J. Gresham Machen Bibliography

Letter to Macartney May 9, 1936 Rev. Clarence E. Macartney, D.D., First Presbyterian Church, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Dear Macartney:

Having deliberated very carefully in- deed with regard to the matter which you brought to my attention yesterday after- noon, I am, as you suggested, writing to tell you just exactly how I feel.

First, I want to say again what I tried very imperfectly to say that your willingness to defend me before the Permanent Judicial Commission delights and gratifies me very greatly indeed. I feel, as you can well imagine, very highly honored by it. Your review of my recent book, especially just at this time, touched my heart. I rejoice very greatly, also, in the knowledge that, unlike Dr. Craig, you are firmly convinced that we of The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions have a full right under the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. to form that Board and to be members of it. I regret, therefore, the more, to feel compelled to say that I do not think it would be right for me to ask you to act as my counsel. My only comfort in doing so is that from your exceedingly sympathetic and broad-minded attitude yesterday I got the impression that you will not be offended but will understand why I take the position that I do.

Certainly my taking this position is not due to any low estimate of your effective- ness as an advocate. On the contrary it is, in a way, a testimony to my sense of your effectiveness. If you were some ob- scure and ordinary person, I could, with- out risk, let you appear as my counsel and be known as such before the world, even though your position was not exactly the same as mine. But, as it is, anything that you might say would be attributed to me, and despite all manner of dis- avowals on your part and on my part, it would be taken by the public generally to be a statement of my position.

Just envisage, for example, what might happen after this decision of the Perma- nent Judicial Commission is rendered. Suppose the issue were evaded. Suppose I got off with a light sentence. That, to my mind, would be the greatest possible calamity which could befall the evan- gelical cause at the present time. I do not think it is likely to happen. But sup- pose it did happen. Then, after the trial was over, you would be interviewed. What you would say would be said not only by the Rev. Clarence E. Macart- ney, D.D., ex-moderator of the General Assembly, but by counsel for J. Gresham Machen. Just because you are the most distinguished conservative preacher in America, anything that you would say would be said, so far as the press is con- cerned, through a tremendous loud speaker.

Under these circumstances, since your position is not just the same as mine, there would be really a very serious risk that my position on the Church would be seriously misrepresented. I should risk being in the position of letting my col- leagues in the Independent Board down, and obscuring what we stand for.

Of course, I might find it difficult to define in a few words just what the dif- ference between your position and mine is. I rather think that it is something like this that you desire our continuation for the present in the present organiza- tion of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., hoping that there will be reform of that Church or hoping that evan- gelicalism may prosper by such continua- tion; whereas I, on the other hand, am longing for a division, and hoping and praying with all my soul that the division may come soon. I am perfectly convinced that the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. is an apostate Church at its very heart. I do not think there is any blessing of God for us so long as we continue in such an apostate organization.

That difference of attitude, I think, would be bound to appear in anything that you would say. You might claim with all your might the fact that you were speaking for yourself alone and not for me. But the newspapers would never get that fine point if you had been actually asked by me to be my counsel.

As it is, I have a man as my counsel who is a member of the Independent Board and is just as guilty as I am supposing that I am guilty at all. I can with great confidence say that Mr. Grif- fiths speaks for me not only before the Permanent Judicial Commission but also to the newspapers. You will understand just as readily as I understand it that I cannot say exactly that with respect to you. I rejoice with all my soul in the measure of our agreement, and particular- ly does it delight me to know, from our conversation yesterday, that that agree- ment is even more extensive and more cordial than I thought that it was.

But one guiding star has been before me in all this matter. It has been this principle that anyone who represents me in this occasion, which I think is an historic occasion, should represent my view in the most thoroughgoing way. That is the reason why I have not done what some of my colleagues have done. I have not asked various persons to speak for me. But I have asked Griffiths alone to speak for me. I feel that the relation- ship, in an ecclesiastical case like this, as distinguished from a civil case, between accused and counsel is a very intimate relationship indeed. It is not a narrowly ecclesiastical matter, but it is a matter where the deepest convictions of one soul are being represented.

Now, as I say, there are many men to whom, if I said a thing like this, I should be giving offence. I do not think that that is so in your case. In fact, I feel very confident that it is not. I have admired tremendously the broadminded- ness and sympathy with which you under- stand just how I feel. You showed yester- day that you understand just how I feel. You know perfectly well what my admira- tion for you is, and you are, I am sure, not going to interpret this decision as being any denial at all of that admiration.

I hope that we may some day be not partly but altogether one in our attitude toward ecclesiastical matters. Meanwhile, I want to tell you that from the bottom of my heart I am grateful for your in- dignation against the injustice to which we have been subjected and for the high honor which you have certainly done me by being willing to defend so exceedingly unpopular a man as I am before the Permanent Judicial Commission.

There is one more thing that I ought to say, although, in view of our conver- sation of yesterday, I doubt whether it is necessary that I should say it. It is simply that I of course do not desire to do evil that good may come. I think that the evil which this Permanent Judicial Com- mission is doing will result in the great good of a separation of evangelical forces in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. from an apostate ecclesiastical machine. But I cannot acquiesce in that evil for one moment, and therefore I am adopting every legitimate means of presenting my case even before that Modernist Per- manent Judicial Commission of the Pres- byterian Church in the U.S.A.

If that Permanent Judicial Commission should acquit me, I should adopt every means of forcing the issue immediately in some other way. But that is a most unlikely contingency, and I think it would be extremely unlikely even if you had appeared before the courts of the Church in my defense.

Cordially yours, J. GRESHAM MACHEN