J. Gresham Machen Bibliography

Transcription

Camden Busey: Welcome to Christ the Center, your weekly conversation of Reformed theology. My name is Camden Busey and this is episode number 441 and it’s a special one. June 11, 2016 marks the 80th anniversary of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And as I’m recording, the OPC is meeting in Sandy Cove, Maryland for its 83rd General Assembly.

Now, the OPC has a storied history that many of you know. It includes figures such as J. Gressom Machen, Cornelius Van Till, John Murray and Ned Stonehouse, just to name a few. But anyone familiar with the denomination’s history will also know another name, the name John P. Galbraith. On April 26, 2016, I had the privilege of speaking with Mr. Galbraith about his life and his ministry. A very long one at that. At the time of the interview, he was 103 years old.

About a month later, I was also able to speak with Reverend Danny Olinger, who serves as the General secretary of the OPC’s Committee on Christian Education. Danny possesses an uncanny ability to remember Orthodox Presbyterian history. He’s really kind of the Lord’s gift to the church of a living encyclopedia. And he uses that gift on the OPC’s committee for the historian.

So in this special episode, we’re going to take a new format, doing something of a type of documentary or an audio history, weaving in and out my interviews with the Reverend John P. Galbraith and Danny Olinger to tell a story, to paint a portrait not only of a special man, a servant in God’s church, but a portrait of a denomination as told through the life experiences of one of its faithful servants. So here’s me now speaking with Danny Olinger about the Reverend John P. Galbraith.

Danny Olinger: John Galbraith is the oldest living minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, probably the most decorated minister in the history of our church. He grew up in Philadelphia. His father was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church when the Presbyterian controversy came along and the whole family backed nature.

And so when the OPC was formed in on June 11, 1936, Mr. Galbraith was one of the individuals there that he was a 23 year old student at Westminster Seminary entering his final year and he was one of the signatures upon the document in regard to the founding of the church. At that time he was laity, but he got close to Machen, was very good friends with Machen. Mr. Galbraith had played football at Muskington College in Ohio and Machen loved football. So they would go to see the Penn and Princeton Football games and did all sorts of stuff like that together. And they were very close.

And so it was, you know, it impacted Mr. Yao Braith when Machen died on January 1, 1937, greatly, that Mr. Yaobraith was very loyal to the cause and turned out to be more loyal than practically anyone.

Camden Busey: As I was setting up the microphones to record with Mr. Galbraith, I asked him about Machen’s radio program. Mr. Galbraith told me that he not only participated in it and enjoyed it, but that he actually funded the endeavor.

John P. Galbraith: He did that with a lot of things he paid for. Of course, he paid for the seminary to begin with. I thought, well, you know, that was kind of ironic. Machen believed that downtown was the best place for starting a church because there were more people and more kinds of people.

And he also thought that it was a good place to hear different kinds of preaching. There were some good churches and some that weren’t so good. And he thought that the variety was good. There were a lot of good churches downtown for years, and he favored that. So he was one who believed in diversity. He was easy to talk to. And also he had a good foreign vocabulary, and he was able to converse with people of different races. And so he was a good witness.

Camden Busey: This is later on, I suppose, but when he passed away, you said that he had financed the seminary and he had a heart for the seminary in the city. But when he passed away, at some point the seminary moved. Did Machen have any thoughts about that, or what was that like on campus? Because were you present for that move?

John P. Galbraith: I had graduated by that time.

Camden Busey: But you were.

John P. Galbraith: That was a very, very ironic move. Here he was favoring downtown work. It was no sooner than they put him in his grave that they started planning to buy a property out in the suburbs. And that just carried that through. That always made me wonder where the intelligence of the seminary people was, because at least that did not fit in with his wishes. I never heard any objection to the move. Everybody thought it was such a great buy.

Camden Busey: Really?

John P. Galbraith: Yeah. Well, it was cheap, you know, and it was only, I think, something like $65,000 for that large property and buildings. And so there was no arguing it.

Camden Busey: Did you know Machen before Westminster?

John P. Galbraith: No, not before Westminster, no.

Camden Busey: Now, you were part of the laity who was involved when the OPC was formed, right? Even before it was the opc?

John P. Galbraith: Yes.

Camden Busey: How did that come about in your personal life?

