[BBC List] nothing new under the sun

[Mike Abendroth]

Christianity, Liberalism and the New Evangelicalism:


by Carl Trueman


Introduction


For Christians, however, the past should always be instructive. When we look
back to the Old Testament, we see how much of Old Testament faith and life
was nurtured by remembrance of times past. The Passover, that most wonderful
and central of Jewish celebrations, was designed specifically to remind
ancient Israel of the miraculous deliverance which God had wrought; then the
psalms, those communal songs and poems which were central to Israelite
praise of God -- and which should still be central to Christian praise today
-- often look back to the past to remind the congregation of acts both of
human sin and divine grace and salvation, provoking thereby both repentance
and faith. The past may be a foreign country, as L P Hartley famously wrote,
but it is not so foreign that it has not been a constant resource for the
church throughout the centuries.

While the events of biblical history are peculiarly instructive because they
culminate in Christ and are, as it were, constituent parts of God’s
revelation to humanity, the events of post-biblical history are also
valuable. We must be aware, of course, that these events are neither
revelatory in the sense that they bring new information, commands or
promises from God; nor is the historian able to give the kind of definitive
interpretation on events and figures which the biblical writers, under the
influence and inspiration of the Holy Spirit, are able to provide; we must
also be aware of the temptation to idealise the past, to set our heroes up
on pedestals and to treat them as if they could do no wrong; but, for
example, by revealing the weakness of human nature, the critical issues in
theology, and the way in which decisions in one area of church life can have
ramifications all over the place, historical studies of post-Biblical church
life may, like the biblical history itself, give the church cause to lament
over its sins, rejoice in God’s grace and, just perhaps, avoid making the
same mistakes again.

It is with this in mind that I wish today to reflect upon the thoughts of
one of the church’s great leaders of the last century: J Gresham Machen.


Who was J Gresham Machen?HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f1"»1


Born in 1881, John Gresham Machen was the son of Southern parents and grew
up in an Old School Presbyterian home in Baltimore, Maryland. Old School
Presbyterianism was that tradition of theology exemplified by men such as
the Hodges and Warfield who tended to eschew the revivalist temper of much
of the evangelical theology in the United States in the nineteenth and early
twentieth century, along with its concomitant parachuch activities. Instead,
Old School presbyterians favoured a more sober attitude to the Christian
life which emphasized the importance of the church’s historic confessions
and catechisms, and the centrality of the visible church, with its offices
and sacraments. These were emphases which Machen was himself to stress in
his later career. Indeed, after study at Johns Hopkins University in
Baltimore it was to Princeton Theological Seminary, where the Hodge dynasty
and now B B Warfield dominated intellectual life, that Machen went to engage
in theological study, though he was far from clear at this point in his life
as to what his future career path might be.

Princeton Seminary was the preeminent centre in the United States -- if not
the world -- for studying Reformed theology in its classic, confessional
form. It was thus into a thoroughly orthodox theological environment that
the young Machen enrolled himself and in which he excelled as a student.
Indeed, Machen’s work at the Seminary was of such calibre that Francis L
Patton, the seminary’s president, recommended at the end of his second year
that he remain at the institution once he had completed his degree in order
to teach New Testament Greek and related subjects. Machen, however, was
unsure at this time about what his future career should be and opted,
instead, to spend some time furthering his theological studies in Germany.
Thus it was that he found himself at the University of Marburg, sitting at
the feet of some of the most brilliant and inspiring liberal theologians of
their day.

Like many a theological scholar before and after him, Machen’s experience of
liberalism at university precipitated something of an intellectual crisis.
The liberals with whom he came into contact were filled with a passion and
dedication to their cause which took his breath away. One in particular, the
brilliant and wild-eyed Wilhelm Herrmann, made a stunning impression on the
young American. In Herrmann, Machen saw not only somebody of a passionate
piety but, more important, somebody who embodied the very ideal of the union
of a zeal for theology with the stature of a university professor. Like many
a Christian student since, Machen found himself somewhat confused and
startled by the combination of such liberal views with such an apparent
passion for Christ in the great German. In a letter to his brother, he made
the following statement:

Herrmann, in his religious earnestness and moral power, has been a
revelation to me....[He] affirms very little of that which I have been
accustomed to regard as essential to Christianity; yet there is no doubt in
my mind but that he is a Christian, and a Christian of a peculiarly earnest
type. He is a Christian, not because he follows Christ as a moral teacher;
but because his trust in Christ is...unbounded. It is inspiring to see a man
so completely centred in Christ, even though some people might wonder how he
reaches this result and still holds the views he does about the accounts in
the New Testament.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f2"»2

How indeed! Herrmann was a classic representative of that liberal tradition
of theology whose exponents hold their views with a passion, a zeal, and a
seriousness which puts many conservatives to shame. As Machen tells us, this
caused something of a crisis in his Christian life. Years later, he was to
argue that liberalism, such as that of Herrmann, was not Christianity at all
but merely something which happened to use the same language as
Christianity. At the time of his first exposure to liberalism, however, such
thoughts were some way in the future. All Machen could see was the burning
passion of his professor for speaking of Christ. Nevertheless, after a long
struggle, Machen came to realise that the theology of the German liberal
schools, passionate though it may be, was not the theology of the Bible and
that there Christ was not the Christ of Paul.

Machen returned to America and taught New Testament at his alma mater,
Princeton Theological Seminary, where he was particularly close to his
senior colleague, B B Warfield. However, with Warfield’s death in 1921, an
era came to an end and, by 1929, Princeton Theological Seminary was
reorganised, ostensibly for administrative purposes. In practice, however,
this reorganisation led immediately to the radical loosening of the
Seminary’s confessional commitments in line with parallel shifts within the
theological politics of mainstream American presbyterianism.

As a result, Machen left and founded Westminster Theological Seminary in
Philadelphia, where such significant Reformed thinkers as John Murray and
Cornelius Van Til were to join him. A little while later, Machen was forced
out of his denomination and subsequently founded the church now known as the
Orthodox Prebyterian Church. Then, worn out by over a decade of heated
controversy, Machen died in 1937.


Christianity and Liberalism


It is upon Machen’s call-to-arms of 1923, the little book entitled
Christianity and Liberalism, that I wish to concentrate the remainder of our
time today. Now regarded as one of the classic texts in the so-called
fundamentalist controversies of the 1920s, this was no product of a
backwoods fundamentalist redneck. Indeed, this work of the Princeton scholar
earned the admiration even of cultured atheists such as H L Mencken. What it
did not do was earn any praise from the liberal theological establishment
and that for one very simple reason: in this work Machen made the
straightforward claim that historic, biblical Christianity and liberal
theology were not two parts of the same larger movement but were in fact
antithetical to each other.

To put it in its bluntest terms, liberalism was not Christianity, and Machen
was issuing the former with its marching orders.. This thesis, dramatic and
offensive as it was, was worked out by Machen in six chapters, covering the
importance of doctrine, the nature of God and man, the Bible, Christ,
salvation, and the Church. In each case, Machen presented compelling
evidence that the Christian view of these things was utterly opposed to the
liberal view, that these two theological traditions did not offer different
but compatible perspectives on the same thing but were actually as opposed
as faith and unbelief. What I intend to do today is simply summarise
Machen’s arguments on a number of key themes as a basis for seeing how, if
at all, the principles which his work highlights are of relevance to us
today. 

