The Reorganization of Princeton

I.    The Reorganization of Princeton

A.    Originally, Princeton Seminary’s Board of Directors controlled the educational program (subject to the General Assembly’s approval), while the Board of Trustees con­trolled finances and held the real estate in trust. The majority of the Board of Directors agreed with the militant conservatives, while a majority on the Board of Trustees agreed with the Stevenson faction.

B.    In 1926, the General Assembly appointed a committee to "investigate" the seminary’s internal problems.

1.    The following year, they reported that the main problem was in the government under two boards.

2.    They recommended amendments to the seminary’s charter that would elim­inate the two boards and create a single Board of Control.

3.    The committee’s report was adopted in 1929 with the establishment of a new thirty-three-member controlling Board of Trustees-one-third from the old Board of Trustees, one-third from the old Board of Directors, and one-third from the church at large.

4.    The latter third shifted the balance of power to the liberals. This new arrangement also increased the powers of the president and brought two signers of the Auburn Affirmation onto the new board.

5.    Princeton’s fate was sealed.

6.    Four conservative faculty members, Machen, R. D. Wilson, Cornelius Van Til, and 0. T. Allis, withdrew to form Westminster Seminary, and Princeton went the way of the denomination.

7.    By 1936 the liberal John A. MacKay (1889-1983) succeeded the tolerant J. Ross Stevenson to the presidency.

8.    Only three years later, the neo-orthodox Emil Brunner (1889-1966) became guest professor of the all-important chair of systematic theology.

9.    That same year (1939) Princeton installed another Bar­thian, Elmer G. Homrighausen (1900-1982), in the chair of Christian education.