Christianity and Liberalism.
Author: J. Gresham Machen
Published: 1923
“In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion, which has always been known as Christianity, is battling against a 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." In this book, J. Gresham Machen defends essential Christian doctrines and exposes liberalism as a false religion. He contrasts the modernist theological liberalism of his day with biblical Christianity, arguing that liberalism is an entirely separate religion from Christianity. He shows how the two differed on doctrine, God and humanity, the Bible, Jesus, salvation, and the church. Modernists in the early twentieth century thought the church needed to be rescued from irrelevance, so they laid aside unpopular teachings from the Bible and recast Christianity simply as a way of life. Machen responded unbendingly: Christian doctrine isn’t the problem—unbelief is. This book is as relevant today as it was in 1923.
“Theological Liberalism always requests a seat at the table. Then, when it gains power, it rejects and has no tolerance for biblical orthodoxy. Every single time. Watch your churches, para-church organizations, and denominations closely.”
In 1923, the church faced challenges that seem surprisingly familiar today. To provide a biblical solution to these problems, J. Gresham Machen wrote his classic book, Christianity and Liberalism. Watch as Ligonier’s chief academic officer, Dr. Stephen Nichols, and chief publishing officer, Dr. Burk Parsons, explain the timely help Machen’s book offers us one hundred years later.
J. Gresham Machen’s classic book Christianity and Liberalism is over one hundred years old, yet its contents remain relevant today. The book’s primary subject is Christian truth, which never changes yet always seems to be under attack. In this message, Stephen Nichols provides the historical context of Machen’s book to underscore why it was and is still urgently needed.
A Clarion Call for the Ages - named World Magazine’s 2023 Book of the Year, J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism (written in 1923) exposed the deep chasm between true Christianity and the sham religion taking root in American churches. A century later, Christianity and Liberalism remains an essential book for believers.
The Auburn Heresy (webpage) - The Auburn Affirmation of 1924 was the Liberal’s response to the Conservative Orthodox ministers of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Their goal was to transform historic Christianity into religious modernism. This is what Machen fought against and why he wrote this book.
The Liberal Agenda by R.C. Sproul (article) - This liberal agenda has not disappeared from the church's life. It has gained almost total control of the mainline denominations and has made its influence felt strongly within evangelical circles. Within evangelicalism itself, we have seen a severe erosion of biblical authority, a willingness to negotiate the biblical Gospel itself, and a widespread rejection of doctrine as being unimportant and in no way foundational to the Christian faith. Liberalism stands in every generation as a flat rejection of the faith.
Machen Wisdom on Art, Education, and Public Schools (webpage) - This unprecedented decline in literature and art is only one manifestation of a more far-reaching phenomenon; it is only one instance of that narrowing of the range of personality that has been going on in the modern world. The whole development of modern society has tended mightily toward limiting the realm of freedom for the individual man. The tendency is most clearly seen in socialism; a socialistic state would mean the reduction to a minimum of the sphere of personal choice.
Christianity and Liberalism: A Teaching Series by Stephen Nichols (videos) - In 1923, J. Gresham Machen wrote his classic work Christianity and Liberalism. Machen understood that he lived in a time that needed answers. People needed to know the fundamental doctrinal convictions of Christianity in an age of compromise. Modernism was threatening the church, and liberals within the church were seeking to accommodate it, calling into question the bedrock doctrines of the faith. In this teaching series, Dr. Stephen J. Nichols reminds us of who Machen was, why his book is still essential, and how it teaches us that there is only one true, uncompromising Christian faith.
Collection of Resources by Ligonier Ministries (articles and audio) - gives a window into Machen’s life and shows the cultural and theological shifts that led him to write his classic book Christianity and Liberalism.
J. Gresham Machen (webpage) - indecisive about his future, Machen studied for a summer at the University of Chicago, where he learned international law and banking. He then enrolled at Princeton Theological Seminary while also taking graduate philosophy classes at nearby Princeton University. He spent a year in Germany studying under liberal Wilhelm Herrmann, which caused him to have a crisis of faith. He rejected the liberal theology promoted in the universities and devoted his life to teaching against it.
Christianity and Liberalism (free ebook) - the issue in the Church of the present day is not between two varieties of the same religion but between two essentially different types of thought and life. There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that--precisely the other way around--it is a life founded on a principle.
Christianity and Liberalism 100 Years Later by White Horse Inn (free PDF download): This PDF summarizes J. Gresham Machen’s seminal work, Christianity and Liberalism (1923). Each section summarizes a chapter from Machen’s classic.
Resources in Christianity and Liberalism 100 Years Later by White Horse Inn (audio series) - During the 1920s, American Pastor Harry Fosdick wrote a sermon called “Shall the Fundamentalists Win?” addressing the controversies he saw rising within American churches. As the ideas of Freud, Marx, and Nietzsche grew in cultural importance, they also began to influence theologians. So, Fosdick argued, “The liberals must go.” Where fundamentalism came from, explaining how it weaved its way into the Church, and what happened after.
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Machen's classic defense of orthodox Christianity established the importance of scriptural doctrine. It contrasted the teachings of liberalism and orthodoxy on God and man, the Bible, Christ, salvation, and the church. Though originally published nearly seventy years ago, the book remains relevant today.
When we hear “liberalism,” we often think of liberal politics. But Christianity and Liberalism have religion in mind. Machen shows what happens when liberalism is inserted into religion—it morphs into something utterly different from biblical Christianity. So, what makes it so appealing to theologians?
This is a discussion of the 6th chapter of Machen’s classic book, exploring the differences between the liberal and Christian views of salvation.
This episode outlines the intricacies of conservative and liberal ideologies within the Christian church. With the voice of theological wisdom, Pastor Terry Johnson of the Independent Presbyterian in Georgia steers the discourse toward understanding the impact of liberal drift in denominations and how it shapes the contemporary religious landscape. The episode peels back the layers of the fundamentalist controversy of the 1920s, where battles for denominational control underscored a pivotal shift in church dynamics.
“The church is perishing today through a lack of thinking, not through an excess of it.”
Christianity and Liberalism was first published in 1923. In this book, Machen argues that liberalism, gaining popularity in the early 20th century, is not a different form of Christianity but an entirely different religion altogether. He argues that liberal Christianity denies fundamental Christian beliefs such as the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, and the resurrection, replacing them with a humanistic, naturalistic worldview.
Things Unseen is both an accessible systematic theology, and a masterclass in evangelistic apologetics. On a Sunday afternoon in 1935, J. Gresham Machen stepped into a broadcast booth at WIP Radio in Philadelphia and began something no one had tried before: teaching Reformed theology over the radio. Mache’ s addresses are a crystal-clear articulation of the basics of the Christian faith, unfolding into an exceptional and persuasive explanation of Reformed theology.
J. Gresham Machen (1881–1937) taught the New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary from 1906 to 1929, when he founded Westminster Theological Seminary. Following three chapters devoted to Machen’s life, Nichols examines Machen’s writings on theology, the Bible, culture, and the church (including several sermons). A select guide to books by and about Machen, a bibliography, and indexes conclude this accessible introduction to one of the twentieth century’s most influential theologians.
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