Toward A Sure Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Dilemma of Biblical Criticism
By Jeff McDonald, June 24, 2005
Toward A Sure Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Dilemma of Biblical Criticism 1881-1915; By Terry Chrisope (Ross-Shire U.K.; Mentor/Christian Focus Publications; 2000; 240 pages)
In the summer of 1936, the Presbyterian Church (USA) suspended New Testament scholar J. Gresham Machen from the ministry.
In the 1920s and ’30s, Machen established himself as one of the most outstanding Biblical scholars in the world. At the same time, he also became a critic of liberal theology and the liberal Presbyterian denominational hierarchy. He felt that certain parts of the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s mission agency had become beholden to liberal theology. In order to combat this problem, he created an independent Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions and was eventually suspended for this action.
What led Machen to oppose theological liberalism in the Presbyterian Church (USA) with so much intensity and vigor? Was it something that American Presbyterians did to him? Was it something that happened to him during the Presbyterian controversies of the 1920s and ’30s?
No. In order to thoroughly understand Machen’s militancy, we must go back to the year 1905. We must go back to the beginning of a period in Machen’s life that he called “the long and bitter experience.” Some Presbyterians are aware of Machen’s activity in the Presbyterian controversies of the 1920s and ’30s, but few know what caused him to take such an aggressive stand in these church disputes.
Machen’s stridency was precipitated by a severe intellectual and spiritual crisis that lasted nearly 10 years. Historian Terry Chrisope has written an important book that examines in detail Machen’s crisis of faith and how it was resolved. The primary focus of Chrisope’s study is Machen’s intellectual development and early scholarly writings, and is a historical study of Machen as a New Testament scholar. Chrisope gives us valuable information on why Machen entered into various church conflicts.
Part One of the book explores the rise of historical consciousness (historicism) and how it influenced Biblical studies in Europe and the United States. Chrisope discusses the nature of historicism and how it is connected to philosophical naturalism and relativism. During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, historicism became the dominant philosophical orientation amongst Biblical scholars, and this has had an enormous impact on the historical study of the Bible.
Part Two of Chrisope’s book examines Machen’s formative years. Machen grew up in a devout Presbyterian home that encouraged education. In 1901, he graduated from Johns Hopkins University, where he studied classics under renowned American classicist Basil Gildsersleeve. After college, Machen went through a period of career indecision. Eventually, he was persuaded by his pastor to attend Princeton Seminary.
At Princeton, Machen was mentored by theologian Francis Patton. Later, Machen wrote about Patton’s helpfulness in his intellectual struggles: “Never did a doubter and a struggler have a better friend than I did in this wonderfully eloquent and brilliant man.”
Theologian B.B. Warfield and New Testament scholar William Park Armstrong also influenced Machen at Princeton. Upon graduation in 1905, Machen chose to pursue advanced New Testament studies in the German universities of Gottingen and Marburg.
While in Germany, Machen studied under some of the greatest liberal theologians and Biblical scholars of the era. During this time, he also became convinced that he would never enter the ministry. Willliam Park Armstong, a professor of New Testament at Princeton, knew of Machen’s faith crisis and wrote to Machen to offer support. He described Machen’s crisis of faith as “severe.”
Many scholars of the period tried to harmonize modernism with evangelical orthodoxy. In Germany, Machen was attracted to the liberal theology of Wilhelm Hermann, but at the same time he believed that there was “a sharp disjunction between the new theology and traditional orthodox Christianity.” Machen regarded theological liberalism and Christian orthodoxy as two different sets of beliefs. However, at this stage in his life, he was unsure which set of beliefs was right.
Chrisope analyzes Machen’s problems in Germany and also explains how Machen was persuaded by Armstrong to come and teach at Princeton Seminary in 1906. In addition, Chrisope points out that even though Machen graduated from seminary in 1905, he was not ordained until 1914. He refused to be ordained until he resolved his doubts and could say with confidence that he believed what the church taught.
Chrisope carefully describes Machen’s crisis and how it affected his life and subsequent thought. He notes that, later in life, Machen constantly referred to his crisis of faith. According to Chrisope, Machen’s “intellectual upheaval may with good reason be regarded as the crucial formative event of Machen’s life, for from it flow his mature convictions with regard to the Bible and its historical study, the nature of Christianity, theological liberalism and its relationship to the church, and questions of intellectual and ecclesiastical integrity.”
Part Three of the book discusses Machen’s early writings and development as a scholar. Chapter six examines four scholarly essays that Machen published in 1912. These essays are important because they demonstrate how Machen’s faith began to move in the direction of certitude. In addition, Chrisope notes that in these essays Machen had “discerned Christianity’s greatest ideological opposition.” Chrisope writes, “Machen saw that the explanatory assumption of historicism, with its naturalistic implications, was the principle which provided the foundation both for theological liberalism and for biblical scholarship as it was commonly practiced.”
As a conservative Biblical scholar, Machen embraced the most modern methods of research but, unlike liberals, he was unwilling to adopt a naturalistic worldview that dismissed evidence a priori.
Part Four of Chrisope’s study examines how Machen’s later work in the 1920s and ’30s related to his earlier scholarship. Over the years, numerous Presbyterian Church (USA) scholars and church officials have been critical of Machen and his book Christianity and Liberalism (1923). In it, Machen asserts that liberal theology that is based on naturalistic assumptions is completely incompatible with Christianity. Chrisope makes us aware that, in 1995, two Evangelical Lutheran Church of America scholars analyzed Machen’s book on liberalism and offered some important comments. According to Walter Sundberg and Roy Harrisville, who teach at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., “J. Gresham Machen was right. What we have in the Enlightenment tradition of criticism is nothing less than another religion that supplants biblical faith.”
In the conclusion, Chrisope writes, “In the first place, it may be argued that events subsequent to Machen’s lifetime have served to vindicate his judgment that historic Christianity ceases to exist apart from confidence in the historical truthfulness of the Bible. The authoritative Bible,” he declared in 1909, “has been and is today the very foundation of popular Christianity … the Christianity that does without it has never exhibited the power to become anything more than a religion of the few.”
As the Presbyterian Church (USA) continues to decline numerically and experience theological confusion, it should revisit Machen’s ideas for help. In 1936, the Presbyterian Church (USA) suspended Machen in order to lessen the influence of his views. To not consider Machen’s ideas today would be intellectually irresponsible.
This writer would have appreciated more information on Machen’s period of study under the conservative classicists Basil Gildersleeve and Paul Shorey. These two scholars had an impact on Machen that is often overlooked. Despite this criticism, Chrisope should be commended for providing such an extensive analysis of Machen’s scholarship. This book is a fine historical study that deserves serious attention by scholars and those seeking to reform the Presbyterian Church (USA).
For ministers and lay people who want to understand the intellectual origins of our contemporary Presbyterian conflict, this book is exceedingly helpful. In addition, Machen’s life story may offer help to those who are experiencing intellectual and spiritual difficulties of their own. Machen’s thoughts on theological liberalism should be taken seriously by all Presbyterians.