Westminster, pt. 3: The Orthodox Response

Read pt. 1 and pt. 2.

J. Gresham Machen wrote:

If the proposed ... dissolution of the present Board of Directors is finally carried out ... [and] the control of the Seminary passes into entirely different hands—then Princeton Theological Seminary as it has been so long and so honorably known, will be dead, and we shall have at Princeton a new institution of radically different type.

As we saw at the end of part two, the PCUSA did dissolve that Board of Directors in 1929, and Machen was left with a choice.

(1) He could stay at a well-known, well-established, and stable institution. Or, (2) he could be true to his convictions about Scripture and attempt something radical and daring.

To be fair, Machen was never personally in financial danger. He had inherited $50,000 from his grandfather when he was 21 (his starting salary at Princeton was $2,000 a year). Between his teaching and book sales, he died with personal assets valued at over $250,000. However, do not let us think that this is the source of Machen's confidence.

Instead, J. Gresham Machen and some of his fellow faculty members left Princeton, forming Westminster Theological Seminary in 1929.

(This blog's text has been freely adopted from Wikipedia articles on Machen, The Orthodox Presbyterian Church, as well as the DG biography of Machen.)