Machen - Christianity And Liberalism [Chapter 1]

You know, I was like, what's notable or what really stuck out to me a

lot in the introduction in Chapter 1 is this, and some of you will

recognize where I'm going right away because I'm holding a Bible, what was missing?

There was no scripture whatsoever.

So I want to start with this because I think this

is the singular issue that we'll be addressing this morning

even though it's not explicit.

Second Timothy 3 .16, all scripture is breathed out by

God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in

righteousness.

And I thought, when you think about it, what's the biggest difference between Christianity and liberalism?

Liberalism says, oh, it's a book written by men that we have to defend.

Christianity says, it's a book inspired by God that we declare,

right?

Okay, so with that as our preface, number one, true or

false according to Truman, liberalism is a legitimate form of Christianity.

False is the correct answer.

This is the context of Christianity and liberalism in the book, the so -called modernist fundamentalist battles

of the early 20th century.

And who knows anything about those battles between the modernists and the

fundamentalists?

I mean, it is interesting.

I have a series of books in my office called The Fundamentals, and

some of the articles in there are written by Machen and some of his cohorts, and some of them are written by

like Baptist preachers who are just kind of rabble -rousers.

And how did they all come together?

Well, it was on the fundamentals.

The original word fundamentalist, unlike what it's grown into today, was not a bad word.

It just meant they held to the fundamentals of the faith.

And the modernists came along and said, you guys are morons.

Yes.

Well, he died in the 30s, but this was written in

1919.

And I was reading parts of it to my wife last night, because I'm just like, I go, doesn't this just like

sound...

Yes.

I mean, again, I just think it's so timeless.

It's kind of amazing.

Yes, it did.

Yeah.

Which really, liberalism took over the German church.

I mean, when you start reading this book, you start reading the names that

are thrown around.

They're mostly Germans.

It's German philosophers and German scholars.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In fact, higher criticism came from the Tübingen School of Theology.

And how many of you are familiar with that?

Higher criticism?

What does it mean?

There's lower criticism, which is fine.

Lower criticism just says, let's look at the scripture and let's examine it and let's kind of see if these things are

true.

Higher criticism, I'm simplifying it, starts with the supposition that

the Bible isn't what it appears to be.

So instead of Moses writing the first five books, they say that there were probably at least four different

authors.

You know, they're called J, D, E, and P, which stands for the Yahwist.

That's the J.

It doesn't sound like it, but that's what it is.

Yahwist, Elohist, you know, these different voices, Deuteronomist and the Priestly voice.

And so they say that somebody, some editor mixed them all together.

And I'm like, wow, what a smart guy that was.

See, I'm struggling with, does anybody know what I'm struggling with?

So I think it's more likely that we're talking about oral traditions and that's where,

you know, people say, oh, you know, can you really trust it?

And the answer is what?

Yes, and for two reasons.

Right.

God is the author.

But the other one, you know, just from a human perspective, in a world without the internet, without

television, without radio, without, without, without, without, what did they do?

All they did was talk to each other.

And all they did was, you know, they, they, they would make sure that things were memorized.

I mean, you catechized, this is how you learned, right?

So and everything had to be precise.

And if you study how the Hebrew scriptures were

copied, even, even that process, you come to realize that if they found a manuscript that

had a mistake, what did they do?

Scribble it out?

Sometimes.

But often they just destroyed the whole thing, right?

Or eradicated the whole thing and started all over because the

precision was absolutely necessary.

Okay.

So, modernists, fundamentalists, in fact, you know, you could go back and how many of you are familiar with the Scopes trial?

So, you know, where they put like evolution basically on trial and evolution, I think, did it win or lose?

I don't know.

Okay.

That was it.

Machen, I like this quote, the truth is that the manifold religious life of the present day, despite

interlocking of the branches and much interaction, does not spring from one root.

He's talking about the various branches of Christianity do not spring from one root, but from two.

One root is Christianity.

The other is a naturalistic or agnostic modernism, which despite Christian

influences in detail, is fundamentally hostile to the Christian faith.

It calls itself Christianity.

It looks like Christianity.

They have a cross up in the church, but it's not Christianity.

Well, I mean, yeah, but I mean, when you're talking about the liberal branch of it.

Okay.

Number two, true or false?

Liberalism shook Machen's faith.

It's actually true.

Brian's first mistake of the year.

Write it down, mark it.

Truman tells the sad tale.

He says, strange to tell, Machen had, Machen too, as in Machen also, had a

ritual connection, ritual being a German theologian, studying under

Wilhelm Hermann.

See, there you go.

At the University of Göttingen.

It's all German.

It's all German to me.

Letters to his mother from that time indicate that Machen was swept away by the passionate zeal of the

wild -eyed and wild -haired Hermann to the point where this conservative Southern gentleman

seems to have had something of a crisis of confidence in the faith his mother had taught him.

Machen came through the crisis, and indeed he spends considerable energy in Christianity and liberalism

attacking precisely this kind of sentimentalism he saw the liberalism of his

German professor as encouraging.

In other words, he listened to this professor.

He listened to the emotional appeal that the professor was making, and he was

somewhat swayed by it.

It weakened his faith.

He had a crisis of confidence in the faith.

But listen to how he bounced back.

How do you know that God is all love and kindness?

Because this is the God of liberalism.

He loves everybody.

He's not really against anyone.

He's pulling for you.

He's rooting for you.

