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Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America

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This is a very good book by Hart. Both admirers and detractors of J. Gresham Machen will likely have their views of him challenged by this biography in healthy ways.

Hart's most provocative premise in this book is his argument that Machen actually had quite a bit in common with skeptics like H.L. Mencken at least so far as their mutual criticisms of modernist theology and the mainline churches that became infected with it. Machen was the famous 'fundamentalist' who did battle against the encroachment of modernistic philosophy and theology in the mainline Presbyterian denomination, as well as at Princeton Seminary - battles that Machen ultimately lost. But Hart goes to great lengths to demonstrate that Machen was no typical fundamentalist, but was in fact one of the few evangelicals who commanded a high degree of respect within secular academic circles for his astute and intellectually rigorous critiques of liberal theology as well as his strong defenses of orthodox Christianity. Hart further highlights Machen's clear differences with the fundamentalists of his time on a number of issues. These differences were defined mainly by Machen's loyalty to presbyterianism and the Westminster Confession, both of which were not endorsed within fundamentalist circles of the time.

Hart's examination of Machen's social conscience as well as his attitudes toward matters of the state are very illuminating and are likely to cause many readers who thought they knew Machen well to do some double-takes. Machen strongly resisted both fundamentalist and liberal tendencies to inject the church into politics and matters of state policy, though the fundamentalists and liberals clearly disagree (and continue to disagree even now) about the role of church in political and social activism. Machen rejected both. Hart draws from many personal correspondences that Machen wrote to his mother and others to paint a picture of a very complex man who held views that were very distinctive.

I was very surprised and impressed that Hart, a teacher at the seminary Machen founded, and an elder in the denomination that Machen started, gives us a very balanced and sober look at Machen. This is not a book that fawns over Machen as might be expected by an author of Hart's theological and ecclesiastical pedigree. Instead we have here a thoughtful examination of a critical Protestant figure of the 20th century that puts forth an extensively documented look at Machen and the times in which he lived. A very good book.

D.G. Hart has proven himself to be one of the finest contemporary historians who focuses on American evangelicalism. For fans of Machen or contemporary North American Presbyterians - this book is absolutely a must read.

What distinguishes this work from other biographies of Machen is Hart's tremendous ability to bring out the historical situation and cultural currents that swirled around the pivotal events in Machen's life. Hart provides us with a richly textured vision of the tensions within North American protestantism during the first half of the twentieth century.

The book is ably written in clear prose. Even though the issues and arguments surrounding Machen's work are often quite complicated, this book is as much of a "page turner" as any work of such meticulous scholarship can be.

Hart's theological astuteness is also indirectly evident throughout the book. This allows him to portray individuals on all sides of the various issues as full and interesting individuals rather than as cardboard characters. We can easily understand why many would find Machen's opponents to be attractive figures, even though one suspects that Hart would often have sided with Machen.

Highly recommended.

J. Gresham Machen is one of the most maligned men in Christian history. Most accounts I know present him as a bad-attitude, polemical and intolerant religious bigot. Here, D.G. Hart presents the man in a very sober and objective manner - correctly placing him within the socio-political-religious background of his day. Thus, we come to a much better appreciation of the man and his views. Additional insights into his family life and one-time-possible-romance adds colour to the typically sombre portrayal of the man. In fact, sombre isn't the word that I would ever use to describe Machen after reading this book. Machen was known chiefly among his students as one of warmest and most humourous lecturers at Princeton while at the same time truly uncompromising in his belief that the Christian faith owes its origin to God Almighty in Christ Jesus. Finally, I think the greatest contribution of the book is that Hart here presents a Machen who was as much opposed to "brain-dead" Fundamentalist who preached "easy-believism" as he was the Modernists/Liberals. With this book, we finally get a Machen who was a Churchman, Scholar and "Mr-Valiant-For-Truth". Oh, for more like him in our decadent times.

We have long needed a superior biography of Protestantism's leading conservative theologian of the first half of the 20th century. Hart has written an excellent work, in the process showing that he is as much at home in general American intellectual history as in the more narrow field of church history. The observations are perceptive, the prose clear. After mastering Hart's work no will be able to talk about "fundamentalism" in the same way again. Justus D. Doenecke, Emeritus Professor of History, New College of Florida

Never having read much about J. Gresham Machen, I came to this book slightly unprepared for the technical discussions Hart sometimes gets into about the intellectual and even cultural context in which Machen lived and worked. However, this really is one of the book's strengths because Hart does a great job showing how the ideas and debates of Machen's time influenced his thought. He didn't work in a vacuum and Hart points out both how Machen responded to his times and how his critics in turn responded to him. The only caveat with the book is that it is much more a study of Machen's thought than it is a personal biography about what he was like (though there is some of that too). In the end I walked away with a deeper appreciation for Machen's intellectual honesty, scholarly rigor, and courage in defending the faith in his day. Now I need to read Ned B. Stonehouse's J Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir.

This is an excellent account of one of the most significant Christian leaders of the 20th century. It is not a biography, because Hart restricts the account to the events and issues surrounding Machen's involvement in the Presbyterian controversy over confessionalism and modernism that led up to the reorganization of Princeton Seminary and the founding of Westminster Seminary in 1929, and the subsequent founding of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church in 1937. However, Hart does give a lot of attention to the cultural and ideological background that informed Machen's writings and actions during that tumultuous period, and so I did finish the book with a much deeper picture of who Machen was.

