Today, we’ll examine the church’s first tumultuous decade—a period that would define the OPC’s identity through significant internal conflict and establish the theological foundations that continue to characterize the denomination today.

To understand these early struggles, we need to remember the key milestones leading to the OPC’s formation: Westminster Seminary’s founding in 1929, the creation of the Independent Board of Foreign Missions around 1931-33, and finally, the establishment of the OPC itself when J. Gresham Machen and others were suspended from the PCUSA ministry.

A Small Beginning in a Vast Landscape

The newly formed OPC was remarkably small. At the first General Assembly, only 34 ministers were present. Within a few years, total membership reached just 5,000 people—a tiny fraction compared to the PCUSA’s nearly two million members. Many prominent conservatives, including Clarence McCartney and Donald Barnhouse of Philadelphia’s Tenth Presbyterian Church, chose to remain within the PCUSA rather than join the new denomination.

Geographically, the OPC emerged entirely from the Northern Presbyterian Church, meaning there were no OP churches in the South initially. The southernmost congregation was in Sandy Springs, Maryland, with another technically in Kentucky but really serving Cincinnati. The first truly southern church wouldn’t appear until Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 1943—founded, perhaps unsurprisingly, by a group of transplanted northerners.

Defining Presbyterian Identity: The Central Tension

Perhaps the most significant challenge facing the early OPC was a fundamental question of identity. As I mentioned to Matthew recently, maybe the definition of Presbyterian is simply “people who are willing to debate the definition of Presbyterian.” This tension has appeared throughout Presbyterian history—from the Old Side-New Side controversy of the 1700s through the Old School-New School debates of the 1800s.

The OPC would ultimately choose to be an “ordinary means of grace, confessional Presbyterian church” that functions, worships, and operates in distinctly Presbyterian and Reformed ways. This decision separated them from other evangelical Christians, contributing to their continued small size but establishing their theological integrity.

The Fundamentalist Challenge

A major source of early conflict came from the fundamentalist and dispensational movements that had influenced many conservatives who joined the OPC. While Machen had declared in the 1920s that he was “not a fundamentalist, but a Calvinist”—meaning a confessional Presbyterian—many OPC members identified strongly with fundamentalism, particularly premillennialism and dispensationalism.

As Darrell Hart and John Muether observe, fundamentalism involved more than just opposition to liberalism. It included “dispensational theology, revivalistic techniques of soul winning, prohibitions against worldly entertainments and a low view of the institutional church.” In many ways, this fundamentalist approach paralleled the New School movement we’ve studied from the 1830s—both claiming to be confessionally Presbyterian while emphasizing broader evangelical concerns over distinctly Presbyterian practices.

The Alcohol Controversy and Foreign Faculty

Two prominent fundamentalists, J. Oliver Buswell (president of Wheaton College) and Carl McIntyre, led opposition to what they saw as theological drift. They were particularly displeased with the Westminster Seminary faculty’s refusal to condemn alcohol use entirely. The divide often fell between the Westminster Seminary faculty and everyone else.

The fundamentalists’ concern extended to the faculty’s foreign composition. Four Westminster professors were not of American descent: Scotsman John Murray and Dutchmen Cornelius Van Til, Ned Stonehouse, and R.B. Kuyper. The fundamentalists argued these “foreigners” didn’t understand how Americans practiced Presbyterianism.

In 1936, correspondence between Buswell and Machen revealed deeper theological differences. Machen expressed serious concerns about the Scofield Reference Bible, writing that dispensationalism’s “root error” was its “utter failure to recognize and make central the fact of the fall of man.” He argued that Scofield’s view of Mosaic law stemmed from “a wrong view of sin, a wrong view which is against the very heart and core of the Reformed faith.”

Escalating Conflicts at the Second General Assembly

At the Second General Assembly in 1936, tensions reached a breaking point. The presbyteries of California and New Jersey sent overtures requesting explicit statements guaranteeing “eschatological liberty”—protection for premillennial views within the church. The New Jersey overture asked for “absolute liberty and no discrimination between men and local churches because of the particular views which they may hold concerning the personal return of our Lord, whether this be premillennial, amillennial, or postmillennial.”