And you know, if I may say just on a personal note, this reminds me of a message I

heard at Saddleback Church, not preached, preached, not uttered

by Rick Warren, but by Steve Arterburn, a Christian psychologist,

God, the God of second chances.

God is in heaven rooting for you, pulling for you.

It says, how do you know that God is all love and kindness?

Surely not through nature, for it is full of horrors.

Human suffering may be unpleasant, but it is real, and God must have something to do with it.

Right?

I mean, it's hard to argue with that.

You can't look around at everything that's going on and go, man, if only, I mean you can, if

only God could do something about this.

Because you've just dethroned God just by virtue of the idea.

Then he says, a one -sided God, in other words, a God whose love only is not a

real God, excuse me, and is the real God

alone who can satisfy the longing of the soul.

God is love, but is he only love?

God is love, but is love God?

Seek joy alone, then seek joy at any cost, and you will

not find it.

So if the idea of religion, if the idea of liberal religion

is just to seek after pleasure, seek after joy, what does that sound like?

What is it?

It's hedonism.

Is there such a thing as Christian hedonism?

Yeah, go to Minneapolis and ask.

That's John Piper's thing there.

But even he didn't have the idea of just pursuing joy, pursuing happiness.

His idea, which I don't want to get into, was something else entirely.

But can one pursue joy, happiness, and pleasure,

and at the same time be pursuing joy?

And God?

I mean, you pursue God, and he adds things to you, and you find pleasure in those things, but it's not

pleasure for the sake of pleasure.

It's pleasure because God has blessed you.

Okay, number three, true or false, Machen disdained the hymn, Nearer, My God,

to Thee.

It is true.

He hated it.

And you know, are there any hymns that you hate that are in the hymnal, or used to be in our hymnal?

I mean, one of the reasons, I have to confess, one of the reasons I was all in

favor of switching to this new hymnal, because guess what song's not in it?

That wasn't in the old one either, I don't think.

Shine, Jesus, Shine was not in the old one.

No, I think it's in the new one.

I think it is, yeah.

But what's not in the new one is a little ditty we like to call, in the garden.

Man, oh man, the next time, you know, and the problem is, there's a generation that

has been dying here for a while, and that seems like that's the number one favorite song.

Are you familiar with it?

Oh, you will be when you get to the chorus.

And he walks with me, and he...

It feels like you should be on a carousel when you, you know, and I'm just like...

And it's so bad, the lyrics are so bad.

He walks with me, and he talks with me, no he doesn't, no he doesn't, you know, next.

Come on, can we find a, you know, gospel -centered hymn?

Okay, to the book.

Machen also saw this sentimentalism as manifested in attitudes towards the cross,

symbolized by the words of popular hymns.

And this is, you know, this is my thing with K -Love these days, you listen to it and you just go, man, I would like to hear

a song about the Jesus of the Bible, right?

I mean, it happens every once in a while.

Every once in a while I'll be listening and I'll go, like Jeremy Camp or somebody will come on and I'll go, that's a good song, I

could listen to that again.

But most of the time it's just like, I need some rock and roll to wash that out of my mouth.

Yeah, Jesus keep me near the cross, Jesus keep me near the cross.

Oh, actually, it's not even that one, nearer my God to thee, yeah, it's bad.

Yeah, that's not in our current hymnals.

So, nearer my God to thee, not because he considered the hymn untruthful, suffering can

bring one closer to God, but because this sentiment was seen as somehow making the hymn

distinctively Christian, while the cross in Christian theology is first and foremost a reference to

the vicarious suffering of Christ on our behalf.

I love this quote, he says, one can only be sorry that the people on the Titanic could not find a better hymn to

use in the last solemn hour of their lives.

The ship's going down and the band's playing, you know, nearer my God to thee and he's like, come on, don't you have something

better you can sing while you're drowning?

He's going on, he says, in all the talk that comes from some circles about Christianity's not

being a set of beliefs, but a way of life, how many times, you know, it's not a

religion, it's a relationship.

What's wrong with that, Brian?

Okay, wrong focus, right?

He's saying it has to do with the personal relationship instead of the objective truths of the gospel.

If I say to somebody, an unbeliever, I want you to have a relationship with Christ, yes?

They're already in a relationship.

The problem is, instead of being their savior, he's their judge, which is a big problem, right?

You don't want him as your judge.

Trying to push you to personalize it, or maybe, could I say, dare I say, emotionalize

it.

Well, I mean, think about it, if I say the word religion, is our first thought,

yes?

Or is it, you know, back off Jackson.

And I think that's the point, right?

To get you not to just stiff arm it because you think religion is stodgy, religion

is stale, religion is smells and bells and whistles and all kinds of things, but it has nothing to do with

me, right?

I don't want to go into a church where they're just all about God, what about me?

So, he says that we should not believe in Jesus, but follow him, that's another, you know, when I hear this kind of,

I'm a Christ follower, is that true?

Yeah, okay.

But boy, I think that kind of misses the mark because it can lead right to what?

You know, Jesus as my example.

He is an example, he is my example, and what does that example tell me?

Yeah,

yeah,

that's right.

Right, well, and especially, good point, I mean, we do, you know, as Christians, we do have this

relationship, right?

We're adopted, you know, all these things, engrafted into the family of God, all these things are true.

But when that's the sole focus, it loses, you know, I mean, the things that

ought to be focused on, sin, you know, I mean, the holiness of God, all these kind of things.

Right, right, it's not just a list of facts, absolutely

true, right?

