All this is true. But it really does not apply to the situation in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. The point is that that Church is very largely dominated by unbelief. It does not merely harbor unbelief here and there. No, it has made unbelief, in the form of a deadly Modernist vagueness, the determinative force in its central official life.
Such a body is hardly what the Bible means by a church at all. The Bible commands Christian people to be members of a true church, even though it be an imperfect one. It represents the nurture provided by such a true church as a necessity, not a luxury, in the Christian life. There must therefore be a separation between the Christian and the Modernist elements in the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. That is perfectly clear. The only question is how the separation shall be effected.
Unquestionably the best way would be the way of reform. If Modernism should be removed from the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A., and that church should be brought back to conformity with its constitution and with the Word of God, all would be well.
The other way is the way of separation from the existing organization on the part of the loyal part of the church. Only, if the separation comes, it ought to come in such fashion as to make perfectly clear the fact that those who are separating from the present Modernist organization are not founding a “new church,” but are carrying on the true, spiritual succession of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. Read more»
J. Gresham Machen | “What Should Be Done by Christian People Who are in a Modernist Church?” The Presbyterian Guardian, 1.2 (21 October 1935): 22.
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This by Machen reminds me of a statement by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, to the effect that if, after boarding a train, you find you’re on the wrong one, it’s no help to run down the aisle in the opposite direction!
After reading your comment, I laughed out loud, so thank you. It seems like Machen’s words have application for Christendom today even if his words were directed mainly at the PCUSA.