A leading American conservative theologian, NT scholar, and ecclesiastical controversialist. Machen was born in Baltimore of a distinguished southern and Presbyterian family. He graduated with high honors from Johns Hopkins University, where under the guidance of the noted Greek scholar B. L. Gildersleeve he excelled in classical studies. After a year's graduate study at Johns Hopkins, Machen entered Princeton Theological Seminary to study under eminent Calvinist scholars such as Warfield, Patton, Vos, and R. D. Wilson.
During his final year as undergraudate Machen had the distinction of having a series of articles published in the Princeton Theological Review entitled "A Critical Discussion of the NT Account of the Virgin Birth of Jesus." Upon graduation from Princeton in 1905 he was still uncertain of a call to the ministry, and so went to Germany for a year's postgraduate work in the universities of Marburg and Gottingen. Although impressed and attracted by the liberal theology of Wilhelm Herrmann, Machen struggled through to a deep commitment to the infallibility of Scripture and to the traditional emphases of historic Reformed theology.
In 1906 Machen returned to Princeton as an instructor in the NT department. He continued in this position until he was installed as professor of NT in 1915. Only in 1913 did he finally decide to seek ministerial ordination. After 1912 he became more widely known as a scholar through the publication of various articles, reviews, and translations.
During World War I he spent several months on the front lines in France serving as a YMCA worker. After the war the theological atmosphere in the Northern Presbyterian Church and in Princeton Seminary was changing from traditional Calvinism to a much more liberal or "modernist" interpretation of Christianity. In the intense struggles between fundamentalists and modernists during the 1920s and 30s Machen emerged as an international champion of biblical authority and evangelical theology.
The faculty of Princeton Seminary split over some of these issues, and ultimately the liberal forces in the Presbyterian Church "reorganized" Princeton Seminary in 1929 in such a way that their viewpoint prevailed administratively. This led to the resignation of Machen, Van Til, Allis, Wilson, and others, who under the guidance of Machen founded Westminister Seminary in Phliadelphia in 1929.
Owing to his concern over liberal trends among Presbyterian missionaries, Machen founded the Independent Board for Presbyterian Missions in 1933. This step was to cost him his relationship to the church. He was tried by New Brunswick Presbytery in Trenton, New Jersey, in 1935 for disobeying the order of General Assembly to leave the Independent Board. Machen was not allowed to defend himself from Scripture or to make any reference to the theological implications of his case. He was suspended from the ministry and lost his appeals to synod and to the General Assembly of 1936.
On June 11, 1936, Machen led in the organization of the Presbyterian Church of American (which soon changed its name to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church). This new body did not grow as had been hoped, and within a short time experienced division within its own ranks. Perhaps part of the problem lay with Machen's decision to dissolve the Covenant Union, which was an organization of Bible-believing Christians within the Presbyterian Chruch. The Rev. Walter Watson of Syracuse, N. Y., requested Machen to maintain relations with this group in the old church even though he was starting a separate body. If this were done, Watson felt that in time many thousands might decide to join with those who had already come out with Machen. The Covenant Union was dissolved, however, and thus evangelicals in the new church and those remaining in the old church failed to benefit from one another's fellowship and common purposes over the years. Nevertheless, evangelical Christianity in the Western world owes a large debt to Machen and to the organizations he founded for their intelligent and courageous explanation of and stand for historical Christian truth.
Machen died on a preaching tour in North Dakota. Among his mostinfluential books are The Origin of Paul's Religion (Sprunt Lectures for Union Seminary in Virginia in 1921); NT Greek for Beginners (1923); Christianity and Liberalism (1923); What Is Faith? (1925); The Virgin Birth of Christ (Smyth Lectures for Columbia Seminary in 1927); The Christian Faith in the Modern World (1936). Two of his booklets were very important: The Attack upon Princeton Seminary, A Plea for Fair Play (1927) and Modernism and the Board of Foreign Missions (1933). Machen also founded two periodicals, Christianity Today and, later, The Presbyterian Guardian (both ceased publication many years ago).
D. F. KELLY