This issue concludes the article by Dr. Roark. The first installment was published in the June 1965 JOURNAL .
The Word “true” suggests conformity to a pattern or standard and there is related terminology suggesting the same idea. In discussing the question of whether his vigilant group should remain in the Church or not, Machen declared, “lf we do remain in the Presbyterian Church we shall never acquiesce in the program of ‘peace and work’ until the true witness of the Presbyterian Church shall be restored.”55 Speaking in May, 1936, after the General Assembly had banished all hopes of redress on his trial, Machen maintained that the new church which must be founded would be “Presbyterian through and through, being faithful to that great system of doctrine from which the present Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. has turned away.”56 Throughout the course of his struggle Within the Presbyterian Church, Machen fought for this uncompromising position, a true Presbyterian Church. It Was a Church that would be in “conformity with its constitution.”57 The second important phrase in the definition is “teaching officers.” The line of division between the requirements for the teaching office of the Church and the requirements for church membership were important for Machen. Certainly requirements for Church membership should be distinguished in the sharpest possible way from requirements for the ministry. The confusion of these two things in the ecclesiastical discussions of the past few years has resulted in great injustice to us who are called conservatives in the Church.58 Machen maintained that many were qualified to be admitted to the Church, but were not qualified to teach. There were many who “should not be allowed to stand forth as accredited teachers with the endorsement of the Church. Machen is often emphatic about this distinction. He was aware that not only were there those admitted to membership in the Church who were not fully Presbyterian, but there were also many who had not made a genuine confession of faith at all.
The reason Machen fought so hard for this distinction was that the Presbyterian ministry was a voluntary office. No man was required to enter the ministry of the Presbyterian Church.”61 “No one is compelled to be one of its accredited representatives.”62 Machen drew a contrast between the ministry and the state. ln the case of the state, there was no question as to whether one would be a citizen or not. But the Church “is a purely voluntary organization and no one is forced to enter its ministry.63 On the basis of this distinction Machen declared: Let the man who stands firmly for the authority of the Bible as the Word of God, and for the great “reformed” system of doctrine as the system taught in the Bible become a minister in the Presbyterian Church. Let the man who believes that Christianity is simply a way of life and that doctrine is the necessarily changing expression of religious experience enter into the Unitarian Church where he would be perfectly at home or else found some new organization of his own.64 In connection with this aspect of the definition, a Word should be said about Lefferts A. Loetseher’s charge against Machen. Concerning Machen he said: For him the Church was, in essence, a voluntary society, created de novo by contract by people who find themselves in theological agreement. ‘An evangelical church,’ he wrote, ‘is composed of a number of persons who have come to agree in a certain message about Christ and who desire to unite in the propagation of that message, as it is set forth in their creed on the basis of the Bible! In constitution, though of course not in purpose, he likened the Church to a political club. This was good Anabaptist doctrine and might even pass for Congregationalism, but it certainly was not Presbyterianism. The Presbyterian conception of the Church is organic. Presbyterian doctrine is that normally people are born into the Church.65 On the surface, the sentence quoted by Loetscher does lend itself to an Anabaptist viewpoint. In reality, however, Machen did not hold an Anabaptist View of the Church. The context from which Loetscher quotes is concerned, not With the voluntary aspect of church membership in general, though there is a valid element of this in Presbyterianism, but with the important use of the concept of voluntariness as it is related to the teaching office of the Church. The context from which Loetscher took Machen’s sentence is this:
lt is plain in this context that Machen Was pointing up the teaching office as a voluntary thing and his emphasis upon Church membership in general was very incidental. As for likening the Church to a political club, Machen did use the illustration of the possibility of a Republican declaring that he was a Democrat to gain entrance into the Democratic club for the purpose of turning “its resources into an anti-Democratic propaganda.” But Machen went on to declare that it is just exactly such a plan which is adopted by advocates of a non-doctrinal religion who by subscription to a creed gain an entrance into the teaching ministry of doctrinal or evangelical churches.67 The context, therefore, has reference to a voluntary teaching ministry and explicitly not to church membership. It seems to me that Loetscher has misjudged Machen.68 It seems incongruous to speak of Machen as having an Anabaptist view of the church in light of the above features. It is important to note that where Machen declared the church to be a voluntary organization it is always in a context of his discussion of the ministry and the right to demand full subscription to the standards. The really significant factor was not the voluntariness but the demand for full subscription. This is not Anabaptist but clerical or hierarchial.69 More will be said of this in the conclusion. The third important phrase in the definition of a “true Presbyterian Church” is “honest and ambiguous subscription.” Machen charged the liberals with accepting the creed outwardly but inwardly holding their tongues in cheek on certain doctrines. The last phrase of the definition is “standards of the Presbyterian Church.” “Standards of the Church” refer to the Confession of Faith, the Larger and Shorter Catechisms, the Form of Government, the Book of Discipline, and the Directory for the W0rship of God. In his writings, Machen referred more frequently to the Confession and the Catechisms than to the others. We must now evaluate Machen’s ideas from three vantage points. The first Vantage point is that of the Reformation as reflected in the Writings of John Calvin. Concerning agreement in doctrinal matters, Calvin said, “First and foremost, we should agree on all points.”70 Certainly, this is the ideal in any situation, but he proceeded to say, but since all men are somewhat beclouded with ignorance, either we must leave no church remaining, or we must condone delusion in those matters which can go unknown without harm to the sum of religion and without loss of salvation.71 The basic difference between Calvin and Machen centers around the use of the confessions of faith. Machen maintained that the