J. Gresham Machen Bibliography

Transcription

Host: 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 156. Today we speak with Darrell Hart about Machen’s Warrior Children.

Welcome to Christ the Center, Doctored for Life, a weekly conversation of Reformed theology. My name is Camden Busey, and today we are going to be speaking with Darrell G. Hart about his recent essay in the Bob Godfrey festscript titled, “Make War No More: The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of J. Gressa Machen’s Warrior Children.”

Let me introduce to you to the panel. We have first to my left, our good friend Jared Oliphant, who’s director of admissions at Westminster Theological Seminary in Glenside, Pennsylvania. Welcome, Jared.

Jared Oliphant: Thanks, Camden.

Host: We also have on Skype Jim Cassidy, who is pastor of Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Ringos, New Jersey. Welcome, Jim.

Jim Cassidy: It’s good to be here, Camden. Thanks.

Host: And as I mentioned earlier, our special guest today is Dr. Darrell G. Hart, noted author and church historian, the OPC or not historian for the OPC, noted church historian and connoisseur of OPC tradition. We’ll put it that way. Welcome to the program, Darrell. Yo, it’s great to have you.

We today are going to be speaking, as I mentioned, about a topic that is near and dear to Reform Forum’s heart. We speak a lot and I joke often that we are broadcasting live to Machen’s Warrior Children around the world. And so today we’re going to continue that trend and not only broadcast two Matrons Warrior Children around the world, but we’re actually going to be speaking about Matron’s Warrior Children.

And there’s a recent festrift we’ve been mentioning in weeks past that has been written in honor of Dr. Bob Godfrey, who is president of Westminster Seminary California. And this has been published by Westminster Seminary California. It’s a great volume. If you haven’t picked one up already, you can get a copy at either Westminster’s bookstore. And we’re going to hopefully be interviewing several of the authors in weeks to come. And today we’re going to start things off by speaking with our friend Darrell Hart.

Before we begin, Darrell, do you have any thing cooking up on old life? Darrell writes@oldlife.org and I wonder if you might give us an update as to your goings on.

D. G. Hart: Oh, I have a few things that I’m thinking about, but I need to be careful promising before I deliver.

Host: Well, in the past you’ve been writing about various Topics and you always keep.

D. G. Hart: Well, the Two Kingdom theology discussion has been probably the most obsessive or lively and we’ll continue that, especially as Professor Klosterman continues to do his multi volume review of Van Druden’s single volume on Two Kingdom theology.

Host: Yeah, there’s always plenty to write and talk about on that topic. Also you write often there about various topics in ecclesiology and trying to hang on to what Machen fought for in breaking off from the Mainline Presbyterian Church and forming the OPC and before that, Westminster Theological Seminary here in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

And so we appreciate what you write there and for the interest and the controversy it engenders, but also mainly for tempting and I think many times most of the time successfully holding onto the Reformed tradition as we ought to. So truly a website devoted to Machen’s Warrior Children by one of their own. And so today we’re going to be speaking about that topic.

D. G. Hart: And, and, but I should say, even though John doesn’t write.

Host: I was gonna say why he’s never written.

D. G. Hart: I channel John. I channel John. So.

Host: Okay. And he is the OPC historian, so we have a little imprimatur.

D. G. Hart: Right.

Host: Okay. Well, today this essay is very interesting and it’s really a response getting its title, I believe, from John Frame’s essay many years ago. Is that where the title. Did he coin this?

D. G. Hart: Okay, he did, I think of the fester for Alison McGrath.

Jared Oliphant: Okay.

D. G. Hart: Yeah.

Host: Well, he wrote an article several years ago called Machen’s Warrior Children. And in this essay he deals with some of the trends at that time in terms of Presbyterians and their willingness to fight or in their willingness not to fight. And we’re going to deal with some of the tensions and the developments in terms of ecumenicity and in terms of militancy. And we are going to try to weigh both sides of that issue and kind of explain the historical developments of this subject.

Now, Jim, as you are an ordained minister in the OPC and you’re one to fight for the truth and be valiant for the truth, how would you describe this tradition of militancy? Is it a good thing? Is it a bad thing? How are we to understand this as we open up our subject today?

Jim Cassidy: Well, far be it from me to say that it’s a bad thing in light of the article we’re talking about today. But I do believe as a minister of the Gospel that we are called to fight the good fight of faith. We are called to stand for the truth, even if it means our own marginalization, whether in the church or in society at large.

And so as I was reflecting, having read this article on the history of the OPC, and particularly in light of, you know, we’ve mentioned John Methor already, but his fine story, history, biography of Van Till as a militant Calvinist, one who is concerned to defend the faith at all personal cost. I think this is what we’re called to, especially as you look at the New Testament. And Paul is fighting the good fight of faith. He’s writing letters, standing up for the truth of the gospel in Galatians particularly, and in other places as well. So we do have this example, even in Scripture, of us to be those who are going to stand up and to fight for, in fact, what is the essence of Christianity, the gospel, etc.

Host: Yeah, yeah, that’s good. And it’s something that’s oftentimes frowned upon today. Fighting for something, there tends to be a mentality, and it’s very present. Has been present in Catholic circles since the mid-60s with Vatican II, but also even in the mid-90s with ECT. Evangelicals and Catholics together.

There’s ecumenical mindset or a desire to come together, to stress what’s similar between two communions rather than what’s different. And in doing so, oftentimes we lose track of what’s really important and what our distinctives are and why we hold to them.

Jay Gressem Machen, founder of Westminster Seminary here in Philadelphia, as well as principal. I won’t say he’s the founder of the OPC because we know God founded the OPC, but he was instrumental in its formation from a human perspective. Could you tell us a little bit, Dr. Hart, about Jay Gresham Machen and maybe his personality as we try to come to understand Machen’s warrior children?

I should mention at the start that Darrell has taught an entire course on J. Gresham Machen and at Calvary OPC and Glenside, we have recorded that, and that is available on both reformforum.org and oldlife.org so as start, if you’re wanting to learn more about Machen, you can certainly find it there. But maybe as a refresher, we can come to understand a little bit about what made Machen tick.

D. G. Hart: Well, when it comes to the controversy, at least in the 1920s, I guess when you look at Machen earlier in his life, before 1920, you wouldn’t think that he would be engaged in the controversy because he was reluctant to go into the ministry for a variety of reasons, both, I think, cultural and somewhat spiritual. He also went and served in the YMCA during World War I. Sort of as a way to get out of the classroom for a little while. It took him a while to come to, I think, an understanding of what his work was going to be.

But in 1920, he went to the General assembly of the Presbyterian Church. And there was a report on a plan for organic union of the largest Protestant denominations. And it would have resulted in something comparable to the United Church of Canada. It would have been the United Church of America or something like that. Where churches would have given up their denominational identity and formed a new one in this United Church.

