John A. Mackay
Encyclopedia
John A. Mackay was a Presbyterian theologian, missionary
, and educator. He was a strong advocate of the Ecumenical Movement
and World Christianity.
, Scotland
, the eldest of five children. The family attended the Free Presbyterian Church, a very small denomination. At the age of 14 at a communion service at Rogart, Scotland, Mackay had a profound religious experience that influenced the remainder of his life.
As a youth he attended the Inverness Royal Academy
where he was a good student, winning several academic prizes upon graduation in 1907. Mackay then studied philosophy and logic at the University of Aberdeen
, leaving for a time to pursue theological studies for the Free Presbyterian Church ministry. He returned to Aberdeen to complete his honors degree which he received in 1913. That same year Mackay crossed the Atlantic and enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary
. When he was graduated in 1915, he won a fellowship in didactic and polemic theology, which he used toward studies in Spanish culture at Madrid, Spain, to prepare for missionary work in Latin America.
, Peru
, under the auspices of the Free Church of Scotland. The school was a center for progressive ideas during a period when social and educational reforms were sweeping through Latin America
. Haya de la Torre, a political leader in Latin America, taught at the school. The mission also started a mission station at Cajamarca in the northern Peru
.
From his position as school master, Mackay entered intellectual circles and became a member of a literary group that included Victor Andres Belaunde
, Professor of Philosophy at San Marcos University. Francisco Garcia Calderon Rey
and his brother, Ventura, were the group’s European correspondents. Five members were corresponding members of the Spanish Academy. In 1925 Mackay was appointed to the Chair of Modern Philosophy at San Marcos and also accepted the chair in Metaphysics.
In 1926 the Colegio was sufficiently rooted to survive without his leadership. Mackay joined the Y.M.C.A. as an evangelist and religious teacher moving his family to Montevideo
, Uruguay
, where the Y.M.C.A. operated a leadership institute. During the next seven and one-half years, he traveled widely through Chile, Brazil, and Argentina as an evangelistic speaker. He attended the Jerusalem Conference of 1928 and traveled extensively in Europe during his furlough in 1930. From April to July 1930 Mackay and his family lived in Bonn, Germany where he attended the lectures of Karl Barth
and began a friendship with him. Under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A. Mackay made many significant addresses in Mexico during the revolutionary period of religious persecution, including an address to over 2,000 men and women in the largest theatre in the town of Chihuahua. Over the years he was invited to speak at 35 Latin American universities.
to provide insights "into the life of man in the light of God". The editorial board included Robert Elliott Speer
, Richard Niebuhr, and J. Harvey Cotton. By 1952 Theology Today was the most widely distributed religious quarterly in the world. After retirement from the Seminary, he served from 1961–1964 as Adjunct Professor of Hispanic Thought at American University
, Washington, D.C.
in 1946 and from 1948 membership on the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches; the Chairmanship of the International Missionary Council from January 1, 1948 to 1958; membership on the Executive Committee of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and from 1954 the Presidency of its Executive Committee; and Moderator of the 165th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA, 1953–1954.
These leadership roles gave Mackay platforms that enhanced his spiritual influence and authority. In addition to writing the influential "Letter to Presbyterians", which fortified resistance to McCarthyism in the United States, Mackay was also the primary draftsman of a number of other church statements and messages on behalf of various ecclesiastical councils and conferences.
Although known primarily for his mission work in Latin America, Mackay worked to advance World Christianity through travels and at conferences in Asia, Europe, and Africa. These included the Eastern Asia Christian Conference in Bangkok in 1949, the Asia Study Conference in Lucknow, India in 1952, the All Africa Church Conference, Ibadan, Nigeria, 1958, and the Joseph Cook Lectureship which took him around the world during, 1960–1961.
Thus, as a fellow Presbyterian leader correctly concluded, Mackay exerted influential leadership in three broad areas: Missions, the Ecumenical Movement, and social and political thought and action.
At the Oxford Conference on Church and State in 1937, Mackay coined the phrase that became the byword of the conference, “Let the Church be the Church.” He yearned for the Church “to become in its historical existence the dynamic instrument of God’s will, which it actually was in its eternal essence,” He influenced historical development within the ecumenical movement by his strong advocacy, as at the Central Committee meeting of the World Council of Churches at Rolle in August, 1951. For him “the church is the fellowship of those for whom Jesus Christ is Lord.” He believed the Church was truly the Church when it was a missionary Church, and he worked to bring into balance the Church universal, the Una Sancta, with confessional movements within various faith traditions. Mackay advocated visible unity of the Church. His high Christology also stressed a unity of spirit with a diversity of treasures from the various Christian traditions. In this way Mackay helped to lay the foundation for spiritual ecumenism among fellow Christians across denominational lines. Travelling in Chile in 1965 Mackay agreed with Fr. Juan Ochagaria, dean of the Catholic University of Chile’s faculty of theology, that the task of both Catholics and Presbyterians is to “make Christians.”
