With Some Dissatisfactions
February 13, 2007
While the Modernist controversy was still gathering steam and would not come to a head till after the First World War, Machen’s speech was given in order to address the situation of encroaching modernism. For Machen, Princeton was crucial since he considered it the last bastion of learned orthodoxy in America. The loss of Princeton, what it stood for, and all its resources and tradition would be inestimable.
Machen listed three positions which may be taken concerning the relationship of Christianity and culture. The third, Machen’s own, will be reserved for the examination of the speech itself. But in order to better understand the situation of the day as Machen understood it, it will be best to explain the two positions he rejects.
When he had finally been persuaded to try a year of seminary at Princeton, he also enrolled in the university to pursue an M. A. in philosophy. While in Europe at the end of WWI he took advantage of being near Paris to attend lectures at the Sorbonne and to become acquainted with the literature and architecture of France. Machen became an accomplished scholar; his scholarly work was recognized and openly admired by at least two of the intellectuals of that day. Walter Lipmann writes:
There is also a reasoned case against the modernists. Fortunately this case has been stated in a little book called Christianity and Liberalism by a man who is both a scholar and a gentleman. The author is Professor J. Gresham Machen of the Princeton Theological Seminary. It is an admirable book. For its acumen, for its saliency, and for its wit this cool and stringent defense of orthodox Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced by either side in the current controversy. We shall do well to listen to Dr. Machen.
Another who expressed admiration for Machen, and who was contemptuous of fundamentalists in general and William Jennings Bryan in particular, was H. L. Mencken. His obituary for Machen shows how greatly he admired the intelligence and learning of Machen. Considering Mencken’s horror of Calvinism, his personal regard for Machen means much.
February 13, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Strangely, the words “horror of” were crossed out by a green pen. One wonders about the meaning of this deed.
The first sentence has some dissatisfaction. The last words are dissatisfying. And the last sentence of the third paragraph just isn’t very well connected.
February 14, 2007 at 3:41 am
Did you mean than Mencken’s view of Calvinism was horrific, i.e., that he was horrified by it, or that his particular “flavor” or “aroma” (the word Piper uses of Mueller’s Calvinism) was horrific? Perhaps this was the cause of the green pen. I confess I haven’t read enough of Mencken to know, though your last sentence would seem to be the context to indicate that he was horrified by it.
February 14, 2007 at 7:01 am
Well, you got it.
His words were something about how he relegated Calvinism to the closet where he kept his private horrors.
Mencken, whatever else he was, was not a Calvinist.
February 15, 2007 at 6:34 pm
Thanks for the clarification. I don’t know what the color green indicates at Central, but in any case, if one crossed out “horror of”, it would say “Mencken’s Calvinism”. That doesn’t make sense to me, either, since he wasn’t a Calvinist. It would be like someone commenting on “Scott Paulson’s Arminianism”. (Which I don’t have, since I would categorize myself as a Calvinist.)
Oh, well. Thanks for the dialogue and the writing, anyway.