And the person presenting the proposal was none other than the president of Princeton Seminary, J. Ross Stevenson, to the assembly. So. And that really is what drew Machen out. And he couldn’t understand why people at Princeton, but also other Presbyterians. Would support such a plan. When it would mean giving up their identity as Presbyterians.

And the Presbyterian Magazine, which someone still needs to do a dissertation or a lengthy study on. Published weekly going back to the 1820s, I believe, in Philadelphia. And it was always on the conservative side of things. But the Presbyterian magazine published a number of articles by other Princeton professors as well as Machen. Including one of the last things that Warfield wrote opposing that plan for organic union.

So even though it may look like to some people. And Machen’s regularly been accused of being combative in his temperament or temperamentally defective and things like that. It doesn’t strike me at all that he was itching for a fight necessarily other than to fight the war between the States again, perhaps. I mean, politically, I think he was animated in ways that he wasn’t necessarily ecclesiologically.

And so, I mean, people will see in nature what they want to see. I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with the way he conducted himself. I thought he was actually very gracious, at least publicly. Some of his private correspondence. He could say some fairly negative things about people. As if none of us do that. But publicly, I do think that he conducted himself well. And I do think that he was oftentimes misunderstood about what he was standing for. When people thought that in the name of Christ, in the name of unity, he should put aside some of these things to prosecute a more harmonious understanding of Protestantism or Christianity. So that we could all just get along. And Machen was unwilling to get along, at least on the terms that were then given. If they could have come up with other terms, perhaps he would have maybe rethought that.

Jim Cassidy: One of the points, Darrell, that you make in the article concerns the nature of polemics in the formation of theology and how important polemics are in developing and in explicating the gospel, as well as defending the truth of the gospel. Would you be able to talk a little bit about polemics in old Princeton and how that may have influenced Machen?

D. G. Hart: Well, yeah, Machen, the OPC, I would argue as well, is hugely indebted to old Princeton Seminary, since the conservatives at old Princeton in the 20s were the ones that were engaged most vigorously in the Presbyterian controversy, and since Princeton held on to an old school Presbyterianism well into the 20th century that many other, even Southern, seminaries had abandoned.

And I think Hodge deserves a lot of credit for developing the polemical side of old Princeton, since he edited the Princeton Review and pretty much reviewed everything that moved in America, and he had some very negative reviews of people like Finney and, oh, Nevin and other developments in Europe. So Hodge really had a pretty comprehensive view of things.

But even going back to the original founding faculty of Princeton, Archibald Alexander and Samuel Miller, Miller was engaged in a lengthy dispute with an Episcopal Minister in the 1830s or 20s, I believe, about. About Presbyterian and Episcopal polity. So there was a tradition there at Princeton that you engaged in polemical theology. They had a professorship of polemical theology. This is what you did in defending and executing your understanding of Christianity. So it’s certainly there in the Princeton side.

And then the other contributing stream to the orthodox Presbyterian Church, again somewhat coming by way of old Princeton, is the Dutch Calvinist tradition, first with Vos and then people like Van Till and Stonehouse, who studied at Princeton as well. And the Dutch Calvinist tradition is also very much engaged in polemical theology on both sides of the Atlantic.

So both of those traditions inform Machen and the OPC quite naturally. And it shouldn’t have surprised anyone that in the 18, excuse me, 1940s or 1950s, the OPC would have continued to engage in some sort of polemical theology and not gone along with some of the trends in American evangelicalism, such as represented by the national association of Evangelicals or Fuller Seminary.

So it’s part of what Westminster and Princeton people did, and it would have been hard to change course. Again, the question is understanding what the concerns were that drove their polemical theology and whether it was. I mean, I think too often the explanation from people who don’t agree with a Machen or a Van Till or a Hodge or a Miller is that, well, they must be mean that’s been overwhelmingly the interpretation of Machen by American historians. And that’s a fairly easy solution, maybe not the most accurate one, to try to explain someone’s point of view. So if you understand their point of view, you may actually understand better why they’re kvetching as much as they’re kvetching. And then you may still not agree with it. But given their, given their convictions, it may make more sense why they won’t go along with some sort of proposal.

So, you know, and part of it too is that America has been informed a lot by evangelicalism, which has been largely a broad church sort of development that starts with the conversion experience and then extends to a lot of evangelism and activism. And the fine points of theology, the fine points of ecclesiology are not as important in that arena. So you have a real collision going on, perhaps between a self consciously Reformed institution like Princeton or Westminster engaging with a larger evangelicalism that is really trying to build coalitions and get beyond differences. Again, that’s not a recipe for harmonious relations.

Jim Cassidy: When Darrell did, then polemics kind of go out of style. If we could at all talk about that. It seems as if there’s at one time where, like you said, there’s a chair of polemical theology or a position of polemical theology at old Princeton, you don’t see polemical theology professors anymore. And this kind of tied in with what you’re saying about evangelicalism, perhaps this idea of desiring influence in the culture, et cetera, and wanting to come off as more of a nice guy as opposed to being a meanie. When does this happen? When polemical theology, which at one time seemed like an established thing, no longer is, quote unquote in style.

D. G. Hart: Right. I think part of it has to do institutionally with the decline of seminaries in a way. And there was a time in the earlier 20th century when pretty much most of the mainline Protestant seminaries would have been, if not liberal, certainly not opposing liberalism. This is what made Princeton stand out. And the conservative Protestants would have been oftentimes putting their energies into Bible institutes or Bible colleges.

And Bible institutes and Bible colleges wouldn’t necessarily have engaged in polemical theology because they were simply trying to train workers, Christian workers, as fast as possible to go out in the mission fields, go into cities or do whatever. So structurally, you don’t necessarily have places, institutions where polemical theology can be done by conservatives, except for places like perhaps Westminster or Fuller, which starts in the 40s, and so Westminster continues To represent that I should know more about Dallas. And I don’t know how much Dallas seminary, founded in 1925, engaged in polemical theology or not, or its own kind of polemics.

But what’s curious with the founding of Fuller, though, is that the new style of evangelicalism that emerges in the 40s, so called Neo evangelicalism, really does want to get beyond negativity and polemics. And that’s what’s going to define evangelicalism, which means that if you’re going to engage in polemics, you are automatically going to be fundamentalist. And generally speaking, with the exception of places like maybe Bob Jones University, fundamentalism isn’t something that somebody wants to be. And so if polemics or polemical theology means that you’re fundamentalist, people will maybe give that up.

So I think there’s, I guess, long winded answer here is that I think it occurred probably in the 1940s, not simply because Fuller Seminary was started, but because of a difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism and it being easier to categorize people who are negative with the F word. And again, aside from people like Bob Jones and Bob Jones University, or John Rice or even Carl McIntyre, many of them considered somewhat wing nuts in the history of American Christianity, you’re sticking your neck out if you want to engage in polemical theology.

