Who/what did Machen oppose (and who/what opposed Machen) besides theological liberalism of the Fosdick and Auburn Affirmation ilk?

• Moderate evangelicals who put unity, peace, and growth before doctrinal fidelity
• Boards and agencies that valued efficiency, worldly ideologies, and influence above faithfulness
• Ecumenists who placed cultural influence before key distinctives
• Christian nationalists who confused the kingdoms and conflated church and society

It’s not hard to see that not so much has changed after all. Theological liberalism was not even the efficient cause of these things. These tendencies facilitated doctrinal declension and minimization, and theological liberals merely took advantage. The mammoth mainline churches thought they were too big to fail. The last 100 years prove they were wrong about that. Tall steeples were not talismans; good “locations” (physical and cultural) could not keep them from going down the slippery slope or over the cliff.

Confessional presbyterians ought to have been best positioned to withstand the 20th century, but confidence was not enough. Maybe confidence was the problem—too much confidence in worldly methods and structures and far too little in the sufficiency of scripture and the value of their biblical confessional standards. These are temptations that don’t go away.

But back to controversy. It was not a surfeit of controversy that doomed the mainline but the relative lack of it. Some look back and see Machen and his opponents sparring in the pages of major metropolitan newspapers (not to mention niche religious and denominational publications) and firing pamphlets at each other and think how unseemly it all was. The results show that there was not too much heat and outrage but too little. Most elders went along to get along, and what they got a generation or two later was a rotten apostate church.
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Brad Isbell | “Dissent In the PCA” | Mar 19, 2025

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Post authored by:

• Brad Isbell

  

  Brad Isbell is a ruling elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Oak Ridge, TN, board member of More In The PCA, co-host of the Presbycast podcast, editorial member of Presbyterian Polity, and treasurer of the Heidelberg Reformation Association.

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