…it should, I think, be made much harder than it now is to enter the Church: the confession of faith that is required should be a credible confession; and if it becomes evident upon examination that a candidate has no notion of what he is doing, he should be advised to enter upon a course of instruction before he becomes a member of the Church. Such a course of instruction, moreover, should be conducted not by comparatively untrained laymen, but ordinarily by the ministers; the excellent institution of the catechetical class should be generally revived. Those churches, like the Lutheran bodies in America, which have maintained that institution, have profited enormously by its employment; and their example deserves to be generally followed.
J. Gresham Machen, What is Faith?) (HT: D. G. Hart )
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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I didn’t know of this statement by Dr Machen, but I’m not at all surprised. He was a true churchman in the fullest, biblical meaning of that word.
What he said is true: The Lutherans have the right approach, catechizing their candidates and requiring them to subscribe when they are received. [This was also the practice of the Nicene and Post-Nicene churches, if I recall correctly.]