In 1964 in Lima, Mackay was presented with the Palmas Magisteriales, a civic honor and the highest government award for educational services to Peru.
In his final years Mackay moved to a Presbyterian retirement community in Hightstown, New Jersey
, and died early on June 9, 1983. Coincidentally, the General Assembly of his denomination voted to join the Southern Presbyterian Church later that same morning. It would have pleased Mackay because he had worked for many years for the reunion of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches.
Each of the Mackays' three daughters married Presbyterian clergyman, and their son, Duncan Alexander Duff Mackay, named for the Scottish Free Church missionary to India, Alexander Duff (missionary), was an active layman and elder, while working for the U.S. Foreign Service and later the Inter-American Development Bank.
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
, and educator. He was a strong advocate of the Ecumenical Movement
Ecumenism
Ecumenism or oecumenism mainly refers to initiatives aimed at greater Christian unity or cooperation. It is used predominantly by and with reference to Christian denominations and Christian Churches separated by doctrine, history, and practice...
and World Christianity.
Early life and education
John A. Mackay was born on May 17, 1889 in InvernessInverness
Inverness is a city in the Scottish Highlands. It is the administrative centre for the Highland council area, and is regarded as the capital of the Highlands of Scotland...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, the eldest of five children. The family attended the Free Presbyterian Church, a very small denomination. At the age of 14 at a communion service at Rogart, Scotland, Mackay had a profound religious experience that influenced the remainder of his life.
As a youth he attended the Inverness Royal Academy
Inverness Royal Academy
Inverness Royal Academy is a secondary school located in the Culduthel area of Inverness, Highland, Scotland.- Catchment area :...
where he was a good student, winning several academic prizes upon graduation in 1907. Mackay then studied philosophy and logic at the University of Aberdeen
University of Aberdeen
The University of Aberdeen, an ancient university founded in 1495, in Aberdeen, Scotland, is a British university. It is the third oldest university in Scotland, and the fifth oldest in the United Kingdom and wider English-speaking world...
, leaving for a time to pursue theological studies for the Free Presbyterian Church ministry. He returned to Aberdeen to complete his honors degree which he received in 1913. That same year Mackay crossed the Atlantic and enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton Theological Seminary is a theological seminary of the Presbyterian Church located in the Borough of Princeton, New Jersey in the United States...
. When he was graduated in 1915, he won a fellowship in didactic and polemic theology, which he used toward studies in Spanish culture at Madrid, Spain, to prepare for missionary work in Latin America.
Mission Field
In 1916 Mackay and Jane Logan Wells, who had been recently married, sailed to Peru where they founded a school, Colegio Anglo Peruana, in LimaLima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, under the auspices of the Free Church of Scotland. The school was a center for progressive ideas during a period when social and educational reforms were sweeping through Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Haya de la Torre, a political leader in Latin America, taught at the school. The mission also started a mission station at Cajamarca in the northern Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
.
From his position as school master, Mackay entered intellectual circles and became a member of a literary group that included Victor Andres Belaunde
Víctor Andrés Belaúnde
Víctor Andrés Belaúnde Diez Canseco was a Peruvian diplomat who chaired the Fourteenth session and the fourth emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly .Victor Andrés Belaúnde was born in Arequipa, Peru...
, Professor of Philosophy at San Marcos University. Francisco Garcia Calderon Rey
Francisco García Calderón Rey
Francisco García Calderón Rey was a Peruvian writer.He was born into a wealthy and politically prominent family in Valparaiso, Chile on April 8, 1883. His father, for whom Calderón was named, was the President of Peru for a short time during the Chilean occupation of Peru...
and his brother, Ventura, were the group’s European correspondents. Five members were corresponding members of the Spanish Academy. In 1925 Mackay was appointed to the Chair of Modern Philosophy at San Marcos and also accepted the chair in Metaphysics.
In 1926 the Colegio was sufficiently rooted to survive without his leadership. Mackay joined the Y.M.C.A. as an evangelist and religious teacher moving his family to Montevideo
Montevideo
Montevideo is the largest city, the capital, and the chief port of Uruguay. The settlement was established in 1726 by Bruno Mauricio de Zabala, as a strategic move amidst a Spanish-Portuguese dispute over the platine region, and as a counter to the Portuguese colony at Colonia del Sacramento...