I mean, there has to be some

personal attachment and outflow from those facts,

but I think it's, you know, this, again, when he's talking this

way, all the talk that comes from some circles about Christianity as not being a series of beliefs but a way of life,

that we should not believe in Jesus but follow him, seems to arise out of a view of Christianity

as sentiment and even to bear uncanny linguistic resemblance to precisely

the kind of 19th century liberalism against which Forsyth Barth, Barth,

you know, it looks like Barth, sounds like Barth, but it's actually Barth,

and Machen railed, they railed against with such passion and persistence.

The world of today is perhaps not so different from that faced by these men.

Human beings still try to make God, and this is kind of the point, they try to make God in

their own image and still project their own image or their own values onto the divine.

In other words, Christianity is fine as long as you don't get too biblical about it,

right?

As long as you don't take the Bible too seriously.

You have to keep in mind, it's just a book.

Yeah.

Did you say equality?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The term relationship can imply kind of a peer -to -peer

sort of relationship.

Brian?

Okay, the cultural relevancy.

Okay, good.

Do you guys have something you want to share?

Do we need the cone of silence for you?

Okay, all right, got it.

I'll move on.

Number four, true or false, Christians rarely have the stomach for such difficult fights.

It's true.

I mean, these issues are, you know,

I mean, what happens when people say you're a moron for believing the Bible?

Or, you know, where's that effect?

I mean, most things, somebody said something to me the other day, not Bible -related,

but I just, I listened to it and I just thought, whatever.

You know, I don't have time to defend myself.

I have people driving by me and flipping me off.

I don't, you know, what difference is the insult you just tossed at me make?

Yeah, you have to pick your battles.

You have to.

And Machen says, presenting an issue sharply is indeed by no means a popular business at the present time.

That's another statement.

Or how about this?

How about this phrase?

We want to be known for what we're for, not what we're against.

Is that true?

Right.

I mean, it's partly true.

We want to know, we want to be known for what we're for.

Is that true?

Yes.

Not for what we're against.

False.

I mean, which makes the whole statement false.

I mean, people are like, well, you know, why do you want to be known for what you're against?

Because a lot of what we're against is really bad.

I mean, people want to, you know, these days it's become fashionable to be in favor of

trans rights.

But when you start, you know, whatever that means, or how about

my favorite phrase right now, and there's somebody in our town who has this on their front lawn.

This is my favorite phrase right now because it's self -refuting.

How about this?

Abortion rights, or actually they call it reproductive rights,

are human rights.

Yeah, just down the street from Bill.

Reproductive rights are human rights.

Well, what's wrong with that?

Yeah, it doesn't go so well for the baby.

There's a human being in there.

And when they say reproductive rights, what they're really meaning is the right to execute, you know,

kill the baby.

And so the human rights of the baby are, you know, not present.

And it's interesting.

I was in a minor discussion on Facebook the other day, and because this was—.

California's just passed this law.

California.

So a baby survives abortion.

It is now perfectly

illegal in the state of California to even investigate what happens post -birth.

In other words, if they just leave the baby to die, totally fine.

Not a crime.

Yeah.

And I'm like, yeah, so I'm just like, let's just think about that.

What does that say?

It says that, you know, that—and somebody then

argued that that was a fetus.

And I'm like, no, no, no, because even, you know, scientifically,

you can't argue— because I put the definition of fetus.

Watch that change, though.

That will change.

The definition of fetus says what?

Yeah, it's still in the womb.

So now it's, you know, the baby's out of the womb.

And, you know, but now it's perfectly illegal in California to just ignore and let the baby—.

I mean, you just can't—.

Yeah.

I mean, it's just frightening how inhumane our

society has become so far.

I mean, so far, because I think there's a sentiment involved with that.

I mean, there was a case here.

I don't know if you guys saw that.

You must have seen the video.

This woman in Los Angeles just goes screaming into this intersection, and she

hits, you know, a car.

She hits some pedestrians, and people are just going flying everywhere and goes into a gas station, and,

you know, there's an explosion and all.

So did you see that?

And she was doing—I think they figured that she was doing, like, well over 100 miles an hour, you know,

on surface streets in Los Angeles.

And, you know, they're trying to get her off on some kind of mental defect or something, but killed five

people, I believe.

Yes.

And I say, you know, you obviously have the right to reproduce.

What's the problem?

Nobody's trying to stop you from reproducing.

Well, okay, let's just call it what it is.

Reproductive termination.

You could say that, you know.

Yeah.

Yeah, that is pretty good.

I mean, that is a euphemism of euphemisms there.

Okay.

So presenting an issue sharply is indeed by no means popular.

Yeah.

He says, there are many who prefer to fight their intellectual battles in what Dr. Francis Patton has aptly

called a condition of low visibility.

Duck and Chuck, right?

Or Chuck and Duck.

Just get out of sight.

He says, this is Machen again.

He says, light may at times, may seem at times to be an impertinent

intruder, but it is always beneficial in the end.

The type of religion which rejoices in the pious sound of traditional phrases, regardless of their

meanings, or shrinks from controversial matters, will never stand amid the shocks of life.

I mean, I was talking to a liberal minister here a few weeks ago, and they

spent two and a half years in their church in turmoil because they

refused to exercise Matthew 18.

I mean, it was, you know, the congregation was arguing with each other and fighting all the time and

everything, because they wouldn't kick somebody out using Matthew 18.

I thought, I want to say, I could tell you what to do, but you won't like

it very much, you know.

And he wasn't asking, so.

Okay, number five.

True or false?