Before I do this, however, I want to make one point quite clear at the
outset: liberalism is not simply something which affects others; it lies
dangerously close to the evangelical door as well. This is because, as
Machen shows, liberalism is not so simple or straightforward a phenomenon as
to be reducible to a single error which can be avoided. To put it in plain
terms, avoiding liberalism is not simply a question of believing the Bible
to be the word of God. Rather, liberalism embodies a whole range of
attitudes to divine things which can sit quite happily with high-sounding
words about biblical authority. It is in these other areas, such as our
views about the importance of doctrine, the nature of God, the seriousness
of sin and so forth that we must be vigilant.

Therefore, I will make no comment today upon chapter four of the work which
deals with the Bible. This is not because it is not important, nor because I
do not agree with the burden of Machen’s argument at this point -- most
emphatically I do. It is simply because time is limited and I feel the
afternoon would be better spent in earnest self-examination on other areas
where perhaps we are less sensitive to the inroads of liberalism. I hope in
the subsequent comments on Machen’s powerful little book to draw out exactly
what I mean by this.


(I) Doctrine


The first thing Machen seeks to demonstrate in his work is the importance of
doctrine, that is, of the church’s verbal declaration of what it actually
believes to be true. Indeed, while this topic occupies the first chapter, it
is without doubt the underlying theme and presupposition of the entire work
without which the rest really makes no sense at all. 

To establish the importance of doctrine as such, Machen makes a number of
points. First, he indicates that objection to doctrine in itself is often a
highly specious move, and one which the Christian should not allow the
liberal to make. We are all, I guess, familiar with those who say that it is
not theology or doctrine which is important, but the presence of Christ in
the heart. Such a statement is as false as it is true. What is more often
than not being objected to in such statements, says Machen, is not the
notion of doctrine pure and simple but a particular doctrine or system of
doctrines with which the liberal diagrees. Thus, the liberal is often as
doctrinaire, if not more so, than the person or the tradition which he or
she opposes.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f3"»3

Such a point scarcely needs any corroboration today; we have only to think
of the virulent abuse and sneering contempt heaped upon evangelicals, not
because they believe something with passion and conviction, but because what
they believe happens to conflict with the views of those who have power and
influence at denominational HQ, or Westminster, or Fleet Street. The liberal
bishops and the religious pundits in the national media are as dogmatic in
their creeds as evangelicals; what they object to is not creeds per se but
the particular creed to which evangelicals are committed. We should
therefore not allow objection to particular doctrinal convictions to
masquerade as objection to doctrine in general.

Machen moves on from this preliminary point to deal with the liberal
argument that Christianity is not a system of doctrines but a way of life.
This is the kind of argument put forward by those who wished to reduce
Christianity to a code of ethics, a form of religious self-understanding, a
way of living that embodied love to God and love to neighbour but which did
not go so far as to claim that Christianity offered any utterly unique basis
for so doing. For many like this, Christianity represented the best basis
for ethical conduct, but it was, at the end of the day, only quantitatively,
not qualitatively, different to Judaism and Islam. In other words,
Christianity represented a higher form of religious consciousness than these
two, but not something which was different in any deep, radical sense.

To this kind of argument, Machen responds that Christianity is not simply a
way of life; it is a way of life founded upon and rooted in a very distinct
message. It is not reducible to mere feeling or sentiment; it is based upon
the historical account of ancient Israel as it culminated in the life,
death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. These are the
things which give Christianity its uniqueness, its particularity; and these
are the things which make Christianity at its core irreducibly
doctrinal.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f4"»4

Machen follows this up by looking at the attitude of Paul in his letters. At
no point does Paul ever say that doctrine is indifferent and that it is only
practice that matters. On the contrary, the universal claims of the gospel
message make such indifference an impossibility. As Machen says:

It never occured to Paul that a gospel might be true for one man and not for
another; the blight of pragmatism had never fallen upon his soul.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f5"»5

Substitute the word `postmodernism’ for `pragmatism’ and the sentence is as
relevant today as it was eighty years ago when first written. The historical
particularity of the events underlying the gospel message does not render
them of mere local interest to first century Jews or to the particular
communities and organisations which look back to them as having special
significance. On the contrary, the claims which focus on the particular,
historical man Jesus Christ have an absolutely universal relevance which
pragmatism, pluralism and now postmodernism cannot be allowed to undermine
or weaken in any way without a fundamental compromise of the message which
is the basis of the Christian life.

Objections that Christianity is not about doctrine but about a relationship
with a person are also given short shrift by Machen. Here he makes the
simple point that interpersonal relationships are functions of trust, and
trust requires knowing who the other person in the relationship is. One
cannot trust someone whom one does not know; and, if one does know the
person, then one can inevitably express certain truths about the person
using formulas of words -- and that, at its simplest, is what Christian
doctrine is. For Machen, the events of Christ’s birth, Calvary, and the
empty tomb are the things which reveal who God is and allow human beings to
enjoy a relationship with him. Thus, one cannot meaningfully speak of having
a personal relationship with God without also grasping the doctrines of
incarnation, cross, and resurrection. He himself expresses it as follows:

It is vain, then, to speak of reposing trust in the Person without believing
the message. For trust involves a personal relationship between the one who
trusts and him in whom the trust is reposed. And in this case the personal
relation is set by the blessed theology of the cross.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f6"»6

A few lines later he continues with a devastating put-down:

The truth is that when men speak of trust in Jesus’ person, as being
possible without acceptance of the message of his death and resurrection,
they do not really mean trust at all. What they designate as trust is really
admiration and reverence.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f7"»7

Here, I think Machen touches the very heart of liberalism. At the end of the
day, it is not about sin and redemption as orthodox, historic Christianity
understands those terms; it is rather about seeing in Christ the embodiment
of the good man, the one who lives for others, the one who is ultimately to
be admired and, if possible, emulated; not the one in whom faith is to be
placed because of the qualitative uniqueness of his person and work.

The lessons from Machen’s discussion of the importance of doctrine for the
contemporary evangelical situation are quite clear: doctrinal indifferentism
-- that attitude which regards the individual’s or church’s experience of
Christ as essentially separable from, more important than, or even opposed
to, a clear understanding of his person and work -- is a sure sign both of
an incipient theological liberalism and something which has little or
nothing to do with the tradition of historic, orthodox Christianity.

We must not allow the rhetoric and language of personal relationships to be
used as a means of downplaying the crucial importance of clear, orthdox
doctrine. If we are to have a personal relationship with anyone, then that
relationship depends upon a sure knowledge of who that other person is and
what they are like. My personal relationship with my wife is not essentially
separable from, more important than, or even opposed to my knowledge of who
she is, what she says, and what she does; and the same applies to my
relationship with Christ. When we keep in mind that doctrine is part and
parcel of our personal knowledge of who Christ is, the danger involved in
downplaying doctrine becomes crystal clear.

Now, there are no doubt few if any here today who would be willing to stand
up and declare themselves to be indifferent to doctrine; but the danger on
this point is often more subtle, and perhaps even unconscious, than a
straightforward and explicit commitment to the kind of liberalism which
Machen is criticising. My own belief is that when we reflect at any length
upon our church life, it often becomes clear that we are not as far from
this attitude as we might like to think. To demonstrate this, I wish to make
two important points.

