M achen, J ohn G resham (1881–1937)

Abstract An American Presbyterian theologian and professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary, J. Gresham Machen was an eloquent defender of the evangelical position in the Modernist–Conservative controversy of the 1920s and 1930s. Machen was born on July 28, 1881 in Baltimore, Maryland into a family that had Southern roots. His father, Arthur Machen, was a prominent lawyer who taught John a love for the classics; his mother, Mary Gresham, was rooted in “Old School” Presbyterian theology and early taught John the love of Scripture and the Westminster Catechism. Machen attended a private academy and received a classical education that included Latin and Greek.