We can see what is important by the willingness of two parties to dispute it.

Absolutely true.

Right?

I mean, if it's not important, yeah.

If it's not important, yeah, you're not going to fight about it.

Unless you're married.

You know, I'll

credit my wife with this, though.

She says, you know, she probably learned this the hard way from putting up with me for

years.

She'll say, well, in light of eternity, what does it really matter?

So I think if

more couples could do that, view it through the lens of, in light of

eternity, does this really matter?

Probably be fewer arguments, but yeah.

Mason says, in the sphere of religion, as in other spheres, the things about which men are agreed

are apt to be the things that are least worth holding.

The really important things are the things about which men will fight.

And I mean, when we, you know, let's just look at the government for a moment.

What is the government willing to fight?

You know, what are the two big parties willing to fight over?

Abortion.

But I mean, do they even fight over it, right?

These days, do they even fight over war?

No.

Both sides generally speak in favor of it.

You know, how long is the war in Ukraine going to go on?

Apparently forever, because nobody's against it.

That's right.

As long as we've got a credit card, we can keep doing that.

What else?

Spending.

Does anybody care about spending?

Apparently not.

Don't even ask me about town spending.

I mean, we're going to have a special town meeting here in a couple weeks, basically.

And I think probably all, well, two of the three things are going to pass.

The only one that probably won't pass is the one that should pass.

Because it's going to cost the town the least amount of money and do the most good.

So, of course, it's not going to pass.

But the soccer fields?

Sure, we'll borrow $3 million for that.

Sure.

Fine.

I expect there's going to be more soccer mobs that night than just about anything.

Okay.

Misha says, 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 totally

diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use

of traditional Christian terminology.

It looks like Christianity.

It tries to sound like Christianity.

But it's not Christianity.

Well, it is, right?

I mean, it's Pharisaism.

Why, Brian?

But it's liberal.

They're loving.

So why would you call it Pharisaism?

You're not wrong, by the way.

I'm just giving you a hard time.

Well, can I help you, Brian?

Okay.

All right.

You can say one more thing.

Right.

And that's the same kind of idea.

If your kids can go to church every week, go home every week, and act like little Christians,

but not be Christians, how is that?

Well, because they act the right way.

They talk the right way, at least when they're out in public.

But, you know, for liberals, what do they do?

They have all the walking and talking and sounding, but what's at the heart of it?

The heart of it is something altogether different.

But here's the thing that's funny.

Does a liberal Christian view the true Christian as a

brother in Christ?

Yes.

You think?

Right.

Maybe, but they're so unloving, and so unkind, and they just hold so much dogma.

You know, the dogma runs deeply with...

Well,

I mean, it's the modernist fundamentalist controversy, right?

They're cool, they're hip, they're modern.

They're not really worried about how people get to heaven.

By the way, just as an aside, if anybody wants to... I need to...

I left my phone in the office, but I'm going to probably send out an email

to anybody who wants to go.

There's an upcoming West Boylston Town Fair deal coming up.

Fall Fest.

Oh, that's it.

Fall Fest.

And on Fall Fest, which is on a Saturday, there's going to be a booth for all the

churches.

And they said, do you want to be included on the flyer?

And I was like, why not?

It's like free advertising, right?

And then they're like, okay, does somebody want to show up and man the booth?

And I'm going, I don't know, I'll send it out.

I mean, a good opportunity.

If people come up to you, I think they're basically just asking to get

the gospel.

So I'll be sending that out as a BBC announcement.

Let's see.

Where are we?

Number...

Oh, and I was going to say just about five real quickly too.

There are a lot of religions now doing that.

I mean, the Mormons do that.

Other religions kind of imitating Christianity, trying to pretend that they're Christian.

Number six, true or false?

A key element of liberal Christianity is acceptance of divine activity.

Yeah, that's false.

Sid Machen.

Manifold as are the forms in which the movement appears, talking about liberalism, 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 in connection with the origin

of Christianity.

In other words, I mean, this is kind of like Jeffersonian Christianity.

You know, it's fine to believe that Jesus is a good teacher, et cetera, et cetera, but don't even come up with

all this miraculous stuff.

You know, the power of God, don't do that.

He goes on to say, modern inventions and the industrialism that has been built upon them have given us, in many respects, a new

world to live in.

We can no more remove ourselves from that world than we can escape the atmosphere that we breathe.

And I thought it's really important for us to understand what

science, what industrialization, what

technology has basically done to our world.

Do people worry?

I mean, it's coming, but right now, do we worry about surviving, you know, food and whatnot?

The answer is no.

And in part, it's because of industrialization and specialization and all the things that have come about.

But here's, in Scientific Advances, but here's

Machen's point.

Here he says, but such changes in the material conditions of life do not stand alone.

They have been produced by mighty changes in the human mind.

As in their turn, they themselves give rise to further spiritual changes.

The industrial world of today has been produced not by blind forces of nature, but by the conscious

activity of the human spirit.

It has been produced by the spirits or the achievements of science.

And I read all that, and I thought, you know, there's a major

shift of the tide, as it were, that comes about with enlightenment and then with

industrialization.

And so ultimately, man, you know, in enlightenment, man comes to think of himself

as the center of everything that is, the measure of all that exists.

And then really through industrialization, and indeed I think we could say further

by the Internet and whatnot, he proves to himself

that he is the measure of all things, the center of existence.

Brian?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah, what's made the world better?

Is it Christianity or is it science?

