Posted on 11/08/2009 10:34:47 AM PST by Gamecock
Foreword
The action of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, meeting at San Francisco, in adopting the Report of the Special Committee to visit Princeton Theological Seminary, has raised an issue upon which the entire future character of the institution depends. In treating of this issue, I shall not deal with the personal attack that has been made upon me. My real sorrow has been due not to the personal indignity that I have suffered by the actions of the last two General Assemblies, but to the fact that I have been the occasion, though certainly not the underlying cause, of the danger which now besets the Seminary. That fact gives me, I think, a right to say something in defence of the institution that I so dearly love. There are others far better qualified than I – both by their own ability and by their official position – to defend the institution, and no doubt they will defend it. But since my name has been given such a special, though purely accidental, prominence, I think that I may be permitted to say what my attitude is. In doing so, I am speaknig in my own name alone. Since many things have been said about my views regarding the situation, some of them true and some of them untrue, I think that I have a right to say plainly, for myself, what those views are.
I. For What Does Princeton Seminary Stand?
For over one hundred years Princeton Theological Seminary has stood firmly for the full truthfulness of the Bible as the Word of God and for the vigorous defence and propagation of the Reformed or Calvinistic system of doctrine, which is the system of doctrine that the Bible teaches. This conservative stand of the institution has been due – certainly since 1870, when the present method of electing the professors was introduced – simply and solely to the conservative majority in the Board of Directors. But now, by action of the last General Assembly, that Board is to be dissolved and the control of the institution is to be placed in different hands. What is now a majority in the affairs of the Seminary is to become a minority, and the policy of the institution is to be reversed.
Both parties in the present debate are, indeed, professing adherence to “the historic position” of Princeton Seminary. Even the Board of Trustees, the Board which, as distinguished from the Board of Directors, has had charge of the material, as distinguished from the spiritual, affairs of the institution, has professed such adherence. But since one member of the committee which the Trustees have appointed to co-operate in effecting the proposed reorganization, is actually a signer of the “Auburn Affirmation,” it is evident that the term, “historical theological position of Princeton Theological Seminary,” must be used by the Trustees in a sense widely different from ours. The Auburn Affirmation asserts as plainly as words can express it that even acceptance of the virgin birth and of certain other basic articles of our faith is not necessary for the ministry of the presbyterian church. Does such an Affirmation represent the Princeton position? To anyone who knows the history of Princeton Seminary, the answer will not be difficult.
The truth is that despite all differences of opinion it is not impossible, whatever one’s own personal attitude may be, to determine what the Princeton position is. The question what that position is, is quite distinct from the question whether it is right or wrong. And with regard to the former question, as distinguished from the latter, there is a certain unanimity of opinion among outside observers whether they are friends or foes. Princeton Seminary is known for what it really is, not only by those who have hitherto controlled its destinies, but also by a great host of opponents throughout the world.
What, then, is it for which we at Princeton stand?
Tune in next week for part two.
The man whom I knew born earliest in time (b.1876), an old Prebyterian minister and missionary to China, was a Princeton Seminary graduate.
Ah, the prophet Machen in an ECUMENICAL discussion.
Historically speaking, wasn’t Machen found to be guilty of insubordination to church authorities and stripped of his ordination, then went on to start his own church?
Yup.
Have anything to add, in an ecumenical spirit of course!
BTW, it wouldn’t hurt you to read “Christianity and Liberalism” to get a sense of the roots of what is going on in America today.
Nope.
He left an apostate church and the conservative body left with him.
This is hardly a religious or philosophical or theological article — all Machen talks about is Princeton Seminary. This is not really a discussion about beliefs, rather about “hoorah for the old school!”
“This conservative stand of the institution has been due – certainly since 1870....”
We went to a church that hired a second paster. He gave a sermon on how the story of Mary being a virgin and giving birth to Jesus was just a story - no way could it happen. We had him over for dinner to discuss it. I asked him about the Resurection. Yep - just a story. We told him that we would no longer be members of the church (choir, deacons, etc.)
Another young gal (working towards her minister position) gave a sermon at another church and the following week sent home a letter saying how she was gay. She had read the Bible extensively and talked with her counselors about it and that it fit well with Christianity. She is getting “married” this spring.
Both graduates of Princeton Seminary.
Yup.
The seeds of that were sown long ago, which Machen foresaw.
As a result the Reformed corner of Christianiyt now has conservatice seminaries such as Westminsiter Theological Seminary in Philadelphia.
You may have noticed that when selecting "Topics" on new threads on of the "Categories" is History, which is defined as History of religion, religion and secular history.
What happened at Princeton certainly falls under that criteria.
Hmmm... valid. And thanks!
Nope. He left an apostate church and the conservative body left with him.
Get your facts straight.
Machen left the Princeton to start WTS in 1929
He was suspended from his church in 1935/36
OPC was founded in 1936
Machen died 6 month later
“You guys need to learn about the fractured nature of Presbyterian history”
You need to learn to tell the whole story.
“The occasion for starting a new Presbyterian church over against the huge Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. was that on March 29, 1935, Machen’s Presbytery in Trenton, New Jersey, found him guilty of insubordination to church authorities3 and stripped him of his ordination. An appeal was taken to the General Assembly at Syracuse in the summer of 1936, but failed.
The reason for the charge of insubordination was that Machen had founded an independent board of foreign missions in June of 1933 to protest the fact that the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions endorsed a laymen’s report (called Rethinking Missions) which Machen said, was “from beginning to end an attack upon the historic Christian faith.”4
He pointed out that the board supported missionaries like Pearl Buck in China, who represented the kind of evasive, noncommittal attitude toward Christian truth that Machen thought was destroying the church and its witness. She said, for example, that if some one existed who could create a person like Christ and portray him for us, “then Christ lived and lives, whether He was once one body and one soul, or whether He is the essence of men’s highest dreams.”5
How serious was it that Machen could not give or endorse giving to this board? The General Assembly gave answer in Cleveland in 1934 with this astonishing sentence:
A church member . . . that will not give to promote the officially authorized missionary program of the Presbyterian Church is in exactly the same position with reference to the Constitution of the Church as a church member . . . that would refuse to take part in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper or any other prescribed ordinance of the denomination.6
Thus Machen was forced by his own conscience into what the church viewed as the gravest insubordination and disobedience to his ordination vows, and removed him from the ministry. Hence the beginning of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
A few years earlier Machen had left Princeton Seminary to found Westminster Seminary. That time, he wasn’t forced out, but chose freely to leave when the governing boards of the seminary were reorganized so that the conservative board of Directors could be diluted by liberals7 more in tune with President Stevenson and with the denomination as a whole.8”
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Biographies/1464_J_Gresham_Machens_Response_to_Modernism/
Thanks for that and confirming that Machen was stripped of his ordination and booted from the ministry.
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