My first point is that the role that personal testimonies play in much of
church life can serve to sideline doctrinal imperatives. At the end of the
day, the gospel in the New Testament is identified with the story of the
life and ministry of Jesus Christ and its doctrinal significance. It is, as
Machen would say, not an ethical demand but an announcement; a message of
good news built upon particular historical happenings. Therefore, the gospel
is not the transformation of an individual life; it is not the rescuing of
someone from some evil addiction; and it is not the turning of a sinner from
the path of destruction to the path of life.

All of these things can flow from the gospel; but the gospel itself is the
announcement of what God achieved in Jesus Christ. Thus, while personal
testimonies may have their place in church life, they should never be
allowed to eclipse the preaching of the gospel which is the proclamation of
the good news of Jesus Christ. If they are allowed to do so, then that is
indicative of a church for whom the experiences of individual Christians has
become more important than the doctrinal truths which in reality underpin
and shape those experiences. When this happens, make no mistake -- it does
not matter how conservative the church claims to be, how sound its paper
orthodoxy is, the difference between the theological approach of that church
and that of classic liberalism is one of degree, not of kind. 

My second point is that the collapse in denominational identity, or, in the
case of much British evangelicalism, the complete lack of any denominational
identity whatsoever, often speaks volumes about doctrinal indifferentism.
Now, I am aware of the arguments that stress the lack of denominations in
the New Testament and that point to the deep and mystical unity which all
believers enjoy in Christ which transcends denominations. I do not deny the
truth of either of these points.  What I would like to suggest, however, is
that much of the interdenominational and parachurch activity which goes on
within evangelical circles today is not simply or perhaps even primarily a
response to these two issues but is rather a function of a rising doctrinal
indifferentism.

In my own experience, parachurch organisations and fellowships often define
themselves on paper in doctrinal terms, but in practice one of two things
tends to happen. First, these organisations may allow such liberty of
interpretation regarding the doctrinal articles of constitution that such
statements are rendered meaningless. The only conclusion that one can draw
in such circumstances is that that which unites the members of these
organisations is perceived to be something which cannot be clearly expressed
in doctrinal terms. In other words, this unifying factor, whatever it may
be, is anything but doctrinal. And that is doctrinal indifferentism which,
if left unchecked, will become liberalism as sure as night follows day. 

Second, where doctrinal statements are taken seriously and where men and
women refuse to subscribe with their fingers crossed, the agreed statements
can be so minimal as to be almost meaningless, as is the case, for example,
with an important evangelical scholarly fellowship in the USA whose members
have to believe only in inerrancy and the trinity in order to qualify for
membership. The result is that other important areas of doctrine, such as
the sacraments, salvation, and the last things, are marginalised, relegated
to irrelevancies, and sometimes all but forgotten.

When such organisations then become a major focus of our Christian activity
and draw individuals and churches away from their particular
responsibilities to their local areas and to their denominations, this
situation can again quickly lead to doctrinal indifferentism and to churches
who lack any really distinct identity or message. This is for the simple
reason that, once we start ditching our distinctives, where do we stop?
Whatever our views on, say, baptism or the Lord’s Supper, these things are
important. We may well enjoy fellowship with those with whom we disagree on
these issues, but we should never give the impression that these things are
not significant. Indeed, the existence of denominations is often an
historical witness to the fact that these things are of crucial importance.
Machen himself makes this point crystal clear. Speaking of differences about
the sacraments, he makes the following profound observation:

That difference is indeed serious, and to deny its seriousness is a far
greater error than to take the wrong side in the controversy itself. It is
often said that the divided condition of Christendom is an evil, and so it
is. But the evil consists in the existence of the errors which cause the
divisions and not at all in the recognition of those errors when once they
exist.HYPERLINK "http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f8"»8

Do you see Machen’s point? Yes, denominations and a divided Christendom are
evils, but they are the result of doctrinal error, not the result of making
distinctives out of trivia. Therefore, any attempt to overcome the
fragmentation caused by denominations must take this point seriously and not
merely sidestep the problem by relegating differences over doctrine to the
level of matter indifferent. To do is, once again, to open the door to
doctrinal indifferentism, the handmaiden of theological liberalism. 

It is, of course, hard in the UK, when evangelicalism is such a small
movement and where it is so highly fragmented, not to sideline certain
debates for the sake of interchurch co-operation. I am not advocating
withdrawal from such bodies; but let us always be aware of our motives for
involvement and of whatever price we are being asked to pay to sit at
certain tables. I would suggest that if the price is that of giving up
wholesale our belief in the importance of such things as the nature of
grace, God’s electing love or of the sacraments, and of turning our churches
into bland manifestations of a generic, minimalist evangelicalism then the
price might well prove in the long run to have been far too high.

In this connection, I believe a further point is worth making: not only must
we make sure that the focal point of our church is the doctrinal preaching
of the gospel in all its fulness, we must also make sure that this doctrine
penetrates to the pew. The history of the church is peppered with examples
of churches which enjoyed powerful, faithful preaching for many years and
yet which all but collapsed into doctrinal apathy and even heresy on the
retirement or death of their minister. While a number of reasons could be
given for this, one underlying factor has to be the failure of the message
to pass effectively from the pulpit to the pew.

The danger in our current situation is no different. I was talking recently
to the head of a parachurch organisation who was telling me how disheartened
he was at the lack of doctrinal understanding among many of the young people
applying to him for work. They loved the Lord Jesus; but they seemed to know
next to nothing about him. This is very worrying, for if Machen was right --
and I believe he was -- then such lack of doctrinal knowledge actually
indicates a lack of a deep and meaningful relationship with Christ. It is
thus important for ministers to make sure that what they teach on a Sunday
is not only doctrinally solid and wholesome, but that it is digested by the
congregation.

Part of that process is facilitated by making sure that the prayers prayed
in church and the songs which we sing together are sound and wholesome.
There is much evidence to suggest that a lot of the theology which church
members imbibe comes through the prayers they hear and, especially, the
songs that are sung. If these are empty of doctrinal content, it is hardly
surprising that congregations are themselves doctrinally impoverished. I
guess as an elder in a Scottish presbyterian denomination you will expect me
to say this, but I’ll say it anyway: the singing of psalms is one sure way
of making sure that God’s word and its teachings are imbibed by the
congregation.

In addition, we need to think carefully about following up preaching in a
manner that ensures the doctrinal message goes home. The Puritans followed
up their preaching through catechism classes; we may well feel that such are
inappropriate today, given the differences in working hours, family life
etc. But if that is so, we surely need to find a modern-day equivalent in
order to make sure that what is said from the front of the church on a
Sunday hits home on the other six days of the week. Whatever we do, however,
we need to address the problem of doctrinal indifferentism in the church
membership at the current time and put into place measure to combat it.
Failure to do so in this generation will inevitably lead to liberalism in
the next.