Host: We’ve mentioned many different seminaries, and one thing that you do in your essay is speak about Machen’s involvement at Princeton. And there might be something to do with the movement that he sparked and how it caught on that’s related to where he was. A question I had for you is related to this quote that you provide there on page 37. If Machen had been teaching at Columbia Seminary in South Carolina or at Wheaton College, the reporters who covered the religion beat in America would likely have been less interested than in a Princeton professor. What was going on there in terms of his reputation academically and what did that have to do with the media that caught on to these Presbyterian concerns?

D. G. Hart: I guess part of what I was trying to get at there is that, and it’s finally dawned on me after teaching American Presbyterianism for so many years, where Princeton is geographically and in what presbytery, it has always existed the presbytery of New Brunswick, which is the presbytery that brought Machen to trial. And it’s also the presbytery that was created in the 18th century to provide a haven, a safe haven for revivalists like Gilbert Tennent and his kin.

And what the other interesting geographical Factor here is that New Brunswick is in northern New Jersey and therefore closer to New York. And so things happening at Princeton, whether the university or the seminary, are just more interesting to New Yorkers and to the New York Times. It’s in the northeast corridor, in effect, unlike Columbia or Wheaton. So Machen was closer to the media centers. And since there were a lot of Presbyterians in New York that were concerned about the Presbyterian Church’s only. I mean, the General Assembly’s only seminary, which is what Princeton Seminary was. It’s still an agency of the General assembly of the PC usa. There was more reason for people to pay attention to Princeton.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, and publicity, you know, is a huge factor in that as well. I went on New York Times online and just looked at their archives and just searched Machen. And I mean, there are literally hundreds of articles that you can find from when he was, I guess, in the spotlight. And just, you know, the Analog today, there is none for like a church figure. So I’m sure getting the word out in that sense from the New York Times was just a huge factor in that as well.

D. G. Hart: And the other, I mean, might be one.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, possibly.

Host: Right.

D. G. Hart: Well, the other wrinkle here is that the church where Machen worshiped and preached for A time in 23A stated supply 1st Pres. In 1st Presbyterian Church in Princeton had a lot of people from the university there. Professors, board members again, and Princeton’s Princeton’s orientation.

I think over time it had been a place that was very friendly to Southerners, which is why a Warfield or a Machen would have gone there, at least for seminary. But then over time it really does. It’s still very much oriented more toward New York in some ways than even Philadelphia. It would be interesting to study the graduates of Princeton to see how many go north versus how many go south.

But someone like Albert Barnes, who was a huge figure in the New School Presbyterian tradition, was at Princeton Seminary. Grant and the guy who taught Finney theology was also, I can’t remember his name, was also a Princeton Seminary grad. So they sent Princeton, sent ministers north and south, and probably more north than south, since the Southern Church had its own or the Southerners had their own seminaries.

Host: Now, certainly when we consider Machen and all that he was and all that he did, we usually focus on the two larger institutions he was instrumental in beginning, as I mentioned before, Westminster and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. And from our vantage point, those are very good things.

Mark Noll, back in 1987, he was an elder in the OPC then. And he was bringing up the cost of Machen fighting and maybe what some of the fallout of that was and what it cost Machen to do. He writes here, and I’m quoting from you, quoting from him, so.

D. G. Hart: So if you get it wrong, I got it wrong. I got.

Host: Well, I’ve got an out. I guess that’s what it means. But Noll observed that the cost of Machen’s contentiousness was large. He undermined the effectiveness of those reformed and evangelical individuals who chose to remain at Princeton Seminary with the Presbyterian Mission Board and in the Northern Presbyterian Church. Furthermore, according to Noll, Machen left successors ill equipped to deal with the more practical matters of evangelism, social outreach and devotional nurture. What happened? What did Machen do?

Jim Cassidy: Well,

D. G. Hart: The question is, what could you save from Princeton and the Presbyterian Church? And if you stayed in, would you have continued to dwindle away, whatever you stood for? I guess that’s. And I think Mark looks at it differently than I do.

Someone still needs to. And I’ve thought about doing it, but someone still needs to do it. To do a study of conservatives in the PCUSA after the founding of the OPC to see what they did, how effective they were. They still had an outlet. One of the institutions that Machen, since you brought it up, institutions that Machen founded. One of the institutions he founded was the Presbyterian Guardian, which I was very happy to devote a chapter to in the forthcoming history of the OPC, which was unofficially the OPC’s magazine. But it was also place where OPCers could engage in some of their polemics without having to worry about the reputation of institutional affiliations. So it was a parachurch organization, but it was clearly committed to serving the OPC anyway.

He founded that. The other magazine that conservatives had was Machen was also involved with Samuel Craig, the original owner of Presbyterian Reform Publishing had founded Christianity Today, the original Christianity today, in 1933 or two. And when Machen and Craig broke over the independent Board, Machen felt it was important to have a new magazine, hence the Presbyterian Guardian. But Christianity Today kept publishing until 1947.

Host: We should mention this is different than the current publication called Christianity Today, although

D. G. Hart: John argues, John Mithra argues that the people who founded Christianity Today took their name from perhaps the original without necessarily acknowledging it. So that would be one place to look at conservatives in the PCUSA.

But it’s also the case that there were times in the 40s. Now, part of this was because of the war, but even after the war where they were putting out maybe two or three issues a year as opposed to trying to do a bi weekly, which is what they were doing originally. So part of the point I’m trying to make is that conservatives just kind of ran out of steam in the PCUSA.

And so in some ways it seems that Machen felt he was getting out, not when the getting was good. To only have 5,000 come into your communion is not necessarily a great thing. But I think he realized in the 30s that the longer they stayed in, the more depleted they would be. And this was another calculation more recently among the Dutch Reformed and the Christian Reformed Church and the URC. How long do you stay? When do you get out or not?

Machen had a much clearer, sharper issue. The independent board clarified things and forced the PCUSA to act in certain ways that made him either a hero or a victim or whatever your perspective on Machen might be. But back to, to Noel’s point, I think if you compare Clarence McCartney, who was on the original board at Westminster Seminary, stayed in the PCUSA his entire career, basically operated as a congregational minister within the church and had no institutional outlet. So not only was he perhaps not true necessarily to his Presbyterian convictions or at least polity, but also who was going to succeed McCartney at First Presbyterian Church Pittsburgh. And what mechanisms did you have in place to ensure that that would be the case? Similar situation faces so called evangelicals in.

Jared Oliphant: The Church of Scotland or so in the Princeton context. Have you, what kind of evidence do you see with Gerhardus Vos sticking around Princeton and how that went either personally for him or, I mean you would expect him to go to Westminster, but he didn’t.

