Why Liberalism Is Not Compatible With Christianity; Machen And Spurgeon
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I came across an excellent summary of J.G. Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism through a comment at Justin Taylor’s blog. From Southern View Chapel:
Old liberalism taught:
1. A sentimental religion (p. xi); Christianity is life, not doctrine (pp. 17, 38-39).
2. That doctrines are unimportant (pp. 5-6, 16-24, 43, 47) and experience, not truth, is what matters (p. xiv). Yet liberalism uses evangelical terminology which makes it all the more dangerous.
3. That tolerance is more important than truth (pp. 15, 40-45).
4. That we should not seek to know God but to feel Him (p. 47).
5. The fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man (pp. 51-55).
6. That sin is not our great problem (pp. 55-58).
7. Paganism (the enjoyment of life) as a substitute for Christianity (p. 56).
8. That the Bible is a musty record—authority rests in the individual and in pragmatism (pp. 60, 66-67).
9. That we are to follow the example of Jesus, not be concerned with His redeeming work (pp. 70, 82)
10. That the resurrection was not historical but amounts to Christ’s influence through us (p. 92).
11. That the Christian doctrine of salvation is to be criticized because it is narrow and exclusive (pp. 104-104), absurd (p. 106), and presents a cold, cruel and unloving view of God (pp. 109-111).
12. Enslavement to law and works by minimizing grace (p. 121).
13. That the betterment of the earth is the church’s agenda (pp. 125-134).I think two quotes from Charles Spurgeon, who preceded Machen, had some powerful insights into the nature of Liberalism. The first one deals with how Liberals are not concerned about doctrine and God’s Law:
“Now-a-days, if a man is very reverent towards the word of God, and very desirous to obey the Lord’s commands in everything, people say, “He is very precise,” and they shun him; or, with still more acrimony, they say, “He is very bigoted: he is not a man of liberal spirit;” and so they cast out his name as evil.
Bigotry, in modern parlance, you know, means giving heed to old truths in preference to novel theories; and a liberal spirit, now-a-days, means being liberal with everything except your own money—liberal with God’s law, liberal with God’s doctrine, liberal to believe that a lie is a truth, that black is white, and that white may occasionally be black. That is liberal sentiment in religion—the broad church school—from which may God continually deliver us.”
And this one on how Liberals are the greatest persecutors:
“The very persons who talk most about being liberal in their views are generally the greatest persecutors. If I must have a religious enemy, let me have a professed and avowed bigot, but not one of your “free thinkers” or “broad churchmen” as they are called, for there is nobody who can hate as they do; and the lovers of liberal-mindedness who have no creed at all think it to be their special duty to be peculiarly contemptuous to those who have some degree of principle, and cannot twist and turn exactly as they can.”
This religious Liberalism breeds political Liberalism and social agenda that is pro-abortion and pro-gay. The two are intimately linked together. If Christians align themselves with politicians claiming to be Liberal and or Progressive, then they are helping to give power to those who are the “greatest persecutors”.
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