January 16 Today in OPC History

On Jan. 16, 1920, prohibition became the law of the United States. Presbyterian evangelist Billy Sunday and around 10,000 of his followers met a special train from Milwaukee carrying John Barleycorn’s simulated coffin. Sunday then conducted a "burial" with the words: ”Goodbye, John. You were God’s worst enemy, and Hell’s best friend, I hate you with a perfect hatred.“

Six years later at the end of a Saturday meeting of the Presbytery of New Brunswick (PCUSA), a resolution was introduced to endorse the Eighteenth Amendment and the Volstead Act. As one of handful of presbyters remaining at the meeting, J. Gresham Machen did not speak to the motion. However, when the vote came, he voted "no." Machen would write to Clarence Macartney after the meeting,

It is a misrepresentation to say that by the vote I expressed my opinion on the merits of the Eighteenth Amendment or the Volstead Act - and still less on the general question of prohibition. On the contrary, my vote was directed against a policy which places the Church in a corporate capacity, as distinguished from the activity of its members, on record with regard to such political questions. And I was particularly offended by the presumption with which a small group of men undertook to express the public attitude of a court of the Church with regard to such an important question.

Picture: J. Gresham Machen