, Uruguay
Uruguay
Uruguay ,officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay,sometimes the Eastern Republic of Uruguay; ) is a country in the southeastern part of South America. It is home to some 3.5 million people, of whom 1.8 million live in the capital Montevideo and its metropolitan area...
, where the Y.M.C.A. operated a leadership institute. During the next seven and one-half years, he traveled widely through Chile, Brazil, and Argentina as an evangelistic speaker. He attended the Jerusalem Conference of 1928 and traveled extensively in Europe during his furlough in 1930. From April to July 1930 Mackay and his family lived in Bonn, Germany where he attended the lectures of Karl Barth
Karl Barth
Karl Barth was a Swiss Reformed theologian whom critics hold to be among the most important Christian thinkers of the 20th century; Pope Pius XII described him as the most important theologian since Thomas Aquinas...
and began a friendship with him. Under the auspices of the Y.M.C.A. Mackay made many significant addresses in Mexico during the revolutionary period of religious persecution, including an address to over 2,000 men and women in the largest theatre in the town of Chihuahua. Over the years he was invited to speak at 35 Latin American universities.
North American educator
In 1936, Mackay reluctantly left the foreign mission field to become the third President of Princeton Theological Seminary which had recently been weakened by the secession of several professors, including his own former teacher, J. Gresham Machen. For the next 24 years as both President and Professor of Ecumenics, Mackay worked on many fronts to revive the institution’s health, inspiring it to evangelical dynamism and leaving it on a sound footing, with expanded faculty, student body, and campus plant. In 1944, Mackay founded the journal Theology TodayTheology Today
Theology Today is an academic journal published by SAGE Publications for the Princeton Theological Seminary; it was formerly published by Westminster John Knox. It appears four times a year....
to provide insights "into the life of man in the light of God". The editorial board included Robert Elliott Speer
Robert Elliott Speer
Robert Elliott Speer was an American religious leader and authority on missions.He was born at Huntingdon, Pa., graduated from Phillips Academy in 1886 and from Princeton in 1889, and studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1890-91. In 1891 he was appointed secretary of the American...
, Richard Niebuhr, and J. Harvey Cotton. By 1952 Theology Today was the most widely distributed religious quarterly in the world. After retirement from the Seminary, he served from 1961–1964 as Adjunct Professor of Hispanic Thought at American University
American University
American University is a private, Methodist, liberal arts, and research university in Washington, D.C. The university was chartered by an Act of Congress on December 5, 1892 as "The American University", which was approved by President Benjamin Harrison on February 24, 1893...
, Washington, D.C.
Church leader
An eloquent and charismatic platform speaker and preacher, Mackay was often called upon to present keynote addresses at conferences, assemblies, and gatherings. As the holder of leadership roles in church organizations, his constituency included tens of millions of Christians. Five leadership roles were particularly significant, the Presidency of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions from 1944–1951, after which he continued serving as a member of the Mission Board; membership on the Provisional Committee of the World Council of ChurchesWorld Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches is a worldwide fellowship of 349 global, regional and sub-regional, national and local churches seeking unity, a common witness and Christian service. It is a Christian ecumenical organization that is based in the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, Switzerland...
in 1946 and from 1948 membership on the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches; the Chairmanship of the International Missionary Council from January 1, 1948 to 1958; membership on the Executive Committee of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and from 1954 the Presidency of its Executive Committee; and Moderator of the 165th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, USA, 1953–1954.
These leadership roles gave Mackay platforms that enhanced his spiritual influence and authority. In addition to writing the influential "Letter to Presbyterians", which fortified resistance to McCarthyism in the United States, Mackay was also the primary draftsman of a number of other church statements and messages on behalf of various ecclesiastical councils and conferences.
Although known primarily for his mission work in Latin America, Mackay worked to advance World Christianity through travels and at conferences in Asia, Europe, and Africa. These included the Eastern Asia Christian Conference in Bangkok in 1949, the Asia Study Conference in Lucknow, India in 1952, the All Africa Church Conference, Ibadan, Nigeria, 1958, and the Joseph Cook Lectureship which took him around the world during, 1960–1961.
Thus, as a fellow Presbyterian leader correctly concluded, Mackay exerted influential leadership in three broad areas: Missions, the Ecumenical Movement, and social and political thought and action.
