Word: machenism
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Fortnight ago at its General Assembly in Syracuse, N. Y. the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. formally suspended Rev. Dr. John Gresham Machen and five of his super-orthodox Fundamentalist colleagues because they refused to resign from their Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (TIME, June 8, et ante). Last week in Philadelphia, with the confidence of his independent income, determined Dr. Machen set about founding a new and "true" Presbyterian Church...
...George Emerson Barnes of the Philadelphia Presbytery. A onetime University of Montana footballer who subscribes to the 1923 Auburn Affirmation which questions such doctrines as the Virgin Birth, Dr. Barnes is pastor of swank Overbrook Presbyterian Church, a Rotarian and Union Leaguer well versed in church law. When Dr. Machen and his followers began handing resignations to their presbyteries last week, Moderator Barnes promptly called a meeting at which he declared that it was impossible for a Presbyterian minister to resign from the Church. The Machenites, he said, were simply suspended...
...this was academic, Dr. Barnes's next move was not. When the congregation of Central North Broad Church announced it would follow Dr. Machen, Central North Broad was promptly locked up. Moderator Barnes declared its pulpit vacant, announced he would furnish a supply pastor on Sunday, ruled that, according to a U. S. Supreme Court decision, the church belonged not to the congregation but to the General Assembly. To those edicts the Machenites bowed. On Sunday 700 of Central North Broad's members worshipped with their pastor in Lu Lu Temple...
Meanwhile in Philadelphia's New Century Club met Dr. Machen and 250 Fundamentalists including 33 ministers. The meeting dissolved the organization which had brought them together, the Presbyterian Constitutional Covenant Union which was formed last year to "reform" the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. It then reorganized as the Presbyterian Church of America, with John Gresham Machen elected by acclamation as first moderator. Sitting as a General Assembly, the gathering adopted a brief declaration of faith, vested in a committee the power to ordain ministers...
Chief significance of Dr. Machen's new Church, which will probably not subtract more than a few thousand members from the parent organization, is that it liquidates him as ecclesiastical news. He can no longer with reason utter the peppery denunciations of the conduct of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. which used to keep him constantly before the public. A relieved good-by to Dr. Machen & Co. was said last week by the Presbyterian Banner: "We have no unkind feelings toward these brethren but hope they will treat one another better than they have treated...