We here present some excerpts from Machen's
famous writing on the great differences between liberal Christianity
and real Christianity!
Here are some excerpts from J.
Gresham Machen's famous essay in which he set out to show that
liberal Christianity is really a different religion to
Bible-believing evangelical Christianity. Here at Museltof, we
heartily agree, and we strongly recommend the works of this writer.
Although written around the period of World War One, this article has
dated very little;
In the Christian view of God as set forth
in the Bible, there are many elements. But one attribute of God is
absolutely fundamental in the Bible; one attribute is absolutely
necessary in order to render intelligible all the rest. That
attribute is the awful transcendence of God. From beginning to end
the Bible is concerned to set forth the awful gulf that separates the
creature from the Creator. It is true, indeed, that according to the
Bible God is immanent in the world. Not a sparrow falls to the ground
without Him. But he is immanent in the world not because He is
identified with the world, but because He is the free Creator and
Upholder of it. Between the creature and the Creator a great gulf is
fixed.
In modern liberalism, on the other hand, this sharp
distinction between God and the world is broken down, and the name
"God" is applied to the mighty world process itself. We
find ourselves in the midst of a mighty process, which manifests
itself in the indefinitely small and in the indefinitely great—in
the infinitesimal life which is revealed through the microscope and
in the vast movements of the heavenly spheres. To this world-process,
of which we ourselves form a part, we apply the dread name of "God."
God, therefore, it is said in effect, is not a person distinct from
ourselves; on the contrary our life is a part of His. Thus the Gospel
story of the Incarnation, according to modern liberalism, is
sometimes thought of as a symbol of the general truth that man at his
best is one with God.
It is strange how such a representation
can be regarded as anything new, for as a matter of fact, pantheism
is a very ancient phenomenon. And modern liberalism, even when it is
not consistently pantheistic, is at any rate pantheizing. It tends
everywhere to break down the separateness between God and the world,
and the sharp personal distinction between God and man. Even the sin
of man on this view ought logically to be regarded as part of the
life of God. Very different is the living and holy God of the Bible
and of Christian faith.
Christianity differs from liberalism,
then, in the first place, in its conception of God. But it also
differs in its conception of man. Modern liberalism has lost all
sense of the gulf that separates the creature from the Creator; its
doctrine of man follows naturally from its doctrine of God. But it is
not only the creature limitations of mankind which are denied. Far
more important is another difference. According to the Bible, man is
a sinner under the just condemnation of God; according to modern
liberalism, there is really no such thing as sin. At the very root of
the modern liberal movement is the loss of the consciousness of sin.
2
The consciousness of sin was formerly the starting-point of
all preaching; but today it is gone. Characteristic of the modern
age, above all else, is a supreme confidence in human goodness; the
religious literature of the day is redolent of that confidence. Get
beneath the rough exterior of men, we are told, and we shall discover
enough self-sacrifice to found upon it the hope of society; the
world's evil, it is said, can be overcome with the world's good; no
help is needed from outside the world.
What has produced this
satisfaction with human goodness? What has become of the
consciousness of sin? The consciousness of sin has certainly been
lost. But what has removed it from the hearts of men?
In the
first place, the war has perhaps had something to do with the change.
In time of war, our attention is called so exclusively to the sins of
other people that we are some-times inclined to forget our own sins.
Attention to the sins of other people is, indeed, sometimes
necessary. It is quite right to be indignant against any oppression
of the weak which is being carried on by the strong. But such a habit
of mind, if made permanent, if carried over into the days of peace,
has its dangers. It joins forces with the collectivism of the modern
state to obscure the individual, personal character of guilt. If John
Smith beats his wife nowadays, no one is so old-fashioned as to blame
John Smith for it. On the contrary, it is said, John Smith is
evidently the victim of some more of that Bolshevistic propaganda;
Congress ought to be called in extra session in order to take up the
case of John Smith in an alien and sedition law.
