Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 62:2 (Fall 2000)
Article: J. Gresham Machen, Ned B. Stonehouse, And The Quandary Of Reformed Ecumenicity
Author: Sean Michael Lucas

WTJ 62:2 (Fall 2000) p. 197

J. Gresham Machen, Ned B. Stonehouse,
And The Quandary Of Reformed Ecumenicity

Sean Michael Lucasi

I hope most fervently that we shall make progress in learning, without sacrifice of principle, how we may discharge our full responsibilities as a Reformed Church in the context of world “forces opposed to the gospel of Jesus Christ” and of professing churches “swept into the paganizing stream of modernism,” but also in relation to other churches which may properly claim the name Christian.

Ned B. Stonehouse1

Upon J. Gresham Machen’s sudden death on January 1, 1937 in the heart land of North Dakota, the mantle of leadership in the new denomi nation he helped form, in the editorship of the journal he helped finance, and in the New Testament department of the seminary he founded, fell directly upon the shoulders of Ned B. Stonehouse. In the years following graduation from Princeton Seminary, Stonehouse became Machen’s partner in all Machen’s endeavors. No wonder, then, Stonehouse writes in the Machen memorial issue of the Presbyterian Guardian, “Our hearts are deeply wounded but not unto despair…. As Elijah was the spiritual father of Elisha and of other ‘sons of the prophets,’ Dr. Machen was the spiritual father of countless Christians in our time.” Stonehouse’s spiritual father was dead; and Stonehouse must have wondered whether Machen’s vision and the denomination he helped found would die as well.2

Part of the answer to that question has been answered in the negative, for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) remains to this day. A further question could be asked concerning Machen’s vision. Machen stood for confessional Presbyterianism when confronted by those who believed that doctrine and confession did not matter. Most know that Machen withstood the forces on the left, the theological modernists he castigated in Christianity and Liberalism. Yet few evangelicals realize that Machen stood for more than battling modernism; rather, Machen desired “to be identified, very specifically, with the Presbyterian Church.” The desire to maintain a “true Presbyterian Church” led Machen to view the Presbyterian Church in the

WTJ 62:2 (Fall 2000) p. 198

United States of America (PCUSA) as an apostate church, to separate from the large mainline body, and to help found the OPC.3

Machen’s vision that led him to maintain his confessional commitments also led him to emphasize ecumenicity based on confessional uni...