Machen's Hope

The Transformation of a Modernist in the New Princeton

by Richard E. Burnett

Foreword by Mark A. Noll

Imprint: Eerdmans

638 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 in

Hardcover
9780802883957
Publication Date: April 11, 2024

$45.99

£35.99

eBook
9781467467940
Publication Date: May 21, 2024

$45.99

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Description
Contents
Authors
Praise

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
      Jesus and Paul
8. The Road to Ordination
  Broker within the Brotherhood
  Ecclesial Service
  Academic Politics
  Ordination
9. Wars and Rumors of War
  The European Front: Sympathy for the Unpopular Side
  The University Front: John Hibben’s Spiritual Philosophy
  The Emerging Fundamentalist-Modernist Front
  The Popular-Piety Front: Billy Sunday and Albert Fitch
  The Intellectual Front: History and Faith
10. The Battle Lines at Home and Abroad
  Standing in the Breach
  The Triumph of Religion
  The Blood of Martyrs
  The Roots of Religionism and Its Fruit at Princeton
  Civic Duty and Religious Work
11. The End and Beginning of War
  Postwar Perspectives
  A New Passion for a Good Church
  The Origin of Paul’s Religion
  The Battle is Now On
  The Death of Warfield
  Babylonian Captivity
12. Conclusion
  The Transformation of Machen’s Hope
  The Terms of Hope
      Supernatural Christianity
      Religion
      A Phenomenon of History
  The Substance of Hope
  The Resurrection of Hope
  The Queen of the Sciences
Appendix: J. Gresham Machen, “The Universities of the United States”
Works Cited

“Machen’s Hope provides an impressively detailed and comprehensive account of the intellectual formation of one of the most influential Christian scholars of the past century.”
—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