably too far gone. This spread of liberalism in the denomination, and it's going to impact this seminary. Where they both got their bread and butter is beyond fixing. The time may very well be for a new denomination, not just a split. Well, 1921, Warfield dies. Service is held there. Miller Chapel, campus of Princeton Seminary. And they carry his body out the chapel. And as they carry his body out, Machen says they are carrying old Princeton with him. This is the end of an era, but it's also the passing of a mantle. And so that mantle, that role of champion of orthodoxy and the conservative cause, that Warfield had held since the 1880s is now passed on to Machen. Two years later, 1923, he publishes his book Christianity and liberalism. A truly classic text. It is a direct head on challenge to liberalism in the church. Machen is a political libertarian. He's all for freedom. And he will say in that book and we'll talk about it, but he will say in that book, you can believe whatever you want to believe. This is a free country. We will not compel a belief or bind your conscience of everything that defines Christianity. Make no mistake about it. Liberalism is not a version of Christianity. Liberalism is not a new understanding of Christianity. Liberalism is not Christianity. That's the thesis of the book. Publishes it in 1923. This gives Machen a reputation. There's call for Machen to lecture all across the country, across the Atlantic, over in England, Europe. And there are advertisements put there for Machen. It almost looks like you're advertising a boxing match with the prize fighter. And there's Machen. And he's often called the fighter for orthodox. Come here, Jay Gresham Machen, the defender of orthodoxy, right? The fighter for the faith. Well, meanwhile, he's also a scholar at Princeton. And in 1926, the seminary appoints Machen as professor of apologetics. He's clearly following in the path of Warfield. Warfield started out as a New Testament scholar, moves into apologetics. Machen, same thing, starts off as a New Testament scholar, is to be appointed professor of apologetics at Princeton Seminary. Because Princeton seminary was under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church, usa their faculty decisions were submitted to the general assembly for affirmation. It was a rubber stamp. The general assembly would not overturn these. They came to them every year. Multiple motions would come from the various seminaries that were in the denomination and the general assembly would just approve, approve, approve as a matter of course. And then up comes. Matrons in a general assembly rejected it. It was the first time they'd done this. It was purely politically motivated. And this news did not set well with Machen. In fact, he heard it. He wasn't at assembly that year. He heard it first in a telegraph from a newspaper reporter who was there covering the general assembly and sent a telegraph back to Machen letting him know that his professorship was rejected and denied. Well, what happens next? 26 to 29 is an attempt to reorganize the board of Princeton Theological Seminary. And the reorganization of the board amounted to adding more seats to the board and bringing on new members to the board. And the majority of those new members that were Brought onto the board were progressives. So the reorganization was perhaps a not so subtle move to shift Princeton away from its conservative stance and into a more progressive and moderate position. Machen fought it, but there was very little that was at his disposal to withstand it. And so we come to the summer of 1929. Machen packs up his room there. He stayed in that hall that was there on the seminary campus, up on the top floor. He packs up his room there, and he takes his belongings and crosses the Delaware River. Maybe it was a little bit like George Washington crossing at night, I don't know. But he crosses the Delaware river and goes to Philadelphia. Machen, as you might remember, has significant financial resources at his disposal. And so he uses those resources, buys a brownstone there in the streets of Philadelphia and puts out the shingle. And In September of 1929, Machen opens Westminster Theological Seminary. In the throes of the Great Depression, starting a theological institution at any time is a challenge. Starting one in the midst of a Great Depression is another altogether. But Machen did it because there must be the carrying on of the tradition of old Princeton that a theological seminary, a theological institution of higher education, is essential to the lifeblood of a denomination because it's what provides a denomination with its pastors. And if Princeton had sold its birthright, what is going to happen? Decade after decade, graduating class after graduating class of moderates and progressives and liberals are going to be sent into the pulpits of the church and into positions of leadership in the denomination? And so Machen founds Westminster Theological Seminary. He chooses the name on purpose because he saw his denomination as moving away from its commitment to its confessional standards, of the Westminster standards. And so this would be a seminary that would stand for the confessional standards of the Presbyterian Church, hence Westminster Seminary. And Machen finally gets to become a professor of apologetics at his own seminary. Well, another significant year happens in this era of new wineskins, and that is in 1933. Now, we'll return to this because we're going to talk about machenist churchmen. But in 1933, there's a very important