J. Oliver Buswell, Jr. (1895-1977) a Presbyterian theologian and educator was President of Wheaton College from 1926 to 1940 and subsequently called to be Dean of Covenant Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri, in 1956 where he served for 14 years until his retirement in 1970. He is known for his writings, especially his two volume Systematic Theology, which remains widely used today.

In 1936 Dr. Buswell, together with Dr. J. Gresham Machen, Dr. Harold S. Laird, and others, took his stand in opposition to the forces of modernism in the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. He, with the others mentioned, became the leaders of a new Presbyterian movement uncompromisingly committed to a loyalty to God and the Scriptures.

“He helped form the Presbyterian Church of America in June of 1936, which then changed its name to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In the spring of 1937 he was a leader in the group which became the Bible Presbyterian Church. A few years later a large portion of this group constituted themselves as the Bible Presbyterian Church, Columbus Synod. The name was later changed to The Evangelical Presbyterian Church. In all of this trying and developing experience of the church his leadership was evident and greatly respected.” [1]

Buswell was a committed Calvinist who held to the Westminster Standards and Covenant Theology. He was considered a fundamentalist in the most evangelical sense of the word, specifically opposed to the “modernism” of his day. He was also a Premillennialist and believed in a mid-tribulation rapture, although not a dispensationalist.