(II) God and Christ


After discussing the importance of doctrine, the next chapter, entitled
simply `God and Man’, stresses one simple but overwhelming and terrifying
truth: the Christian God is a transcendent God. In one awesome passage,
Machen says the following:

[O]ne attribute of God is absolutely fundamental in the Bible; one attribute
is absolutely necessary in order to render intelligible all the rest. That
attribute is the awful transcendence of God. From beginning to end the Bible
is concerned to set forth the awful gulf that separates the creature from
the Creator. It is true, indeed, that according to the Bible God is immanent
in the world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without Him. But he is
immanent in the world not because He is identified with the world, but
because He is the free Creator and Upholder of it. Between the creature and
the Creator a great gulf is fixed.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f9"»9

To understand the significance of this, we need to grasp two basic facts
about the kind of liberalism against which Machen is reacting. First, such
liberalism made a great play of arguing that God could only be known in and
through Jesus Christ. Such language had a certain specious orthodoxy. After
all, any theology which does not stress the importance of Christ to the
knowledge of God is unworthy of the name Christian in even its broadest
sense.

When we take into account, however, that liberalism disputed the reliability
of the gospels as historical accounts of Christ, and rejected the historic
understandings of trinity and incarnation, it becomes clear that the liberal
Christ is not the Christ of the Bible or of the orthodox Christian
tradition. For these, after all, considered the gospels to be the basic
historical source for knowledge of Christ, and held that doctrines such as
trinity and incarnation represented objective realities not subjective
modifications of the religious psychology of the believer. In practice,
therefore, what Christ-centred liberalism did was to create a Christ in its
own image, a Christ who perfectly matched up to the expectations of late
nineteenth century society.

Second, the world to which Machen belonged was one in which cheap sentiment
had come to exert a profound influence. Machen was, of course, an American,
but we can see the same kind of sentimentalism in Britain. One has only to
think of some of the crass artwork of late Victorian England, of many of the
popular novels of the era, for example, some of those by Charles Dickens (of
whom, I confess, I am a great fan, his tendency to sentiment aside), of some
of the poetry even by men such as Tennyson and Browning, and of the
paternalism of much of the politics, to realise that this was an era where
sentimentalism about many things -- whether it be the poor, the Empire, or
England itself -- was rife. And it affected theology too where it found its
most obvious manifestation in a dogmatic attachment to the so-called
universal fatherhood of God. 

Machen is aware, of course, that the Bible does speak at times of God as a
kind of universal father; but he is careful to point out that such
references are vague and only occur very occasionally; the dominant pattern
of the New Testament is to reserve the language of fatherhood to describe
the profound and intimate relationship that exists between God and his
redeemed people.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f10"»10 This is a
million miles away from using the terminology of universal fatherhood,
terminology which implicitly serves to break down the distinction between
God and the world in a manner which fatally weakens any notion of his utter
transcendence.

The loss of divine transcendence has a variety of disastrous theological
consequences, not least in the area of the understanding of sin. As Machen
declares in this chapter as he moves from the transcendence of God to the
moral corruption of man, `At the very root of the modern liberal movement is
the loss of the consciousness of sin.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f11"»11 For him, the
two things are different sides of the same coin: the undermining of
transcendence serves to make God smaller, to make him less of a God; and the
less of a God he becomes, the more trivial the sin of man against such a God
is made to appear. Indeed, we might borrow the first two lines of Whittier’s
famous hymn as an example of just how this is so: `Dear Lord and Father of
mankind / Forgive our foolish ways’. In line one, God becomes the universal
Father; in line two, human sin becomes foolish, not morally outrageous. Loss
of divine transcendence sets the scene for the trivialisation of sin.

If Machen’s comments on this issue were relevant in his own day, then it is
surely the case that they remain so for ours. Now, it is very tempting at
this point for us to play the pharisee, to look at those outwith the
Reformed and evangelical camps and to thank God that we are not as other men
on this issue. We would never lose sight of the transendence of God or the
sinfulness of sin. But is it the case that we are so guiltless on this
issue? I would suggest that we do not have to look beyond the boundaries of
our own camps to find evidence of precisely the kind of thinking which
Machen saw as so lethal to vital Christian theology and life. Indeed, a
whole variety of comments suggest themselves in this context, but I will
again restrict myself to the one or two which seem most pertinent.

First, reflect for a moment upon the Sunday services in which we
participate. When we enter our churches on Sundays, is the atmosphere one
which inspires awe, one which provokes a response like that of the prophet
Isaiah: Woe to me, for I am a man of unclean lips? That, I would suggest, is
the kind of result that a vision of God’s transcendence and holiness will
produce in us, revealing as it does not just God’s greatness but our own
unworthiness. Or is the atmosphere perhaps more likely to inspire cries of
`Come in God, my old mate, and have a cup of tea.’ That, I would suggest, is
the result of a loss of a sense of divine transcendence and human
sinfulness, and yet one which perhaps characterises many a church service.

And I am not here making a point about traditional versus contemporary
styles of worship. The traditional service can easily fall prey to the
trivialisation that routine and formalism bring in their wake; the obsession
without form for its own sake can be far removed from true reverence and as
detrimental to true Christian worship as can a slavish commitment to the new
and the contemporary. No, the point I am making is one concerning our
attitude to what the church is all about. Do we go there to stand in the
presence of a holy, awesome and transcendent God, to acknowledge our own
unworthiness, to thank him for Christ, and to worship him for who he is; or
do we go there to have a chat and a laugh with some divine buddy who makes
us feel better about ourselves.

Our answer to this question depends entirely upon our view of divine
transcendence; and the evidence of what our answer is will be found in the
kinds of prayers spoken and of songs sung. These both reflect and reinforce
our view of God and of ourselves. Trivial songs and flippant prayers all
ultimately speak of an understanding of God which has missed the importance
of divine transcendence and turned the human predicament into the punchline
of a cosmic joke.

Second, look at the content of the sermons we hear and the books we read.
Are they books and sermons which deal with the doctrine of God and the
doctrine of sin, with the greatness of the divine and the corruption of the
human? If the bestseller shelves at the average Christian bookshop are
anything to go by, more often than not the most popular books seem to be
those which deal with our problems. We live in a culture of therapy which is
obsessed with the well-being of self, and where our major problems are
defined using the categories of happiness and contentment, not those of
guilt and forgiveness. That is why we now get Christian books on slimming,
on better sex, on learning to love ourselves more. God has been
sentimentalised and the human predicament has been trivialised to the point
where Christianity is seen to centre on the problem of a marred self-image,
not a marred divine image. The idea that God is angry with sin, that our
problem is, first and foremost, that of alienation from our creator rather
than alienation from self, scarcely seems to feature.

At the end of the day, we might cynically say that such ideas do not make
good copy and do not sell many books. I would submit that this has to be in
large part the result of the loss of our sense -- indeed, our understanding
-- of God’s transcendence and of our fiinitude and sin. A church that grasps
the centrality of divine transcendence will also grasp the depth of human
sinfulness and the awesomeness of divine grace in Christ; and such a church
will consequently preach a gospel which revolves around the perfection of
God, the fallenness of humanity, and the decisiveness of God’s action on the
cross; she will not be so concerned to present God as the believer’s best
buddy and Christianity as the best high that money cannot buy.

Thus, let me reiterate what I said earlier: we must beware of pointing the
finger at churches which explicitly deny the authority of the Bible as being
liberal; when our churches in their preaching and in their worship fail to
give due weight to the transcendence of God the seriousness of human sin,
the difference between those of us who call ourselves Reformed or
evangelical and those whom we would label as liberal is a difference of
degree, not kind.


