J. Gresham Machen Bibliography

Transcription

Camden Bussey: This program is a production of the Reformed Forum, an organization devoted to producing and distributing Reformed theological content for a connected age. Online@reformedforum.org this is Christ the Center, episode number 147. Today we speak with Bill Dennison about Machen and Bultmann and how their paths may have crossed at Marburg and in 1905 and 1906.

Welcome to Christ the Doctrine for Life, your weekly conversation of Reformed theology. This is episode number 147. My name is Camden Bussey. We have another excellent episode lined up for you today, one that’s going to be very stimulating to your minds. And to take part in that stimulation, we have the director of admissions at Westminster Theological Seminary here in Glenside, Pennsylvania, Jared Oliphant. Welcome to the program, Jared.

Jared Oliphant: Thanks, Kend.

Camden Bussey: Yes, and thanks for bringing your in the Morning Radio Voice. We’re ready to go. Thank you to speak with a friend of ours. We are very pleased to welcome back to Christ the Center Bill Dennison, who is the professor of Interdisciplinary studies at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia, as well as professor of apologetics and Systematic theology at Northwest Theological Seminary in Lynwood, Washington. Thanks for joining us, Bill. It’s great to have you back.

Bill Dennison: Thank you very much. Glad you invited me.

Camden Bussey: Oh, yeah, we’re going to have a great discussion. We’re talking about modern philosophy, modern theology, especially German philosophy’s influence upon theology. But to do that, we have a very interesting historical case study. Bill has written an article in a recent German journal, the Study of the History of Religions or Modern Theology in the History of Religions, comparing Jay Gresham Machen and Rudolf Bultmann.

What do these two have in common, you might ask? Well, it turns out that historical evidence has just shown that the two attended courses together at Marburg in 1905 and 1906, the winter semester there. So we’re going to be talking about Machen and Bultmann, a possible personal acquaintance, and what that would mean for the world of theology and for the history of our great Presbyterian tradition.

Before we do that, we have a few bits of news to mention. We are broadcasting live to Machen’s warrior children around the world on ReformedForum TV. You can visit that website and we have audio and video live as we’re able. And we also have a calendar at ReformedForum TV calendar where you can subscribe and find out when we are going to be broadcasting live, at what time and where you might be able to find that. So if you’d like to keep track of our upcoming episodes and you’d like to participate in the chat room as we record them, visit us online at ReformedForum TV.

We also would like to mention our friend’s website, Andrew Moody has a website called reformationart.com and there you can find wonderful prints, depictions of Reformed theologians and Reformed events throughout history@reformationart.com if you’re looking for something to go on your wall, in your office, at home, maybe in your church, Then please visit reformationart.com they have a wonderful selection and they are very affordable and wonderful pieces for things you can spruce up your house with. We’re going to be sprucing up our studio with them in the near future, so visit them online@reformationart.com Jared, do we have anything else we want to mention? Anything coming up with Westminster or anything recently? We just released last week the episode between Carl Truman and Dr. Lillback on politics, and that has been very successful. And as this is broadcast, the elections will have been over, so we’ll see if we influence the elections at all. But we just had the preaching conference.

Jared Oliphant: That’s right.

Camden Bussey: Are you aware of any audio that might be available from that?

Jared Oliphant: They’re gonna be working on it. There’s actually video taken, too. And so that’s like anything else. It’s going to roll out in its own time, but look out for that.

Camden Bussey: That’s with Dennis Johnson.

Jared Oliphant: That’s right, yeah. And some special lectures by Dr. Beal, Mike Kelly, David Garner. Good content there.

Camden Bussey: Yeah. Bill, you’d be interested. David Garner had a breakout session at this preaching conference talking about Voss sermons and how really union with Christ and a deep connection with Jesus and basically a personal relationship with him is essential for correct preaching. It was very fascinating.

Bill Dennison: Good, good.

Camden Bussey: And you know all those at Northwest Theological Seminary, that would be something near and dear to their hearts, the preaching of Gerhardus Vos.

Bill Dennison: Right, Exactly.

Camden Bussey: And while we’re on the subject, you should check out K Rucs, the K Rooks Journal, which is a journal of that seminary, and they’re going to be moving online next year. Is that correct, Bill?

Bill Dennison: Oh, yeah, that is correct. The last issue in, which will be printed for libraries and so forth, will be in December. And Jim and my brother Jim, who’s the editor, encouraged the faculty there to try to make contributions. I don’t know how many are, but I did put in, which might be interesting to your readers, your listeners. Excuse me, I did submit an article on. Which is basically the introduction. Introduction of my course on apologetics there, the introductory lectures. Lecture on that. So that gives a Little bit of a taste. And I think what I wanted to do is as Jim appealed to us, to maybe make a contribution to this last printed form, to do something within our discipline. So I just wrote it up simply with output notes and so forth as just an essay that can be read and looked at quickly.

Camden Bussey: Yeah, that’s right.

Bill Dennison: So next year he’s going to go that K. Rooks is going to go online. And a lot of it was just because of cost and also the direction of a lot of print material.

Camden Bussey: Anyway, Sommelios did that. Many others are going online and it adds to the accessibility.

Bill Dennison: Correct.

Camden Bussey: But that’s handy. So look for that the CareUK’s journal. You find it in your theological library. If not, you can visit was it nwts.