You know, you dumb people with your backwards religion, you actually are obstacles to advancement.

Because the arc of justice, oh, sorry.

Number seven, true or false, because of science, many

truths of Christianity have crumbled.

I said false.

I think true is an interesting argument.

Let's see what Machen says.

In such an age, it is obvious that every inheritance from the past must be subject to

searching criticism.

Right?

As man becomes the center of everything and so smart and too smart to believe in old

religious things, then science turns its eye upon everything and examines

everything.

And as a matter of fact, some convictions of the human race have crumbled to pieces in the test.

Indeed, dependence of any institution upon the past is now sometimes even regarded as

furnishing a presumption not in favor of it but against it.

Brian?

I was going to say in Dave's favor.

Which camp are you coming from, Brian?

Okay.

Because of science, many truths of Christianity have crumbled.

I think that's false.

What truths of Christianity have crumbled in light of science?

Okay.

So, yeah.

I mean,

may I suggest with all or actually completely lacking humility that

you're reading too much into the question.

It just says because of science, many truths of Christianity, full stop, have crumbled.

Yeah.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

Nope.

As a matter of fact, some convictions of the human race have crumbled to pieces.

Human race is not Christianity.

Gary?

A lot of things.

And eventually, they'll prove even more.

It says so many convictions have had to be abandoned that men have sometimes come to believe that all

convictions must go.

And that's the world, you know.

If you think about, he's addressing modernism, and now we're in post -modernism.

Modernism is the idea that all truth must be examined, and now post -modernism is the idea that what?

Truth doesn't exist, which is fairly depressing.

Machen goes on to say, he says, no institution is faced by a stronger hostile presumption than the institution of the

Christian religion, for no institution has based itself more squarely upon the authority of a

bygone age, right?

We live by a book, you know, and even if we go beyond the

book, then we have our confessions and whatnot, and those are old.

These are old traditions.

Number eight, true or false?

The age of the Bible is reason enough to question it.

After all, it was written by uneducated men 2 ,000 years ago and more.

Why is that false?

Well, it is false.

Machen says this, he says, the writers of the books in question were no doubt men of their own age,

which, you know, they didn't even understand necessarily that the sun was the center of the

universe, although they may have, whose outlook upon the material world judged by modern

standards must have been the crudest and most elementary kind.

Inevitably, the question arises whether the opinions of such men can ever be normative for men of the present day.

In other words, whether first day or first century religion can ever stand in company

with 21st century science.

What about it?

How can it hold up?

Jonathan.

So the age is not necessarily something to necessarily undermine it,

but I think there's a more fundamental reason that it can't be undermined.

They would say that, right?

They would say that, right?

I mean, have you ever heard that?

I mean, uneducated people, I think, mostly say that.

You can't trust it because it's been translated so many times.

And that's the point.

I mean, is it true that the Bible is 2 ,000 or 4 ,000 years old or however old it is?

Yes, that's all true.

Irrelevant.

And actually, if you get right down to it, it kind of makes it more amazing

because it's coherent, right?

And it tells the truth about the human condition, which you would think, given

the presuppositions of these Neanderthal, not literally Neanderthal, but

these uneducated rubes, you know, it would be wrong.

I mean, if you read the Koran for very long, you just go, well, this can't be

right.

Yeah, David.

Which is our chronological snobbery, which is, right, this

is what's going on in our culture right now.

Why is it okay to tear down the statues of all these men?

U .S. Grant, you know, et cetera, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, you know,

or Christopher Columbus.

Why should we eradicate him?

What a bad man.

It's easy to, you know, go back in time, 500 years in Columbus's case, and

decide, you know what?

By today's standards, dude does not measure up.

Okay.

And?

I mean, 500 years from now, you're going to look really bad.

So, you know, but it's this whole idea.

Why would people be so consumed by tearing down everything from the past?

Yes.

That's right.

Because they presume in destruction there is freedom.

Right?

They presume that by unchaining themselves, as it were, from the past, that they're free

to rewrite or to write the future in a completely different way.

Yeah.

Which is, it's scary culturally, and, you know, in terms of Christianity, it's absolutely

insane.

You're always going to wind up in a cult when you do that.

Number nine, true or false?

It does not matter what science finds, the Bible cannot be contradicted.

See, I wanted to make that, I wanted to say that was true, but here's the problem I have, because I think the

second part of it is, you know, like 10 ,000 true, which, I don't know,

I'm not sure.

Yeah.

But the first part, it does not matter what science finds.

What about that part, John?

Yeah, I think, actually, Machen said that, so, yeah.

I don't know, I came across it somewhere.

Maybe it was in the newspaper.

Miraculous, other things, yep, true.

Science only has temporary conclusions, absolutely.

And, I mean, that's, you know, if there's a phrase that should be stricken from the record,

eliminated from our language entirely, it's settled science.

Settled science is horrible.

I mean, that's, and it's an awful idea, you know.

Settled science, the earth is the center of the universe.

It's settled science.

Stick a fork in it.

I'm not even going there.

You know, man cannot fly.

It's settled science.

I mean, there are a lot of things that were absolutely definitively said and turned out not

to be true.

Science is ever -changing.

We're always, because it's, science is just nothing but the knowledge that we have, and mankind is always learning new

things, so the idea of settled science is kind of silly.

He says, religion during the centuries has, as a matter of fact, connected itself with a host of convictions,

especially in the sphere of history, which may form the subject of scientific investigation,

just as scientific investigators, on the other hand, have sometimes attached themselves rightly or wrongly to conclusions which

impinge upon the innermost domain of philosophy and religion.