(III) Christ and Salvation


Over one third of the text of Christianity and Liberalism is taken up by the
two chapters which cover Christ and Salvation respectively. There is a
sense, therefore, in which these issues represent the very heart of Machen’s
argument. If his statements on doctrine, on God and man, and on the Bible
are the presuppositions of his case, then those on Christ and salvation are
where his argument reaches its culmination.

Central to the case made at this point in the book are three things: the
uniqueness of Christ; the centrality of atonement; and the need for
regeneration. We shall look briefly at each of these in turn.

First, the uniqueness of Christ. Machen is, as one would expect, impeccably
orthodox in his understanding of Christ’s person, regarding him as both
fully God and fully man; in other words, as God manifest in human flesh. For
Machen, Christ’s unique constitution is the foundation for Christ’s unique
role in history. Comparing the Christ of Christianity with the Christ of
liberalism, he makes the following comment:

Liberalism regards Him [Christ] as an Example and Guide; Christianity as a
Saviour: liberalism makes him an example for faith; Christianity, the object
of faith.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f12"»12

The point underlying this comment is simple enough but nonetheless
important: the fact that Christ is both God and man gives him a unique
status in the history of humanity. Thus, it is not just what Christ shares
with us, i.e., our humanity, that means he can be a Saviour for us; it is
also that which distinguishes him from us, that which makes him different,
which is also crucial. This note of difference is struck again and again in
Machen’s discussion of Christ in order to draw out what lies behind the
liberal understanding of Jesus: he is not ultimately the divine-human
mediator, he is, rather, `the fairest flower of humanity’, to use Machen’s
own phrase.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f13"»13

The result is that Christ is not ultimately the one who acts on our behalf
to save us; he is the one who provides us with an example of how life should
be lived. In a passage which brilliantly summarises and exposes the specious
piety of the liberal theologian, Machen says the following:

The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus
forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he
enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But he does not
stand in a religious relation to Jesus. Jesus for him is an example for
faith, not the object of faith. The modern liberal tries to have faith in
God like the faith which he supposes Jesus had in God; but he does not have
faith in Jesus.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f14"»14

There it is in a nutshell: behind all the pious liberal rhetoric lies a
Jesus who is no more than a good example. As the doctrine of sin depends
upon the doctrine of divine transcendence, upon stressing the fundamental
difference between God and the world, so the doctrine of Christ depends too
upon stressing the difference between Jesus and the rest of humanity;
between the one who came to give his life to deal with sin, and those of us
who spend our lives labouring under sin.

Machen develops his argument on this issue to point to the incoherence of
liberalism’s claim to follow Christ as example. If, Machen asks, Christ
claimed to be the Messiah, to be the Son of God, and to offer men and women
salvation, then either he is the God of orthodox Christianity or he was one
of the most egocentric, if not insane, men who ever walked the earth. Christ
can only function as an example if he is taken as a man of moral integrity;
if he is a man of moral integrity, then his claims about his unique status
and office have to be taken seriously; and if they are taken seriously, he
ceases to be in the first instance a moral example and becomes rather the
one who offers salvation to humanity through his unique work.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f15"»15

Are there lessons here for us today? Well, I think we can be genuinely
grateful to God that the evangelical church on the whole in this country
continues to maintain her belief in the uniqueness of Jesus’ person and
work. But we must not be complacent. As I look at the contemporary
evangelical scene, I do see potential danger areas where the uniqueness of
Christ could be inadvertently eroded, not by a full-frontal attack on the
orthodox doctrine of his person but on the way that doctrine becomes
marginal to the way Christ is presented by the churches.

One such example is provided by the creeping tendency to stress Christ as an
example to us of how we should live. Now, please do not misunderstand me
here. Certainly, Christ’s life does provide many insights into the meaning
of true love of neighbour and of devotion to God as Father; and certainly
Paul calls upon believers to be imitators of him as he is an imitator of
Christ. But this emphasis should never be allowed to crowd out those
objective dimensions of Christ’s ministry that do not apply to us by way of
example. To do so, as Machen so cogently argued, would be in itself an act
of incoherence. The primary purpose of Christ’s obedience, rooted in his
very constitution as divine-human mediator, was the bringing of many sons
and daughters to glory, not the provision of a blueprint for moral
behaviour.

I confess therefore at this point to being a little uneasy with the current
fashion among some evangelicals of wearing watchstraps etc with the initial
`WWJD’ on them, representing the words `What would Jesus do’. I see the
point and I am sure that the sentiment is well-meant. I think, however, that
a theologically more correct slogan would be `What would Jesus want me to
do’. This brings out the fact that Christians are meant to order their
behaviour in accordance with the revealed will of God but does not in any
way water down the profound difference that exists between Christ and the
believer. Jesus is the divine-human mediator; he was conscious of being the
Messiah; he had no sense of sin in the way that we have a sense of sin; and
his behaviour in certain circumstances was dictated precisely by this unique
constitution and office in a way that applies to no other human being. Thus,
his role as moral example has to be understood, and to an extent limited, in
this light.

Perhaps I go too far here; perhaps these evangelical mnemonics are
completely harmless. All I would say is that anything which potentially
weakens the distinction between Christ and the rest of humanity -- be it our
preaching or our slogans -- has, in the long run, the potential of doing
damage to the Christian faith. Machen puts the point nicely when he declares
that `The religion of Jesus was a religion of untroubled sonship;
Christianity is a religion of the attainment of sonship by the redeeming
work of Christ.’HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f16"»16 That is a
crucial difference that should be reflected in t he sermons we preach, the
prayers we pray, and the songs we sing. 

A second point which Machen makes about Christ and salvation is the
uniqueness of Christianity’s claims. Of all of the claims of Christianity to
which liberals have objected, that of Christianity’s claim to be the only
way to salvation has surely proved most offensive. Indeed, one would have to
concede that the Christian who has not at some point struggled with the
terrible awesomeness of ths doctrine has probably never thought about it in
any depth. It is horrifying to think that Christianity is the only way to
salvation; but belief in this point is ultimately a question of biblical
authority -- if we take the Bible seriously, then our consciences are bound
to the texts it contains, however difficult some of those texts may be to
accept. Machen makes it quite clear that Christianity’s uniqueness and the
narrowness of its claims were an essential part of its message from the
earliest times:

What struck the earliest observers of Christianity most forcibly was not
merely that salvation was offered by the means of the Christian gospel, but
that all other means were resolutely rejected. The early Christian
missionaries demanded an absolutely exclusive devotion to Christ. Such
exclusiveness ran directly counter to the prevailing syncretism of the
Hellenistic age.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f17"»17

Anyone who knows anything about the history of the early church will know
how true this statement is; indeed, they will also know that those within
the Christian community struggled with precisely the same problem of how the
particular events of Jesus’ life could have such universal significance.
Nevertheless, whatever the difficulties, the early church established as
normative both the universality and the uniqueness of Christianity’s claims.
It was really only with the Enlightenment that rejection of these positions
came to be regarded as an acceptable position for those who still wished to
claim the name of Christian while developing a theology of a distinctly
liberal hue.