But the loss
of the consciousness of sin is far deeper than the war; it has its
roots in a mighty spiritual process which has been active during the
past seventy-five years. Like other great movements, that process has
come silently, so silently that its results have been achieved before
the plain man was even aware of what was taking place. Nevertheless,
despite all superficial Continuity, a remarkable change has come
about within the last seventy-five years. The change is nothing less
than the substitution of paganism for Christianity as the dominant
view of life. Seventy-five years ago, Western civilization, despite
inconsistencies, was still predominantly Christian; today it is
predominantly pagan.
In speaking of "paganism," we
are not using a term of reproach. Ancient Greece was pagan, but it
was glorious, and the modern world has not even begun to equal its
achievements. What, then, is paganism? The answer is not really
difficult. Paganism is that view of life which finds the highest goal
of human existence in the healthy and harmonious and joyous
development of existing human faculties. Very different is the
Christian ideal. Paganism is optimistic with regard to unaided human
nature, whereas Christianity is the religion of the broken heart.
In saying that Christianity is the religion of the broken
heart, we do not mean that Christianity ends with the broken heart;
we do not mean that the characteristic Christian attitude is a
continual beating on the breast or a continual crying of "Woe is
me." Nothing could be further from the fact. On the contrary,
Christianity means that sin is faced once for all, and then is cast,
by the grace of God, forever into the depths of the sea. The trouble
with the paganism of ancient Greece, as with the paganism of modern
times, was not in the superstructure, which was glorious, but in the
foundation which was rotten. There was always something to be covered
up; the enthusiasm of the architect was maintained only by ignoring
the disturbing fact of sin. In Christianity, on the other hand,
nothing needs to be covered up. The fact of sin is faced resolutely
once for all, and is removed by the grace of God. But then, after sin
has been removed by the grace of God, the Christian can proceed to
develop joyously every faculty that God has given him. Such is the
higher Christian humanism—a humanism founded not upon human
pride but upon divine grace.
But although Christianity does
not end with the broken heart, it does begin with the broken heart;
it begins with the consciousness of sin. Without the consciousness of
sin, the whole of the gospel will seem to be an idle tale. But how
can the consciousness of sin be revived? Something no doubt can be
accomplished by the proclamation of the law of God, for the law
reveals transgressions. The whole of the law, morever, should be
proclaimed. It will hardly be wise to adopt the suggestion (recently
offered among many suggestions as to the ways in which we shall have
to modify our message in order to retain the allegiance of the
returning soldiers) that we must stop treating the little sins as
though they were big sins. That suggestion means apparently that we
must not worry too much about the little sins, but must let them
remain unmolested. With regard to such an expedient, it may perhaps
be suggested that in the moral battle we are fighting against a very
resourceful enemy, who does not reveal the position of his guns by
desultory artillery action when he plans a great attack. In the moral
battle, as in the Great European War, the quiet sectors are usually
the most dangerous. It is through the "little sins" that
Satan gains an entrance into our lives. Probably, therefore, it will
be prudent to watch all sectors of the front and lose no time about
introducing the unity of command.
But if the consciousness of
sin is to be produced, the law of God must be proclaimed in the lives
of Christian people as well as in word. It is quite useless for the
preacher to breathe out fire and brimstone from the pulpit, if at the
same time the occupants of the pews go on taking sin very lightly and
being content with the moral standards of the world. The rank and
file of the Church must do their part in so proclaiming the law of
God by their lives that the secrets of men's hearts shall be
revealed.
All these things, however, are in themselves quite
insufficient to produce the consciousness of sin. The more one
observes the condition of the Church, the more one feels obliged to
confess that the conviction of sin is a great mystery, which can be
produced only by the Spirit of God. Proclamation of the law, in word
and in deed, can prepare for the experience, but the experience
itself comes from God. When a man has that experience, when a man
comes under the conviction of sin, his whole attitude toward life is
transformed; he wonders at his former blindness, and the message of
the gospel, which formerly seemed to be an idle tale, becomes now
instinct with light. But it is God alone who can produce the change.
