Christianity and Liberalism

Rating:
Summary: A trumpet of no uncertain sound
Review: After reading this book I did not know whether to write a review or critique Mr. John M K's review of the book-both were equally interesting. Machen's basic thesis, as others have pointed out, is that Liberalism is not another form of Christianity, but a religion separate and distinct from Christianity. Liberals claim that Jesus is the essence of Christianity; Machens then asks them to qualify that statement, which turns out that there Jesus is about as historical, and inspiring, as Tolkien's Gandalf. Now don't get me wrong, I loved LOTR, but if the Christ of faith is divorced from the Christ of Histor, then, pray tell, what is the difference between Gandalf and Jesus? The only answer for Christianity is that there is a transcendent God who has revealed himself historically in His Son Jesus. Machen further delineates this by mandating the Cross and Resurrection as an Historical event.

Mr MK claims that the PCUSA is right and the conservatives are wrong. Well, that is an interesting statement, and I grant him his right to it, but why didn't he prove it? He let me down. He challenged historic Christianity, but did not back up his challenge. He then proceeds to talk about Communism for three lines or more with no particular reason for doing so. In all honesty, I searched his review long and hard for a sentence or even a clause relating to the book at hand; alas, I could find it not.

This book is the line drawn in the sand for Christians. "Separation is the crying need of the hour. The things about which men disagree, those are the ones about which men ought to fight."

Rating:
Summary: A trumpet of no uncertain sound
Review: After reading this book I did not know whether to write a review or critique Mr. John M K's review of the book-both were equally interesting. Machen's basic thesis, as others have pointed out, is that Liberalism is not another form of Christianity, but a religion separate and distinct from Christianity. Liberals claim that Jesus is the essence of Christianity; Machens then asks them to qualify that statement, which turns out that there Jesus is about as historical, and inspiring, as Tolkien's Gandalf. Now don't get me wrong, I loved LOTR, but if the Christ of faith is divorced from the Christ of Histor, then, pray tell, what is the difference between Gandalf and Jesus? The only answer for Christianity is that there is a transcendent God who has revealed himself historically in His Son Jesus. Machen further delineates this by mandating the Cross and Resurrection as an Historical event.

Mr MK claims that the PCUSA is right and the conservatives are wrong. Well, that is an interesting statement, and I grant him his right to it, but why didn't he prove it? He let me down. He challenged historic Christianity, but did not back up his challenge. He then proceeds to talk about Communism for three lines or more with no particular reason for doing so. In all honesty, I searched his review long and hard for a sentence or even a clause relating to the book at hand; alas, I could find it not.

This book is the line drawn in the sand for Christians. "Separation is the crying need of the hour. The things about which men disagree, those are the ones about which men ought to fight."

Rating:
Summary: Required reading
Review: Before my pastor would write me a recommendation for me to enroll at Princeton Seminary he REQUIRED me to read this book. I am eternally grateful that he did. It remains one of the most important books I have ever read. I've since given multiple copies to others starting graduate studies at liberal schools.

Rating:
Summary: 20th Century Prophet
Review: If you are looking for a book to recommend for someone searching to make sense out of the malaise of the modern (or, post-modern) church, Machen's book is an excellent choice. As was pointed out in other reviews, Christian liberalism is not Christian at all, but is rather a non-Christian religion with Christian tags. Specifically, he highlights liberal beliefs regarding the major doctrines related to God, man, Christ, salvation, and the church. He then refutes these by demonstrating the orthodox Biblical view on each.

For those confused on the nature of faith and salvation, Machen, in chapter VI, makes one of the clearest presentations I have read anywhere. That alone is worth the purchase.

This book is very readable and a 20th century classic on the orthodox Protestant faith. Any basic library should stock it.

Rating:
Summary: The conservatives get it wrong again!
Review: It's not surprising that conservatives have a hard time with such things as PCUSA discovering a truer version of Christianity than they had.

I think that to truly understand this book, and the mindset of the guy who wrote it (not to mention some of the comments about liberals not being true Christians), one has to read Bertrand Russell's comments on Marxism, and its parallels with (orthodox) Christianity. I could also cite how Russell thought Calvinism was a "gloomy creed," which is something I can say that is not true of the liberal PCUSA! And thank God for that!

Biblical inerrantists scour the bible for text to support their particular doctrine, in much the same manner as good Marxists scouring Kapital to see which way the dialectic is going "objectively."

So, when they say the PCUSA has been hijacked by "liberals," think, "Nah, Stalinism is dead!"

Just do a madlibs with Pravda, and you'll understand!

Rating:
Summary: Christian or Liberal?
Review: J. Gresham Machen has bestowed to posterity one of the finest literary examinations of the Body of Christ's internal struggle for integrity and identity. "Christianity and Liberalism" brilliantly deciphers the codes and illusions of the latter while illuminating the Gospel Truth that so many in modern Protestantism have confined to the shade. Doubtless, your typical liberal sees nothing but naivite and obsolescence in Machen's little maserpiece, but more's the pity. Christianity is in fact an inherently conservative theology, a point which Machen proves over and over with lucidity and a calm but impassioned literary voice. This is so simply because Christianity is based upon certain obvious facts (in particular the blessed fact of the Resurrection)and the historical creeds that were produced by those facts. Liberalism, with its insistence upon a religion which owes nothing to fact but much to the vagaries of individual prejudice, can never replace the glory of the real thing. Even so, modern Protestantism and its so-called leaders seem all-too determined to drag the Gospel down to the lowest common denominator at any cost--and have succeeded to such a point that it's unlikely more than a handful of laymembers from an average congregation could even decipher Machen's prose style, let alone make a reasonable decision about whether or not to agree with his thesis. And yet Christianity survives, albeit with whatever scars, and the voices of men like Machen continue to sound the warning-trump. There have always those in the Church who want it to be something other than the Ark of Salvation that it is. Fortunately, the Church is and has always been bigger than its sins. The reality of the Gospel still works, and it will do so until the end of the age.

