…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 )
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.]