So like now!

J. GRESHAM MACHEN
Bitesize Biographies
By Sean Michael Lucas
EP Books. 130 pages. £6.99
ISBN 978 1 783 970 575

Big books intimidate me. I always feel like I’ll never get through them. So I’m thankful for short books that enable me to get a brief handle on something of interest.

That’s why I really like the Bitesize Biographies series from EP Books – short, engaging and readable, with the new offering by Sean Michael Lucas on J. Gresham Machen being no exception.

Pithy yet exciting

Lucas’s chapters are pithy yet exciting, conveying both the impact and struggles of Machen’s life. The book traces briefly his early life, his classical education and academic brilliance, his first-hand engagement with German liberalism and his early teaching career at Princeton. The bulk of the rest of the book follows his struggles against that same liberalism earlier encountered (as it seeped into the Presbyterian church of the US), and the consequent formation of a new denomination, seminary and missions agency. Add to this Machen’s prolific literary output and Lucas gives the reader a clear sense of a man with a deep passion for truth, who achieved a great deal in a relatively short life (Machen died on New Year’s Day, 1937, aged 55).

George Santanyana once said ‘those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.’ Reading of Machen’s battles feels incredibly contemporary, especially for those in denominations wrestling with the theological engagement with modernism and postmod-ernism. His defence of evangelical Christianity is as relevant today as it was 90 years ago.

If you want a book that manages to be a brief introduction not only to Machen, but also Westminster Theological Seminary and contemporary US Presbyterianism, then this book is highly recommended.