Bill Dennison: Edu yes, yes you can. Or k roots.com k rooks.com and you

Camden Bussey: can find out how to subscribe or get a copy. And it’s very helpful, especially for Reformed biblical theologians out there. This is definitely something you’d like to you not only would like to, but should be reading and keeping up on. So the K. Roots Journal and Northwest Theological Seminary. And Bill, one more thing I’d like to mention for those who might not be familiar is the MTI OPC course that you teach. Could you just describe in a few minutes what MTI is and the course you teach there?

Bill Dennison: Yeah. The mti, the Ministerial Training Institute of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, offers a number of courses to those who are ministers. Those who are preparing for the ministry, maybe under care or licensed, and also for ruling elders can also participate in these courses.

Some of those courses are made constructed in terms of brush up. Some of courses in which you can take as fresh courses that you maybe don’t have much background in. Some of it has been designed in order to sort of bridge the gaps of what they feel what the OPC has found to be some how should we say it and say it politely here, gaps that need be filled that are not filled in seminary and education right now. And so you like for example, you get OPC history or church polity there. I happen to do apologetics and for ministers brush up or whatever. And the issue here is to try to give people a more an introduction to Van Til’s apologetic method, which has definitely shaped the opc. And so that’s what I do.

The course is basically online. The courses meet for like a semester, but it’s usually done on work outside of a classroom situation. And then we always meet in what they call a concentration period at the end of the course in which there is about anywhere from nine to 10 hours of lectures with the students that have been in your course, enrolled in your course at the end, and then you lecture to them, get to meet them personally and go over things at that time. So that’s basically the structure and how that works, the Christian education aspect of the denomination. The OPC is the head of that. So Danny Olinger and Pat Claussen are people to contact if people are interested in and seeing a list of those courses that are offered.

Camden Bussey: Right. And their information and the information about the MTI will be available at opc.org, just go under the Christian Education link or section on the website and you’ll find more information about that. And I will give personal testimony. I testify that this is a great course. I sat in it a few years ago. So if you’re able, please visit opc.org, find out information about the Ministerial Training Institute and participate because it’ll be well worth your while. Jared, you had one more piece of information.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, just one more thing. When this airs, the weekend of November 5th through 7th, there’s going to be a Westminster Full Confidence in Scripture Conference in the Grand Rapids area at Harvest Presbyterian Church. It’s an OPC church in the Grand Rapids area.

Camden Bussey: That’s our megachurch.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, I know.

Camden Bussey: Yeah.

Jared Oliphant: And so we’re excited about that. Dr. Gaffin is speaking on Doctrine of Scripture issues. Tim Whitmer is going to be there, author of shepherd leader, Dr. Garner’s gonna be there, and John Curry. So if you want more information on that, if you’re in the area or close to it, you can just go to WTS Edu fullconfidence. And it has where Harvest is and the Times and everything like that.

Camden Bussey: Yes.

Bill Dennison: Dale Van Dyke’s son is sitting in my Enlightenment class right now at Covenant College. Josh, Pastor of Harvest.

Jared Oliphant: Oh, great.

Bill Dennison: Perfect.

Camden Bussey: Good segue.

Bill Dennison: There you go.

Camden Bussey: It all ties in together. Well, you know, you know, you can find anybody in the OPC and find a very short road to anybody else. 3 degrees of Kevin Bacon or less. Yeah, yeah. It’s like 2 degrees of machen here. Right. In fact, my connection to machen is 2 degrees. It goes through John Galbraith. John Galbraith to Machen. So I’m only 2 degrees removed.

Bill Dennison: There you go.

Camden Bussey: And so are most people. Well, joking aside, although we love speaking and kidding around with Dr. Bill Dennison. He’s such a great guy. We’re going to be speaking today about Jay Gressem, Machen and Rudolph Reflections upon the Marburg Experience, 1905-1906. You can take a look at this. It’s not an obscure journal at all, but it’s going to be a journal that many people aren’t familiar with simply because it’s a diglot and it’s a really high scholarly journal.

But I’ll put information to this German journal available and links to, I should say annotated links to this information on the website in conjunction with this episode. But Bill, would you just open us up here today by just explaining who Rudolf Bultmann was. We did an episode a few months ago, several months ago, discussing Rudolf Bultmann. He’s a huge figure in New Testament studies and Bill did a dissertation on him at Michigan State. Correct?

Bill Dennison: Correct.

Camden Bussey: Yeah. So got a good Spartan dissertation here. And so they’re. Not only are they good at football this year, but in times past they have been good at German philosophy and its influence upon New Testament studies. But we have many listeners that will be very familiar with Rudolf Bultmann, but also we’ll have many other listeners who are new to not only Reformed theology, but just theology in general. So could you maybe describe a few of the salient features of Bultmann’s approach to the New Testament?

Bill Dennison: Yeah. Rudolf Bultmann’s lifespan is 1884 through 1976. And Bultmann is most famous for a landmark article written in 1941 on the issue of demythologizing the scriptures of a hermeneutic description. Hermeneutical approach.

The way sometimes I like to put it is simply this is that what had started in higher critical thought in 19th century Germany had basically come to fruition to the position that for the most part the religious motif throughout the Scriptures is a. Is a dialogue of mythology. So since it is a dialogue of mythology and since we must in an age of science and an age of science in empirical rationalism, get at what religion could possibly mean and words religion could be possibly true for people. We must get behind the text in its mythical structures and its mythical understanding or portrayal. And so Bultmann set forth this demythologizing hermeneutic in which you can get at what he thought the true meaning of scripture.

