7 June
1936 A.D. Clarence Macartney’s Pulpit Comments Upon Machen’s
Suspension from Ministry
Archivist. “June
7: We Love Him for the Enemies He Has
Made.” This Day in Presbyterian Ministry.
7 June 2014. http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/06/june-7/. Accessed 7 June
2014.
June 7: “We love him
for the enemies he has made.”
Clarence Macartney’s Pulpit Comments upon Machen’s
Suspension from the Ministry:
Comments by Dr. C.E. Macartney on the Suspension of Dr.
J. Gresham Machen from the Ministry of the Presbyterian Church. Made at
the Morning Service at the First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
on Sunday, June 7, 1936.
The moderator elected this time at the General Assembly is Dr. Masters, an able
moderator and the most conservative we have had since two moderators well known
to this congregation.
Dr. Machen seems to have a great many enemies. When Senator _________ nominated
Grover Cleveland the second time for the Presidency in the Democratic
Convention at Chicago, he brought the throng to their feet with his historic
utterance, “We love him for the enemies he has made,” so although Dr. Machen
has a great many enemies he has not a few friends who love him and respect him
for the kind of enemies he has made.
The General Assembly suspended Dr. Machen from the ministry of the Presbyterian
Church. He is not suspended from the Communion of the Church but he is
stripped of all the prerogatives of a minister. He cannot perform any of
the duties of his office within the Presbyterian Church until such time as he
shall obey the mandate of the General Assembly of 1934. Since he will
never do that it means the withdrawal from the Church of Dr. Machen.
Having been his classmate at Princeton and knowing him much better perhaps than
some of his enemies, I am glad in this public way to testify my affection for
him, my confidence in the purity of his character and the sincerity of his
motives, my admiration for his pre-eminent scholarship, his superb intellect,
and his clear discernment of the unbelief and apostasy which is spreading
within the Christian Church, and my deep regret and sorrow that such a man should
be lost to the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. At
other crises in the history of the Church notable figures have been suspended
from the ministry or voluntarily have withdrawn from the Communion of the
Church because they were charged with unbelief, but here we have a man
suspended from the Ministry of the Presbyterian Church who is known throughout
the world as a fearless and able defender of the Faith of the Gospel. The
suspension of Dr. Machen from the Ministry of our Church will do him no injury;
it will only increase his influence and add to the far-flung echo of his
voice. He is suspended from the Ministry of the Presbyterian Church of
the United States of America but few if any will think of him as suspended from
the Ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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