Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 27:1 (Spring 2023)
Article: John Gresham Machen: Defender Of The Faith
Author: Michael A. G. Haykin

John Gresham Machen: Defender Of The Faith1

Michael A. G. Haykin

Michael A. G. Haykin is Professor and Chair of Church History at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, and Director of the Andrew Fuller Center for Baptist Studies, located at Southern Seminary. Dr. Haykin is the author of many books, including “At the Pure Fountain of Thy Word”: Andrew Fuller As An Apologist (Paternoster Press, 2004), Jonathan Edwards: The Holy Spirit in Revival (Evangelical Press, 2005), The God Who Draws Near: An Introduction to Biblical Spirituality (Evangelical Press, 2007), Rediscovering the Church Fathers: Who They Were and How They Shaped the Church (Crossway, 2011), Patrick of Ireland: His Life and Impact (Christian Focus, 2014), Kiffen, Knollys, and Keach: Rediscovering our English Baptist Heritage (H&E, 2019), Reading Andrew Fuller (H&E, 2020), Iron Sharpens Iron: Friendship and the Grace of God (Union Publishing, 2022), and Amidst Us Our Beloved Saints: Recovering Sacrament in the Baptist Tradition (Lexham, 2022).

In the early stages of what has come to be known as the Fundamentalist- Modernist controversy, John Gresham Machen (1881–1937), then Professor of New Testament Literature and Exegesis at Princeton Theological Seminary, set this struggle in the overall framework of church history. The struggle, he noted,

is one of three great crises in the history of the Christian church. One came in the second century when Christianity was almost engulfed by paganism in the church in the form of Gnosticism. There was another in the middle ages when legalism was almost dominant in the church, similar to the modern legalism which appears in the Liberal church. Christianity today is fighting a great battle, but I, for my part, am looking for ultimate victory. God will not desert His church.2

SBJT 27:1 (Spring 2023) 15

This third “great battle,” of which Machen here speaks, had erupted within the ranks of his ecclesial community, Northern Presbyterianism, in 1922 when Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969), a liberal Baptist minister, trumpeted forth the question from the pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church in New York, “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?”3 Machen’s answer to this question, as he looked at the church’s victory in the previous “great crises” of her history, was an unequivocal “yes.”4 Here Machen’s confidence in a sovereign God is abundantly evident. But his deep interest in history is also apparent. In fact, W. Stanford Reid ha...