In other words, science is constantly trying to prove religion false, and then

he does say, he gives the John Zook example.

It's amazing that he knew John.

For example, if any Christian of 100 years ago or even today were asked what would become of his

religion if history should prove indubitably that a man called Jesus ever lived and died

in the first century of our era, he would undoubtedly answer that his religion would fall away.

Could they prove that, and the answer is, no, we already know that.

You know, it was interesting when James White was last here, he was

working on a book about the ossuary of Jesus.

Remember that kerfuffle?

Do you remember that at all?

They found a box, you know, because this is how they buried people, they stuffed them in a box.

They took their bones after a certain amount of time and they put them in these boxes, these ossuaries, and they found one that

said he was like son of Joseph and brother of

somebody.

And so everybody's like, oh, it's Jesus!

So James White writes this book about the ossuary of Jesus.

And I remember asking James, we were driving him to the church, I said,

don't you think that what we really need to do is equip our people to deal with,

you know, basically all these kind of things, just generically, that

all these kind of challenges are going to come up against the Word of God and they just need to be steeped in the Word of God,

right?

And he's like, I'll never forget what he said.

He said, no, he said this, talking about the ossuary, is going to be the

seminal issue of our time.

You know, the preeminent issue of our time.

And I'm like, so James White is not a prophet.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's alright.

I just thought.

I mean, they're not going to be able to prove that he is...

I mean, think about it this way.

If Jesus died, was buried, and remained buried, then guess what?

The Jewish authorities would have, you know, dug up those bones or produced them a long time ago and put it into this

whole Christian thing.

Number 10.

I'm going to say it's probably true, but I put false anyway, so it could be either one.

Yes, it is what I tell you to do.

For those of you who are at the Saturday morning class, blessed are you.

Well, because tricky questions are the best kind, right?

Because then people want to argue about them.

Jonathan.

Right.

They could shred it.

Yes.

I think that's a fair point, right?

I mean, if they see knowledge constantly changing, then how is it that

religion, you know, in light of new knowledge, doesn't have to also transform or

change itself or, you know, adapt?

Well, I mean, it's sports.

Yeah, it's sports.

I mean, the problem is, our sports can change.

You know, you can't go 300 years ago and go, I wonder how LeBron James would have done against those guys because

they didn't, you know, sure they would have been 4 '10", but they were tough, you know.

Number 10.

True or false ostensibly, liberal Christianity has good motivations.

What's that?

Yeah.

Okay.

I think that's well said.

They think they have good motivations.

So, it's true.

Machen says, what is the relation between Christianity and modern culture?

May Christianity be maintained in a scientific age?

It's a decent question.

And then he says, it is this problem which modern liberalism attempts to solve.

So, kudos to them.

They recognize that there's a problem.

Christianity, modern culture, you know, in light of science, in light of developments, in light of the enlightenment

and industrialization and the technology that we have, the internet,

what about Christianity?

Can it survive?

And he says, admitting that scientific objections may arise against the particularities of the Christian religion,

against the Christian doctrines of the person of Christ and of redemption through his death and resurrection,

the liberal theologians seek to rescue certain of the general principles of religion, of

which these particularities are thought to be mere temporary symbols.

And these general principles he regards as constituting the essence of Christianity.

You know, so, if Christian, or if liberals can defend Christianity by saying, you know what,

the realities of Christianity aren't what really matters.

What really matters is what?

What you feel in your heart.

It doesn't really matter if there was an actual person named Jesus who lived, died, and was resurrected.

What matters is, does Jesus live in your heart?

Do you have the Christ spirit?

That's what's important.

What's the problem with that?

How do you have the spirit of Christ?

Well, because God gave it to you.

But ultimately, here's the problem.

It's that whole life, death, and resurrection thing, right?

Because if he didn't live a perfect life, if he didn't die for my sins, and if he wasn't raised from the dead

to demonstrate that his payment was accepted in full, then I think I'm still

stuck in my sins.

I think I don't have the righteousness I need to get into heaven.

I think I'm in a world of hurt, because my religion is absolutely useless.

It's pointless.

There's nothing to it.

It's a vapor.

It's like a non -view of sin, right?

I mean, at that point, if I was a liberal Christian, what would I be doing?

I'd be longing for something that seemed more real, like purgatory.

Right?

I'd be like, I don't know about the whole Catholicism thing, but at least if I believe in

purgatory, then I could at least understand how I could get to heaven.

I know it's coming back.

I know it's coming back.

Catholicism's coming back.

Because people are longing for answers, and if the answers aren't in that book, then the

answers are going to be found in some kind of

tradition.

Twinkie?

It's the Rodney King of Religions, yes.

Number 11, true or false?

It is not important that liberalism be defeated.

It is false.

Machen says, in the intellectual battle of the present day, there can be no peace without victory.

One side or the other must win.

Modern materialism, especially in the realm of psychology, is not content with occupying the lower quarters of the Christian city,

but pushes its way all the way to the higher reaches of life.

It is just as much opposed to the philosophical idealism of the liberal preacher as to

the biblical doctrines that the liberal preacher has abandoned in the interest of peace.

If psychology is bent on destroying religion altogether, and that's by the way,

people say, well, why do you object to psychology?

We object to psychology because it's founded on the idea well, who's the father of modern

psychology?

Freud.

And he opened his practice on Easter Sunday and the message

of Freud was the answers are within you.

