Tolerance Creeps In
I. Tolerance Creeps In
A. Francis L. Patton (1843-1932) was Princeton’s last militant president. After teaching at McCormick Theological Seminary (1872-1881) in Chicago, where he brought David Swing to trial, Patton became a professor in both Princeton Seminary and Princeton College, primarily teaching philosophy and ethics.
B. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) of Princeton seminary on points of doctrine.
1. " That assertion I hold to be not altogether correct. There is between Dr. Erdman and myself a very serious doctrinal difference indeed. It concerns the question not of this doctrine or that, but of the importance which is to be attributed to doctrine as such. . . . Dr. Erdman does not indeed reject the doctrinal system of our church, but he is perfectly willing on many occasions to keep it in the background. I, on the other hand, can never consent to keep it in the background.”
2. J Gresham Machen (1881-1937)~ was the spokesman for the militant conservatives.
(1) He poured all his energies into leading the fight against liberalism, whether teaching in the classroom, preaching in churches, writing books and articles, or engaging in ecclesiastical politics.
(2) Though his leadership extended to the conservatives of other denominations, his strongest commitment was to preserve the conservative Reformed position at Princeton. Unfortunately, the old Princeton Theology’s days were numbered.
(3) The opposition to Machen was led by Erdman and Stevenson
(i) In 1908, they had supported their denomination’s union with the Federal (now National) Council of Churches.
(ii) They had attended the ecumenical Edinburgh Missionary Conference in 1910.
(iii) In 1920, they had championed a proposed Plan of Organic Union, an ecumenical endeavor defeated by the presbyteries the following year. Erdman and Stevenson were leading members of their denomination’s Committee on Church Cooperation and Union (Stevenson was vice-chairman), which reflected a rapidly growing spirit of compromise and doctrinal indifference.
C. In the fall of 1924, a delegation of Princeton students attended a conference of the Middle Atlantic Association of Theological Seminaries (MAATS) at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison, New Jersey.
1. Returning to Princeton, these men reported to the student association that some MAATS representatives were modernists who denied such vital doctrines as Christ’s virgin birth and deity.
2. The Princeton student association then decided to sever its relationship with MAATS and to establish a new organization true to biblical Christianity.
3.Consequently, in April 1925, twelve representatives from six theological seminaries met in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and formed the League of Evangelical Students. a)The League’s constitution affirmed the historic fundamentals of the Christian faith-infallibility of Scripture, trinity, virgin birth, bodily resurrection, substitutionary atonement, and second coming. b)President Stevenson and his like-minded colleagues opposed the whole endeavor, Stevenson complaining that the seminary would now "swing off to the extreme right wing so as to become an interdenominational Seminary for Bible-School-premillennial-secession fundamentalism."In vain, conservatives called for Stevenson’s removal from the office of president.