In this special episode recorded live at First OPC in South Holland, Illinois—during the gathering of the Ministerial Training Institute (MTI) of the OPC—Camden Bucey and Danny Olinger tackle Chapter 3 of Fighting the Good Fight by Darryl Hart and John Muether: the division of 1937. What looked like a denomination born “in lively hope” on June 11, 1936, was fracturing within twelve months. Why? Camden and Danny work through the wider Presbyterian backstory, the rise of dispensationalism in American Christianity, the eschatological and apologetic shifts among the Westminster faculty, and recently re-examined correspondence between J. Gresham Machen and J. Oliver Buswell that sheds fresh light on what was really at stake.
Along the way: R. B. Kuiper’s Banner article, Carl McIntire’s editorial in the Christian Beacon, the resignations of Oswald T. Allis and Samuel Craig, and Machen’s growing conviction that the new church had to be confessionally and covenantally Reformed—even if it cost it tens of thousands of potential members. This is Part 1 of the discussion. Part 2 will pick up with the alcohol question and prohibition, the 1837 Old School / New School parallels, and the actual split following Machen’s death.
📖 Reading along? This episode covers material from pp. 41ff. of Fighting the Good Fight: A Brief History of the OPC by D. G. Hart and John Muether.
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Learn about the Ministerial Training Institute: https://opc.org/cce/MTI.html
Chapter Markers
- 00:00 Welcome and the Ministerial Training Institute
- 04:11 Setting the stage: the OPC’s first twelve months
- 06:16 Machen’s hardest nine months—and the Machen–Buswell correspondence
- 09:26 Behind the book: Briggs, Brooks, Darby, and the rise of dispensationalism
- 15:52 Tension at Westminster: O. T. Allis, Samuel Craig, and John Murray
- 18:34 Competing visions for the new church and the 1837 parallel
- 21:27 R. B. Kuiper, the Banner, and James Bennet’s pushback
- 26:15 Distinguishing premillennialism from dispensationalism in the letters
- 28:29 McIntire’s Beacon editorial and the suppression of Kuiper’s response
- 33:13 Would Machen’s survival have prevented the split?
- 38:20 Machen’s unsent draft, his final days, and a broken heart
- 42:37 The Dutch brothers, the Reformed faith, and counting the cost
- 49:14 Looking ahead and closing