The series on Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism continues. Continue reading →
An old friend wrote recently to ask whether it is appropriate for a confessional Presbyterian and Reformed (P&R) pastor or congregation to participate in an ecumenical service. In Part One of this series, we discussed our terms. Now we continue the question: should . . . Continue reading →
Machen’s 1923 book, Christianity and Liberalism, is still relevant and maybe more so now than ever before. Continue reading →
For quite some time now, various labels have been used to describe those who hold to the orthodox Christian faith, such as orthodox, conservative, traditional, or even biblical. While these can be helpful terms, I believe that the term confessional is a . . . Continue reading →
When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and . . . Continue reading →
I am, of course, well aware that this doctrine of redemption, and as well the doctrine of sin which underlies it, is nowadays scouted in wide circles. With that, however, I have no present concern. I cheerfully admit that to a “Christianity” . . . Continue reading →
A few years ago President Trump nominated Russell Vought to a post in his administration. Opponents of the nominee found an article written by Vought in which he criticized a Wheaton College professor for advocating a pluralist approach to salvation. During his confirmation hearing the ACLU bizarrely attacked Vought for denying religious liberty. The ACLU conflated Vought’s religious views with his policy views (perhaps because that is what the ACLU now does). Sen. Sanders of Vermont grilled Vought over his public, Christian conviction that faith in Jesus is the only way of salvation. Either Sanders was being cynical or he is incredibly ill-informed about a basic tenet of orthodox Christianity. Continue reading →
In 1923 J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) published his incisive and devastating critique of theological liberalism, Christianity and Liberalism. At the outset let me emphasize that we are discussing theological liberalism. There are other uses of the word liberalism, e.g., “classical liberalism” refers to . . . Continue reading →
Yesterday Trevin Wax crystalized the case for preserving the neo-evangelical coalition, which emerged after World War II and in so doing, for Reformed confessionalists, he has also made the case against the neo-evangelical coalition. What is that coalition and what are its attractions . . . Continue reading →
The struggle in the PCA over confessional identity is a microcosm of the macrocosm. The current discussions reveal that the PCA is on track to be another denominational domino to topple along with the mainline churches who have embraced theological liberalism. The . . . Continue reading →
In Stephen J. Nichol’s fine biography on J. Gresham Machen, he refers to historian Bradley Longfield’s description of the real problem within the church during the modernist controversy: namely, the moderates, whom Machen called the “indifferentists.” Machen wrote in a letter to . . . Continue reading →
It is odd, however, that this is the issue that has produced the division. Same-sex marriage has not become plausible or imperative by virtue of its own merits. It has only become plausible as a function of much wider and deeper shifts . . . Continue reading →
A recent tweet from Union Theological Seminary in New York City indicates that the institution, which once boasted luminaries of the intellectual stature of Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich, is now encouraging an innovative penitential practice: confessing sins to plants. To quote . . . Continue reading →
You will have a battle, too, when you go forth as ministers into the church. The church is now in a period of deadly conflict. The redemptive religion known as Christianity is contending, in our own Presbyterian Church and in all the . . . Continue reading →
In 1923 J. Gresham Machen, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary, published one of the more important books in the modern history of the Reformed and Presbyterian churches, Christianity and Liberalism. It was a stirring and cogent defense of the thesis that . . . Continue reading →
It was a pleasure to join Chris Gordon recently to talk about one of my favorite books, Christianity and Liberalism. Published in 1923, it became Machen’s most well-known work. In it he lays out briefly but clearly the difference between Christianity as . . . Continue reading →
When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and . . . Continue reading →
The most disturbing part is that many seem completely oblivious to the shifts. Among a new generation of Reformed pastors and churchgoers, there seems to be little awareness that the project they are pursuing, and the shifts they are pushing, have already . . . Continue reading →
…But in showing that the liberal attempt at rescuing Christianity is false we are not showing that there is no way of rescuing Christianity at all; on the contrary, it may appear incidentally, even in the present little book, that it is . . . Continue reading →
Christianity they will tell us is a life and not a doctrine. Now that seems to be a devout and pious utterance, but it is radically false all the same, and to see that it is false you do not need even . . . Continue reading →