John P. Galbraith: Well, I was a student. Within six months of graduating, he died on January 1, 19, 1937. And so I Graduated in the first class that graduated.

Camden Busey: After he died, Danny was able to share with me a clip from the OPC archives of Rev. Galbraith speaking about Machen years ago, he

John P. Galbraith: died in the midst of a course that I had with him in Second Corinthians, and I had taken another exegetical course with him. That’s where I learned exegesis, The carefulness with which he would either draw or refuse to draw a conclusion. It was a marvelous experience.

Camden Busey: But it was Mr. Galbraith’s relationship with Machen, as well as his experiences at the seminary and with the founding of the denomination, really forged him and prepared him and set a trajectory for him and his life in ministry. Here’s Danny Olinger once again speaking about those early days.

Danny Olinger: He was ordained that May, went to a church in Philadelphia, Gethsemane Church, and pastored there. He became prominent in the OPC, really, in 1940 when he wrote a little tract. What is the OPC? It’s the largest selling track in the history of our church. And it defended the. Yeah, defended the existence of the opc. And so that’s really how he got his name more prominently out there. It was through that traction.

Camden Busey: That tract crystallizes an identity and encapsulates a pilgrim theology that Mr. Galbraith knew and understood, an ideology, a way of life that he embodied.

Danny Olinger: He saw it as a church as stood by the Scriptures, a Reformed church. That was very important to Mr. Galbraith, that this was going to be a church, that the truth of the Scriptures and the Reformed faith were paramount. And he expressed that in the Lord pamphlet, and it sold all through the 40s and 50s, was reissued in the 1960s, particularly before the Confession of 67 came out. But that really established him as someone who knew the issues, could articulate them very well.

And his integrity, everyone who has ever encountered Mr. Galbraith in any situation, his integrity is just unmatched. The way he carried himself, the way he handled himself in arguments. You felt honored actually, to have him as your adversary because he just took the best line of argumentation, the most straightforward and his, of that generation where he fought so well. And he was. He had considered becoming a lawyer, but, you know, he. The Lord was working on his heart, and he, you know, entered Westminster to become a minister, but he, all through the 40s, was right.

Involved in all the controversies, the Clark controversy and others, and actually was the moderator of the 1947 Journal assembly, which was the sort of the finish to the Clark controversy when Floyd Hamilton was not sent to Korea. And Mr. Galbraith was actually moderating that assembly in Wisconsin.

And then the next year he was named General Secretary of Home and Foreign Admissions and then oversaw, I would say, I know this is a biased opinion, but probably the most successful foreign missions endeavor of the Protestant church in the 20th century, and that would be the OPC mission to Korea with Bruce Hunt. And Mr. Galbraith was the General Secretary that oversaw that labor.

Camden Busey: Here’s Mr. Galbraith speaking about his transition out of pastoral ministry into foreign missions.

John P. Galbraith: The starting of the thank offering indicated an interest in and an ability to work with a diverse group of people, come up with new ideas and things of that sort. So that went well. So I was thankful for that. Now the big difference in that was that it did cause a lot of. Moving around, traveling. I did travel a lot in this country and then when I didn’t travel a lot in the first years of my ministry there, but I did travel and I traveled more particularly into the orn. But I also went to.

Camden Busey: Did you ever go to Eritrea or Ethiopia?

John P. Galbraith: I went first to Japan and Korea and Taiwan, which were fields that we had.

Danny Olinger: It was really incredible in that we were a church born out of the foreign missions controversy and we went to places that were very high risk. We were in war torn areas from the very beginning. Ethiopia, Eritrea, Manchuria, Korea, Japan. These were the hot spots on the globe and this is where we were. And we really had little money to pay for our missionaries. Many of them have started out with the Independent Board, but then out of conviction had switched over to the opc. And we really struggled to pay our missionaries.

Robert Marsden and then Mr. Galbraith, particularly through the 40s and early 50s, would almost bimonthly determine this church planner can get this much money this month and this missionary can get this much money next month. But we were always, we didn’t have enough money. And when Mr. Galbraith became general secretary in 1948, he realized this immediately. We were running about a $25,000 deficit in paying our missionaries a year, which doesn’t seem like much now, but for a small, tiny church like ours, that was a very huge deficit. So he immediately instituted, or he came with a plan. He instituted the thank offering in order to make up that deficit and then to have something to move forward with. And so he instituted that in 1949.