Machen counters the accusation of narrowness which is alleged by liberals
against the Christian position by pointing out that this narrowness is not
so much a function of the gospel itself as of the activity of the church:

If, therefore, this way of salvation is not offered to all, it is not the
fault of the way of salvation itself, but the fault of those who fail to use
the means that God has placed in their hands.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f18"»18

This point is both profound and pertinent, and perhaps even more relevant
and urgent today than when Machen first wrote it. Indeed, I was struck some
years ago at a lecture given by a former missionary who pointed out that,
over the last one hundred years or so, the exclusive nature of
Christianity’s claims regarding salvation had shifted from being a motive
for mission and evangelism to being a problem for theodicy or, in layman’s
parlance, the fairness of God. In other words, the fate of the lost was not
so much something which drove people to their knees in prayer for
missionaries but something which caused believers difficulties when they
wondered how a God of love could send people to hell. Put simply, is the
narrowness of Christianity a motive for evangelism or a theological problem?
As soon as it ceases to be the former and becomes the latter, we lose sight
of what the gospel is and dramatically weaken the imperatives of mission and
evangelism.

Machen correctly roots the narrowness of Christianity’s claims in the
uniqueness of Christ’s person. This uniqueness meant that Christ’s life and
works, especially as they culminate in the cross, are unique. After all,
Christ is not another man, albeit a superlative example of manhood; he is
very God of very God. This divinity, as we noted above, marks him off from
all other members of the human race. As a result, the church must beware of
anything which serves to water down this fundamental division which exists
between Christ and his works and those of other men and women. This error
can be made almost unconsciouly as Machen demonstrates by looking at the
words of three hymns, `Nearer my God to Thee’, `In the cross of Christ I
glory’, and `When I survey the wondrous cross’, pointing out that the first
is mere sentimentality where the cross is used to refer not to the cross of
Christ, but to the sufferings of Christians. A valid point, Machen says, but
one which really fails to come to grips with the uniqueness of Christ’s
cross and which is open to dangerous misinterpretation.

In the second, the cross is the cross of Christ; it is celebrated over and
gloried in; but it is not explained in any way and remains a somewhat
ill-defined symbol. Only in the third, `When I survey’, is the cross
expounded in anything approaching its biblical dimensions; and only this
cross is capable of doing justice to Christ’s uniqeness and warding off the
cheap, unbiblical sentimentality which too often fills the void left by a
failure to bring out these gospel truths.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f19"»19

Underlying all this error is, for Machen, once again, a faulty view of God
rooted in a light view of sin. A light view of sin can only co-exist with
the loss of a sense of divine transcendence, and this leads directly to a
sentimentalised view of God as love, and only love. Such a view of God has
at least two major problems attached to it. First, it really fails to live
up to the reality of the world. In a passage of rhetorical power, Machen
asks:

How do you know that God is all love and kindness? Surely not through
nature, for it is full of horrors. Human suffering may be unpleasant, but it
is real, and God must have something to do with it.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f20"»20

The God of cheap sentiment, the God of love and nothing else, is simply not
a God who matches up to the experience of the world. The death of a small
child, the reality of war, famine, disease -- all of these things happen,
all must be related to God in some way; and yet what connection can they
have with the God of sentimental love? Liberalism thus cheats people of the
God of the real world, as Machen goes on to state in his second major point:

Religion cannot be made joyful simply by looking on the bright side of God.
For a one-sided God is not a real God, and it is the real God alone who can
satisfy the longing of our soul. God is love, but is He only love? God is
love, but is love God? Seek joy alone, then, seek joy at any cost, and you
will not find it.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f21"»21

Machen’s point is simple: sin and evil are realities -- problematic,
mysterious, inexplicable, but realities nonetheless; and, as he goes on to
say, only the sovereign, transcendent, holy God can face up to these
realities and provide us with any answers to these difficulties through the
terrible death of his Son upon the cross; indeed, only this God can save.
But this God, and this salvation, elicit a joy that is, in Machen’s phrase,
`akin to fear’.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f22"»22It does not
mimic the joy of fleeting human happiness but provides something much deeper
and richer for the believer.

The applications of this to the present are obvious. All around the emphasis
would seem to be upon happiness and joy. As I mentioned earlier, bookshelves
in our Christian bookshops groan under the weight of Christian `How to....’
books; our hymnody rarely speaks of human sin, let alone the depths of human
misery that flow as a consequence; and Christian assurance is too often
identified with `feeling good’. Underlying all of these things is an
understanding of Christianity which fails to come to grips with the
unsentimental realities of life in the fallen creation of a holy God.
Salvation is first, last and always about repairing the moral rupture
between God and humanity which occurred at the Fall, and all our preaching,
praying, church policies and outreach must place this concern at the very
centre.

How can we tell when such changes are creeping in to our churches? Well,
like the dog that didn’t bark in the Sherlock Holmes story, what are often
so significant are those questions which are never asked. I give here just
one example, that of the emphasis on seeker-sensitive services. Now, please
do not misconstrue me here: I am very much in favour of bringing
non-Christians to church and of exposing them to the gospel. I am firmly
committed to the notion that aggressive evangelism is of the essence of the
Christian life, both corporate and individual. But I have noticed over the
last few years that discussion of seeker-sensitive services has tended to be
driven by the notion of what the `seeker’ will tolerate. I was even told by
one person at a church meeting that the church should no longer sing psalms
or traditional hymns in its worship because this would `put outsiders off’.
The key to evangelism is, apparently, to make the outsider feel
`comfortable’.

Now, while it is clear that the church envisaged by Paul in the New
Testament is one where the outsider can come in and understand what is going
on, nowhere are we told that the outsider should feel `comfortable’. The
question that in my experience is never asked in discussions of
seeker-sensitivity is crucial: should outsiders feel comfortable when they
join a group of saved sinners worshipping a holy and transcendent God?
Indeed, we might press the question further: should we as believers feel
entirely comfortable in the presence of a holy and transcendent God?
Certainly, a brief glance at the prophets or at the admonitions of Paul
should indicate that `feeling comfortable’ in church is more likely to be a
sign of woeful complacency built on a faulty doctrine of God and sin, than
of an effective evangelism policy.

Yes, we should welcome outsiders; we must not allow unfriendliness, bad
manners, or downright rudeness to put people off. Yes, we should present the
gospel to them in a way that they can understand; good communication skills
are certainly to be desired. Yes, we should offer Christ to them as the
answer to their problems; but we must make sure that we stress that the
major problem, upon which all others depend, whether of loneliness, debt,
drugs, or sex, is that of sin against and alienation from God. Christ is
first and foremost the answer of a gracious God to humanity’s sin against a
holy and transcendent God, not humanity’s problems with self-image or broken
marriages. Machen himself sums up the position with clarity at the end of
the chapter on salvation:

According to Christian belief, man exists for the sake of God; according to
the liberal church, in practice if not in theory, God exists for the sake of
man.HYPERLINK "http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f23"»23


(IV) The Church


The last section of Machen’s great work deals with the doctrine of the
church. Here, I guess, one treads on most controversial ground because
denominational allegiances strike deep and what Machen has to say still has
the power to cut to the quick some eighty years after it was first written.
As time presses on, I will make my comments brief. 

