Journal: Journal of the Institute of Reformed Baptist Studies
Volume: JIRBS 07:1 (NA 2020)
Article: J. Gresham Machen Was Right: Lessons for Southern Baptists
Author: Terry A. Chrisope

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J. Gresham Machen Was Right:
Lessons for Southern Baptists

Terry A. Chrisope*

^* Terry A. Chrisope is an elder of Legacy Baptist Church of Northwest Arkansas. He was formerly Professor of History and Bible at Missouri Baptist University, and holds the B.A. from Central Baptist College, M.Div. and Th.M. from Covenant Theological Seminary, and Ph.D. from Kansas State University.

Editor’s note: Though this article is aimed primarily at Southern Baptists, it is hoped that those outside that communion will both profit from and be warned by this fine contribution to our journal.

Oddly enough for an audience of mostly Baptists, I seek to draw attention to two Presbyterian theologians: J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) and John H. Leith (1919–2002). The two men had much in common. Both were Southerners: Machen from Maryland, with roots in Virginia and Georgia, Leith from South Carolina. Both were originally connected with the Southern Presbyterian Church (U.S.). Both were highly educated at elite institutions: Machen at Johns Hopkins University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Princeton University, and the German universities of Marburg and Göttingen and Leith at Erskine College, Columbia Theological Seminary, Vanderbilt University, and Yale University. The careers of the two men bookended the twentieth century. Machen was active during the first third of the century and Leith during the last half of the century. Both men were seminary professors: Machen in Greek and NT at Princeton Seminary (1906–29) and Westminster Seminary (1929–36) and Leith in church history at Union Seminary in Richmond, Virginia (1959–90). And both authored books warning of the dangers of theological liberalism.

The title of Machen’s book, Christianity and Liberalism (1923),1 sets forth his position at the outset: theological liberalism and Christianity are two different things. Leith’s title also announces his stance and sounds something of an alarm, Crisis in the Church: The Plight of

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Theological Education (1997),2 in which he bemoaned the direction taken by specifically Presbyterian seminaries in the previous several decades. During that time, he argues, they had abandoned their commitment to the historic Christian faith and had fallen into a theological quagmire. In a recent rereading of Leith’s book, I was struck by a profound irony—every major issue raised by Leith in 1997 had been addressed by Machen in 1923. My thesis here is twofold: (1) if Presbyterians had heeded Machen’s warning in the 1920s, then Leith’s book would not have...