Only, let us not try to do without the Spirit of God. The
fundamental fault of the modern Church is that she is busily engaged
in an impossible task—she is busily engaged in calling the
righteous to repentance. Modern preachers are trying to bring men
into the Church without requiring them to relinquish their pride;
they are trying to help men avoid the conviction of sin. The preacher
gets up into the pulpit, opens the Bible, and addresses the
congregation somewhat as follows: "You people are very good,"
he says; "you respond to every appeal that looks toward the
welfare of the community. Now we have in the Bible—especially
in the life of Jesus—something so good that we believe it is
good enough even for you good people." Such is modern preaching.
It is heard every Sunday in thousands of pulpits. But it is entirely
futile. Even our Lord did not call the righteous to repentance, and
probably we shall be no more successful than He.
Modern
liberalism, then, has lost sight of the two great presuppositions of
the Christian message—the living God, and the fact of sin. The
liberal doctrine of God and the liberal doctrine of man are both
diametrically opposite to the Christian view. But the divergence
concerns not only the presuppositions of the message, but also the
message itself.
According to the Christian view, the Bible
contains an account of a revelation from God to man, which is found
nowhere else. It is true, the Bible also contains a confirmation and
a wonderful enrichment of the revelations which are given also by the
things that God has made and by the conscience of man. "The
heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his
handywork"—these words are a confirmation of the
revelation of God in nature; "all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God"—these words are a confirmation of what
is attested by the conscience. But in addition to such reaffirmations
of what might conceivably be learned elsewhere—as a matter of
fact, because of men's blindness, even so much is learned elsewhere
only in comparatively obscure fashion—the Bible also contains
an account of a revelation which is absolutely new. That new
revelation concerns the way by which sinful man can come into
communion with the living God.
The way was opened, according
to the Bible, by an act of God, when, almost nineteen hundred years
ago, outside the walls of Jerusalem, the eternal Son was offered as a
sacrifice for the sins of men. To that one great event the whole Old
Testament looks forward, and in that one event the whole of the New
Testament finds its centre and core. Salvation then, according to the
Bible, is not something that was discovered, but something that
happened. Hence appears the uniqueness of the Bible. All the ideas of
Christianity might be discovered in some other religion, yet there
would be in that other religion no Christianity.
For
Christianity depends, not upon a complex of ideas, but upon the
narration of an event. Without that event, the world, in the
Christian view, is altogether dark, and humanity is lost under the
guilt of sin. There can be no salvation by the discovery of eternal
truth, for eternal truth brings naught but despair, because of sin.
But a new face has been put upon life by the blessed thing that God
did wheu he offered up his only begotten Son.
Thus the
revelation of which an account is contained in the Bible embraces not
only a reaffirmation of eternal truths—itself necessary because
the truths have been obscured by the blinding effect of sin—but
also a revelation which sets forth the meaning of an act of God.
The contents of the Bible, then, are unique. But another fact
about the Bible is also important. The Bible might contain an account
of a true revelation from God, and yet the account be full of error.
Before the full authority of the Bible can be established, therefore,
it is necessary to add to the Christian doctrine of revelation the
Christian doctrine of inspiration. The latter doctrine means that the
Bible not only is an account of important things, but that the
account itself is true, the writers having been so preserved from
error, despite a full maintenance of their habits of thought and
expression, that the resulting Book is the "infallible rule of
faith and practice." The Christian, then, if he make full use of
his Christian privileges, finds the seat of authority in the whole
Bible, which he regards as the very Word of God.
Very
different is the view of modern liberalism. The modern liberal
rejects the unique authority of the Bible. But what is substituted
for the Christian doctrine? What is the liberal view as to the seat
of authority in religion?
The impression is sometimes
produced that the modern liberal substitutes for the authority of the
Bible the authority of Christ. He cannot accept, he says, what he
regards as the perverse moral teaching of the Old Testament or the
sophistical arguments of Paul. But he regards himself as being the
true Christian because, rejecting the rest of the Bible, he depends
upon Jesus alone.
This impression, however, is utterly false.
The modern liberal does not really hold to the authority of Jesus.
Even if he did so, he would be impoverishing very greatly his
knowledge of God and of the way of salvation.
(This is
just an excerpt from J. Gresham Machen's superb essay, 'Liberalism or
Christianity?)