First, he argues that much of the weakness of the church derives from the
existence in her ministry of men who do not believe the basics of the faith.
Men who deny the virgin birth, the reality of the incarnation, the
significance of the cross, the historicity of the resurrection, are allowed
not just to hold membership of the church but even to occupy her puplits and
teaching positions in her seminaries.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f24"»24

Second, and as an answer to this problem, Machen indicates that churches are
voluntary organisations. The liberal theologian does not have to belong to a
voluntary organisation with whose tenets he finds himself at variance, and
more than a Democrat has to join the Republican Party.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f25"»25 Indeed, the
liberal is at perfect liberty to go off and join a liberal denomination or,
if such does not exist, to found one himself. Third, unless there is some
kind of separation of Christians and liberals at the level of denominations,
the preaching of the gospel will be hopelessly compromised.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f26"»26

In many ways, this view of the church is the outcome of all that has been
said by Machen so far, primarily, of course, his emphasis on the utter
antithesis between Christianity and liberalism, whereby the former is not a
deviant form of Christianity but actually not Christianity at all. The
implications for churchmanship would seem, to me at least, to be obvious. 


Three Concluding Questions


I want to draw this lecture to a close by asking three questions which
Machen’s book raises and which we as evangelicals need to address at the
present time. Underlying them all is my belief that Machen is correct about
two basic things: first, that Christianity and liberalism are not two forms
of one religion but actually two different religions, opposed to each other
at every significant point; and, second, that Christian orthodoxy is not
simply about believing the Bible to be inerrant but about a variety of
related doctrines including the transcendence and holiness of God, the
awfulness of human sin, the uniqueness of Christ and the exclusivity of
Christian salvation.

When we see liberalism in these terms, we are perhaps less inclined to start
our anti-liberal polemics by pointing the finger at others and more inclined
to begin with some earnest and necessary self-examination.

Question One: When you put a pound in the collection plate on a Sunday
morning, how much of it goes towards propagating the gospel and how much
goes towards opposing the gospel?

I know that there are many arguments that rage about separatism and the
validity of remaining in mixed denominations at the moment, and one
conclusion to be drawn from Machen’s argument is that liberals, if they are
honest, should leave evangelical denominations as an honest socialist should
leave the Conservative Party. But history shows that this rarely happens:
most liberals do not have the integrity to act on their convictions and
often end up in the driving seat of denominations, of prebyteries, of
mission boards etc, with evangelicals happy to act as back-room boys or to
function as independents.

But I believe that this bottom-line question has to be asked by all
evangelicals in these mixed bodies: does any part of the pound I put in the
collection box on a Sunday go towards the propagation of liberalism, a
religion which has nothing to do with Christianity proper and which serves
only to undermine the church? To paraphrase a sentence in Machen, if half of
our hard-earned givings are being used to neutralise the good work funded by
the other half, is not our giving to the organisation or denomination
concerned turned into an act of absurdity? You may disagree, but I firmly
believe that the question of denominational church commitment is, at the end
of the day, really that simple.

Question Two: Do the words of the songs we sing, the language of the prayers
we pray, and the content of the preaching from the pulpit we support uphold
the non-negotiable truths of divine transcendence, human sinfulness, the
uniqueness of Christ, and the exclusivity of Christian salvation?

For Machen, liberalism is at heart an attempt to sentimentalise God and
thereby to trivialise human sin, water down the uniqueness of Christ and
dissolve the exclusivity of Christian salvation. We need to be very careful
here, because we may well uphold the authority of the Bible, but if we do
not do so in concert with maintaining these other doctrines, we too have
become liberals, we too have become purveyors of another gospel. Let us
therefore think very carefully about what our hymns, prayers and sermons
say.

As I said earlier, with regard to songs of praise, my own preference is very
much for psalms, and becomes more so as the years go by, because only there
it seems to me does on find an awesome and overwhelming sight of God
combined with the whole range of human emotions. Where else can one find
words that speak so eloquently in praise of the depths of human sorrow and
despair? Where else are the great saving deeds of God recounted with such
power to the praise of his glory? Where else does one get such profound
insights into the very psychology of Christ? Nevertheless, whatever songs
you choose to sing in your church, make sure they do justice to the God of
the Bible and do not substitute him with some lesser God of human
imagining.HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f27"»27

As for sermons, if you are a preacher, then preach the gospel of a
transcendent God who saved men and women through the terrible and awesome
sacrifice of his own Son on the cross. Leave jokes, politics, and
suggestions for slimming to the comedians, politicians and daytime TV
personalities -- they probably do these things much better than you anyway.
Concentrate on the glory of God’s grace displayed in his Son, because that
is what your job description, as a minister of the gospel, requires. And
don’t worry if it’s not trendy. Being a bank manager is not trendy, but
people still have to go to banks for help with their finances; being a car
mechanic is not trendy, but people still need to go to garage to get an MOT
certificate; and people will still need someone to tell them plainly how to
get right with God. You owe it to them not to clown about in church but to
bring home the message of Christ in crystal-clear and uncompromising terms.

As for prayers, follow the pattern laid out by the example of prayers in the
Bible. Become preocuupied with God’s glory and God’s gospel. Don’t let your
needs and worries become the centre of attention. God’s power, God’s
transcendence, God’s ineffable grace and mercy -- let these be your
obsessions, let these be the centre of your prayer life, both privately and,
if you lead prayer in church, corporately as well. And when called upon to
pray in public, lead the people in prayer; set them an example; show them
what the biblical priorities are. As the doctrine of God is that upon which
all sound theology hangs, so it is that upon which all God honouring prayer
depends too.

Question Three: Do we listen for the significant silences from our pulpits,
our church organisations, and even our own hearts?

What is the dog that doesn’t bark in your church? I am increasingly
convinced that the measure of a theologian or preacher or church is to be
found not so much in what is said as in what isn’t said. Often, of course,
the word that is never said is `No’. Indeed, after `Sorry’ this surely has
to be a contender for the least-used word in the English language. Let me
ask you, where do you draw the line on doctrine, on behaviour, on what is
said in your church’s pulpit? Under what conditions would you use the `N’
word? Are you prepared to take the flak, unpopularity, perhaps lack of
career advancement that comes in its wake? Where are the men and women in
your church who are prepared to stand up and say `No’ when a member of your
congregation proposes a scheme for the church which is well-meant but
ultimately hare-brained and unbiblical?

In another article, Machen memorably described the Apostle Paul as `the man
who could say “No”’. And `No’ is precisely what Machen says in this little
book, and what he said to the board of Princeton Seminary, and what he said
to his denomination. It earned him, humanly speaking, nothing but scorn,
derision and an early grave; but it is my belief that he went to heaven as
one who, in Christ, had worked with all his might for the preservation of
the gospel. The church in Britain urgently needs such men and women today
who know when it is necessary to say firmly but politely `No’. For only when
boundaries are drawn does it become clear what the church stands for and
what the gospel itself is.

Further, let me ask preacher: what are the books of the Bible on which you
never preach? What are the themes you never address in your sermons? Why do
these gaps exist? Do they tell us something about what you do -- or don’t --
believe, or how you do-- or don’t-- behave? And, perhaps more important, do
they leave your congregation’s mind empty on a key issue? Remember, the
emptiest minds are the most easily filled; and if, for evil to prosper, it
needs only good men to do nothing, one might also say that, for liberalism
to grow, it needs only good preachers to be silent on certain issues. So,
before we start hitting at other ministries for being liberal, let us take a
good, hard look at ourselves to discern where it is that we are most
vulnerable to liberalism’s seductive but corrosive temptations.