But for Korea, Bruce Hunt had been there and had been imprisoned when the Japanese, when the conflict occurred in 1940, 41. And he. The incredible testimony you could read about Hunt’s imprisonment But Hunt had went back and had done great work, you know, and. But it had been. The torture had left Hunt. There were times when Hunt was physically and mentally exhausted from everything that occurred. So Mr. Galbraith really had to help Hunt in regard to getting back on the field in Korea. And they did.

As soon as they did, the Korean conflict broke out. And so we were. There were things going on. We had appointed the Hards, Ted and Grace Hard to go in 1952. And Grace was like, seven months pregnant. She was just an incredible lady. And they get over there and they’re having trouble getting through the, you know, the. The border and what do you do during this conflict?

And see, Mr. Galbraith was the person behind the scenes that would work with the US Government and would work with the nationals, the locals in Korea in regard to getting things established. So he did all of the spade work that allowed our missionaries then to serve on the field in these very tough areas. And the same thing happened in that. We went to Taiwan. We had missionaries in China, but after the communist revolution in 1949, we couldn’t be there. And so we had to make a choice between going to Singapore or Taiwan. And we thought that our missionaries might be safer in Taiwan. And we also thought that Chinese Christian exiles would probably go to Taiwan more than Singapore. So we sent Richard Gaffin, which would be Dr. Richard Gaffin Jr. S father, to Taiwan and. And also Egbert Andrews, and they. They established a Taiwan mission. And Mr. Yao Braith was basically the one working with them to make the decision on you leave China. You know, this. This revolution is going on. You know, what do you do? Where do you end up? So he was working with them to get them there. So these are the type of things he did over and over again as General Secretary.

And he was just amazing at it. He served until 1978, and he retired at 65, and then he spent the next 40 years basically serving the OPC. And next 30 years, I should say, serving the OPC in other roles, very prominent roles. So it’s one of these retirements in which I can’t imagine anyone being more active in retirement than Mr. Galbraith was, except maybe Dr. Gaffin. Now, it is the same thing. Is that so involved in the church? So both of them remind me, they retire and then they just give themselves endlessly to the church. He twice was the stated clerk of the denomination. He served on every denominational committee. He’s basically.

He served 40 years, for instance, on the Pensions Committee with helping to establish it With Gary Hogerhide and others. He served on the Christian Education, made two stints, including when I became General Secretary. He was on the committee. It was an incredible help. He served on the form of Government revisions committee for 40 years. He served on ecumenicity for 30 years as a member, 20 some years as president, but even before that for a general. You know, basically there are two ecumenical figures in the history of the opc. The first was Ned B. Stonehouse, who was just wonderful at getting the OPC to connect with the larger Reformed world through his Dutch connections.

Well, when stonehouse died in 1962, Mr. Galbraith took up that mantle and he represented us at every major ecumenical event for the next 30 some years. I mean, he was at the center of it and he was often the leader of these giant councils. He was like president of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod and president of napark. He just did it all. He served on the committees to revise, you know, to establish the proof text for the standards. I’m pretty sure he’s been on committees. He was on the committee in regard to seeing if we would merge with the crc, seeing if we would merge with the rpcga, see if we would join with the pca. He served on all those committees.

I’m missing a ton of stuff. I mean, he always attended General assembly. Up until 2002, he was at every single General assembly, which is incredible. And then the last assembly he attended officially was 2006. So at 93 was the last one he attended. But for many years, as soon as I would get home from the assembly here in Philadelphia, I would go over and he would demand the full report, the absolute full report of what happened at the assembly. And so Mr. Galbraith has just given his life to the church. And as far as one carrying on Machen’s vision of a Reformed Church, Mr. Galbraith carried that mantle well.

Camden Busey: But Machen wasn’t Mr. Galbraith’s only influence.

Danny Olinger: One of Mr. Galbraith’s theological heroes was R.B. kuyper. His professor at Westminster loved Kuyper. Deep friendship with Kuyper and Kuyper’s ecclesiology really impacted Mr. Galbraith. And so he did self consciously believe that the church should operate in a function that was not parachurch, was not just everyone doing their own thing, but rather that we were all united in this. And so he, in everything that Mr. Galbraith did, he led with that.