D. G. Hart: I think the big issue for anyone at Princeton who was conservative stayed, was pension. And this is among. I mean there are various liabilities to Gary North’s book Cross Fingers, but his financial angle on the controversy is quite helpful for showing especially the, the investments in pension plans what made it very difficult for older ministers who had built up retirement funds to leave the church and especially during a time of depression.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, Robert Dick Wilson is a prime example of someone who sacrificed, you know, financially like crazy around that time because he, he was, you know, he died a year later or whenever that was. So he would have had a lot of money coming to him had he stuck around, I think.

D. G. Hart: Right. Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know what his situation was. Although Oswald T. Alice, from whom Westminster originally rented the homes down on Pine street, the original place of Westminster, he was independently wealthy, but he stayed in the PC USA his entire life and Even Van Till preached his funeral sermon at Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Church, one of the toniest of the mainline churches. So anyway, I think it’s a really tough call about when to leave. But there was a clear difference, especially if someone looks at the correspondence between Samuel Craig and machen in the 30s, that Craig thought the church was far healthier than I think it was. I think Machen was much more realistic of the state of the church.

Host: Do you think that’s indicative of many people who want to do evangelical hand holding? If that’s maybe too sharp of a way to put it. Do you generally see people that have an ecumenical thrust? Do they typically have a poor estimation of the current state of things, or do you think that they just assume that it’s not as. That the differences just aren’t as important to stress?

D. G. Hart: I hesitate to answer that with Craig in mind because I’m not sure if he would, if I’d classify him as an evangelical hand holding type.

Host: But using him, well, I mean, just as an example of mentality, I mean,

D. G. Hart: I think he may have been. I do think there was a broad section of the church that was evangelical. Whether it was old school Presbyterian is a whole nother question. I think that’s what Machen was looking for. Not necessarily. He knew the church wasn’t going to be old school, but that was the kind of Presbyterianism he wanted to see the PCUSA move toward. I’m not sure that Craig would have been as steeped in that tradition.

So there were clearly conservatives, more conservatives in the PCUSA than liberals. So in that sense, Craig was right. But whether those conservatives actually held to the convictions of old Princeton, for instance, and were willing to support old Princeton and support the ministers that might be trained there and actually engage in some kind of polemics, perhaps in presbyteries or sessions, was a whole other question.

But I think to answer your question, generally speaking, people who believe that other people have Jesus in their heart and think that that’s a really good thing, which I’m not saying it’s not a good thing, but if that’s your basis for fellowship, then it’s going to be harder to oppose developments in Church of God in Christ or whatever.

But if you are subscribing to Westminster standards and you think Presbyterian polity is important, and you think Reformed understanding of the sacraments is important, then you’re not going to celebrate what’s going on in the Church of God in Christ. And it’s kind of silly to think that people would think that what’s Going on in a Pentecostal Wesleyan denomination is compatible with Reform Protestantism. But I think that. So go ahead. No, go ahead.

Jim Cassidy: Just to throw into the mix here this wonderful quote that you have in your article by E.J.

D. G. Hart: Young.

Jim Cassidy: And I’m just gonna read a small section of it. This is talking about those who left behind, were left behind or who stayed behind in the PCUSA. And E.J. young says this. Since that time, I have watched eagerly to see what would be done by those who remained in the church. They have done absolutely nothing. That’s a huge statement, right?

D. G. Hart: Yeah. Young was really very perceptive. And he doesn’t necessarily get the credit in the OPC that he should. He has to sort of take a number behind Van Til and Murray. And I’m not sure who would come next, necessarily, but Stonehouse would be there and Kuyper, RB Kuyper would be there. But Young really understood, well, the concerns that drove Machen originally. But he was also quite adept at holding to those views on his own and coming up with biblical reasons for that.

So the other factor there, too, that I think he’s writing to Carl Henry at that point regarding his participation in Christianity Today, the second version. And what’s another wrinkle to this whole story of neo evangelicalism and Presbyterianism is that many of the faculty at Fuller Seminary were in the PCUSA and were originally were not allowed to take their credentials to, or take, take their calling at Fuller as part of their call in the PCUSA.

And there was a report written in the 50s that kind of settled this, that finally gave the rationale for the mandate of 1934, which said why Machen and the independent board members had been unconstitutional in establishing a new board. And so the PCUSA finally had to figure out its relationship to parachurch organizations like either an independent board or Fuller Seminary. An independent seminary. And so eventually Fuller, despite having difficulty with the presbytery of Los Angeles, Fuller would become, and it is, I think, Purdue trains more Presbyterian or PCUSA pastors than all of the PCUSA seminaries put together. Fuller and Gordon do that, which is a remarkable statement about the way the new evangelicalism eventually lost its nerve when it came to liberalism in the mainline churches. So that’s part of the background, I think, that’s informing Young’s decision even then, that in the 50s, it looked like Fuller’s people in the Presbyterian Church were not. Even though I don’t think Young was expecting Henry, who was a Baptist, to be engaged in that. But he knew that there were Presbyterians at Fuller that weren’t carrying on any kind of struggle against liberalism in the church.

Jim Cassidy: What’s really amazing to me is how well known Machen, I mean, you deal with this in the article. That’s, that’s where I’m going with this next question or maybe more of a comment. But Machen was well known among conservatives of every stripe during his day for standing up for liberalism. Yet when he leaves the mainline church, he’s only got a small group that comes with him. The OPC doesn’t exactly after that grow by leaps and bounds. You don’t have people rushing to the OPC from evangelicalism. I think one of the wonderful insights that you have in this article is that you can’t separate Machen’s attack on liberalism from his Reformed confessional identity. And towards the end of the article you say this. The irony for those who would like to keep the Machen who oppose liberalism but would prefer to relinquish the Machen who opposed evangelicals is that Machen’s critique of liberalism was impossible without the foundation of a deeply reformed outlook. And then you go on, say some more really good things there. But would you be able just to talk to us a little bit about. Because it dovetails with what we’ve been saying, but kind of that uneasy connection that there is between Machen and then evangelicalism, especially in light of his strong Reformed roots that make the ground and the stuff of his attack on liberalism, especially in Christianity and liberalism.

D. G. Hart: Well, again, it’s quite clear that the book Christianity Liberalism comes directly out of Machen’s frustrations with the Presbyterian Church regarding the plan of Union in 1920. And. And if you compare Machen’s concerns in Christianity Liberalism to those of the World Christian Fundamentals association, which was the organization founded by William Bell Riley that was a fairly strong fundamentalist institution in the 1920s.

Machen just doesn’t pick up on the on evolution or Darwinism as being a huge threat to the church. He’s not opposed to drinking the way that William Jennings Bryan is. He’s not at all conversant with dispensationalism, which is also a prominent part of fundamentalism and drives so much of the evangelistic activity. If you think Jesus is going to return any day, you need to save as many people as possible. And so the Bible institutes really thrived on that theology for attracting students and turning out workers.

