J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), Professor at Princeton Theological Seminary (1915-29), founder of Westminster Theological Seminary (1929)
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Some people have greatness thrust upon them. Very few have excellence thrust upon them. They achieve it. They do not achieve it unwittingly by “doing what comes naturally”, and they don’t stumble into it in the course of amusing themselves. All excellence involves discipline and tenacity of purpose.
John Gardner
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The body of doctrine known as Modernism is completely incompatible, not only with anything rationally describable as Christianity, but also with anything deserving to pass as religion in general. Religion, if it is to retain any genuine significance, can never be reduced to a series of sweet attitudes, possible to anyone not actually in jail for felony. It is, on the contrary, a corpus of powerful and profound convictions, many of them not open to logical analysis.
H. L. Mencken
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Editor’s Foreword:
Whilst I was in the midst of bringing together this compilation and comment, it struck me that some would accuse a certain individual of collaborating with me, or, at the least, being involved with this post or me. This person was NOT involved in any way… its genesis came in a series of e-mails with a priest in Russia who is aware of the currents in Protestant theology. God willing, this will keep certain Renovationist parties from bothering a friend of mine…
BMD
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Faith is indeed intellectual; it involves an apprehension of certain things as facts; and vain is the modern effort to divorce faith from knowledge. But although faith is intellectual, it is not only intellectual. You cannot have faith without having knowledge; but you will not have faith if you have only knowledge.
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The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human thought.
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False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervour of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas, which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root.
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I see with greater and greater clearness that consistent Christianity is the easiest Christianity to defend.
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Certainly, then, it does make an enormous difference whether our lives be right. If our doctrine be true, and our lives be wrong, how terrible is our sin! For then, we have brought despite upon the truth itself. On the other hand, however, it is also very sad when men use the social graces which God has given them, and the moral momentum of a godly ancestry, to commend a message which is false. Nothing in the world can take the place of truth.
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Many a man, with feeble, struggling belief, torn by many doubts, may be admitted into the fellowship of the Church and of the sacraments; it would be heartless to deprive him of the comfort which such fellowship affords; to such persons, the Church freely extends its nurture to the end that they may be led into ever fuller knowledge and ever firmer faith. But to admit such persons to the ministry would be a crime against Christ’s little ones, who look to the ministry for an assured word as to the way by which they shall be saved.
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Some men seem to devote most of their energies to the task of seeing just how little of Christian truth they can get along with.
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In the midst of all the material achievements of modern life, one may well ask the question whether in gaining the whole world we have not lost our own soul. Are we forever condemned to live the sordid life of utilitarianism? Or, is there some lost secret which if rediscovered will restore to mankind something of the glories of the past?
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The chief modern rival of Christianity is “liberalism”. An examination of the teachings of liberalism in comparison with those of Christianity will show that at every point the two movements are in direct opposition.
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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. Even 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.
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The Jesus of the New Testament has at least one advantage over the Jesus of modern reconstruction… He is real. He is not a manufactured figure suitable as a point of support for ethical maxims, but a genuine Person whom a man can love. Men have loved Him through all the Christian centuries. And the strange thing is that despite all the efforts to remove Him from the pages of history, there are those who love Him still.
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Faith is being exalted so high today that men are being satisfied with any kind of faith, just so it is faith. It makes no difference what is believed, we are told, just so the blessed attitude of faith is there. The undogmatic faith, it is said, is better than the dogmatic, because it is purer faith… faith less weakened by the alloy of knowledge. But the disturbing thing is that all faith has an object.
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The child-centred notion of education seems to involve emancipation from a vast amount of drudgery. It used to be thought necessary to do some hard work at school. When a textbook was given to a class, it was expected that the contents of the textbook should be mastered. But now all that has been changed. Storing up facts in the mind was a long and painful process, and it is indeed comforting to know that we can now do without it. Away will al drudgery and all hard work! Self-expression has taken their place. A great discovery has been made… that discovery that it is possible to think with a completely empty mind.
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There are many who believe that the Bible is right at the central point, in its account of the redeeming work of Christ, and yet believe that it contains many errors. Such men are not really liberals, but Christians; because they have accepted as true the message upon which Christianity depends. A great gulf separates them from those who reject the supernatural act of God with which Christianity stands or falls.
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The greatest menace to the Christian Church today comes not from the enemies outside, but from the enemies within; it comes from the presence within the Church of a type of faith and practise that is anti-Christian to the core.
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One hears much, it is true, about Christian union and harmony and co-operation. But the union that is meant is often a union with the world against the Lord…
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Alas, too often, one finds only the turmoil of the world. The preacher comes forward, not out of a secret place of meditation and power, not with the authority of God’s Word permeating his message, not with human wisdom pushed far into the background by the glory of the Cross, but with human opinions about the social problems of the hour or easy solutions of the vast problem of sin. Thus, the warfare of the world has entered even into the house of God.
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There are three possible attitudes which you may take in the present conflict. In the first place, you may stand for Christ. That is the best. In the second place, you may stand for anti-Christian Modernism. That is next best. In the third place, you may be neutral. That is perhaps worst of all. The worst sin today is to say that you agree with the Christian faith and believe in the Bible, but then make common cause with those who deny the basic facts of Christianity. Never was it more obviously true that he that is not with Christ is against Him.
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The Christian religion flourishes not in the darkness but in the light. Intellectual slothfulness is but a quack remedy for unbelief; the true remedy is consecration of intellectual power to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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As it is, they are turning aside from the Christian pathway; they are turning to the village of Morality, and to the house of Mr Legality, who is reported to be very skilful in relieving men of their burdens…
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Editor’s Afterword:
Here are twenty points to ponder from, perhaps, the most rigorous Protestant thinker of the 20th century. Don’t forget that contemporary American “conservatism” is actually Radical Neoliberalism, so one can see that Machen’s condemnation of “Liberalism” applies to this group as well. Indeed, I would wager even money that Professor Machen would condemn the Tea Party if he were alive today, mainly for its open and crude racism and its undisguised anti-intellectualism. I’ve no doubt that its crass materialism and unabashed worship of Almighty Mammon would offend him. After all, can you compare Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Franklin Graham to Professor Machen? They’re ants in comparison to a giant. I would observe that there is a great deal of difference between Classical Reformation Protestantism (both its “liturgical” and “low-church” forms) and American Sectarians. The latter are merely poseurs; they invoke Christ, but actually follow none of His commandments or heed any of His statements. Ponder it, and I think that you’d agree with me. In any case, what commonality does the Lord Christ have with “magic spectacles” or neo-Dionysian orgies of emotion? Reflect well on the fact that most of the leaders of the Tea Party are Sectarians… what concord hath Christ with Belial?
Some would say that Machen was radically Libertarian. Yes, he was… but that was in an America that was only some 40 percent the population of today’s state, and one that was less “diverse”… I’m not using that in the PC sense, that is, the regions still had their identities, and there were still local governments worthy of the name. None of us have any idea what his stance would be in 2010 America. Nonetheless, I am certain that it would NOT be that of the so-called Tea Party. Its crass populism and kowtowing to the lowest common denominator would have repelled him, I’m sure. After all, he DID have rigorous intellectual standards.
The Tea Party isn’t merely false… it’s evil. We must act accordingly.
BMD
Voices from Russia 
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