Now very simple and it would be bizarre to most people way of looking at this is that, for example, on the resurrection of Christ, resurrection of Christ did not happen in Bultmann’s estimation in the realm of history, in other words, in time and space. But Christ’s resurrection must be affirmed. You see behind this idea of this Objectification of history behind that mythical portrayal of the death and resurrection of Christ in the Bible. But you must still be a Christian told to the resurrection of Christ. But the resurrection of Christ occurs in a realm related, that was referred to as shikta rather than history. And so in that realm is an existential realm. It’s a realm that is beyond the subject and the object relationship in this world.

Now, as Dr. Knudsen used to always say when I took my Bulkman seminar from him, is that we as students and we as people, just everyday people, we just can’t relate and understand what’s going on here. Because you actually. You actually have moved beyond the basic reference of our own lives in terms of subject, object, relationship. We walk into a room, you know, we look at the room, we look at walls. I, the. I am related to objects outside of myself. And then to say that somehow that there is. That I must have faith, that faith is defined, let’s put it that way, faith is defined in the context of being beyond a subject, object, relationship is just extremely foreign to us. And this is. But this is why Boatman’s theology is what is called an existential theology.

So. And it is what is also possibly very bizarre. To hear from this for some of your listeners would be. Nevertheless, the only place you can get this is through reading the Scriptures. Even though the scriptures is basically a mythical portrayal of religion, the only way you can get to this existential realm is that the scriptures must point you in that direction. And the other way you can get to this truth of your religion or in terms of a faith assertion is through Kerygma, and that is through the preaching of the Word.

And so you meet Christ in the preaching of the Word. Bultmann was very interesting in this regard in that he was very, very. When he went to Berlin as a student in 1904, 1905, he got the full brunt of ritual’s effects of German liberalism. And that is a social gospel. And so he walked in. It may even sound in some ways paramount to some of the things we face in the church today. And that is, he walks into these German Lutheran churches in Berlin and sees that they’re just oriented towards programs. What type of programs? Programs in terms of social, cultural redemption and transformation.

Camden Bussey: Does it sound that much different?

Bill Dennison: Yeah. And he was appalled because he wanted to hear. He says the way to faith, the way that faith is encouraged and grown, is through the preaching of the Word. And thus the churches should be committed to the preaching of the word instead of a social Gospel. So that’s always important too, because Bultmann is a higher critic in terms of New Testament. And yet at the same time, even though he’s very critical of the New Testament, excuse me, critical in terms of understanding the New Testament, that the only way to understand it is through the uses of higher critical methods, many people would say, oh, that’s liberal. But Bultmann made a distinction between. At this time there was a distinction between liberal theology and what his hermeneutic was trying to perform out of what was called the History of Religion school.

Camden Bussey: Yeah. And I want to, for our listeners today, provide the word of the day. That’s religions Gie Schickliche Schule. Could you describe what that school is? That’s History of Religions school.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah.

Bill Dennison: What you’re doing there is that you’re definitely comparing and trying to get at the sources of the religion, of the religion of the New Testament, for example, and that was Bultmann’s field, New Testament studies. So as a landmark individual in New Testament studies with the synoptic tradition, with his work on the Synoptic tradition in 1920, he was trying to unpack in that volume, what are the religious influences on the synoptic writers. On the so called synoptic writers. Okay.

For his, for him. So is. Is the influence that comes, becomes portrayed as the religion of Jesus portrayed in the four Gospels, is the religion behind the religion of Jesus, is that, is that oriented from the Jewish religious cults, so to speak, or is it. Does Jesus’s religion have its roots in Hellenism?

Camden Bussey: Right.

Bill Dennison: That was the big, that was the big debate at the time. So Bultmann came through mostly, at least in terms of when he looked at Paul. For example, when he looked at Paul, he saw Paul being influenced by what was called at the time the Oriental myth cults. Okay. And, and so at the, and that basically at that time were religions that were coming out of Babylon. And those things that those religions had, for example, those religions had, for example, an understanding that there was a kind of deity who was born into the creation. Ah, see, sounds like the incarnation.

Camden Bussey: That’s where Christianity must have got the idea.

Bill Dennison: Yeah. So they borrow. So Christianity, Paul and the New Testament borrowed these kinds of nuances in made theology. Excuse me, transferred Jesus religion that he taught into a theology.

Camden Bussey: And some people might think this is just out there as some academic pursuit. But if you’ve ever had to take a religion course at a university, I remember I had to take a comparative religion course. And the whole premise of the class Is this very method, the history of religion school. And the idea being, let’s compare all of these together and find the common denominator. And therefore we can basically explain away all the features of these religions because they’re just the result of common cultural practices. Therefore, the conclusion being, well, Christianity isn’t unique. It can’t be true. God didn’t reveal anything to these people. Everything can be explained naturally. It’s just a scientific demythologization de supernaturalism that this undergoes here. And so even the people out there that might think this is just something that New Testament scholars are dealing with. If you’ve ever taken a course like this or you have kids that are going to university, this is still very much alive and well in terms of the study of religions.

Bill Dennison: If I just go on a sidelight on this to even affirm your point further, I used to. And this is a little bit different, but the presuppositions to this whole structure, you’re exactly right. Candon is playing to the background of this. When I taught high school for 17 years, I used to set up a course on the history of Christian doctrine to sort of give the students a kind of background that if they went to a secular school, this would exactly be what they found in.