So he’s probably also the greatest ecumenical figure in the history of our church. And he really spent a lifetime battling the perception that the OPC was isolationist. Mr. Galbraith would say the OPC is a reformed church, therefore we’re based upon the Bible and we’re. In that sense, we’re a separatist church. But we’re always ecumenical. There’s an ecumenical imperative that we must strive towards being one in the truth and in the Scriptures. And so that drove him and everything he did.

And so in regard to then operating internally as a General Secretary of Foreign Missions and the thank offering, he was thinking how we could do this within the church and yet benefit our missions and not have this deficit and not to have special offerings all the time the church could prepare. And we’re going to have this one offering. You know what it’s going towards. It’s going to help the work of the church and the Great Commission and home and foreign missions and Christian education. And. And so he did that. And it’s been wonderful.

It’s interesting that the Reformed churches in the Netherlands in the 1980s called the OPC the Little Church with a big mouth. They were talking about Mr. Galbraith and they were talking about him because basically in the 1980s, no one was taking leadership to confront the GKN in the reformed Ecumenical Council regarding their liberal tendencies, the way they were going on everything. And so the OPC stepped up the plate. He did it. Now, I mean, the. The Reformed churches in the Netherlands were afraid to do it, see, because a lot of it’s interesting in that little country, you know, as Mr. Galbraith would explain, there was a lot of intermarriage. So you would. If you were attacking the GKN and you were in the Reformed churches and the nethers, you might be attacking a family member.

And so they. They wouldn’t do it. And then the Reformed churches in Africa at the time were dealing with apartheid. They had their own. They couldn’t step up to the plate. And then other churches in that council, they might have, you know, had a great interest, but you had to have a common language to speak at these ecumenical councils was English. And some of these other churches, the English was a. Was a struggle. And so who’s left? It’s the OPC. And so Mr. Galbraith, hey, you know, it needs to be done. It needs to be done. Right? You know, we were, you know, we’re not here for political reasons. We’re here because we love the word of God and love the church, love the Reformed church. And so that’s how the OPC steps into this leadership void and so, yeah, he’s the one basically, you know, leading the charge and we loved it. That had such a, such a great man in regard to integrity and commitment to the scriptures to try to help the Reformed world.

Camden Busey: Some people might think that a firm commitment to Reformed principles or a commitment to a confession, to be dogged about that and principled about it, firmly committed to a confession, would somehow be at odds with ecumenicity.

Danny Olinger: That’s exactly what he encountered and he fought that and he thought that you couldn’t be anything further from the truth. It’s that you wanted to have unity based upon the word of God. And so therefore why would you compromise that word of God in order to achieve the unity? Ultimately you’re going to end up with a weak union. Now he also is very, I love, love talking to Mr. Galbraith on why the OPC, for instance, historically has not made declarations, has not made these, these statements or had these resolutions, why we didn’t do that.

And Mr. Galbraith, let’s say it’s because the OPC, you know, you don’t, you know, we get people call up in the office and say, what’s the OPC’s decision on this or the OPC decision on that? He says, no, no, he says, that’s not what the Church does. The, what the Church does, it doesn’t make these declarations on its position. What the Church does is say the Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechism declares what the OPC believes based upon the word of God. And so you don’t make these, these, these take these position stands, rather you allow your secondary standards to declare this is what the Church believes.

And so he always led with the confessions as that, you know, as the, here’s the expression of the Reformed faith and allowed that then to stand up front. And he would say, therefore you did not prejudice the question. You had this ability then to enter into these negotiations and enter into these relationships on the basis of the word of God and the standards at the beginning we had to split in 1937 with Carl McIntyre. This is what the Bible Presbyterians did. They would take these position stands and they would make these declarations. And you know, it’s interesting that in 1948, 49, the McIntyre’s ICC was established and the OPC sent two representatives to meet with them. One was R.B. kuyper and the other was Nebby Stonehouse.

And Kuyper and Stonehouse came back to the OPC and said the Constitution is not what it should be and that you know it should be changed. But it’s interesting is that Stonehouse said, regardless, we should probably, you know, enter into this. And Kuyper said, no, we shouldn’t. Until they get that constitution changed and they stop doing these things, you know, that are, that they shouldn’t be doing. They’re quantifying acting like a church. And it’s interesting, Mr. Galbraith back RB Kuyper at the time and the OPC didn’t enter in. But those are the type of things are very interesting and very revealing in regard to how do you have a church that’s confessional, committed to the spirituality of the church, and yet is ecumenical. And those are the things that Mr. Galbraith through a lifetime worked through and that helped lead the OPC work through. He understood right away the significance of what they were leaving behind and the prestige. And yet he was all for the OPC going forward. Because if you’re not standing by the word of God, then what are you standing for?

