Excellent article, I'm very familiar with it. I've read that whole work and it was incredibly eye-opening. Reading that and his _The Progressive Era_ were revolutionary for my thinking.
What's very interesting to me personally is, my (Christian) denomination was formed as a protest against the modernist tendencies of the PCUS in the mid- to late-1920s. In studying the history of the controversies that led to the ejection of J. Gresham Machen and the formation of the [OPC](https://opc.org), there were a surprising number of names dropped in Rothbard's works that had already been made known to me by studying the history of my own denomination. E.g., President Wilson (hisssss) was a neighbor of one of my favorite theologians (Geerhardus Vos), and a contemporary of J. Gresham Machen. His entire project of "postmillennial pietism" was part of the reason we were "kicked out" of that mainstream denomination.
FEE has published a couple of short homages to Machen:
- Lawrence W. Reed, "[J. Gresham Machen: God's Forgotten Libertarian](https://fee.org/articles/god-s-forgotten-libertarian/)" (2015)
- Daniel Walker, "[J. Gresham Machen: A Forgotten Libertarian](https://fee.org/articles/j-gresham-machen-a-forgotten-libertarian/)" (1993)
And the Mises Institute gave a "Brown Bag Seminar" back in 2009 about Machen:
- Shawn Ritenour, "[J. G. Machen: Calvinist, Revolutionary, Hero](https://mises.org/podcasts/individual-lectures/j-g-machen-calvinist-revolutionary-hero)"
You can get a sampling of Machen's arguments here: [Christianity and Liberalism](https://www.monergism.com/thethreshold/sdg/machen/Christianity%20and%20Liberalism%20-%20J.%20Gresham%20Machen.pdf) (Free PDF) - note: by 'liberalism' he meant modernism (the rejection of the supernatural). And, there's also his appeal made to Christian Educators (prior to the founding of the Dept. of Education), which he made within a few months of Hitler's "What are you? We already have your children!" speech in Germany: [The Necessity of the Christian School](https://www.pcahistory.org/documents/necessity.html). In this speech he argues that one of the primary purposes of Christian Education is the preservation of liberty. Also very informative (even entertaining) is Machen's [testimony before congress](https://reformed.org/christian_education/Machen_before_congress.html). Hero, indeed!
...which is why I always exhort people to #ReadMachen and #ReadRothbard !
(FWIW: I'd thought that article was an excerpt from his [An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought](https://mises.org/library/book/austrian-perspective-history-economic-thought), but that might've been a standalone article. Not sure. But the same material is covered in the fomer volume.)
This one is from 'The Logic of Action' by Rothbard, a compilation of essays which got republished as 'Economic controversies', but the essay I shared was left out for some reason
I'm aware of all the Rothbard books you've cited but it's all on my reading list so I'll get to them soon!
So much to read and learn hahaha
...so true. "So many books...so little time." C. S. Lewis once said, half-jokingly, "I imagine heaven to be some sort of library..."
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
You'd recommended Van Til the other day
Is there any links between Machen and Van Til in terms of schools of thought?
Yes - when Machen and his colleagues were 'kicked out' of the PCUS, and when the modernists took over Princeton Seminary, Machen and others (including Van Til) formed a new seminary, Westminster Seminary (in Philadelphia). After Machen's unexpected death shortly thereafter (1936, I believe), Van Til was basically the 'main guy' leading the new school. Both were theologians in the Protestant/Reformed tradition; Van Til focused more on philosophy and apologetics while Machen was primarily a New Testament scholar.
Goodness this is something I have no clue about :(
Always something new to learn.
Thanks for sharing!
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
Thread collapsed
