A Review of Christianity and Liberalism
Introduction
One hundred years ago, the stalwart Princetonian fundamentalist J. Gresham Machen released his formidable volume Christianity and Liberalism. As 2023 concludes, it is only appropriate to express gratitude and appreciation for Machen’s rich response to the growing threat of theological liberalism within his denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). However, Machen’s work deserves more than mere applause. Indeed, the central message of Christianity and Liberalism continues in its applicative vigor today. With a millennium of cultural development between the audience to whom Machen wrote and today’s readers, many new issues have risen to the forefront for theological consideration. Nonetheless, Machen’s prophetic words remain relevant amid a socially chaotic world.
Historical Context
Before reading Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, it is profitable for readers to ascertain the book’s historical context. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the ideals of the Enlightenment made it possible for the West to continue shifting its theological and philosophical assumptions. Consequentially, figures such as Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) provided fresh ideas that held sway over various sectors of evangelicalism. Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, American denominations began facing inner conflict over central tenets of Christianity, such as the divinity of Christ, the historicity of the resurrection, the virgin birth, and the miracles of Jesus. Those who accepted naturalistic or modernistic assumptions about the world — liberals or modernists — by denying any legitimacy to supernatural claims questioned, for example, the historical nature of the resurrection. Modernists increasingly made their presence known in practically every mainline denomination in the early decades of the twentieth century. In response, a group of conservative evangelicals released a set of ninety essays entitled The Fundamentals between 1910 and 1915. With the onset of World War I, northern-dominated denominations such as the PCUSA and the Northern Baptist Convention (today known as the American Baptist Churches U.S.A.) persisted in conflict over control of their institutions. Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism presents “the issue as sharply and clearly as possible” (1) for those who wish to remain grounded in their modernism yet continue their affiliation with denominations such as the PCUSA. Rightly understood, liberalism is the conception of Christianity as the belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. Machen seeks to demonstrate how the modernist’s apprehension of this motif conflicts with the Christian religion.
Summary
The conjunction “and” in the title Christianity and Liberalism is essential in comprehending Machen’s central concern in the book. That is, Christianity and liberalism are two distinct religions. Each chapter in Machen’s work in the volume describes how the two differ through various theological categories. First, Christianity and liberalism differ in their approaches to doctrine. Christianity, liberals proclaim, “is a life, not a doctrine” (19). Specifically, the Christian religion is primarily and most centrally a message about love and how an individual should live. Machen explains that such an assertion is fallacious. At its heart, Machen says Christianity is a religion principally about doctrine. By mischaracterizing Christianity in this way, liberalism denies the necessity of affirming central tenets of Christianity, such as Christ’s death on the cross for sin. Second, Machen outlines the differing assumptions between Christianity and liberalism concerning the relationship between God and man. Modernists, for example, reject the transcendence of God and affirm the essential goodness of man. Both assertions contradict an a priori tenet of the gospel (63). Machen explains that liberalism rejects the gospel by denying the creator/creature distinction and holding to “a supreme confidence in human goodness” (65). Christianity, Machen says, must begin “with the consciousness of sin” (67) before one believes the gospel. Third, Machen focuses on the distinguishing beliefs between Christianity and liberalism about the Bible. Liberals claim that the Bible is riddled with errors yet divine all the same. Divine religious experience can be found throughout the sixty-six books, yet numerous contradictions and errors by human authors offset this. Yet, God has revealed himself through their error. Christianity rejects such a notion. As Machen says, “A Bible that is full of error is certainly divine in the modern pantheizing sense of ‘divine,’ according to which God is just another name for the course of this world with all its imperfections and all its sin. But the God whom the Christian worships is a God of truth” (77).
Fourth, Machen responds to liberalism’s beliefs about the nature and work of Christ. Although modernists claim to revere Christ, they merely honor Him as an example of faith rather than the object of faith (88). Christianity claims, moreover, that Christ is more than an example. He is the supernatural person by which the Christian religion rests. The modern liberal, Machen claims, despises such a claim. Fifth, a crucial difference exists between Christianity and liberalism in their understanding of salvation. Modernists rely on man’s efforts to achieve salvation based on the example laid out by Christ (121). For example, in acknowledging the supposed death of Christ, liberals assert that salvation pertains to achieving the type of self-sacrifice modeled by Jesus. While Christianity affirms that Jesus perfectly modeled for humanity self-sacrifice, this is not the priority of the cross. Instead, the purpose of the cross is both historical and effectual. Historic in the sense that Christ’s death is a historical event that took place. It is also efficacious in that Christ’s death paid for sin and achieved salvation for His people. Liberalism rejects this central claim of the gospel and offers a false means of salvation by elevating man’s ability to achieve salvation on his terms. In addition to the atonement, Machen remarks how liberalism promotes the concerns of this world over the reality of heaven and hell. For modernists, since the hope of this world is his central concern, “religion itself, and even God, are made merely a means for the betterment of conditions upon this earth” (153). In essence, liberalism attempts to quench the glory of God. Liberalism’s overemphasis on the concerns of this earth coincides with its view of the church. Since the entire premise of liberalism is the universal fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man, it is natural for the modernist to assert that churches are united — not by creed or confession — but by human existence.
Consequently, society has become the church for the liberal. Machen proposes a simple solution: if liberals now reject the apparent confessions by which they signed, it is most profitable that they would separate from their denominations (171). Since no individual has joined a congregation under compulsion, he is at liberty to form his religious organization based on his pretenses if he no longer affirms the fixed creedal character of that congregation. However, liberals maintain that churches should allow their members and clergy unlimited theological flexibility. Such an approach, Machen says, is unsustainable. Machen exhorts faithful Christians to remain steadfast and devoted to the God they worship amid a liberalizing world (183).
Concluding Thoughts
Machen’s intentions in writing Christianity and Liberalism were not to refute liberalism. Instead, he hoped to set the matter straight so individuals could decide which road to follow. Although the contemporary world consists of different issues, the heart of the matter remains the same. Today, theological liberals generally go by the label progressive Christian. Although the label has changed, the views concerning Christ, the resurrection, the Bible, the church, etc., have not shifted. Progressive Christians, however, differ from the liberals whom Machen responded to insofar as they typically focus their attention on cultural issues such as abortion, sexuality, gender identity, climate change, immigration, and others. Nonetheless, Christians today should respond to contemporary liberalism as Machen beckoned the faithful in 1923 by opposing doctrinal indifferentism.
Many of the congregants and clergymen in the PCUSA during the twentieth century believed it more convenient to err on the side of “charity” by allowing liberals to continue to minister and serve in their denomination. As history demonstrates, doctrinal indifferentism paved the way for the denomination to dive headfirst into apostasy. As Kevin DeYoung observes, such a method is not an option for those committed to the same gospel handed down by Christ and the Apostles (xxi). Just as Machen took up the mantle to speak against doctrinal indifferentism in the PCUSA, so should contemporary Christians refuse to capitulate on the central tenets of the gospel.
