Gresham Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism in the 1920s to defend orthodox Christianity against liberalism. This book demonstrates a well-versed apologetic, tackling the grand theoretical system of liberalism with almost all aspects of systematic theology at the times. In attacking liberal doctrine, he explained orthodox Christian teaching with clarity, answering the doubts of people struggling with the influence of liberal thought and reinforcing orthodox convictions. A previous blog entry deals with the first four chapters, concerning the roots of liberalism, its doctrines, its teachings concerning God and Man, and the doctrine of Scripture. Understanding that liberalism abandons all the supernatural elements of Christianity, the following three chapters are on Christology, soteriology, and church polity. It cannot be emphasized enough that, while liberal theologians employ traditional Christian terminologies, they teach a radically different religion.
In chapter 5, Machen tackled Christology in liberalism, which is very different from the orthodox Christology. First, the liberals see Jesus as an example of faith, that we all should follow, but Christians see Him as an object of faith, that we believe in Him (although we also follow this example.)[1] To the liberals, He is the Founder of Christianity, like Mohammed who founded Islam, or Siddhārtha Gautama who founded Buddhism. However, this clearly is not the teaching of the New Testament. In all the epistles of Paul, there is no doubt that Jesus was the One who is to be believed.[2] Moreover, it is clearly implied in the Scriptures that Paul agreed with other apostles regarding this. It is important that He is the object of faith, as our faith towards Him is intricately related to our salvation.[3]
The liberals’ errors in Christology are related to their errors about the doctrine of sin. They see sins as mere imperfections (which is not totally wrong,) but they miss the fact that sins are our transgressions, which make us absolutely needed for salvation.[4] This is plainly known from Jesus’ own teaching: in Galilee, the first he preached about the Kingdom of God is “Repent!” His imperative is challenging us, not asking us to follow Him as an example, for He has nothing to repent. But we are to repent, and have faith in Him for our salvation. Liberals’ confidence in Man filtered out the severity of human sins and the need for salvation.
Liberals are right that Jesus was truly human,[5] but they miss the fact that He is the Second Person of God. He is unique, and certainly different from us.[6] The Four Gospels clearly showed this,[7] and this view of Christ was presupposed in Paul’s epistles. (page 99) He is not our brother. Regarding this, liberals question how we can be in a relationship with Him if He is different from us.[8] However, Machen insightfully pointed out “likeness is not always necessary to nearness,”[9] citing a few examples in our daily life. Liberals dislike the idea of Jesus being divine because this teaching assumes the supernaturalness of Christ. They reject miracles, (God’s creation) as the miracles violate the natural laws. (God’s providence) In other words, they reject immediate causes, but retain mediate causes. It is similar to the teachings of the deists and pantheists.[10] While some theologians like Jonathan Edwards rejected mediate causes and maintained immediate causes (opposite to the liberals), most Christians retain both. Clearly, the historicity of the miracles have to be upheld. Liberals are right that miracles can add arbitrariness to the scientific processes, but they ignored the fact that God’s attributes are known, and hence miracles are not arbitrary at all.
Chapter 6 concerns our salvation. The liberals’ errors in Christology are inevitably related to their errors in soteriology. Regarding salvation, Machen pointed out the key to the differences between liberals and Christians: “liberalism finds salvation in man; Christianity finds it in an act of God.”[11] The doctrine of salvation is so important that the Bible is plainly clear about it, in a way that a child can understand.[12] In contrast, the liberal theologians argued convolutionally in constructing their own theory. First, the death of Christ, to the liberals, shows how much God loves us.[13] It is not wrong, but it misses another important point: the death of Christ also shows how much God hates sins.[14] Ignoring this dreadful reality of sins, the liberals do not see that we badly need salvation, which is performed by God.[15] We can by no means save ourselves. Liberals think we can save ourselves, but they are wrong about our capability, or their “salvation” means something else.
