Machen's Hope
The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton
Author Richard E. Burnett Foreword by Mark A. Noll ISBN 9780802883957 Binding Trade Cloth Publisher WM B. Eerdmans Publishing Company Publication Date April 11, 2024 Size 152 x 229 mmJ. Gresham Machen is known as a conservative hero of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy. But was he always so staunchly antimodernist?
In this sweeping new biography, Richard E. Burnett examines the whole of Machen’s life and career—from his early years at Princeton, to his experience in the First World War, to his founding of Westminster Theological Seminary . Burnett pays special attention to topics that have received little attention from biographers, like Machen’s crisis of faith and his support for historical criticism of Scripture.
Incorporating all of Machen’s major works as well as his previously unpublished private correspondence, Burnett crafts a nuanced narrative of Machen’s intellectual journey from enthusiastic modernist to stalwart conservative. Nuanced and thorough, Machen’s Hope will challenge scholars’ assumptions about Machen and his dynamic era.
—George Marsden, professor emeritus, University of Notre Dame
“In this fascinating and groundbreaking book, Burnett gives us the gold-standard work on Machen’s life and intellectual development, while at the same time offering fresh insights into the key controversies that shaped his career. It is a must for anyone interested not only in Machen but in a formative period of American church history.”
—Suzanne McDonald, professor of systematic and historical theology, Western Theological Seminary
“J. Gresham Machen was at the heart of theological controversies in the 1920s and 1930s that racked the American Presbyterian churches. U.S. Presbyterians have arguably never fully recovered and have had difficulty in finding their way ever since. The time is ripe for a reconsideration of Machen’s life and work. Richard E. Burnett’s careful and judicious intellectual biography is exactly the kind of study that Presbyterians of all stripes will need if they are ever to regain their bearings on the American scene and reverse their long, slow drift into oblivion.”
—George Hunsinger, McCord Professor of Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary
“The burden of the book is to detail how thoroughly the younger Machen was committed to the ‘modern’ academic fashions he experienced as a student at both Johns Hopkins University and Princeton University, but then how he became a dedicated opponent of theological ‘modernism’ even while retaining some habits of mind from his earlier embrace of ‘modern’ forms of thought. Burnett reveals especially how much Machen’s engagement with contemporary New Testament criticism originating in Germany influenced the shape of his later theological and ecclesiastical commitments.
“Machen’s Hope does not so much challenge [earlier biographies as show how much more can be revealed about Machen’s intellectual life from even more diligent research and by posing a wider array of interpretive questions. . . . Burnett’s clear and often compelling prose only adds to the achievement of this unusually thoughtful, unusually revealing, unusually impressive book.”
—from the foreword by Mark A. Noll
Richard E. Burnett is executive director and managing editor of Theology Matters. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) and was formerly professor of systematic theology at Erskine Theological Seminary. His previous books include Karl Barth's Theological Exegesis: The Hermeneutical Principles of the Römerbrief Period.
Table of Contents
Foreword by Mark A. Noll
Preface
List of Abbreviations
1. The Early Life of J. Gresham Machen
Family
Home
Church
Congregation
2. Student Years in Baltimore and Princeton
Johns Hopkins University
The Religion of Daniel Coit Gilman
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton University
The Religion of Woodrow Wilson
3. Student Year in Germany, 1905–1906
The University of Marburg
Die Verbindung Franconia
Academic Life
Social Life
The University of Göttingen
Die Verbindung Germania
Academic Life
Social Life
The Universities of the United States
The Battle for Intellectual Independence
The Religious Situation
Machen’s Hope
4. Inner Doubts and Vocational Struggles
The Impossibility of Entering the Ministry
Familial Encouragement and Advice
Persuading Parents of His Plan
Confronting Fears and Maternal Opposition
Faith, Facts, and Free Investigation
5. The Rise of New Princeton and Decline of Old Princeton
The Triumph of the New Princeton
The Eclipse of Old Princeton
Life as an Instructor of New Testament
Key Friends and Supporters
Raising Standards at Princeton Seminary
6. Awakening to a Tremendous Defection
A Deeper Intellectual Challenge: Lucius Miller
The Collapsing Lines of Higher and Lower Criticism: Benjamin Warfield
The Student Rebellion of 1909: William Armstrong
A Good Old-Fashioned Fight: Harris Kirk
The Divided Minds of 1910
Presbyterian Church USA
Princeton University
Reckonings Old and New
7. Scientific Preparation and Centennial Celebration
The Scientific Preparation of the Minister
Three Ways of Relating Knowledge and Piety
Assimilation
Isolation
Consecration
Modernism
Princeton Seminary’s Centennial Celebration
Supernatural Christianity
Francis Patton’s Titanic Struggle
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