Journal: Westminster Theological Journal
Volume: WTJ 75:1 (Spring 2013)
Article: Machen’s Lost Work On The Presbyterian Conflict Part II: The Literary Evidence
Author: James W. Scott

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Machen’s Lost Work On The Presbyterian Conflict
Part II: The Literary Evidence

James W. Scott

James W. Scott is Managing Editor of New Horizons in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Publications Coordinator for the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC. Part I of this article, “Machen’s Lost Work on the Presbyterian Conflict: The Historical Evidence,” appeared in WTJ 74 (2012): 217–55.

In Part I, historical evidence was presented to demonstrate that J. Gresham Machen, prior to his death on January 1, 1937, was writing a book on the Presbyterian controversy of the 1920s and 1930s over modernism, in which he had played a central role. It was further argued that Machen’s manuscript was misappropriated by his close associate, Edwin H. Rian, who revised and augmented the text and published it under his own name as The Presbyterian Conflict in 1940. Now further light on this matter will be sought from a close examination of that book itself.1

I. Internal Evidence Of Machen’s Writing In 1936

Machen’s writing of a rough draft on the Presbyterian conflict, if our historical reconstruction is correct, took place mostly in August, September, and October 1936. Rian evidently took unauthorized possession of Machen’s work in January 1937, and began his editing and expansion of the manuscript in the second half of 1938. Evidence of when Rian began to write is provided by the fact that he informed Thomas R. Birch in February 1939 that he had already completed “the first five” of the book’s (fifteen) chapters. Since Birch had “completely forgotten” that Rian had previously told him about his writing project, we may infer that several months had passed.2 Rian narrates events through 1939 (but not into 1940). The latest publication cited by Rian, in

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the concluding chapter, is the January 1940 issue of Fortune magazine.3 Rian’s preface is dated March 15, 1940, and was written after two men had read the entire manuscript.4 The book was put on sale about June 1, 1940.5 These facts indicate that Rian probably finished his manuscript in January 1940, but made a few changes thereafter in response to critiques and finally added his preface on March 15, 1940. If Rian wrote his final ten chapters from February 1939 to January 1940 (eleven months for ten chapters), and spoke to Birch about his writing project several months before February 1939, then he began hi...