document published called Rethinking Missions. Now, whenever you see the word rethinking, run away. That's a bad word, right? Like you're in a dating relationship and you're dating someone, and that person says, I think it's time we rethink this relationship. Well, that conversation is not going to end well for you. I can almost guarantee it. And so when someone says, let's rethink missions, that's not going to end well. And so that document begins to say missions needs to be about education and welfare and we need to downplay the proselytizing and the evangelization. You know why? It's disrespectful to these indigenous religions. These are just simply Western traditions that we are imposing on on these folks. It was a study. The Rethinking Missions report was a study done by a Harvard professor from 1931 to 1933 and then published in 1933. It was a study that involved the mission agencies of six denominations and it was a study that involved missions in India, Burma, China and Japan. The upshot was let's rethink missions away from evangelization and proselytization. And it's about well being and welfare of people. Well, Machen expected that the Board of Foreign Mission of his church, the Presbyterian Church, would denounce this report. And instead they didn't. They were silent. And not only were they silent, but significant leading missionaries within the Presbyterian Foreign Board of Missions were cheerleaders of this report all the way through. Machen wrote a 100 page response to this, but not just the report, mostly about how those elements of the report had already made their way into mission work of Presbyterian mission endeavors carried out around the world. He knew this through his ties with his students who went off to be missionaries and would write back to Machen of what they were encountering on the mission field of their fellow missionaries who were denying the gospel as Presbyterian missionaries. Machen put this together in a hundred page report for his presbytery, the Presbytery of New Brunswick, so that presbytery would approve it and then bring it to the floor of the General assembly so there could finally be a debate on the rethinking missions and put a flag in the ground and say this is where we stand on what missions is. Machen's report never made it out of the presbytery. They didn't even bring it for a vote in the presbytery. It was just simply shelved and put aside. So the next year, 1934, Machen writes that report and then he forms the independent board of for Presbyterian Foreign Mission. Well, his presbytery seizes on that because now Machen has set up a board that is a competitor with a denominational agency and his presbytery sees that as a violation of his ordination vows. And so in 1935, his presbytery charges him with violating his ordination vows. That does go up to the General assembly and in 1936, Machen is kicked out of the Presbyterian church of the U.S. now, for Machen, what he was doing was not a violation of his vows. It was actually the upholding of them. He could not in good conscience give his money to the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Mission, nor could he in good conscience train students at Westminster and then send them off under the auspices of this board. And so he felt compelled and saw no other way but which to establish a new mission board so that students of Westminster could be sent out under this new mission board, and a mission board that would uphold the Great Commission and the making of disciples and the proclamation of the gospel. And for that, Machen, in June of 1936, is kicked out of his denomination. So what does he do? June 11, 1936, he and 120 fellow ruling and teaching elders form a new denomination. They have their first general assembly. It meets on June 11, 1936. They meet just very quickly and say, let's get together again in November. So November 15 to 16, they have the second General Assembly. This is of 1936, same year. But really it's the first one Maachen preaches at that assembly on the constraining love of Christ, from 2 Corinthians, chapter 5. We are compelled to be ministers of the gospel because of the constraining love of Jesus Christ. And this will motivate us as a church, and this will motivate us in all that we do. Well, In December of 1936, one of these early adopters of this new denomination in North Dakota, church in North Dakota, just outside of Bismarck, had a dispute. And while there were many in the church that wanted to come into this new denomination, there were a few who were wondering about this, and it was causing a schism there in the church. And so Machen, by all accounts, is literally exhausted. In 1936, he's sick. He's visibly sick and ill because he's so exhausted through these four years of controversy. His colleagues beg him not to go. But he gets on the train anyway. After he recorded a few of his final radio addresses to be aired over wip. In fact, he records one that will be aired on January 1st. And in that recording, he says, we're entering a new year. And he says, I'm not sure what this new year will bring, but we know it will bring God's mercies and God's faithfulness to us. Well, while he's in North Dakota, he falls ill of pneumonia. He's hospitalized in those final days of December. And on January 1, 1937. He dies in Bismarck, North Dakota. He left behind a significant legacy of books and a significant legacy of helping us with significant issues. And so with that life as the context now, we can jump in in these next episodes to talk about that legacy of books that he left behind.