J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (50th Anniversary Edition)

An intimate and personal account which leaves no aspect of Machen's full and brilliant life untouched, Ned B. Stonehouse's full-scale portrait is a vivid and inspiring picture of a Christian of apostolic ardor who, at his untimely death in 1937, was called "the first Protestant minister in the nation." Acknowledged by his critics and admirers alike as the greatest leader of the whole cause of evangelical Christianity in modern times, Machen raised the intellectual acuteness of Protestant orthodoxy to a point where observers such as H. L. Mencken and Walter Lippmann claimed that in the religious debates of the twenties and thirties, the liberals had yet to answer him.

Writing out of the experiences of more than seven years of intimate association with Machen, and a wealth of sources which reveal completely the mind and heart of this learned and valiant spiritual warrior, Stonehouse tells the complete Machen story: the childhood years, the student days at Princeton under Warfield and Patton, the years abroad at the universities of Marburg and Gottingen, and again in 1918-19 in France and Belgium, Machen's books, his deep attachment to his remarkable mother, his cultural pursuits and love of literature, and the historical controversies at Princeton which led to the reorganization of that seminary, and to the forming of Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, in which Machen played leading roles.

Dr. Stonehouse's biography is a perceptive and illuminating account which reveals in Machen, warmly and personally, both the man and the scholar; and, because of Machen's weighty influence over the ecclesiastical world of his time, it is an intimate history of the struggles of early twentieth century American Calvinism.

About the Author

Ned B. Stonehouse (1902-1962) was a minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia for 33 years, from its founding in 1929 until his death. After studying under Machen at Princeton, he was Machen's intimate friend and associate for more than seven years, and later was his successor.