Lo and behold, for example, what I used to point out to them is you will be told in a comparative religions course, and if there are parents out there and there are people going to secular institutions listening to this, I would almost bet that this is exactly the experience they have had. If you take a comparative religions course in a secular university, you will be told the computer. Christianity never became a formal religion until the Nicene Creed. Up until that point, you know, taking their basic, taking the presuppositions of Van Harnack’s study that everything is basically confusing concerning the identity of Jesus Christ until the Nicene Creed. It’s at the Nicene Creed that the church decides. The church decides sides of Nicaea, that Jesus Christ is actually God, A very God, a very God. So what’s up until then is very obscure. There’s disagreements in the church. Nobody really agrees. So the dogma of Christianity that Jesus Christ is God is not found in the Bible. It’s found in the creedal statement.

But behind that example. Exactly. Canon. What you’re saying is behind that lies the presuppositions and the assumptions. And almost as canonicity, the higher critics approach to the New Testament and things like that. And Bultmann stands behind that in many ways concerning the authenticity of the Biblical text concerning the affirmation of who Jesus Christ actually is.

Camden Bussey: Yeah. And now on this same note, let’s shift gears to our other big figure, one that is going to be much more familiar to many of our listeners, that of J. Gresham Machen. And we’re speaking about the history of religion, school and origins of various religions. And lo and behold, J. Gressem Machen has a book called the Origin of Paul’s Religion. Could you describe the origin of this book, where it came from and its significance in the New Testament world?

Bill Dennison: What’s very interesting about this, I’m not exactly sure concerning all the ins and outs of this and possibly Darrell Hart would be more of a source of this, but I will give you what I do know, and that is Machen was interesting because of his studies in Germany, his background there, and his now rising status of his opponent. Appointment at Princeton, was asked to give the James Sprunt Lectures at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia. These were commissioned. The Origin of. He wrote a book and it is published in 19. It was published in 1921, the origin of Paul’s Religion, in which he is interacting with the higher critics on the issues of the origin of Paul’s religion, whether the origin is from Judaism and Hellenism and things like that.

Now, what’s interesting about this is that in 1915 he was commissioned to give these lectures, but they had to be delayed and they were delayed because of his commitment that he went to World War I working for the YMCA selling cigarettes. Yes. So he went to France. So he didn’t. So he could not give the lectures. So the lectures were really delayed for six years. What’s very interesting about this is this is a man who is not to give these prestigious lectures at Union Theological Seminary at the time, who was only a recent appointee and assistant professor, not a full professor.

Camden Bussey: It’s fascinating to think about somebody being commissioned to do this work. And I’d like to know why

Bill Dennison: that’s something that possibly someone like Darrell Hart would know why they made. Now, I think the one point would be obvious. One point would be obvious here, Canon, is this, is that, you know, he’s quickly returned from Germany, he’s been working with German scholarship. And so it might. I think it would be fair here to say that because of his already early expertise on that, on the recent stuff that’s going down in Germany and studying there, that they were going to. They were jumping on this.

Camden Bussey: There might also be some.

Bill Dennison: I think that’s fair to say now.

Camden Bussey: I think so. Too. And clearly, I mean, the lectures clearly demonstrate his capabilities. But if we were going to be cynical too, we might also say there might have been something to do with his last name being in Virginia as well.

Bill Dennison: That is quite possible as we as it. In some ways it could be argued, if we know, remember Machen’s strong roots to the Southern Church in terms of his family and so forth. It was in some ways interesting and a surprise perhaps that he went to Princeton rather than Union when he went for his further education. But that’s explained mostly, as I understand it, because of the family’s very close relationship to Patton, Francis Patton, who was the president at Princeton Seminary, who had been in the Machen house for dinner and became friends with the matron. So that is definitely one of the reasons why. Why Machen went to Princeton rather than Union. That’s interesting in that regard as well.

So that’s the background. And so he comes and gives those lectures in 1921, which is very interesting. It was in January of 1921. And also for your listeners, this would be possibly all interesting, that is about one month prior to Warfield’s death.

Camden Bussey: Oh, wow.

Jared Oliphant: Oh, wow.

Camden Bussey: Yeah, I didn’t put those together right.

Bill Dennison: Yeah. So he gives those lectures and it comes back to Princeton and not. And soon after that, Warfield himself dies. And some of your readers may be interested in terms of a footnote that I have, which was helped by John Mether, is that that’s. You get one of the points there, that when Machen returned and then observed and walked out as the Warfield’s funeral ended, he was talking about that this might be the death of old Princeton. The phrase old Princeton there that Machen was already seeing from his perspective of orthodoxy, the deterioration of Princeton. He was already witnessing that on campus anyway. So that’s an interesting side note, which is a footnote in the article.

Camden Bussey: I see that it’s on page 218 here. For anyone who has access to this, it’s the journal for the history of modern theology. It’s volume 16 in 2009, the German theft, Ver neuer Theologie Geschichte. And these are some helpful articles. Another contribution in here, you’ve included Bultmann’s review, which is very interesting, and it’s on the subject here. We want to get to the potential acquaintance between Bultmann and Machen. But Bultmann actually reviewed Machen’s book, the Origin of Paul’s Religion, which seems very interesting to us. Why? If we think in the broader world of theology, the vast landscape that is modern theology or that is even liberalism or evangelicalism. Now we see Bultmann. Everyone knows who Rudolf Bultmann is, but not so many people know who Jay Gressemachen is outside of our own circles. Why in the world was Rudolf Bultmann reviewing Machen’s book?

