Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen
Paperback; ISBN: 0802811213

Machen is not a man who minces words. Vis-a-vis modern liberalism he argues forcefully that Christianity is a religion based on (a) God’s objective, historical work of redemption in Jesus Christ and (b) God’s revelation which gives the meaning and context of Christ’s life and work. Modern liberalism denies both of these foundational tenets of Christianity and is therefore to be regarded as decidedly non-Christian.

If such an attitude [regarding the vast expansion of human knowledge via the scientific method] be justifiable, then no institute is faced by a stronger hostile presumption than the institution of the Christian religion, for no institution has based itself more squarely upon the authority of a by-gone age (4).

Machen argues his case against modern liberalism in two basic steps, first laying the context of his argument, then proceeding to explicate its content.

Context: Christian Theism and Its Doctrine-Life Interdependence

Liberalism embraced 20th century naturalism.

context within which Machen places both himself and liberalism is the new age of modern science (i.e. naturalism).

But manifold as are the forms in which the movement [liberalism] appears, the root of the movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism, that is, in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God (as distinguished from the ordinary course of nature) in connection with the origin of Christianity” (2).

This “new era in human history” which has occurred over the last hundred years has produced a significant epistemological shift in favor of naturalistic science (2). And this new epistemological propensity toward naturalism is forcing institutions based on empirical (i.e. historical) events, such as Christian churches, to defend their beliefs against naturalistic attacks.

Naturalism cannot coexist with Christian theism.

In Machen’s view, the modern liberal movement within the church has responded to the new epistemological landscape in an un-Christian manner: in seeking to find a respectable role within scientific naturalism, modern liberalism attempts to divorce the church’s doctrine (and hence her historicity) from her practice.

[O]ur principle concern just now is to show that the liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science has really relinquished everything distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains is in essentials only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene (7).

Without doctrine, Christianity becomes mere moralism.

Machen’s main critique against liberalism is that Christianity is doctrinal (and historical) in its very nature; thus, Christian experience cannot be divorced from Christian dogma without destroying what is Christian about both. Liberals, therefore, who seek the pragmatic “essence of Christianity” (6) without the dogmatic tenets cease to be Christian. Indeed, Liberalism is “not Christianity at all, but a religion which is so entirely different from Christianity as to belong in a distinct category (6-7).

Paul was convinced of the objective truth of the gospel message, and devotion to that truth was the great passion of his life. Christianity for Paul was not only a life, but also a doctrine, and logically the doctrine came first (23; See also note 1).

From the beginning, the Christian gospel, as indeed the name “gospel” or “good news” implies, consisted in an account of something that had happened. And from the beginning, the meaning of the happening was set forth; and when the meaning of the happening was set forth then there was Christian doctrine. “Christ died”–that is history; “Christ died for our sins”–that is doctrine. Without these two elements, joined in an absolutely indissoluble union, there is no Christianity (27).

Christianity is indicative (doctrine) and imperative (life).

Thus Machen proclaims his main argument:

Here is found the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity: ”liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood, while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative; liberalism appeals to man’s will, while Christianity announces, first, a gracious act of God” (47).

In short, Christianity without its empirical claims (i.e. historical events which are recalled in the indicative mood) is no Christianity at all.

Content: Systematic Theology’s Loci

Having set the context for his argument, then, Machen proceeds to fill in the content. He examines six major heads of historical, orthodox, Christian doctrine, offering devastating critiques against the un-historical, and hence un-Christian, nature of modern liberalism. These heads include:

• Theology proper (doctrine of God)
• Anthropology (doctrine of man),
• Scripture,
• Christology (doctrine of Christ),
• Soteriology (doctrine of salvation),
• and ecclesiology (doctrine of the church).

Systematic Corruption

By covering all of the major heads of Christian doctrine, Machen’s point is that liberalism’s error is systemic; not just one part is broken, but the whole system. Machen could not be more direct in arguing that the non-historical content of modern liberalism’s religion is completely divergent from orthodox Christianity:

“The plain fact is that liberalism, whether it be true or false, is no mere “heresy”–no mere divergence at isolated points from Christian teaching. On the contrary it proceeds from a totally different root, and it constitutes, in essentials, a unitary system of its own” (172).

Therefore, by exchanging her doctrine-driven praxis for naked moralism, the church has become its own worst enemy:

“The greatest menace to the Christian Church to-day comes not from the enemies outside, but from the enemies within; it comes from the presence within the Church of a type of faith and practice that is anti-Christian to the core” (160).

Is there any hope left for the church?

In seeking to quell all historical claims of the church, Modern liberals created “a church without an authoritative Bible, without doctrinal requirements, and without a creed” (165). Such a church can offer no hope beyond this life for it has no God who speaks from the world to come.

Machen’s hope for the church is for her to recover the Living Word of her Heavenly Father. Hope is to be found, Machen says, in returning to God and His self-revelation through the Sacred Scriptures. Instead of rejecting her historical/empirical foundations, the church’s hope is to “return, in these trying days, with new earnestness, to the study of the Word of God” (178) with all of the epistemological boldness such a study requires.