Next, let me ask the church members here today a similar question: what are
the books of the Bible you never read? The areas of your life you never
mention in prayer to bring under the lordship of Christ? Are these
`silences’ significant? One of the great advantages to using a reading
scheme which takes you through the Bible in a year is that you cannot censor
your Bible reading, consciously or unconsciously, and are thus exposed to
the whole counsel of God. I thus commend such schemes to you as highly
desirable weapons in the battle against that private liberalism to which we
are all prone. We need to meditate upon the whole of scripture, not simply
those bits which fit in with our own ideas about what God should be like.
That is the road to sentimental, therapeutic liberalism.

Finally, when we look for ministers to fill our pulpits, do you as church
members listen for preaching that exalts God and Christ, and do you ask the
hard questions when the vacancy committee comes before the church? It is not
enough that a man be affable, approachable, full of rich tea and sympathy
with the old folk, fluent in street-talk for the young folk, always there
for the lonely, the singles, the marrieds the families etc. Much of this
kind of thing should not be the minister’s responsibility anyway. He’s not a
social worker, after all, but a preacher of the good news.

The big questions are: does he have a view of God as transcendent, of man as
sinful, of Christ as the only way? Does he in his public prayer and his
preaching inculcate such a vision of God’s holiness, glory and grace that
believers, sinful as they are, feel a little uncomfortable -- not to mention
any unbelievers who might be present? If the answer to this question is yes,
then great, he’s your man. If the answer is no, then, however `user
friendly’ he might appear, he will be no use in helping to keep the church
truly Christian; he is more likely to foster precisely the sort of
atmosphere in which liberalism can prosper.

I hope that all this is not discouraging. Many even within the evangelical
fold have read Machen’s book as a depressing statement of the perennial
problems of the church. On one level it certainly is so, for it reminds us
that the battle with liberalism is always with us; and, by defining
liberalism as he does, Machen also implicitly shows us how even we
Christians, as sinful human beings, have a tendency toward liberalism
through our downplaying of both the transcendence of God and the seriousness
of human sin. If there is one sad lesson we should take away from the book
it is that we must continually fight liberalism within our own soul and
within our own churches with all our heart and soul and mind for this battle
is nothing less than one particular outworking of our love for God in
Christ. And, make no mistake, this battle will last as long as sin itself.

On another level, however, Machen’s book is gloriously positive. It contains
passage after passage which express the glory of God and his gospel in a
wonderful and moving manner; it lays out so clearly how far man has fallen
and how much God has done for him; and it reminds us again and again that
God, not man, thank goodness, is the centre and goal of creation. I end,
however, with the closing words of another of Machen’s works, the essay on
Paul as `A Man who could say “No”’great little book, words which speak
eloquently and positively of the need of his, our, and every hour before
Christ’s return:

We know not in detail what will take place when the great revival comes, the
great revival for which we long, when the Spirit of God will sweep over the
church like a mighty flood. But one thing we do know -- when that great day
comes, the present feeble aversion to `controversy,’ the present cowardly
unwillingness to take sides in the age-long issue between faith and unbelief
in the Church -- will at once be swept aside. There is not a trace of such
an attitude in God’s holy Word. That attitude is just Satan’s way of trying
to deceive the people of God; peace and indifferentist church-unionism and
aversion to controversy, as they are found in the modern Church, are just
the fine garments that cover the enemy, unbelief. 

May God send us men who are not deceived, men who will respond to the forces
of unbelief and compromise now so largely dominant in the visible Church
with a brave and unqualified `No’! Paul was such a man in his day. He said
`No’ in the very first word of this Epistle [to the Galatians], after the
bare name and the title of the author; and that word gives the key to the
whole Epistle that follows. The Epistle to the Galatian is a polemic, a
fighting Epistle from beginning to end. What a fire it kindled at the time
of the Reformation! May it kindle another fire in our day -- not a fire that
will destroy any fine or noble or Christian thing, but a fire of Christian
love in hearts grown cold. HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#f28"»28

Amen. So let it be.


Footnotes


1.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref1"The two best
biographical studies of Machen are the personal memoir of his Westminster
Colleague, Ned B Stonehouse, J Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1954) and the more scholarly analysis of D G Hart,
Defending the Faith: J Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative
Prostestantism in Modern America (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995). A bibliography
of Machen’s writings can be found in Charles G Dennison and Richard C
Gamble, Pressing Towards the Mark: Essays Commemorating the Fifty Years of
the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (Philadelphia: OPC, 1986).
2.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref2"Quoted in
Stonehouse, p. 107.
3.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref3"`In seeming to
object to all theology, the liberal preacher is often merely objecting to
one system of theology in the interests of another.’ Christianity and
Liberalism, p. 19.
4.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref4"`But if any one
fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian
movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense,
but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not upon mere
feeling, not upon a mere program of work, but upon an account of facts. In
other words, it was based upon doctrine.’ Christianity and Liberalism, p.
21.
5.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref5"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 23.
6.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref6"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 44.
7.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref7"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 44.
8.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref8"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 50.
9.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref9"Christianity
and Liberalism, pp. 62-63.
10.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref10"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 61.
11.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref11"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 64.
12.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref12"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 96.
13.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref13"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 96.
14.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref14"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 85.
15.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref15"Christianity
and Liberalism, pp. 94-95.
16.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref16"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 92.
17.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref17"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 123.
18.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref18"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 124.
19.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref19"Christianity
and Liberalism, pp.126-29.
20.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref20"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 133.
21.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref21"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 134.
22.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref22"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 135.
23.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref23"Christianity
and Liberalism, p. 154.
24.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref24"Christianity
and Liberalism, pp. 159-60.
25.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref25"Christianity
and Liberalism, pp. 169-70.
26.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref26"Christianity
and Liberalism, p.170.
27.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref27"My argument
here is essentially one regarding the content of worship, not themusical
form, and it is not my intention at this point to contribute to the `worship
wars’ that rage so furiously in evangelicalism at the moment. These
conflicts seem too often to conflate issues of content and form. I do
believe there is a relationship between content and form but that it is
actually more complicated than either side in the debate often seem willing
to allow.
28.	HYPERLINK
"http://www.theologian.org.uk/doctrine/liberalism.html#fref28"Historic
Christianity: Selections from the Writings of J Gresham Machen, edited by
Stanley A Mansfield, Carey C Olson, and John H Skilton (Philadelphia:
Westminster Discount Books, 1997), p. 31. The closing words of Christianity
and Liberalism (p. 180) are also moving, as they speak of the haven that is
the church and the hope that lies for her in the future: `Is there no refuge
from strife? Is there no place of refreshing where a man can prepare for the
battle of life? Is there no place where two or three can gather in Jesus’
name, to forget for the moment all those things that divide nation from
nation and race from race, to forget human pride, to forget the passions of
war, to forget the puzzling problems of industrial strife, and to unite in
overflowing gratitude at the foot of the Cross? If there be such a place,
then that is the house of God and that the gate of heaven. And from under
the threshold of that house will go forth a river that will revive th weary
world.

 

 

Charis, 
  
Mike Abendroth 
  
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to
be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won.  Endow us with
courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns
to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth
are in jeopardy."

 - West Point Military Academy Cadet Prayer 

 

HYPERLINK "http://www.bbcchurch.org"www.bbcchurch.org 
  

 


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