Bill Dennison: That’s an interesting question. And I like also the way that you put this question, the comment you made there at the end. And that is, you know, concerning Machen and Bultmann and their connection. And the world may not know who Machen is. The editor of this journal, Mark Chapman, who also did the book post for my pulpan volume, we had carried on a correspondence with each other and he said, you know what would be very interesting? He was the one who stimulated this project. And he said, what would be very interesting is that the German critical science scholars alive today, it would be interesting if they saw what an American conservative evangelical thought of the German scholars or the German schools and teachers at his day. So he was the one, Chapman was the one that stimulated this and said, I think would be interesting for German scholars today who are interested in Bultmann, who have interest in Bultmann to get the perspective of Bultmann or at least the Marburg School from an American conservative. And that’s how this all basically came about in terms of putting together this project. Because he noticed that I had made Mark comments about Machen in my book, which is. Which he looked at and read.

And so what’s interesting here is this. And this again goes all the way back for me, at least personally. This goes back to 1976-77, I don’t remember which semester. And I was working on Bultmont then and at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. Dick Gaffin came up and I was talking to him about it and he said, did you know that Bultmann reviewed Machen’s book on the Origin of Paul’s Religion? Well, that was my first time I had learned about that. And I said I didn’t know. So he took me back to the stacks and even got it out for me and showed me. Meanwhile, he also had already worked on. On a translation of that. And so your. Your listeners will be interested to know is that what is. I incorporated his translation of. Of the Review as the Review is. I got permission to print the Review in German. And it also, with Dick Gaffin’s kind consent, gracious consent, he also also gave. Gave the translation of the.

Camden Bussey: Now I was reading this last night, late at night. I was working, but I was reading along trying to Stumble my way through the German. I didn’t notice that the translation was there. And then I finally said, hey, this is in English. Great. I didn’t read the footnote here. And I’m just reading along. I’m like, okay, here we go. Das Buch. And I’m like, oh, man, this is gonna take forever. And then I see, oh, this book contains a discussion of the. Oh, great. So I appreciate you putting both in there. It’s nice. And this is a diglock.

Bill Dennison: Yeah. And what interesting at the time was that Dr. Gaffin said to me, said to me, you know, Boltmann studied at Marburg, and we know Machen studied with Marburg.

Camden Bussey: Yes.

Bill Dennison: He said it would be interesting to find out sometime is whether they were there at the same time. Time. And I dropped it. Obviously, Dr. Gaffin has dropped that. And it was just an interesting side note. And so eventually, when I was working on my book on Boltman in my dissertation, the Young Bodmann Context for His Understanding of God, I therefore investigated whether Machen and Bob were there at the same time, because I thought maybe from the letters of Machen I would get more information to the landscape of Marburg at the time. And that I knew were. That were accessible. There were the family letters at Westminster Seminary’s archives. So lo and behold, I found that’s how this all started, in the sense that I went in and found out. And then I discovered that they were at Marburg at the same time for at least one semester. And then they were in two classes together as well. I was able to discover. But yes. So what Dr. Gaffin pointed out to me was what his comment was. This is our only knowledge. To our knowledge, this is the only connection between old Princeton and the History of Religion’s higher critical school. And that makes it very interesting in that regard that Bultmann reviewed the book and what that said to me then. Now, why did he review the book?

Jared Oliphant: Exactly.

Bill Dennison: Why did he review. Why is this the only sort of. Why did he look at this? And that sort of sent me on a direction to see if they, of course, were at Marburg at the same time, which they were. Did they know each other? And for your listeners, my article ends with the idea that we don’t know. We know they’re in two seminars. I mean, two classes together, one is a seminar and one is a big lecture. But we do not know whether they. I have not yet found any information that they had met each other or talked to each other.

Camden Bussey: Now, not only the two courses that they shared, but also it appears they were both in what looks to be a fraternity student society. Could you describe a little bit of that cultural milieu and did they happen to be members of the same society at all?

Bill Dennison: They were not a member and that’s what I was. That was my last shot can them to see if there was a way in which I could find that they actually had a talking or relationship with Machen, was invited into and was very difficult to get into these fraternities.

Camden Bussey: Especially for foreigners, right?

Bill Dennison: Yes, for foreigners. And he was. He was brought in. And the only way he could be brought in is what they called a guest listener. But he was part at Marburg, the Franconia Student Society. And these societies are very interesting in Germany at the time because they were. Were a place in which you hung out either in turn and usually at a pub in various fraternities or these student societies. I should say more accurately that’s right, is they met at certain type of pubs and certain type of restaurants and they were associated with that.

Well, the fraternity, excuse me, the student society the Oldman belonged to turned out to be Igle I G E L and so they were different and so they wouldn’t be hanging out the same place. What’s very interesting to me about the student societies is this is very, very odd to me is that it is on Monday and Tuesday nights they would hang out that these restaurants or tap in the morning and they would go from 10 and basically the time to rally was around 10pm and they would go into the very hours even as. As early as 4am and sit around and talk and discuss and have these very, very intense discussions as well as some things of recreation as they would do in those kind of places. And so, you know, so it’s a very interesting kind of saying because I’m thinking if you stay up to 2 or 4am how good are you for Wednesday, Thursday and Friday for classes. But anyways, anyways, this was a very, very common habit.

Camden Bussey: It’s really like an unorganized. Or at least it’s basically like a doctoral seminar with beer. Apart from the classroom, I mean there’s a lot of learning and ideas being tossed around. So it would be fascinating to see if Bultmann and Machen were that context together, which apparently they were not. But at least, at least in the courses they took. One of them was a seminar, was it not?

Bill Dennison: Correct. And that’s the possibility. The only thing on that again is I don’t know what the rules of the seminar would be. They were both in Johannes Vice who was a higher. Higher critic for your listeners in terms of New Testament, very famous in terms of. Of his book on the kingdom of God written in 1892 from a higher critical point. But they were in a seminar together on second Corinthians 10 through 13.