So he doesn’t have any of the classic doctrines of fundamentalism and Christianity Liberalism really is. The longest chapters in the book are about salvation, vicarious Atonement, a very reformed understanding of the atonement. And then a chapter on the church and the problems of subscription, the problems of some references to polity and also to worship.

So the signs were there for why people wouldn’t necessarily get or understand Machen. He was pretty Reformed, I would say, even there in Christianity, liberalism, but he was a recognized biblical scholar. He was at Princeton Seminary. He had all this reputation going on. So a lot of people would want to get on board and identify with him. So much so that even William Jennings Bryan invited Machen to testify at the Scopes trial. And Machen, I think pretty embarrassed by that and was able to get out of it partly by saying that he wasn’t an expert in Old Testament, which he wasn’t. But I think he would have just been glad for other reasons not to go as well.

Host: Yeah.

D. G. Hart: So people wanted a piece of Machen partly because of his notoriety, but when they saw what that would lead to, first of all, with Westminster leaving the leafy campus of Princeton and going to Center City Philadelphia, which I live in Center City now, and I like Center City, but I can understand why a lot of people wouldn’t necessarily want to go into Center City for their theological education.

And then the OPC, which was a very young church at the beginning, partly again because of the pension problem for older ministers, they just didn’t want to have that. And then on top of all that, I think too, is the old doctrine of the spirituality of the church, which old school Presbyterianism articulated and Machen picked up on. And it wasn’t a transforming vision necessarily of the faith that this was going to be a church that was going to go out and try to change the world.

And MacIntyre got frustrated with that and left in 1937. Edwin Ryan, who wrote the Presbyterian Controversy, a very important book in OPC history, eventually got frustrated with that and went back to the PCUSA, I believe, in 1948. Someone like Clark’s first name is Gordon Gordon Clark also, I think, or at least supporters of Clark, got frustrated with the OPC’s kind of narrowness, both in theology, but also in church polity and also with its cultural relevance. And so left.

So again, there were these elements were there in Machen, I think, in 1923, in Christianity, liberalism. But it took a while for them to play out institutionally. And when people saw it play out institutionally, they were much less enamored with what they saw. But again, I don’t think there’s any way that you can explain Christianity, liberalism or what is faith apart from Machen’s education formation at Princeton Seminary.

Host: Now, while Machen was at Princeton and then the whole Presbyterian conflict happened, he had many follow him. We’ve been speaking quite a bit about neo evangelicals, particularly in the 40s, which is such a fundamental time for that movement. One quote we have here from John Frame I want to piggyback on, but it is arguable that once the Machianites found themselves in a true Presbyterian Church, they were unable to moderate their martial impulses. Being in a church without liberals to fight, they turned on one another.

You mentioned Karl MacIntyre in 1937, and just after the OPC formed, many people broke off from the PCUSA and came into the OPC. But a year later there was another controversy, this time over social issues and slightly different matters than the original group broke off from the PCUSA from. So is this one example, is what happened in 1937 with Carl McIntyre One example that validates John Frame’s quotation here, or is there something else at play?

D. G. Hart: Well, I don’t think it does validate. I don’t think that they necessarily turned on each other. They didn’t understand what had brought them together, other than that they had been opposed to liberalism in the church, but they didn’t understand what they stood for.

Host: It’s a common enemy.

D. G. Hart: Right. But they didn’t have a common stand. And you have to clarify that this has happened repeatedly throughout the history of the church where people come out and then at the time of the Reformation, they come out and you get Lutherans, you get Episcopalians or Anglicans, you get Reformed, you get Anabaptists. I mean, so. And since then, Protestants have continued to splinter. The English church has given us Methodist, Baptist, Congregationalists, a whole host of Protestants. So what happened in 37 isn’t all that unusual.

The question is whether it’s valuable or not. I think Frame argues, especially in his book 87. Oh, what’s it called?

Jim Cassidy: Ecumenical reunion.

D. G. Hart: Right, or evangelical reunion.

Jim Cassidy: Evangelical reunion.

D. G. Hart: I think he thinks that denominationalism is a sin. I think he calls it. And. And it’s certainly detrimental in his view.

I tend to think that separate communions that try to engage the breadth of scripture and what it teaches about church life particularly, and theology is useful for trying to maintain fidelity to Scripture, that if you have to keep sort of compromising in order to maintain unity, you do over time get a lowest common denominator, common denominator sort of faith, which is, I think, the crisis that evangelicalism has faced various times. But is facing again right now in the United States.

So, you know, I think that’s an uncharitable way of looking at that. They sort of had to turn on themselves and devour each other because they were really. I mean, I think reading between the lines, it seems like they were really kind of temperamentally defective. They just couldn’t get along with anybody, so they had to fight with each other all the time. But if you look at the issues involved in the 37 split, there were clearly differences. Machen and others were trying to harmonize as much as possible, and MacIntyre and Buzzwell eventually left the church to found the Bible Presbyterian Synod.

But, you know, you can’t harmonize all views, so you can go into separate communions. I think this is one of the great assets of denominationalism. It kind of recognizes that there is a kind of unity because they’re denominations. We think about currency as denominations. We have. It’s all the same US Dollars, but there’s a. There’s a dollar bill, which is one kind of denomination. There’s a $10 bill, which is another denomination. So it’s all part of this larger thing. So in some ways, denominations represents an attempt to come to a unity while also allowing these other denominations to go and explore their differences more.

And I think it’s also a kind of check. And Bob Godfrey has actually argued this somewhere in his writings that that separation is a form of discipline or at least a way of trying to keep other churches honest about what they believe. It would help, I think I’ve said this before in interviews we’ve done. It would help if those churches actually met together once in a while or tried to be honest in person rather than just saying, well, we exist, so you should know what we hold over time. If you don’t get together, you don’t know what the Methodists believe or the Baptists believe really anymore. So it’d be nice to have some kind of ecumenical gathering like that, at least to clarify what the differences are and say, okay, we’re still divided on the thing. Good, okay, we’ll see you in 50 years. But I still think that that can be a valuable enterprise. And this is where just one area where John Frame and I would disagree.

Host: Now, do you think there’s a conference center we could book in Nicaea, maybe another ecumenical council?

Jared Oliphant: I’ll look into that.

Host: Okay, let’s try to book that. Yeah. I’m going to invite some Trinitarian theologians along. We’ve been mentioning many different decades in the OPC history what about the 70s and 80s? This might be a bit of a lost time for some of the younger OPC crowd not understanding what happened in those decades. What was the general tenor of Orthodox Presbyterianism in terms of Machen’s warrior children? Were they dormant?