teaching office must subscribe to the standards. It is at this point that he made the important distinction between the requirements for the teaching office and those for church membership. Calvin, on the other hand, in regard to doctrinal requirements proposed no such distinction between the ministry and the membership of the Church. When Calvin spoke of catechisms and confessions it was in relation to the Church as a whole.72 Williston Walker declared that the inhabitants of Geneva were forced to accept the Evangelical position or leave the city.73 The demand of Calvin was acceded to and when he finally gained a firm control of the city, “citizens guilty of opposition to the accepted doctrine . . . were summoned before the consistory for admonition, reprimand, and correction.”74 A further distinction between Machen and Calvin centers in the matter of ordination. Machen demanded full subscription to the Westminster Confession of Faith on the part of the teaching officers. Of course, the Westminster Confession of Faith post-dates Calvin, but the requirements for ordination are very simple in Calvin’s Writings. The absence of subscription to a creed or standard is quite noticeable. Mueller describes the ordination; One of the pastors gave a discourse about the meaning and duties of the office. After prayers the candidate had to swear entre les mains de la Seigneurie, that is, of the Syndics and the Council, promising to serve God faithfully, preach his Word, edify the church, admonish the erring ones without fear or favor, seek the welfare of both Council and city, but supremely to yield to God an undivided allegiance.”75 The Scripture becomes the focal point for all judgment in doctrine, morals, and life. However, in reality the candidate had no need of subscribing to a confession at the point of ordination. As a member of the Church of Geneva he had already done this, but he had subscribed as a member of the church rather than as a candidate for the teaching office.76 Thus Machen more sharply distinguished the ministry (in the matter of requirements) from the membership than did Calvin. Calvin required a credible confession of faith from all members of the church and not just a strict subscription on the part of the teaching officers. Machen’s view at this point is clerical in nature and it is in this that he went beyond the Reformation. The underlying motive, of course, was the desire to maintain a “true Presbyterian Church" which in essence was a Church requiring full subscription to the Confession by the teaching officers alone. If truly Presbyterian accredited representatives could be maintained then it was presumed that the ordinary member of the Church would follow the faith of the pastor or teacher. The second vantage point is that of the Standards of the Presbyterian Church. In the Confession of Faith and the Form of Government we see something of the incompatibility of strict subscriptionism with Presbyterianism. In the chapter on the Church (XXV), article five, it is stated: The purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error; and some have so degenerated, as to become no churches of Christ, but synagogues of Satan. Nevertheless, there shall be always a Church on earth, to worship God according to his will.77 In the Form of Government, we find something of the latitude of freedom and nonconformity granted in the Presbyterian Church. The first chapter opens as follows: God alone is the Lord of the conscience; and hath left it free from the doctrine and commandments of men, Which a1'e in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it in niatters of faith or vv0rship’; therefore they consider the rights of private judgment, in all matters that respect religion, as universal and unalienable ....78 In article five of the same chapter it is stated that there are truths and forms, with respect to which men of character and principles may differ. And in all these they think it is the duty both of private Christians and societies, to exercise mutual forebearance towards each other.79 The Confession seems to pronounce judgment upon itself in Chapter XXXI, Section III. It says, All synods or councils since the apostles’ times, whether general or particular, may err, and many have erred; therefore they are not to be made the rule of faith or practice, but to be used as a help in both.80 The Scripture reference used is Acts 17:11 concerning the Bereans who searched the Scripture to see if the Words of the Apostles were true. It is one thing to submit to the Standards as the criterion of true doctrine and another to use them as a help or to accept them with reservations. The third vantage point is the Presbyterian tradition in the United States. Although we have quoted the Form of Government as part of the Standards of the Presbyterian Church, it is at the same time an expression of the life of the Church. The Form of Government, as Well as the other instruments, has been a product of the Church itself. Together these Standards are the products in particular of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, which met in England in 1643~49. In America the Standards were adopted in 1729 in a compromise measure known as the Adopting Act. They were adopted again by the Synod of New York and Philadelphia in 1788 and amended at various times from 1805 to 1925. As such these Standards speak significantly of the changing tradition in the Presbyterian Church. The fact that the Standards have been amended indicates something of the latitude involved in their formulation. Logically, strict subscriptionism should be maintained in relation only to the autographa of the Westminster Assembly. However, strict subscriptionism is only one facet of Presbyterian history in the United States. In the history of American Presbyterianism there have been two opposing parties, and each has tried to gain and maintain the upper hand. On the one hand, there is the subscriptionist wing which has tended to be the “high church” party. It has stressed the need of “precise theological formulation, the professional and distinct character of the ministry, and the orderly and authoritarian church government.”81 On the other hand, the non-subscriptionist tradition has stressed the adaptability of a more sectarian type of structure with less emphasis on an “elaborated fixed theology.” 82 Presbyterianism, since the turn of the 18th century, has had to reckon with these antinomies. Thus, if one will point to the past history to show that doctrinal conformity or subscriptionism is “true” Presbyterianism, in all fairness, one must recognize that there have been elements of non-subscriptionism. It would be more nearly correct to say that a desire for complete doctrinal conformity has never been the unanimous expression of the Presbyterian tradition. Therefore, on three counts we have to make the judgment that Machen’s doctrine of the church goes beyond the norms that he accepted and treasured. Footnotes: 55. J. Gresham Machen, “A Future for Calvinism in the Presbyterian Church?” The Banner, (April 4, 1930), p. 320. 57. The Presbyterian Guardian, Vol. I, No. 2 (Oct. 1935), p. 22. |