Now that’s interesting in itself in terms of my own studies, because the transcripts or the bulletin. The College University, Marburg University Bulletin, which I have a copy of, in terms of class listings for a semester, all it would put is vice seminar.

Camden Bussey: Yeah.

Bill Dennison: They don’t give you the title.

Camden Bussey: Right.

Bill Dennison: So even for Bultman scholars, all the people that have written on Bultman’s early life, nobody has the title, guess where the title came from, that we know what they took.

Camden Bussey: Was it a machine letter?

Bill Dennison: That was the Machen letters.

Jared Oliphant: Right.

Bill Dennison: So. So the Machen letters tell us that the course was on second Corinthians 10 through 13, which was a high very. I don’t want to get into all that because it gets pretty technical. But anyways, this just for the listeners say that is a very, very disputed text in terms of a nice model for higher critical scholars in terms of Paul’s writing at what’s being said and all that kind of thing. So. So I won’t get into that. But anyways, Machen audited that. Now the question would be, was what would be the odds? Excuse me. What were the rules for an auditor?

Camden Bussey: Right.

Bill Dennison: Okay. Does he talk? But at the same time it was a smaller group. Does Machen, as we all know, does Machen walk out of class talking to Bultmont, talking to him in the hall? And because Machen was emphatic about staying away from those who were fellow foreigners studying there.

Camden Bussey: And that was because the Germans would kind of keep you outside, they’d keep you at arm’s length if you were fraternizing with the other foreigners. Correct?

Bill Dennison: Correct. That is true.

Camden Bussey: If you wanted to get in with the Germans.

Bill Dennison: Right, Exactly.

Jared Oliphant: Speaking of Machen’s letters, I wanted to ask you about another name that was out there, Wilhelm Hermann. And can you explain a little bit about what his impact was in just scholarship, but also on Machen and Bultmann? We know that there are letters that come from Machen to his mother talking about his experience there and how he’s trying to wrestle through studying under this man who he disagrees with in one sense, but also sees kind of a piety coming from him that he needs to recognize.

Camden Bussey: It’s really quite surprising.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah. Can you talk about that a little bit, yeah.

Bill Dennison: Hermann, Wilhelm Hermann was an extremely important figure at Marburg. It could possibly be argued that he was the most magnetic figure at Marburg. Even as you will note if those. In the article. I point out that even John Bailey has this interesting statement about him that, you know, in the simplicity of this is that foreigners wanted to flock to Marburg to study under him. He was extremely energetic in the class, extremely dynamic.

Machen sits in his class and being a New Testament scholar, he decided to sit in his Dogmatics 2 course. He’s taking it out of sequence. The sequence that Hermann taught was a tie. He would teach the one in the summer term and then in the. In the winter term he taught the second. And. And so he even just wanted to sit in there because he heard about him, knew about him, knew about his magnetism and towards people and his scholarship. He was a Lutheran and the mo. And he was a. Again in the Lutheran kind of what they would call the mediating school. He was. He had a continuity with Schleiermacher. So he would not consider himself a radical in the critical tradition, what we would think is the critical tradition, like Strauss, but he wouldn’t want to be in the side. He isn’t on the conservative side like a Hingsenburg. And that’s why the school sort of stands in the middle, a mediating school. And that mediating school is through Schleiermacher. Now, for us who are orthodox, we would still be sort of amazed at this. We wouldn’t even consider Schleiermacher in that kind of context as well. But nevertheless. Nevertheless that was what the landscape was in Germany. And so in this Luther School, he also was the premier advocate in his theological. In his theological paradigm of Neo Kantianism. And so in the rise of Neo Kantianism, in which religion and faith has a distinctive sphere from culture and culture is understood in Neo Kantianism as science, aesthetics or arts and morality and ethics.

And so. And so Machen goes there, listens immediately as you have read the article, here’s the first lecture and he’s just enthralled by it. And as a matter of fact, within the first week he’s even stating in a letter that he’s almost putting his New Testament studies aside. Yeah, because he is so taken by this man. And he comes to the conclusion, you know, he comes to sort of conclusion at the time that. At the time that this guy is. Is extremely pious and godly. And he even admits that he thinks that Herman knows Christ, has found Christ in this. Even in this religious paradigm. I think what we’re seeing here is a young man enthralled by the passion of a professor, still trying to orient himself in terms of what orthodoxy really means, as he’s listening to something that isn’t orthodox. And he’s trying to put this together. And. And exactly as you said, Jared, in a sense, what captures him also is the piety of this man. And even Bultmann’s comment also is helpful at this point, is that Bultmann, when he eventually studies under Hermann at Marburg, which is the next semester, he says people leave the classroom different when they went in. And he’s saying this in a religious sense.

Jared Oliphant: Wow, interesting.

Camden Bussey: I bet you they did leave differently.

Bill Dennison: And so he’s captured by. He’s just absolutely captured by this. And as it’s pretty well documented, of course, in Stonehilf’s biography, it is Hermon that almost. That seduces Machen from the possibility of remaining orthodox in his theology. He is that powerful and he is that strong.

Camden Bussey: We think about what Machen came to be, of course, just a premier figure in conservative Presbyterianism. He founded Westminster Theological Seminary. He led the movement that ended up starting the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And we think of all the distinctives of Machen and those movements in comparison to what we find with German liberalism. And then you read these letters and you find out how very close it might have been for Machen to be entirely persuaded by liberalism and to go down that road and how very different American Presbyterianism might have been had Machen not realized some of the errors of this theology.