D. G. Hart: I think they were tired. If not, I mean, did they get old and they took a nap? Well, there was a change. I mean, at a place like Westminster, there was a change in faculty. The original faculty by the mid-70s was largely either dead or retired.

And the OPC for instance, had been engaged in merger Talks with the CRC since 56, I think they began. And those eventually gave way for complicated set of reasons. And you want to read the reasons more, you can buy the book that’s coming out this summer, God willing. But there was also though a sense that what was happening in the south with the PCA particularly, I think Ed Clowney thought that this was going to be a much larger church and something that the OPC might have finally have some numbers that could help fund, at least in terms of just subscriptions or purchasing Great Commission publications, which the OPC had started but had really struggled to pay for itself and to find ways of marketing its wares that would keep the church from having to subsidize it. Also the Guardian, the Guardian was always running deficits and could not pay for itself from subscriptions. And the OPC at times wrote checks to help out with the Guardian.

So there was a sense too that what was coming with the PCA was going to be a larger Presbyterian Church. So the, the reasons for being negative were, were declining. One other factor is the confession of 67 with the Presbyterian Church USA. I really think that was a moment where the OPC, the original generation said it’s finally over. There’s no hope of getting any conservatives out of the Presbyterian Church. That church is now completely gone. They have different confessional standards now with the confession of 67 and the book of Confessions.

So that chapter was over. The negativity perhaps was for a time and now it’s over. There’s this new possibility with the PCA. There was also talk of trying to merge with the RPCEs. And so there was a more hopeful spirit. And the publication New Horizons in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was indicative of that more hopeful spirit in 1980 when it was founded in some ways to replace the Guardian, at least for an in house vehicle for the OPC. So the idea of fighting was I think, looked at as something for the past and no longer pressing in the moment when in fact it was all the more pressing given that there were a number of issues coming up before the church that really required similar sort of, not necessarily combativeness, but being on guard for what? Developments in the Church and developments in the wider Christian scene in America.

Host: Now, I, from one perspective, don’t like asking counterfactual questions, but I think it might be an interesting historical and intellectual exercise. How do you think things would have been if Machen would have lived to 1967, for instance? I mean, he died fairly young. He was born in 1888, correct? Thereabouts.

D. G. Hart: 81.

Host: 81. So he could have made it possibly to 67. How would things have been different had Machen lived longer? Would Machen’s warrior children have been more militant or less or.

D. G. Hart: Well, I would have loved to see his reaction to two nuclear bombs because I think the devastation he saw in World War I really changed his outlook when he was serving in the YMCA on the French front. And given my own politics, I would have liked to have seen what Machen would do with that. Not to say that I’m a fan of Japan or Nazi Germany, but on the other hand, and since my father was on Iwo Jima and he had gone back to Hawaii and they were getting ready to go to Japan, if they didn’t drop the bomb, I mean, I might not be here, which might be better for a lot of people.

Host: I can see some old life comments coming up here in the next few hours,

D. G. Hart: but I think people. What occurred in the OPC with Machen’s death is that people like Stonehouse stepped up as editor of the Guardian, people like Van Till were stepping up to assume positions of leadership. Murray Young and in some ways you could argue it was a blessing for those, that younger generation of faculty at Westminster, that that was really a huge contribution to the church. And Westminster indirectly subsidized the church by, you know, secretaries who helped type reports perhaps or paper or carbon copies or whatever that was going on that in the offices of Westminster that was assisting the OPC. So anyway, those men stepped up and they probably would not have stepped up had Machen lived.

And you know, before his death, Machen worked very hard to try to keep McIntyre and Buzzwell in the church and tried to orchestrate it so that Buzzwell, I think, was the Moderator of the 2nd General assembly and had, I think he sort of tugged at Van Till’s arm to get him to nominate. I may be getting this wrong, but something like that happened.

But when Machen saw what happened to the Independent board, the way McIntyre hijacked that from him. He was. I mean, his family argued he was so devastated by that that he was susceptible to a cold, which turned into pneumonia, which killed him. So McIntyre killed me. I mean, that’s.

Host: In some ways I knew it.

Jared Oliphant: I heard it here first.

D. G. Hart: That’s what some of the family members actually sort of thought. I mean, again, it was indirect, but.

Host: Yeah.

D. G. Hart: So I don’t think that after the events in the fall of 36 that Machen would have been as eager to try to keep everybody together and keep this broad tent. I think he would have continued to fight. But again, perhaps people like Van Till and Stonehouse and Young and Murray would have looked up to Machen and let him do the fighting when in fact they needed to step up and did.

Jim Cassidy: A quick question for us young ministers and elders out there in the OPC. How do you. I’m speaking on behalf of our listening audience as well. How do we maintain. How do we maintain militancy without becoming obnoxious or deciding that we have to fight every battle that’s out there? I don’t know if you have any thoughts about that.

D. G. Hart: I think at this point it’s better to err on the side of being militant than to. I mean, that sounds bad and I read a lot of blog that might

Host: get right to the issue though in terms of the mentality, if you think that way, then you would probably better be classified as a warrior child if you have this tendency to want to brush aside the differences for the sake of unity. I think it’s just a tendency is how we need to think about these labels. And I’m happy to be called one of Machen’s warrior children. It was initially kind of a derogatory term and we’ve kind of in many ways taken it as a compliment.

D. G. Hart: Right.

Host: And so if you have that tendency generally going about you think it’s good policy to err on the side of militancy. I think that’s just indicative of the whole situation.

D. G. Hart: I mean, I think what goes with that though, is trying to be charitable while being militant. And I actually do think Machen was very good at this. And one of the best essays where he pulls this off, it seems to me, or at least establishes the ideal is the essay on the relationship between. Or is it human relationships? There are two essays in particular, though, where he kind of deals with the kind of politeness and manners of Paul and Paul’s interaction at times in his epistles. But then on the other hand, how mation. How Paul was A warrior and a polemicist.

So militancy doesn’t bother me. What bothers me more is a lack of charity in the way that people might construe your own position, especially if you deny the implication of your position. And then people, if they continue to say, no, you are guilty of that, then that’s just. Then there’s something else, it seems to me, that’s going on there.

But again, in this age, it seems to me that militancy is probably more valuable for keeping us all honest rather than thinking everything is just fine and rosy and how can we make things better? Because it seems to be, oftentimes we make things better, we also make things worse. That’s just the nature of the fallen world. So having people around to tell us, okay, you may have given us that contribution. Thank you. But did you see that? You also did this over here? I think that’s a useful enterprise for all of us. And that’s part of the reason why God gave us marriage, so that we have lives to tell us when we’re screwing up.

