The trial, conviction and suspension from the ministry of Independent Board members, including Machen, in 1935 and 1936 provided the rationale for the formation in 1936 of the OPC.

While Arthur was an Episcopalian, Mary was a Presbyterian, and taught her son the Westminster Shorter Catechism from an early age.

[citation needed] In 1898, the 17-year-old Machen began studying at Johns Hopkins University for his undergraduate degree, and performed sufficiently well to gain a scholarship.

Although he had an enormous respect for Herrmann, his time in Germany and his engagement with Modernist theologians led him to reject the movement and embrace conservative Reformed theology more firmly than before.

In 1906, Machen joined the Princeton Seminary as an instructor in the New Testament, after receiving an assurance that he would not have to sign a statement of faith.

During this period he gained a reputation as one of the few true scholars who was able to debate the growing prevalence of modernist theology whilst maintaining an evangelical stance.

He found liberal theology anti-intellectual, insofar as it spiritualized Christianity and treated it as merely an expression of individual experience, thus emptying the Bible and creeds of all definitive meaning.

Moreover, Machen's scholarly work and ability to engage with modernist theology was at odds with fundamentalism's anti-intellectual attitude.

The 1929 General Assembly voted to reorganise Princeton Seminary and appointed two of the Auburn Affirmation signatories as trustees.

The next Presbyterian General Assembly reaffirmed that Independent Board was unconstitutional and gave the associated clergy an ultimatum to break their links.

The controversy divided Machen from many of his fundamentalist friends including Clarence Macartney who dropped away at the prospect of schism.

In his book The Great Evangelical Disaster, Francis Schaeffer details the theological shift in American Christianity from conservatism to liberalism.

In that discussion, Schaeffer describes how Machen's "defrocking" rightly became front-page news in the secular media of the country.

[8] He was not against locally operated public schools per se, but feared the influence of materialist ideology and opposition to higher human aspirations.

Some commentators (notably Ned Stonehouse) point out that Machen's "constitution" was not always strong, and that he was constantly "burdened" with his responsibilities at the time.

[citation needed] Machen had decided to honor some speaking engagements he had in North Dakota in December, 1936, but developed pleurisy in the exceptionally cold weather there.

Just before his death, he dictated a telegram to long-time friend and colleague John Murray, the content of which reflected deeply his lifelong faith: "I'm so thankful for active obedience of Christ.

The Baltimore-born journalist H. L. Mencken wrote an editorial on Machen in December 1931[12] and later contributed an obituary titled "Dr. Fundamentalis" that was published in the Baltimore Evening Sun on January 18, 1937.

He noted that Machen "fell out with the reformers who have been trying, in late years, to convert the Presbyterian Church into a kind of literary and social club, devoted vaguely to good works", and that "though he lost in the end and was forced out of Princeton, it must be manifest that he marched off to Philadelphia with all the honors of war."