Bill Dennison: Correct. You definitely see here. You definitely see here the grace of God. There’s no other explanation in the grace of God operating in terms of covenant relationships. In other words, still the family, his love for his family, and what his family had taught him about the Christian faith in terms of that covenant rearing. And also that also is playing on him, as you know, as you already pointed out, as he writes to his brother about this, that he maybe should be repenting for the things he’s writing.

Camden Bussey: He uses that very language.

Bill Dennison: Yeah. About Hermon. There’s still. There’s still that closeness at home. And I don’t think we. And I think it is very important not to overlook. Not overlook the important mentorship here of William Park Armstrong, who was his mentor at Princeton, a New Testament scholar who also had studied in Germany and came back orthodox in sound.

So being able to run his thoughts and his work in his thinking through Armstrong, I think was helpful. I don’t know. And this would be something of more research. I don’t know exactly what went on when he got back after the two semesters in Germany, spent here, one semester at Marburg, then he went on to Goodingen and studied there and then returned. I would be interested to hear. It would be interesting to be a fly in the wall listening to him and Armstrong talk when he came back. So I think Armstrong was also in terms of what we understand in our own theology as a covenant, as God providentially placing that covenant bond with us, with our faith, with those who also are with us in terms of that corporate community is also extremely playing in the providence of God’s grace in terms of Machen’s life. And I think it’s very important not to forget that and realize that because I’ve just seen in my own lifetime, time and time again that people going through Reformed institutions have gone off to these schools and studied under critical scholars or those type of things, and they don’t come back orthodox.

Camden Bussey: Yeah, we can’t even read history like Ernst Troeltsch. As Christians, we have to read and understand that God is at work in history and has broken into history. And we need to do that wisely as we study history. But we can’t read this and try to come up with entirely naturalistic explanations for Machen’s journey and for the beginning of Westminster and even the opc. But we have to acknowledge that God is at work here and in other places. Jared? Yeah.

Jared Oliphant: Just bringing this into our current context, we had a question from the chat room. Just wondering, are there still generally conservative scholars today that assume the same epistemology and hermeneutic of Bultman? What is his influence today, even in more or less evangelical circles, or I guess what you would call that generally conservative?

Camden Bussey: Is his impact still reigning even in circles we might think it’s not? Yeah.

Bill Dennison: This is a very difficult question on the empirical side of what we. For the most part, Bultmann is dead. Okay. On an empirical level, there isn’t a point in which everybody’s running around still in reading him and engaging him. That is. Okay. There’s the age of the post Bultmanians and that even fades out. But, you know, in saying that, it would be also very naive to say that there isn’t still a group in Germany. Of course there is a. They even have a. My daughter sent me at Marburg. They have a bust of Bultmont there. So she. When she studied a Fulbright Scholar year.

Camden Bussey: Yeah.

Bill Dennison: And so she sent me a picture of that. So there’s. And there is various institutes. This, for example, there is a conference each year, usually around March, in which Bultmann’s reflection on Bultmann’s material for the present day is taken up this year. Very interesting. The subject this year coming in 2011, the subject is on revelation. Is it Verstan or Irleben is the. Is the. Is the title of it. And that’s basically revelation, understanding or, or experience.

Now it’s interesting that they. Now it’s very interesting. I look at that and I look at the. The basic program for that conference. And this is their. Jared, this is their 13th annual conference. So it is going. They’re doing this every year. And so there is some still work going. But what I’m talking about here, I think when we talk about is Bultmann stuff, there is still, obviously you’re going to have to. Bultmont stuff is still in many ways his material, his critique of the Synoptic gospels form criticism. We may say we’re past that in some ways, but there’s still, as you’re past it, you’re presupposing the fundamental concepts in critical thought of it. So in that sense, even as you advance, you’re building upon what has gone before. So any scholar worth his salt in the critical tradition is still going to have to deal with the Bulkman.

Jared Oliphant: And that’s because he’s part of the broader milieu. Right?

Bill Dennison: Exactly. Exactly. Even though there isn’t a huge Bultmond school out there, the way I can. Here’s what I’m subconsciously thinking of and let me bring it to the consciousness of the discussion. And is BART is huge.

Camden Bussey: Yeah.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah.

Bill Dennison: Okay.

Camden Bussey: Yeah.

Bill Dennison: When you think of the two premier 20th century impacts in terms of non reform Christian orthodoxy on the world, you think of Barth and you think of Bultmann. You think of Barth in terms of theological formulation, you think of Bultmann in terms of New Testament studies. Okay. And so you think of today, 2010. Okay. Evangelicals are, are steadily flocking to bark.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah. When you mentioned the emphasis on preaching the word in Bultman, that’s what immediately came to mind is it has that pietistic ring without an orthodox underpinnings, I guess.

Bill Dennison: Correct. And it can appeal to us because even our own reform confession stands. Say, you know, it’s the preaching of the word, you know, but you see. But when you start figuring out what the kerygma is, and this is, you know, this is what it is why it is a blessing for your list. It is a blessing and an absolutely imperative in my judgment, to be evantilian.

Camden Bussey: Yes, absolutely. I think that’s a great, great point

Bill Dennison: to wrap up only, only through Van Till’s transcendental analysis. Through that type of analysis. When you see a word. And this is, you know, this is sort of getting back that we discussed prior to coming on the air. This is my real concern of the present landscape out there for both of, for your listeners and both of you. This is what my present concern is, what I meet constantly and what I am struggling with and trying to proceed better and get my hand on. This is this evangelical movement to Bart and to looking at him, lacks. These evangelicals lack Van Til.

Jared Oliphant: Right?