Jared Oliphant: Don’t you think, in a certain sense, I mean, polemics is going to be inevitable? Whether the polemics are actually against polemics? You know, I mean, in other words, we’re always going to be fighting some kind of battle. And the people, if you ask the people who I guess you know would be against polemics, hey, how much does that mean to you? They’d say, this means a lot to me, that we can’t be polemic. Well, you know that you’re being polemical at that point. You’re always going to be fighting some kind of battle and something that means a lot to you. So in one sense, it’s unavoidable.

D. G. Hart: Yeah. There was a great line that Walter Lippmann, a prominent columnist, first half of the 20th century, even into the second half, wrote about the fundamentalist controversy where he basically said that people who were opposed to controversy were asking the conservatives to basically keep quiet and commit suicide. I mean, because what was at stake for those conservatives was something that they needed to talk about. So if they were going to keep quiet about it, then they didn’t exist. They had just become something else.

Host: Now, maybe to move things into the present day, to try to talk about an application of this principle of Machen’s warrior children without becoming too.

D. G. Hart: Is this for your iPhone? An application?

Jared Oliphant: The polemical app.

Host: You do have a reform file available for $20. I have a button you could push and it goes heretic or something.

D. G. Hart: Yeah, there you go, we turned into a gun. That would even be better.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, right.

Host: Well, the last two issues of the Westminster Theological Journal have had articles by William Evans and the latest one rejoinder by John Fesco and then another response by William Evans. William Evans tries to provide a taxonomy of this discussion of the doctrine of union with Christ. And he breaks up the Reformed world into several different schools of thought. And people differ and disagree on how successful he was or how helpful these schools of thought are or these categories are.

My question for you, one thing that John Fesco brings up, and I don’t assume that you speak for him, but I’m asking this because I know you have a dog in this race and the issue is he speaks of a pan Protestant.

D. G. Hart: I don’t talk about dogs in the fight anymore after Michael Vick.

Host: Is that, well, you know, well, the Bears took care of the Eagles a few weeks ago, so you can go and have your miracle wins against the Giants. But as long as my Bears, us

Jim Cassidy: Giants fans don’t appreciate Vic very much.

Host: Fesco mentions a pan Protestant doctrine of justification. And the question is, is there such a thing for those who hold to a different structuring of the ordo salutis, such as Dr. Gaffin or Elaine Tipton or others myself, to be forthright, don’t see justification operating in the same way in the Lutheran scheme of things. So I’m wondering if the Machen’s warrior children and these different mentalities might be an interesting perspective or a lens through which we can view this doctrine of union with Christ debates. Do you find this just another example, or would frame find this as another example of just Reformed warrior children trying to find something else to argue about, or do you think there’s a legitimate thing to discuss here?

D. G. Hart: Well, again, you set me up. So having said what I just said about militancy always being good, you know, I guess there’s, there’s no reason to think that that would be there to be necessarily anything wrong with, with being polemical about union or its importance.

The question, I guess that, that I have about those discussions is, is the history of the doctrine itself, both justification and union, and whether or not at least it has functioned historically the way that contemporary holders of it are using it, whether it has been as it has required, a kind of a militancy or not.

And my own work now on the history of reform Protestantism would suggest that it, it hasn’t functioned that way. Now, if there’s something going on that requires it to be so today, I think we need to hear that. And I’m still somewhat unconvinced myself. I think that there has been, and especially among some of the Dutch Reformed contributions, a kind of hyper Reformed idea of things.

So I guess the antithesis can come into play and you can push that and have an antithetical view sort of across the board. So we have to have a Reformed view of the Trinity or Reformed view of X, union or justification. And that may be the case that we need that I don’t know. But historically that hasn’t been the case that there had to be a Reformed view of. Of the Trinity. For instance, the Reformed confessions on the Trinity are really kind of quite content to go along with Nicaea and things before that. And when you look at the harmony of the confessions that various church, late 17th century churchmen, reformed churchmen tried to put out, I mean, they were trying to embrace Lutheran confessions in a variety of ways. So again, at least historically, that hasn’t been the case. So if there’s something historically now that we need that, then sure, let’s hear it and bring it.

Host: Yeah, I don’t want to drift too far aside the question, but I just found it initially interesting to think that many of the warrior children who have a militant mindset in the school that Evans calls the repristination camp, which has been taken, and people have not been too happy to have that label placed upon them. But I find it a little bit ironic that those who would be good warrior children want to stress a pan Protestant doctrine of justification. But understanding your historical point, I think the debate and the discussion needs to move into positive exegetical cases, and Fesco was stressing that too in his article, so we can leave that discussion for another day. But it’s an area in which we have healthy, vigorous debate within the reform community. Something that I don’t know if we would follow John Frame and his desires, if we would even bother speaking about these things.

D. G. Hart: The other question too is whether what is. I mean, it’s been the case historically, going back to Calvin Bullinger, that they had different understandings themselves personally of, say, the sacraments or Lord’s Supper.

Host: Oh, yeah.

D. G. Hart: So, and how much then, how much freedom is there for the variety of views within a communion? Or how much does one person’s view have to become the norm and how much does it preclude other views? So if union is going to be this central position in the Ordo, does everyone else have to hold that or not?

Host: Yeah, those are secondary tertiary questions. They’re good questions.

Jared Oliphant: They need to Be answered and say that we all sat down and got about 20 people to see. Okay, what are the conditions then for figuring this out? We’d all have different opinions on the conditions for figuring out, too. So that’s partially. Yeah. And the method. So it’s partially going back to my point is this is just gonna be the case always, you know, And I think disposition is. You can disagree on a whole lot of things, but it’s the way you do it.

Host: Yeah.

D. G. Hart: Right.

Host: Now, Darrell, you’ve also written recently about the Gospel Coalition, made some comments there. I’m not trying to set you up here. This is healthy. Good discussion.

D. G. Hart: I’m actually laughing because I had a phone call just on my way here where I was talking to someone.

Host: But speaking of the issue, how do you view groups such as this in light of this desire to network together, to find commonality and to be for something rather than against something?

D. G. Hart: Well, I view the Gospel Coalition as sort of evangelicalism 8.0 or 14.0 or something. I mean, one more iteration of trying to arrive at a common understanding of the gospel. For what end? I’m not entirely certain I can understand the appeal for people who are in independent congregations who would like to maybe feel connected to something bigger, you know, but there are options for that.

We have these things called denominations or even conventions like the Southern Baptist Convention. You could actually align with the Southern Baptist Convention or the Vineyard Churches. I mean, there are a variety of other kinds of ecclesial bodies. It’s not either the Gospel Coalition or the OPC. There’s something else in between.

And so I don’t quite understand this. But also the language of talking about a Gospel coalition, it makes it seem like if you don’t join it, are you not for the gospel?

Host: You’re together against the gospel.