Hart examines Machen's family background and especially the context of Southern Presbyterianism on his mother's side of the family. He examines Machen's paradoxical position in the debate surrounding Biblical criticism, which was that while he was squarely in the tradition of confessional orthodox Presbyterianism as opposed to the higher critical schools of theology, he was still eager to exploit all the methods and results that the latest scholarship could provide. In his academic position he wrote scholarly books that defended such doctrines as the virgin birth of Christ, but were nonetheless highly regarded and favorably reviewed by his modernist academic peers because of the high level of scholarship that he was able to bring to bear. For understanding this aspect of his thought, Hart discusses his educational background, and especially his experience studying in Germany and his personal crisis leading up to his accepting a position at Princeton Seminary. Hart also spends a considerable part of the book examining Machen's relationship to the rest of the fundamentalists, especially on confessionalism, evolution, and the role of the Church in society, where Machen diverged from most of his fundamentalist contemporaries.

The most interesting part of the book for me was the discussion of Machen's political views and how he saw parallels between the events surrounding the crisis in the Presbyterian church and the developments in American political life. Machen was a full-fledged libertarian politically: he opposed Prohibition (a deeply unpopular view among both fundamentalists and theological liberals at the time); he opposed the creation of a Federal Department of Education, and he also opposed the rise of the welfare state during the New Deal and the Great Depression, which he (rightly) saw as coercive wealth redistribution by the state and a denial of private property. In all these things, he opposed and feared the expansion of state power as the greatest political threat the church faced. He was also aware that a parallel centralization of power and bureaucratization of the church hierarchy was a major part of the driving force behind his opponents in the mainline Presbyterian church. Many are aware of the theological issues that Machen stood for. I don't believe that nearly so many are aware of his social and political views, which were intricately connected to his theological views and especially his view of the role of the church. It is a shame that the Reformed Church seems to have ignored that aspect of Machen's thought.

I highly recommend reading this book to get a better understanding of the issues and ideas that were influential for Machen. It is scholarly but accessible, and it also has an extensive bibliography at the end. I would recommend reading Longfield's book "The Presbyterian Controversy" first, because it gives a broad overview of the period for context.

This is a terrific summation of Machen's life and thought. It also nicely positions Machen within his cultural and historical moment. Hart writes well, too. I highly recommend this book to others. But also be sure to read Machen himself. His book Christianity and Liberalism is excellent for general readers; The Origin of Paul's Religion is excellent for scholars and Christian history buffs.

If there is one individual in American history that punctuates the struggle in the church to prevent the separation from reason to religion, fact to faith, it is J. Gresham Machen (1881 - 1937). Hart does an incredible job of putting this larger-than-life character in his proper historical significance and the book is a must read for any person who wants to more fully understand why the church is so impotent in her ability to relate in a relevant manner to the real issues of the day.

Machen's struggle was primarily against the efforts within the Presbyterian church at the turn of the century to modernize and become more relevant to the cultural around them. Machen strongly believed that God's Word was timeless and the emphasis need to remain on educating and equipping the leaders of tomorrow with a strong foundation of theology and understanding of the truth and tenets of Scripture and the celebrated historical creeds of the faith. He became one of the most celebrated professors at Princeton Seminary, but was forced out of this position because of his unwillingness to compromise on the importance of solid biblical scholarship as well as his refusal to kowtow to the political structure within the church. After leaving Princeton, Machen and a few others founded Westminster Theological Seminary, which has gained a reputation for its Calvinistic theology as well as a reputation for solid scholarship, especially in the fields of biblical studies and theology.

Machen's primary battle was with the church's move toward anti-intellectualism, the embrace of the emotional and sensational evangelicalism of the day that "won soles" but didn't change lives. Machen was an incredible figure that clearly demonstrated the power and influence of the church's slide away from her historical roots and moorings into the cultural drift we can so easily see in a vast percentage of our churches today - especially in Machen's beloved Presbyterian Church!

The historical significance of Machen is only matched by his amazing and colorful personality. He passed away at a relatively young age really at the peak of his significance to the movement attempting to reestablish the importance of intellectual pursuits in the Christian walk; but his legacy is felt today through the lives and works of those who picked up the torch and continued the battle including the works of Francis Schaeffer, Cornelius Van Till, B.B. Warfield, and even Nancy Pearcey.

D.G. Hart's book "Defending the Faith" is an extraordinary biogarphy. He uses Machen as a backdrop to tell of the encroachment of Christian and secular liberalism in the firsat hald of the 19th Century.

Unlike most biogarphies, that are often dry and standard on how they present the information, Hart is keen enough to mix Machen's life, letters, thoughts, and the controversies of the day together - and does this without loosing the reader.

Machen is seen as a human being with strong suits and faults. We discover also that some secualr liberals join Machen in his attack on Christian liberals. Machen was a prolific schoalar (though I do not agree with many of his views) and one feels they are watching the battle live as he fights against a liberal Protestant Christianity, especially in the Presbyterian Church.

D. G. Hart, formerly head librarian at Westminster Seminary, where most of the Machen papers are archived, has here written a careful intellectual biography of perhaps the most gifted conservative American theologian of the early twentieth century. As Hart well demonstrates, Machen's religious, political, and social views were hardly typical of contemporary fundamentalists. While this fact diminishes the ability of Machen to serve as a representative of any religious position, it also demonstrates that early twentieth-century religious conservatives ought not to be treated as cardboard caricatures--even when they are being compared with Machen.