Camden Bussey: Yeah.

Bill Dennison: Because they see terminology and there’s a reason why it’s called neo Orthodox, as we all know, because it all sounds right. But you see, when you unpack the meaning of these terms, you see, you unpack the meaning of, for example, Kerygma, they have an entirely different meaning than we do. Which leads, as you notice in terms of the beginning of the article, can then leads to great as Machen’s eventual conclusion in Christianity and Liberalism that liberalism is a different religion. And I know I may make people, your listeners, some of them, if they are sort of getting into Barth upset at this point, but Barthianism is a different religion. I’ll say it.

Camden Bussey: Well, that’s what Van Till did in titling his books. Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism. Van Till came along and wrote the New Modernism and he’s speaking of Bardianism. But then he wrote Christianity and Bardianism intentionally using that title to allude to Machen’s conclusions and assessment of liberal theology with Bardianism as the same thing. I brought this point up to a professor at Marquette, this is a week ago, and I told him about Barth’s influence and how Cornelius Van Til thought that Bardianism was at root just another Modernism. And he said, wow, that is interesting. They don’t like Barth. I mean, he was a Roman Catholic, so of course he doesn’t like Barth. But you know, Van Till was cutting to the quick and saying, no, we’re not going to play around with this and not be duped by the veneer appearance of an orthodoxy because this is severely different. It is drastically different from Reformed orthodoxy and from what Scripture teaches.

Bill Dennison: Can I say something at this point as well in terms of that? The reason I believe that the modern evangelical climate, really, this is at least one point that I have pretty much confident of making that the modern evangelical theologian who is incorporating Bardian theology without discernment into their own positions. The reason that this is alarming is because, you see, they don’t. The modern person doesn’t understand the neo Kantian as well as the existential categories that Bark is using.

Jared Oliphant: Exactly.

Bill Dennison: Yeah. And that’s. Unless they get into a full fledged understanding of unpacking the structures of modern existentialism in the first. In the first half of the 20th century, they will not truly understand what Barth is saying. And they will make Barth into an evangelical because the orthodoxy of language is there, but it’s not there in terms of true meaning which they cannot perceive.

Jared Oliphant: That’s a great interpretive point. I mean, you know, in one sense, Barth is borrowing capital from orthodox Christianity just as much as any other system and changing its meaning to something that is when you. When you get into the system, completely unorthodox.

Bill Dennison: Exactly, exactly.

Camden Bussey: And so.

Bill Dennison: And that’s why I always, you see, my point that I have constantly made is, is that I love working with Boltman as opposed to Bart because Boltman, in my judgment, is intellectually honest. Okay, okay. He doesn’t believe in the resurrection. Bodily resurrection. And he says it tell you. Okay, I did. See, I can work with that. You see, I can understand. I can work with that and understand it in terms of his structure of his thought. Even though I think, you know, even though I think that is an extremely false understanding of the Bible. Yeah, okay. And of biblical Christianity. But you, but we. I continue to have long discussions with evangelicals or theologians with whether Barth believed in a bodily resurrection. You know, that the debate out there.

Jared Oliphant: He’s a theological illusionist.

Bill Dennison: Yes. And it’s interesting too, my advisor, My advisor in religion at Michigan State, who by the. Fred Graham, who’s written the classic work, by the way, on his dissertation, published classic work on Calvin’s Geneva in terms of the economic situation. But anyways, Graham was over in Germany. He was telling me one time in his office that he was over there and he was talking to people just about this. You know, here’s Graham over there in about the 60s. And so when Barth and boatman are still the big. The big figures in German thought. And it was interesting, he said that the people he talked to in churches now this is the laity would make. We understand what Bultman saying. We don’t understand what Barth’s saying. Wow, that was in it. Now that’s just an empirical observation there. But you know, When I, even if you, if you remember the 1917 sermon by Bultmann that I, that I have in my book, I even asked Boatman’s daughter personally whether a person in the pew could really understand what he was saying. Of course, in a typical family situation situation, she said, of course they did. And I’m sitting there saying, I don’t think so. Hidden in other God in is both good and evil and hidden and all this kind of, all this kind of existential language that’s going on there. So. But, but, you know, like I say, you know, you take those kind of things with that, but I think with a grain of salt maybe. But nevertheless, I think there’s some validity at least hearing, you know, when people are saying something, you know, what are they actually hearing, even in the, in the pew? So.

Camden Bussey: Exactly. No, it’s really important to study these things and it’s really helpful to have you on Bill to discuss Bultmann and to discuss this theological milieu and this possible acquaintance between Bultmann and Machen. If you’d like to read more about Bultmann, please pick up the Young Bultmann, Context for His Understanding of God, 1884-1925. That is a book by Dr. William Denison, our guest today, and that is available. You can also find this journal article if you have access to a theological library or interlibrary loan. You can find the journal for the History of Modern Theology, Zeitschrift Fernohyer, Theology geschichte. It is volume 16, issue 2, 2009, and everything we’ve spoken about today is available in there. The article Bultmann’s Review and then Machen’s Letters. Westminster is available well before that. I’d like to mention Northwest Theological Seminary. Bill is a professor there, and you can find them online@nwts.edu. and Westminster Theological Seminary is available on in a variety of means through various social media@facebook.com westminsteronline and YouTube.com and finally, of course, you can find us reformed forum@reformedforum.org and there you’ll find links to all of our other websites and information about what we are up to, including our other programs and future discussions will be listed at ReformForum TV calendar with all that. We want to thank everybody for listening and we look forward to having you back next time on Christ the Center.