And if you’re not standing by the historical person and work of Christ, you know, what else is there? And he understood that and I love that about him. And to have the passion and the, the intensity. When he was 94 years old, he would come over to my office and he would read through every line, every line of the Christian Aid report that we would send to the General assembly to make sure I had gotten it right. And we would talk about lines in paragraphs. It was just incredible, the passion he had to get it right.

Camden Busey: I guess there’s some sort of a difference here between a self professed pilgrim who still labors in a lost denomination versus a pilgrim who joins hands with other pilgrims and continues on their pilgrimage. You have a lot of those people who are more conservative, but they’re still not willing to break. They’re not willing to make a stand and leave the denomination. I grew up in a semi conservative PC USA church and they just viewed the denomination as those liberals out there. But it really doesn’t affect us here in the pew. But it does. And if you’re not willing to actually make a stand and leave and join with other people who are faithful and also making a stand, really, what are you standing for?

Danny Olinger: Well, Mr. Galbraith would applaud that. He would say, you’re exactly right. And he would say like he would say, look, for years the layman committee from the Presbyterian Church would have all these observations or critiques. They never did anything, you know, they never, there was never any action. There was never any ecclesiastical action. And you just in, if that’s what happens, you end up, you know, you end up losing it. And so, again, his. That’s a wonderful thing. I think about his generation and the influence of J. Cressim Machin and RB Kuyper. They had such a great ecclesiology. I mean, it was not. When they came to chapter 25, paragraph 2 of the confession, where it states that there’s ordinarily no possibility of salvation outside of the church. They really believed that, and they led with the church. And I love that about him, still love that about him. And, you know, that’s what I endeavor to be. I want to be a churchman in that sense, to stand by the word of God and the Confessions and to then serve those in the church. I think as pastors, you know, that’s what we all want to do also. And so it becomes, you know, Mr. God grief. I love him and the fact that he understands. Look, people are going to look at the OPC and say, oh, you’re isolationist. You’re separatist in a way that, you know, what good can you ever do? And he would say, look, if you compromise the word of God, what good will you ever do?

Camden Busey: Many people would agree with that sentiment. Many people have that commitment to the word of God. But it’s a much more difficult thing to actually take action. Here’s Danny Olinger speaking about some barriers to the pilgrim life, the life of the cross.

Danny Olinger: We are so affluent. We’re so blessed with material things. We’re so affluent. And even in the OP here, as I said in the OPC offices, our little denomination, for us, we’ve been so blessed. And sometimes we struggle with turning our back upon that. Mr. Galbraith, in the 1940s, when there were those leaving the church, they would often leave the church for the United Presbyterian Church. And they would say. They said to him repeatedly, you know, if. If the UP Church merged with the Presbyterian Church USA, we’ll come back to the OPC. Well, when that happened a decade later in 1958, none of them did. They were all comfortable in their local pastor. It’s saying, my local church is conservative. You know, the domination now might be in going another direction, but we’re okay here. And Mr. Galbraith had to force that. He knew that that type of compromise that, you know, that it did not have, there was no foundation, and that these congregations would all move in time. And so that’s why you had to have the courage to stand by the word of God, even if it meant the suffering and the small.

Camden Busey: I hope you enjoyed this episode. I enjoyed putting it together. I have so much more material that had to hit the cutting room floor and I’m hoping that someday I can put some of those clips together and do another episode that tells another story. If you like this narrative, if you like this kind of documentary format, please let us know. You can find our contact information. It’s all available@reformedforum.org along with our entire archives over 8 years of episodes that we’ve been producing and distributing. We really encourage you to listen and to learn more about the history of Christ Church, about the theology that we hold so dear as having been revealed to us through Holy Scriptures. We want to promote a faithful picture of what our Lord has taught us and we need your help. So please visit us online, get a hold of us, give us your feedback. We’d love to hear it. Thank you so much for listening and I hope you join us again next time on Christ the Center.