Classic Book of the Month: Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Tuesday, August 1st. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a centennial celebration. Our Classic Book of the Month for August hits 100 years old this year. WORLD’s Emily Whitten says the book is dated in some ways, but not out of date.

EMILY WHITTEN, REVIEWER: Our Classic Book of the Month is J. Gresham Machen’s 1923 book Christianity and Liberalism. Machen was a professor at Princeton at the time, and his calling out of liberalism made plenty of waves. Here’s an audiobook clip read by Ray Porter.

AUDIOBOOK: The great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology. This modern non-redemptive religion is called “modernism” or “liberalism.”

The title Christianity and Liberalism conveys with it the idea that Christianity is not Liberalism. They’re two separate, contradictory belief systems. Machen really grappled with “modern liberal religion” as a college student in Germany. His professors there were winsome, brilliant scholars. But eventually, he saw through their philosophy.

AUDIOBOOK: But manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, the root of the movement is one; the many varieties of modern liberal religion are rooted in naturalism–that is in the denial of any entrance of the creative power of God.

We often use the word “liberalism” today for leftist or Democratic political beliefs. That’s not what Machen means here. He refers to theological beliefs that tried to reconcile Christianity with science—or the naturalistic philosophy—of his day. It’s not as popular now, but you can still find that kind of liberalism at your local university or a mainline church down the street.

Ligon Duncan is an author and pastor. He’s also President of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. He warns Christians to watch out for liberalism even in evangelical spaces.

LIGON DUNCAN: You can listen to popular evangelical preachers today saying exactly what theological liberals were saying at the beginning of the 20th century and so, the indifference to doctrine, the indifference to truth claims of Scripture. What is often called progressive Christianity today is dumbed-down just theological liberalism.

Machen’s book is short, with only seven chapters. But each chapter takes on a crucial point of contention.

DUNCAN: He walks you through the issue of doctrine, does doctrine matter? Then he says, what, what does theological liberalism think about God? And what does theological liberalism think about humanity? Then he looks at the Bible and then he'll eventually look at salvation and the church.

Duncan especially appreciates the chapter on Christ. Liberals often see Jesus as “an example for faith, not the object of faith.” They admit Jesus was a great man, but they might argue his death didn’t atone for sin and that trust in him doesn’t save. Duncan reads Machen on this point.

DUNCAN: Without the conviction of sin, there can be no appreciation of the uniqueness of Jesus. It is only when we contrast our sinfulness with his holiness that we appreciate the gulf which separates him from the rest of the Children of men. And without the conviction of sin, there can be no understanding of the occasion for the supernatural act of God. Without the conviction of sin, the good news of redemption seems to be an idle tale.

Duncan first read the book in seminary in the 1980s. Machen helped him understand his own religion professors back then. This year, because of the 100th anniversary, he read the book again with faculty at RTS.

DUNCAN: You'd be surprised how many professors at RTS have that story of growing up in a mainline Protestant setting, not hearing the gospel, hearing the claims of liberal Christianity made. And they're deeply gratified when somebody like Machin who cannot be gainsaid for his intellect, for his academic accomplishment is able to grapple with that, you know, in such a way to make a compelling argument.

Professor Machen won’t be a great fit for everyone. If your family or church has teens headed to college soon, I recommend Surviving Religion 101 by Michael Kruger instead. Kruger treats some of the same arguments in a simpler way. He’s also less stringent in his rhetoric. Duncan says this of Machen:

DUNCAN: I wouldn't encourage every seminarian to adopt his tone in addressing every problem in the church. Walter Lippman, a very well known writer says this, this book is a cool and stringent defense of orthodox protestantism. Well, it is definitely a stringent defense of Orthodox Protestant that is an understatement, so that definitely hit me.

But anyone headed to seminary or ministering in a campus setting should consider reading this book. Duncan often hands it to his RTS students, even though in other writings Machen did express racist views.

DUNCAN: We have a letter in hand from Machen to his mother in which he complains about the admission of an African American student into the dorms at Princeton.

Still, that doesn’t change the book’s helpfulness in fighting liberalism.

DUNCAN: The president of the National Baptist Convention USA is a graduate of RTS twice. And interestingly, he is fighting a battle against theological liberalism in some of the educational institutions of his denomination. And so he finds Machen very helpful though he and I would both agree that Machen was wrong about his racial attitudes.

This year, both Ligonier Ministries and Westminster Seminary Press are releasing new versions of our Classic Book of the Month. So I encourage you to pick up a copy or listen to an audiobook version, a teaching series, or even a podcast. However you engage, I hope J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism might help you see both Christ–and his counterfeits–a little more clearly.

I’m Emily Whitten.

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