Which, you know, I mean, that's our world today, right?

Trust your heart.

You know best.

Listen to the children.

Yes.

Which is why people are so miserable today.

You know, the more you turn inward to yourself for your answers, the more

miserable you're bound to be.

Yes, but there is an answer, though.

You can turn your weakness over to your higher power.

So, 12 steps.

Yeah, I've been there, done that.

Okay, number 12.

To a false liberal, Christianity is not Christian, but its accommodation of science makes it formidable.

You know what?

When I read the question just now, my answer was true and then I looked to see what I put, and I put false.

That's just an outstanding question.

I'm going to...

Uh...

Yes, I think I got about 110 % today.

Thank you.

Yeah, I would agree with that.

I mean, the intermingling of evolution and psychology

into Christianity makes it seem more scientific, more rational, more

reasonable.

And, you know, when you think about it, in some respects, that's true, right?

But, the one problem with it is it doesn't really jive with the Bible, and

it also, you know, if you think about the God of the Bible, it's hard to accept,

you know, these other things.

Machen says this, he says, Two lines of criticism, then, are possible with respect to the liberal attempt at

reconciling science and Christianity.

Modern liberalism may be criticized, number one, on the ground that it is un -Christian, and number two,

on the ground that it is unscientific.

Other than that, it's got two little flaws.

I think it was that that caused me to answer the question the way I did.

Yeah, it's false, because Machen just basically dismisses it.

He says, The liberal attempt at reconciling Christianity with modern science has really relinquished everything

distinctive of Christianity, so that what remains in it, what remains is

in essentials, only that same indefinite type of religious aspiration,

which was in the world before Christianity came upon the scene.

I mean, it's actually, I mean, you could argue there, well, is he talking about Judaism?

Well, I would argue that no,

but I mean, there was religious aspiration before the world, you know, came

upon the scene.

You know, you could argue Judaism, but I think for the most part is, you know, here's what I would say

about that.

That liberalism is okay with the idea of some sort of God,

right?

But he's a God, again, like he said earlier, in our image.

Much like the idols that existed back before Christianity.

So, yeah, I would definitely go in that direction.

Then let's see.

Here, as in many other departments of life, it appears that the things that are sometimes thought to be hardest to defend are

also the things that are most worth defending, like inerrancy, inspiration,

virgin birth, all the, you know, the fundamentals of the Christian religion are what

are worth defending, not giving up just because they don't seem scientifically sophisticated.

Okay, true or false?

Number 13.

If liberal Christianity were to take over every pulpit, at least the gospel would still sound forth.

999, false, false, false.

Machen, if a condition could be conceived in which all the preaching of the church should be controlled by the liberalism,

which in many quarters has become preponderant, then we believe Christianity

would at last have perished from the earth, and the gospel would have sounded forth for the last time.

If so, it follows that the inquiry with which we are now concerned is immeasurably the most

important of all those which the church has had to deal with.

Vastly more important than all the questions with regard to methods of preaching is the root question as to

what it is that shall be preached.

You know, just thinking about that, I was thinking, well, is this the most existential issue

in the history of the church?

And I think it is, and here's what I would say, you know, what was like unto it?

How about when the Bible was chained and people weren't allowed to read it?

Right?

And I think what he posits here when he talks about a potential

future in which liberals are the only ones in the pulpits, would the gospel

sound forth?

And the answer is no, and people say, well, what about, you know, would they still have the Bible?

Maybe.

Or maybe all of our Bibles would become the, yeah, I was going to say the message or something, you know, where

it's so far removed from reality where

the gospels...

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Are you guys message only?

You know, Jonathan.

Well, but they wouldn't because...

Right, I mean, a friend of mine, if I had...

A friend of mine from high school is a pastor of a big church in South Dakota,

and he posted something yesterday, and I just read it and I thought...

He said, you know, if we understood Romans

15 .4 I think it was 14 .4 rightly, we'd understand that we

can run over anxiety instead of having our lives run by anxiety.

And I was just like, I'm going...

So I looked it up and I'm going, this has nothing to do with what you're talking about, you know.

It's not even a good application of what you're talking about, let alone of that verse,

let alone a good interpretation.

And I just thought, I don't think my friend is a liberal, but he's...

He's out there in the evangelical world approaching...

I mean, if there's a...

Yeah, he's approaching liberalism, if unintentionally.

I've listened to him, and sometimes he gets the gospel, and sometimes...

Yeah.

And I think a lot of that is, you know, what we call seeker -sensitive.

You know, basically...

Well, I mean, when you put...

If you treat your congregation not as people who desperately need to hear the truth

of God, but as people who desperately need some solutions for their problems, or who

desperately need practical advice, you know, then you're going to come up with

the...

Or, you know, Saddleback, or you know, all these things that sometimes hit upon

truths, scriptural truths, but it's like, by accident.

They're not completely modern, but they're certainly not thorough -going Christian,

either.

So, they've got elements.

Of both.

Right. Right.

So, you know, do sometimes people go to those churches and get saved?

Well, you know, yeah.

Just like sometimes you're walking down the street and you get hit by lightning.

I mean, those, you know...

Preaching is so, like, worn down.

But do you know what the Saddleback church does?

On Sundays, they come and they have, you know, practical messages and stuff like that, and they...

Or Saturday.

You know, Saturday or Sunday, whatever fits your schedule.

And then they...

Did you used to go there?

But then, what they do is during the week, they have meetings where you can actually go,

you know, and hear the gospel.

