Machen & the Meaning of Missions

The Presbyterian Church in the United States of America received a report at the 1932 General Assembly titled "Re-Thinking Missions: A Laymen's Inquiry after One Hundred Years." This report was commissioned by seven major denominations, including the PCUSA, with the backing of John D. Rockefeller Jr. It argued, in that spirit of theological liberalism, that the church needed to, as the title puts it, rethink missions. Missions in the past, the report argued, were about bringing the gospel to heathen people. These people had never heard the gospel before and had never had access to God's Word, so it was absolutely crucial for missionaries to bring the good news of the gospel to these people groups. That was what the church had been doing in missions.

This report, however, argued that the early decades of the twentieth century had given birth to a more enlightened view of humanity, and that the response should be greater tolerance than that of previous generations. The church should recognize that there is some validity to non-Christian religions, so Christians need to rethink missions. Missions should be not so much about bringing the gospel—and this is very much in keeping with trends in the early twentieth century—but about improving the conditions and the social status of people around the world. The concern was more with issues of a social nature than with issues of a gospel nature.

When J. Gresham Machen read this report, he could not have disagreed more strongly. In response, he took two actions. His first was to submit an overture to his presbytery to challenge the report. The second was to write a report of his own called "The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age."

"When I say that a true Christian church is radically intolerant," Machen wrote, "I mean simply that the church must maintain the high exclusiveness and universality of its message. It presents the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not merely as one way of salvation, but as the only way. It cannot make common cause with other faiths. It cannot agree not to proselytize. Its appeal is universal and it admits of no exceptions. All are lost in sin. None may be saved except by the way set forth in the gospel." That, to Machen, is the meaning of missions.

Machen's overture to the New Brunswick Presbytery did not fare well. It was roundly rejected by the presbytery, meaning it would not get to the floor of the General Assembly. So, the report was received in 1932 and Machen hoped to debate it in 1933. That didn't happen. And when it didn't happen, Machen felt he had no choice but to withdraw his support from the denomination's Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions. He founded the Independent Board of Presbyterian Foreign Missions in 1933. The board, largely funded by Machen himself, sent its first missionaries in 1934 to China.

It was this board that would get Machen in trouble. Its formation was taken as a direct attack on his denomination, so his presbytery began to challenge him. The presbytery charged him with violating his ordination vows, and he was tried, convicted, and suspended from the ministry. His conviction was upheld at the 1936 General Assembly and he was defrocked and kicked out of the Presbyterian Church in the USA. It had to do with missions and it had to do with the gospel.