D. G. Hart: Right. And then the particular language of the Gospel Coalition about actually engaging in word and sacrament, I don’t think they really mean that, but it does say that. So they actually take on themselves, at least in their formal copy work of the church. So. And then I just have. I don’t know how Presbyterians and Baptists cooperate in something like that.

And Mark Dever is a good friend. And Mark Dever has said that paedobaptism is a sin. And I think he’s right to say that by his own convictions as a Baptist. But then how do Baptists and Presbyterians who are on the leadership of the Gospel Coalition sort of cooperate on something when they may think that each other is engaging in sin when they baptize or don’t baptize. So I don’t.

Host: They’re difficult questions.

D. G. Hart: Right.

Host: Yeah.

D. G. Hart: So that’s part of my concern is. And then just the difference between church and parachurch and try to always shine a light on the nature of the parachurch and the deficiencies that I think are there. Seriously.

Host: Now, what about. Sorry, let you ask. One second, Jared. But before, what about groups like Napar, of which the OPC is a member? What are the functions of those organizations and how would that differ from something like the Gospel Coalition?

D. G. Hart: Well, it is a body of churches, so to get in, you have to be a church for one. And it’s also, I mean, denominations that join it. Excuse me. And I think it’s, it’s, it’s one of those agencies in which reform denominations can talk to each other and see what’s going on. So, I mean, I think there is an ecumenical imperative in Scripture and at least if we’re going to break it down in Protestantism according to certain theological traditions, it’s very important for us to be aware of what other reformed communions are doing.

Host: Yeah.

D. G. Hart: And as much as possible, coordinate our activities. So I think Naparch, it really is kind of an extension of the ecumenicity committees of the various denominations represented. So I think that’s a healthy thing. And I see it being pretty different from the Gospel Coalition.

Host: Jared.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, I was just going to bring up. There’s a supplemental article about this that Carl Truman wrote. If you just Google Fear and Self Loathing Truman, you’ll find it. But you, you might have seen this. What’s that?

Host: Little Hunter S. Thompson.

Jared Oliphant: Yeah, exactly. A nice, a nice reference. But he he addresses the same thing and he actually references Frame’s article, but there’s just a couple of quotes that I want to read that I think is completely relevant. He says the criticism of polemics often comes from those who enjoy the space that, that polemics have carved out for them and the safety that polemics provides them. And then goes on, don’t tell the world that the Trinity or justification by faith, or you can insert the Gospel are important doctrines. And then lament the existence of polemics. And then he goes on, as the last quote, he said, in my limited experience in both local churches and institutions, all of the major conflicts in which I had been involved could have been avoided if somebody at some point in the past had had the backbone and the love for an erring brother or sister to check them gently when they first showed signs of wandering. So I think it’s an important point as we consider Machen’s contribution to say, look, Machen did the dirty work that you kind of stand on at this point. And so you can’t be totally against polemics. Otherwise you’d really have to have the fight today yourself for things that have been done in the past. And that speaks to a lot of the blogs out there who are just, why can’t we all just get along in those types of dispositions towards theology and doctrine?

Host: One final thing.

D. G. Hart: Okay,

Host: how do we respond to the charge of micro Presbyterianism? If someone says you’re just engaging in micro Presbyterianism, do we take that as a compliment?

Jared Oliphant: Can you define that? I mean, I’ve heard it used in various contexts or even give, like, an example.

D. G. Hart: Well, microbrews are good, though.

Host: I think so, but in many ways it’s hard to define. I don’t know if I can. I’ve just heard the phrase myself, but I would. The tenor of that statement, I think, would be just a natural progression of the warrior child mindset. If you start to first of, where do we divide things? We can divide things between Protestant and Catholic. Then we can start to divide them Presbyterian and Lutheran. Then you can start to divide them up old school, new school Presbyterian. If you start taking that to its conclusion, we keep dividing in halves. Add into your item, you end up with tiny, tiny little. A tiny division that you’re the only member in and maybe, maybe your family until they get older.

Jared Oliphant: And then it’s just you. It’s the Camden Presbyterian Church.

Host: So that would be a micro Presbyterianism. Is that the necessary outcome of this or not at all?

D. G. Hart: In fact, the very idea of Presbyterianism is always about being in a disciplined communion with sessions, presbyteries, assemblies, synods, whatever. And so it’s part of a. It’s a collective expression of the faith. But when you take those responsibilities or when you take membership in that communion seriously, more seriously. So that there are restraints upon me what I can do as an elder in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, when it comes time to perhaps joining something like the Gospel Coalition, or when it comes time to perhaps becoming a contributing editor to an ecumenical magazine.

Host: Yeah.

D. G. Hart: Which I am. I mean, and I talk to friends about that, whether I should do that or not. But when. When your communion, your fellowship, your membership vows are a restraint upon what you do with a wider set of Christians, it seems to me that you’re honoring your understanding of the church, the doctrine of the church.

That. And Presbyterianism has one particular doctrine of the church, but it’s usually been the case that when people enter into common endeavors of evangelical or Protestant kind, they let ecclesiology go by the board. So they’re not it’s not a broad or a macro Presbyterianism that they’re engaged in. They’ve given up Presbyterian and they’ve become maybe macro Protestant.

But if you want to be Presbyterian and have elders, oversight, presbyteries, assemblies and things like that, and you believe that that really is the biblical form of government that God has revealed in Scripture, then it seems to me that Presbyterianism by its very nature is in some ways micro. And historically it has never achieved the kind of numbers that maybe people would like to think it has. When it’s gotten big, it’s also gotten

Host: flabby and then it tends to lose members. If you look at the membership trends in the PCUSA.

D. G. Hart: Exactly.

Host: The yearly decline, it keeps almost accelerating.

D. G. Hart: I believe they lose an OPC a year. They don’t come to the OPC. Obviously some of them are going into the EPC, but so I guess it doesn’t. Micro Presbyterianism does not result in an individual. It’s actually to be a corporate expression of one tradition of Christianity and take seriously the sorts of oversight and membership that come with ordination and vows.

Host: Absolutely.

D. G. Hart: Things like that.

Host: Well, I think this has been a very interesting, fascinating discussion. There’s so many more resources available online. I really encourage you to visit oldlife.org and you can follow Darrell’s writing there regularly. You can also find many resources on that website, including his course on J. Gresham Machen, which he taught at Calvary Orthodox Presbyterian Church in Glenside, Pennsylvania, where Darrell is an elder. You can also visit us online@reformedforum.org and we have resources and materials available for you there. But before I let you go, please Visit Westminster Seminary California’s Bookstore or Westminster Theological Seminary’s Bookstore@wtsbooks.com either one. You can find the Festriff to Bob Godfrey there where this essay is found. Always Reformed is the title, and it’s a great book with many contributions, and we look forward to discussing the essays of that book in weeks to come. So we want to thank everybody for listening and for watching, and we hope you join us again next time on Christ the Center.