11
April 1933 A.D. Machen v. Speers Re:
Theology & Missions
The PCA historians tell the story at: http://www.thisday.pcahistory.org/2014/04/april-11/
April 11: Machen Debates Speer (1933)
Be Ready Always
The day of the debate had brought a crowd of Presbyterian
elders to the sanctuary of the Fourth Presbyterian Church on that day
of April 11, 1933.
The topic was “Modernism on the Mission Field.” And the two individuals
engaging in the debate were two “heavies” on opposite sides of the issue.
Dr. J. Gresham Machen was the recognized leader of the
conservatives in the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. Founder and
president of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he
was still a member minister of the New Brunswick, New Jersey Presbytery, though
he had tried unsuccessfully to transfer to the Philadelphia Presbytery.
Against him was Dr. Robert Speer, present head of the Board of Foreign Missions
of the Presbyterian Church, U.S.A.
Dr. Machen began his presentation with a proposed
overture from the Presbytery of New Brunswick to the General Assembly of
1933. The first two of four parts are the key ones, which I will quote
word for word from the April 1933 Christianity Today article, and sum up the
other two.
Point 1 of his overture was: “To take care to elect to
positions of the Board of Foreign Missions only persons who are fully aware of
the danger in which the Church stands and who are determined to insist on
such verities as the full truthfulness of Scripture, the virgin birth of
our Lord, His substitutionary death as a sacrifice to satisfy divine justice,
His bodily resurrection and His miracles, as being essential to the Word of
God and our Standards, as being necessary to the message which every
missionary under our church shall proclaim.”
In essence, this first proposition simply summed up the
Declarations of the General Assembly’s five fundamentals which were considered
as essential for the Church, its boards, and its ministers. It
specifically repudiated the denials of the same by the Auburn Affirmation in
1924.
Proposition 2 of the proposed overture sought to
“instruct the Board of Foreign Missions that no one who denies the absolute
necessity of acceptance of such verities by every candidate for this ministry
can possibly be regarded as a candidate to occupy the position of
Candidate Secretary.”
This proposition addressed the important place which the
Candidate Secretary has in ascertaining the theological convictions which each
missionary candidate has to serve on the Foreign Field. In other words,
in people such as Pearl Buck, who was openly denying the exclusiveness of the
gospel of Christ, it is obvious that the Candidate Secretary had “missed the
boat” in approving her as being a missionary to China.
The third proposition summed up that those who held that
the tolerance of opposing views was more important than an unswerving
faithfulness in the proclamation of the Gospel as it is contained in the Word
of God, show themselves to be unworthy of being missionaries of the cross.
This proposition was aimed at those who had accepted the
fundamental viewpoint of the book, “Rethinking Missions,” that denied the
exclusivity of the gospel.
The last proposition sought to warn the Board of the
great dangers lurking with union enterprises in view of wide-spread error.
Dr. Speer for his part of the “debate” simply dismissed
each of the overture propositions. When the vote was taken on
Dr. Machen’s proposed overture, it was voted down by the Presbytery of New
Brunswick, with a majority voting in favor of confidence in the Board of
Foreign Missions. Dr. Machen, Rev. Samuel Craig, and Dr. Casper Wistar
Hodge asked that their names be recorded in dissent of the motion.
For a fuller account of the debate, click here.
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