Editing Gordon Clark (section)

== Biography ==

Clark was raised in a Christian home and studied Calvinist thought from a young age. In 1924, he graduated from the [[University of Pennsylvania]] with a [[bachelor's degree]] in French and earned his [[doctorate]] in Philosophy from the same institution in 1929. The following year he studied at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]].

He began teaching at the University of Pennsylvania after receiving his bachelor's degree and also taught at the Reformed Episcopal Seminary in [[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania|Philadelphia]]. In 1936, he accepted a professorship in Philosophy at [[Wheaton College, Illinois]], where he remained until 1943 when he accepted the Chairmanship of the Philosophy Department at [[Butler University]] in Indianapolis. After his retirement from Butler in 1973, he taught at [[Covenant College]] in [[Lookout Mountain, Georgia]], and [[Sangre de Cristo Seminary]] in [[Westcliffe, Colorado]].

Clark's denominational affiliations would change many times. He was born into and eventually became a ruling elder in the [[Presbyterian Church in the United States of America]]. However, he would eventually leave with a small group of conservatives, led by [[John Gresham Machen]], to help form the Presbyterian Church of America (renamed the [[Orthodox Presbyterian Church]] in 1938) and would be ordained in the OPC in 1944. However, in 1948, following the Clark-[[Van Til]] Controversy, he joined the [[United Presbyterian Church of North America]]. Following the UPCNA's 1956 merger with the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (the same denomination from which the OPC had separated from in 1936) to form the [[United Presbyterian Church in the United States of America]], Clark joined the [[Reformed Presbyterian Church, General Synod]] in 1957. Clark was instrumental in arranging a merger between the RPCGS and the [[Evangelical Presbyterian Church (established 1956)|Evangelical Presbyterian Church]] to form the [[Reformed Presbyterian Church, Evangelical Synod]] in 1965. When the RPCES became part of the [[Presbyterian Church in America]] in 1982, Clark refused to join the PCA and instead entered the unaffiliated Covenant Presbytery in 1984.

Clark was also elected president of the [[Evangelical Theological Society]] in 1965.

He died in 1985 and was buried near [[Westcliffe, Colorado]].