In our previous post, we provided some background for an article currently posted at the OPC web site. The article was written by the Rev. Charles Dennision, who was at that time serving as the OPC historian. The article is titled “Cornelius Van Til and the Identity of the OPC“. Our last post provided the text of the letter by J. Oliver Buswell, writing late in 1936 to Dr. J. Gresham Machen. Dennison also mentions a fragment of a letter, a working draft that Machen intended in reply to Buswell, but Machen died while on a speaking engagement in North Dakota and the reply was never finished. I presume that draft fragment is preserved among the papers of Dr. Machen, in the archives at the Westminster Theological Seminary.
What we do have is the other side of the conversation, found among the papers of Dr. Buswell, and in addition to the previously posted letter, there is another interesting letter that sheds further light on the situation, and which also contains an interesting admission by Dr. Buswell. In both of these letters, I think there is much that can be gleaned as to how Christians can and ought to conduct themselves in debate and disagreement.
In this letter, Dr. Buswell is writing to the Rev. Harold Samuel Laird, a highly-regarded pastor in Wilmington, Delaware.
January
thirty
1937Rev. Harold S. Laird
R. D. #3
Wilmington, Delaware
My dear Dr. Laird,I told you in conversation the other day of my conference with the West-
minster faculty Monday evening, January twenty-fifth. I feel that you
as a trustee of Westminster and as one who has sacrificed so much for the
cause we all love, should be informed, and therefore I am writing down
certain conclusions which I think were reached.(1) The faculty stand by Professor Murray’s attitude towards alcoholic
liquor. They defend him not only in theory but in his practice. Pro-
fessor Murray drinks liquor and insists upon the principle of personal
liberty in doing so. The faculty insist that he is right. This none
of them will dispute, I am sure.We did not exactly agree on definitions of terms in regards to the emphasis