Machen reiterated the importance of the historicity of the account in the Four Gospels, and it is this event that makes our salvation possible. He already dealt with it in chapter 2. On the other hand, orthodox teaching says salvation is through Christ alone. Unavoidably, this kind of exclusiveness is offensive. Liberal doctrine of salvation attempts to take away the offense of the Cross, but, as Machen rightly reminded the readers, it also takes away its glory and power.[16] The salvation is not given to all, not because of the fault of the way of salvation, but because of who do not use this means of salvation. Some liberals hate the idea of someone else (Christ) dying for our sins, but Machen responded that only God is able to bear our sins.[17] Liberals’ errors are, again, due to their degraded view of God and their lack of sense about the severity of our sins.[18] A liberal God may be appealing to some modern people, but He is uninteresting.[19] The adoption of the liberal doctrine in the Church makes people question why they still need God. People do not understand why a new life, as taught in 2 Corinthians 5, is needed and good, because they rejected supernaturalism, thus the doctrine of regeneration (a creative act of the Holy Spirit).
The Bible teaches salvation through Christ alone, narrow in the eyes of the liberals, while liberals claim to embrace pluralism, with faith “tolerated” as long as they bring about good results.[20] In the heart, they rejected creedalism, the dogmatic faith. They want pluralism, the undogmatic faith. This idea is not uncommon even in the evangelical circle nowadays. Their “tolerance” is in fact an intolerance to the orthodox Christianity.
Modern liberalism finds salvation in man, which in turns rejects the doctrine of grace. As Machen said, this restores the errors of legalism of the Roman Catholic Church. Christians can certainly transform the society with the true gospel,[21] just as the liberals want to achieve the same goal with their “social gospel.”[22] Machen did not deny Christian responsibility in society, but reminded the readers about Jesus’ teaching: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt. 6:33)
In the last chapter of this book, Machen discussed about the Church and the concerns of the liberal doctrine sneaking into the Church in the name of Christianity. The pluralistic nature of liberalism makes them falsely declare that all men are brothers, but the orthodox doctrine says that all men are neighbors, but only the men redeemed by the blood of Christ are brothers. (pages 157-158) Christian brotherhood is definitely exclusive. The Church can certainly transform the society with the true gospel message, but it can no longer do this because of liberalism. There are many reasons to this, but Machen complained a lot in this chapter about the teaching agencies of the Church.[23] Some liberal preachers enter the ministry by professing the Confession of Faith insincerely, but some do without enough guard from the church officers. While the local churches still profess the creeds, admission of these ministers undermine the integrity of these churches. Liberals may argue admission by professing a standard creed is intolerance, but Machen argued that as people can choose to enter and leave the church freely, it is totally appropriate for those who enter agree with the membership criteria.[24] With liberals sneaking into the ministries, he suggested the revival of Christian education, reinforcing the biblical literacy within the Church.
Conclusively speaking, Machen defended the orthodox teaching of Christianity against liberalism. Liberalism is paganism, rooted in man’s confidence in themselves and their scientific achievements, and their rejection of supernaturalism. They employed the traditional Christian language to control the administration of the Church with their alien ideology. He is confident that God would save the Church, just like He did for several previous similar crises in church history.[25] But we must know the Word of God very thoroughly in order to fight against it. Liberalism is still influential, but there are more new exotic teachings within the Church about which we must be cautious. We must be able to defend our faith with sound theology.
[1] J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1923), 81-84, 93.
[2] Ibid., 81-82.
[3] Ibid., 84.
[4] Ibid., 88-91.
[5] Ibid., 91.
[6] Ibid., 93-96.
[7] Ibid., 98.
[8] Ibid., 92.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid., 100-108.
[11] Ibid., 117.
[12] Ibid., 117-118.
[13] Ibid., 119.
[14] Ibid., 118.
[15] Ibid., 119.
[16] Ibid., 122-123.
[17] Ibid., 126.
[18] Ibid., 129-132.
[19] Ibid., 133.
[20] Ibid., 144.
[21] Ibid., 140-152.
[22] Ibid., 152.
[23] Ibid., 159-168.
[24] Ibid., 162.
[25] Ibid., 174.
reformator: living perspectivally 