Missionary and ecumenical ideas
Mackay strongly emphasized sensitivity to and experience of the reality of God in Christ and authentic conscious experience of life in Christian community. Frequently asked to preach, his sermons called for response on the part of his hearers. Mackay wrote devotional literature in English and Spanish. He believed in a personal and incarnational approach to foreign missions by which the missionary would become a member of the community and earn the right to be heard through particular service that met specific needs within the receiving culture. These might include the demonstration of authentic Christianity in action through educational, medical, or agricultural service. This gift of service offered a platform through which the missionary could effectively proclaim the faith that he held.At the Oxford Conference on Church and State in 1937, Mackay coined the phrase that became the byword of the conference, “Let the Church be the Church.” He yearned for the Church “to become in its historical existence the dynamic instrument of God’s will, which it actually was in its eternal essence,” He influenced historical development within the ecumenical movement by his strong advocacy, as at the Central Committee meeting of the World Council of Churches at Rolle in August, 1951. For him “the church is the fellowship of those for whom Jesus Christ is Lord.” He believed the Church was truly the Church when it was a missionary Church, and he worked to bring into balance the Church universal, the Una Sancta, with confessional movements within various faith traditions. Mackay advocated visible unity of the Church. His high Christology also stressed a unity of spirit with a diversity of treasures from the various Christian traditions. In this way Mackay helped to lay the foundation for spiritual ecumenism among fellow Christians across denominational lines. Travelling in Chile in 1965 Mackay agreed with Fr. Juan Ochagaria, dean of the Catholic University of Chile’s faculty of theology, that the task of both Catholics and Presbyterians is to “make Christians.”
In 1964 in Lima, Mackay was presented with the Palmas Magisteriales, a civic honor and the highest government award for educational services to Peru.
In his final years Mackay moved to a Presbyterian retirement community in Hightstown, New Jersey
Hightstown, New Jersey
Hightstown is a Borough in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 5,494.Hightstown was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 5, 1853, within portions of East Windsor Township. The borough became...
, and died early on June 9, 1983. Coincidentally, the General Assembly of his denomination voted to join the Southern Presbyterian Church later that same morning. It would have pleased Mackay because he had worked for many years for the reunion of the Northern and Southern Presbyterian Churches.
Each of the Mackays' three daughters married Presbyterian clergyman, and their son, Duncan Alexander Duff Mackay, named for the Scottish Free Church missionary to India, Alexander Duff (missionary), was an active layman and elder, while working for the U.S. Foreign Service and later the Inter-American Development Bank.
Selected writings by John A. Mackay
- Don Miguel de Unamuno: Su personalidad, obra e influencia (1919).
- La Profesiόn de Hombre (1921) Los Intelectuales y los Tiempos Nuevos (1923) Más Yo Os Digo (1927). A los Pies del Maestro (1930). El Sentido de la Vida (1931).
- The Other Spanish Christ (1932)
- That Other America (1935)
- A Preface to Christian Theology (1942)
- Heritage and Destiny (1943)
- Christianity on the Frontier (1950).
- God’s Order The Ephesian Letter and this Present Time (1953)
- The Presbyterian Way of Life (1960)
- Ecumenics The Science of the Church Universal (1964)
- His Life and Our Life (1964).
- Christian Reality & Appearance (1969)
- Realidad e Idolatria en el Cristianismo Contemporaneo (1970)
Writings about John A. Mackay
- John Mackay Metzger, The Hand and the Road: The Life and Times of John A. Mackay (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010)
- Hugh T. Kerr, “John A. Mackay: An Appreciation,” in The Ecumenical Era in Church and Society A Symposium in Honor of John A. Mackay, edited by Edward J. Jurji (New York: The Macmillan Company: 1959), 1–17.
- K. Stephen Parmelee, “The Presbyterian Letter Against McCarthyism,” Journal of Presbyterian History, vol. 41, no. 4 (December 1963), 201–223.
- H. McKennie Goodpasture, “The Latin American Soul of John A. Mackay,” Journal of Presbyterian History, vol. 48, no. 4 (Winter 1970), 265–292.
- Robert R. Curlee and Mary Ruth Isaac-Curlee, “Bridging the Gap: John A. Mackay, Presbyterians and the Charismatic Movement,” Journal of Presbyterian History, vol. 72, no. 3 (Fall 1994), 141–156.
- “John A. Mackay: Influences on my Life,” Journal of Presbyterian History, vol. 56, no. 1 (Spring 1978), 20–34.
- Theology Today, vol. 16, no. 3 (October, 1959), 319–375
- Princeton Seminary Bulletin, In Honor of John Alexander Mackay, vol. 52, no. 4 (May 1959), 3–29
- Luis Alberto Sánchez, “John Mackay y la Educatión Peruana,” Leader, vol. 48, no. 46 (Lima, December, 1973), 63–70.
- John M. MacPherson, At the Roots of a Nation (Edinburgh: The Knox Press: 1993). The history of Colegio Anglo Peruana, Lima, Peru.