In an attempt to maintain peace, Machen nominated J. Oliver Buswell as moderator despite their theological differences. However, the Assembly ultimately rejected these overtures, arguing that the Westminster Standards were sufficient since they don’t clearly rule out premillennialism.

The Assembly also debated whether to receive the 1903 amendments to the Westminster Confession, which the PCUSA had added. While most OPC members opposed these chapters as Arminian, Carl McIntyre supported them for strategic reasons—his church was fighting a legal battle over their building and hoped that maintaining confessional continuity would strengthen their claim as the PCUSA’s rightful heir.

Machen’s Removal and Final Journey

The Westminster Seminary faction’s victory created further tension. Immediately after the Assembly, the Independent Board of Foreign Missions voted Machen out as president—a devastating blow to the man who had helped found and lead it for five years. Machen told his sister-in-law that night: “They kicked me out as president. It’s the hardest blow I’ve had yet… Everything I’ve worked for, loved, and suffered for has been kicked out of me.”

Machen wrote to Buswell that this represented “the parting of ways between a mere fundamentalism on one hand and Presbyterianism on the other hand.” His vision was for a thoroughly confessional Presbyterian church, not one that merely participated in broader evangelical movements.

That winter, despite illness and family objections, Machen traveled by train to North Dakota to encourage three small OP churches pastored by Westminster Seminary graduate Samuel Allen. This wealthy, elite man from Baltimore considered it worth risking his health to support struggling frontier congregations. During the visit, Machen developed pneumonia and was hospitalized in Bismarck.

On January 1, 1937—just seven months after the OPC’s formation—Machen died. His final words, dictated to his nurse as a telegram to John Murray, were: “I’m so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.” Even in death, Machen’s focus remained on the Reformed doctrine of justification—not just Christ’s death for our penalty, but His perfect life securing our eternal life.

The Split of 1937

The 1937 General Assembly brought renewed conflict over alcohol use. Overtures demanded that the church recommend total abstinence, calling for members to be “fast unflinching and active friends of temperance, abstaining from all forms and fashions” that might countenance drinking and “disentangling themselves from all implication with the traffic and manufacture” of alcohol.

The Assembly rejected these overtures, maintaining that Scripture and the confession were sufficient without adding new laws. This proved to be the final straw. J. Oliver Buswell, Carl McIntyre, and twelve other ministers—roughly a quarter of the denomination’s clergy—withdrew from the OPC and formed the Bible Presbyterian Synod.

This group would later split again in the 1950s. One faction, led by Carl McIntyre, became known for anti-communist activism during the Cold War. The other faction included notable figures like Francis Schaeffer and Jay Adams. Through a complex series of mergers and splits involving the Reformed Presbyterian Church, this second group eventually founded Covenant College and Covenant Seminary before joining the Presbyterian Church in America in 1983.

Choosing a Name with Teeth

An interesting sidebar involves the church’s name change. Originally called the Presbyterian Church of America, the denomination faced a lawsuit from the PCUSA claiming name confusion. In 1939, after considering options like “The True Presbyterian Church of the World” (my personal favorite), the Assembly selected “Orthodox Presbyterian Church” on the sixth ballot after nearly eight hours of debate.

The name declared exactly where the church stood “in the controversy between Christianity and modernism” and showed they took their “confession of faith seriously.” As one member described it, the name “has teeth.”

Lessons for Today

By 1939, the OPC had 5,549 members, 64 ministers, and 64 congregations. The early conflicts had established crucial principles that continue to define the denomination: commitment to confessional Presbyterian distinctives rather than generic evangelicalism, adherence to Scripture and the Westminster Standards without adding extra-biblical requirements, and willingness to remain small rather than compromise theological integrity.

Someone asked recently whether this makes the OPC too willing to fight, always looking for conflicts even among fellow conservatives. That’s a fair criticism that deserves ongoing consideration. However, these early years demonstrate that the central issue wasn’t a love of fighting but a determination to be faithful to what they understood as biblical and confessional Christianity, even when that faithfulness proved costly.

Machen’s example remains instructive—a wealthy man who could have lived comfortably but instead chose to serve struggling churches, even unto death, because he believed the Lord had called him to love and serve Christ’s church. His final testimony points us to the heart of the gospel: our hope rests not in our own efforts but in the perfect righteousness of Christ, both His life and death, credited to us by faith.