28
July 1881 A.D. Birth
of Prof. J.Gresham Machen—“Old School” Princetonian and Founder of Westminster
Theological Seminary, Philadelphia
Graves,
Dan. “Fundamentalist Leader John Gresham Machen.” Christianity.com. http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1801-1900/fundamentalist-leader-john-gresham-machen-11630600.html. Accessed 14 May 2014.
J Gresham Machen was born into southern aristocracy
in Baltimore, Maryland on this day, July
28, 1881. Through inheritances, he became wealthy as a young man. At one
time and another, his grandfather on his mother's side and his own father each
left him $50,000 in a day when a family could live well on $3,000 a year. His
financial circumstances freed him to study in Europe and later to support
Christian publications and Christian work.
But his family left him more than money. They gave
him an inheritance of Southern views, social connections and solid achievement.
His cultured mother was from Macon, Georgia and published a book titled The
Bible in Browning when J. Gresham was 22. His father was a successful lawyer
from Baltimore. Woodrow Wilson was a friend of the family.
J. Gresham was reared Presbyterian. Schooled in the
Westminster Confession and the Bible, he would later say that at twelve he had
a better understanding of the Scripture than many older students entering
seminary.
Although he is known as a conservative champion of
traditional Calvinism against modernism, under the influence of German liberals
he almost became a liberal himself. In the end, his conviction that the Bible
was true and his assurance that Christ lives today, made him an ally of the
fundamentalists, a group who held to certain "fundamental" truths. He
was ordained in 1914, after discovering that Christ "keeps a firmer hold on
us than we keep on him."
J. Gresham's battles against modernism were mostly
waged at Princeton Seminary. He insisted that Modernist Christianity and Bible Christianity were two
different religions. As the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. began to adopt
Modernist ideas he fought the drift. Typical Modernists doubted the truth of
the Resurrection of Christ, forsook the Virgin Birth, and were skeptical of
miracles and of the Bible's accuracy. On the other side, J. Gresham defended
all these things.
His most famous book was The Virgin Birth of
Christ. In it he answered objection after objection. He began by showing that
the doctrine was very old and that differences in Matthew and Luke could be
reconciled. He argued that the virgin birth was a crucial element of the whole
story of Jesus: "Remove the part and the whole becomes harder not easier
to accept; the New Testament account of Jesus is most convincing when it is
taken as a whole."
Eventually J. Gresham Machen felt that to be consistent,
he had to leave Princeton. He founded Westminster Seminary to reclaim truths
that he saw being thrown away. Next he formed the Independent Board for
Presbyterian Missions because some Presbyterian missionaries (such as Pearl S.
Buck) made statements that watered down faith in Christ. He was suspended from
the ministry for creating this schism. So he founded the Presbyterian Church of
America, known today as the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
He died of overwork in 1936, preaching and
traveling right up to the day before he died.
Bibliography:
1. Machen, J. Gresham. The Virgin
Birth of Christ. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1930.
2. Piper, John. "J. Gresham
Machen's Response to Modernism." http://www.desiringgod.org/library/
biographies/93machen.html
3. Russell, C. Allyn. Voices of
American Fundamentalism. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1976.
Last updated July, 2007
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