Rating:
Summary: Machen's fight is our fight
Review: J. Gresham Machen led the internal Presbyterian struggle against the debilitating effects of the downgrade controversy, evolution and destructive higher criticism. He stood strongly for the inerrant truth of scripture and the unique deity of Jesus Christ and His role as savior. The end result was his expulsion from the Presbyterian Chruch and its seminary at Princeton.

You must understand where he was coming from when you read this book. He was not a fundamentalist (as, for instance, I am) but a warrior of Calvin's Reformed Faith. In terms of Biblical authority, theology and salvation - we are in agreement. So I enjoy the fact of his stand as a believer in Jesus Christ and in God's Word.

The primary point of this book - which is a classic of Christian scholarship - is that liberal Christianity isn't Christianity at all - but something else; some other religion that has nothing to do with God, Jesus or the Bible. He makes his point - which ought to be intuitively obvious - with skill and panache by putting his finger directly on the issues that liberals and those who believe the Bible can NOT agree on: 1. who was Jesus?; 2. what does he do for us?; 3. what did he do at Calvary and after?; 4. what is our final authority?

Once he pins down these issues and analyzes them he draws the dividing line between Christianity and liberalism cleanly and no one who has read this book has the slightest excuse for confusing the two.

Kelly Whiting

Rating:
Summary: A perceptive look at two conflicting philosophies
Review: Machen looks at 6 key biblical doctrines and shows how liberalism differs from biblical Christianity at each point. Listenign to what liberals were saying in 1923 about the deity of Christ and the atonement of Christ is frighteningly similar to some of the theology that is coming out mainline Protestantism today. And Machen does a stellar job at debunking the myth that Christ died for us as a moral example rather than as the substitutionary lamb of God for our sins.

Rating:
Summary: Nothing New Under the Sun
Review: There are a great many books one can read explaining traditional Christian theology, but if you are looking for a book that explains why traditional doctrine matters, then there is no better place to start than this gem by J. Gresham Machen, published in 1923.

Machen, then professor at Princeton Seminary, was writing at a time when liberalism was making headway into traditional Protestant churches. This liberalism denied the historical accuracy of the Scriptures and the Divinity of Christ, among other things. Of course, it did that while at the same time saying that it "really" believed these things, but just expressed in a different way. Machen exposes the agenda of liberalism quite brilliantly.

What is funny is that this liberalism isn't much different than that advocated today. For example, Machen said that it tended toward pantheism. "In modern liberalism, on the other hand, this sharp distinction between God and the world is broken down, and the name `God' is applied to the mighty world process itself. . . . It is strange how such a representation can be regarded as anything new, for as a matter of fact, pantheism is a very ancient phenomenon." [p. 63.] This was years before "process theology" became the vogue.

A particularly interesting part of this work are Machen's political insights. He saw clearly the dangers of democratic conformism and brilliantly applied it to contemporary trends to exalt public education. "The truth is that the materialistic paternalism . . . if allowed to go unchecked, will rapidly make of America one huge `Main Street,' where spiritual adventure will be discouraged and democracy will be regarded as consisting in the reduction of all mankind to the proportions of the narrowest and least gifted of the citizens." [pp. 14-15.]

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for the Thinking Christian
Review: There are certain men that the Lord Jesus Christ has raised-up for teaching beyond their generation. Knowingly or not, they saw well beyond their years and circumstances. They understood the Bible and the world well enough to see clearly beyond the horizon of their own time in history. One such man is J. Gresham Machen. His book Christianity and Liberalism is a book that is as poignant and relevant today as when it was first published. Written to expose how the battle of Modernism vs. Fundamentalism in the early 1900's was not merely an intramural struggle between Christians of different doctrinal persuasions. Rather, the struggle was between two separate and antithetical religions (Biblical Christianity vs. Liberalism) that while sharing a religious language and forms have absolutely nothing in common. Machen writes concerning Christianity and Liberalism these words,

"In my little book, Christianity and Liberalism, I tried to show that the issue in the Church of the present day is not between two varieties of the same religion, but, at bottom, between two essentially different types of thought and life. There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that-exactly the other way around-it is a life founded on a doctrine."

For Machen, under the moniker "the church" there were two completely different religions. In the same denomination, even in the same congregation there were worshippers of two entirely separate but not equal religions. Though they both spoke of God, Christ, salvation, church heaven and hell, what they meant by these things were irreconcilably different. One spoke of a man-centered religion that calls man to be as moral and he can, while the other is a Christ-centered religion that saves man from God's wrath because he cannot be as moral as he should.

What makes this book so significant is that it sounds hauntingly familar to today's Christian church. Is today's Evangelical church the step-daughter of early 20th century liberalism? Read and decided for yourself as Machen defines how the Christ denying liberals of his day defined Christ, sin, salvation, Bible and a host of other doctrines. It will sound amazingly simular. Though an easy book to read and understand, it is not for the faint of heart. If I could get today's pastors and lay church goers to read only one book this year - this would be it. Enjoy!