And I was like, what a clever idea.

It would be a shame to waste the gospel on a Sunday.

You know, when you have thousands of people there.

Yeah.

Yeah, things like that happen.

I mean, I can't remember the last time I heard that one.

I was talking to a guy at a Ligonier event, this was many years ago, and he was the pastor at...

It was some...

I mean, this isn't liberalism, but it was a charismatic denomination.

And while he's preaching, you know, week in and week out, and just working his way through the Bible, he comes to the

conviction that Calvinism is right.

And he goes, I don't know what to do.

I mean, he was like in that...

Eventually, they got rid of him, you know, because they're like, we can't have this.

And I'm like, well, good for you, though.

You know.

There is a blindness.

There is a blindness.

You know, Mike talks about TED Talks and things like that.

But I think, you know, a lot of...

In that sort of church, where life and faith intersect, you know, the

pastor tends to think of himself not as a shepherd of the sheep, not as a proclaimer of God's truth, but as

a life coach.

You know, somebody...

You know, kind of like, some of you didn't have good parents, and I'm here to kind of

give you that little nudge -rama, you know.

Yeah. Ohio.

But, yeah, itching ears because you wanted more Bible...

I mean, it is...

It is kind of a funny...

It is sort of a funny thing, though, to think about this.

You know, you talked about when you go to Scripture Manson...

I mean, I can remember, you know, going to the first Bible study I went to, where this woman used to regularly,

like, interrupt the study, which was OK, because the study was kind of pointless anyway.

But...

And she would say, you know, Steve, last night God just spoke to me at 3 o 'clock in the morning, told me to

get up out of bed, told me to go get my Bible, and I opened my Bible and I went,

you know, and just randomly picked a verse, which I can't even do here, you know, and

I knew this was for you, so let me read it now.

And now they sin more and more and make for themselves metal images, idols skillfully made of silver.

You know, she would just do that, and she was like, idols skillfully made of their silver, all of them

the work of craftsmen, it is said of them, those who offer human sacrifice can't...

But she would just read a verse like that, and she goes...

And then she would apply it in some way, you know, obviously Steve is going to make idols, I don't, you know, I don't know what it was,

but she would just make stuff up like that, and I'm like, you know, it seems sort of hermeneutic,

rather than trying to get to what the original author meant, whether,

as opposed to even trying to put it in the big scheme of the Bible, what is God intending, you know,

here?

What's he pointing out in this verse?

Instead of doing anything like that, it's like, what does this verse mean to me?

How can I apply it to others?

You know, not...

I have a life verse, go and sin no more.

I mean, why is that anybody's life verse, you know?

A life coach.

Well, that's...

Well, I mean, there's more money in it.

Yeah.

And, you know, the schedule's better, too.

You can get weekends off.

So, man.

Alright, so, number 14.

True or false?

Overall, the advances of the modern world have been a blessing to the church.

Logos Bible Software.

Oh, advances in communication.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah, that's good.

Okay, well, let's see what Machen says.

Machen says, the modern world represents, in some respects, an enormous improvement over the world in which our

ancestors lived.

Full stop.

But, in other respects, it exhibits a lamentable decline.

The improvement appears in the physical conditions of life.

But, in the spiritual realm, there is a corresponding loss.

So, I ask you, what's more important?

The physical improvements or the spiritual loss?

Shame on you guys who are thinking physical.

And then, I thought it was interesting, too, because he talked about losses in art,

music, literature.

And I thought about, you know, some of the things that are going on right now.

You know, in terms of schools and books.

You know, there's been a lot of talk about book banning lately.

You know.

And liberals like to trot this out as an example of the evils that conservatives are bringing about.

But, what books are being banned?

Have you ever looked at one of those lists?

Yeah, you can still buy them.

Yeah, it's kind of a loaded phrase, almost like reproductive freedom.

Yeah, but I mean, even books, I mean, it's interesting to me because, again, you know,

judging people by the standards of today as opposed to the standards of that day.

You know, books like, by Mark Twain and other authors, banned.

But it's fine to have a book like genderqueer in the school library.

And how dare you even question genderqueer being in the school library?

You must be transphobic.

And, of course, then you show somebody the content of genderqueer, and they're like,

uh, well, uh, you know, you care to defend that?

Well, you can't even look at that without, you know, I mean, a lot of the books that are being so -called

banned, you know, they should be wrapped in paper and put behind the counter, and you should have to show ID,

be 18 years old.

And, by the way, when you show that ID, they should hook you up for, you know, arrest you for wanting to

possess child porn because that's what it is.

I mean, what is wrong with people?

And the answer is almost everything, but if you look at our art, our music, you know, we're the great

musicians, the great works of art being performed today, and in

almost every area of our culture, we're seeing cultural decline.

And I think, you know, part of the reason for that is because there's a despair

in the culture.

There's a hopelessness in the culture.

Other thoughts about number 14 before we close here?

Okay.

Yeah, I mean, we're going to have to skip all, or we'll leave all this for next week, but I found all this

interesting, and we'll try to go a little faster through this next week, but all this to do

with really political issues,

public schools, and all sorts of things, you know, and the cultural decline that has come about because of

public schools, and I thought, man, oh man, he's hitting it pretty hard.

And, you know, the interesting thing is, public schools, when he was writing this, were as such, compulsory

public schools were a new phenomenon.

So, were you going to say something,

Brian?

Well,.

It is an ideology, and it is, you know, he calls it utilitarian, and,

you know, which is it seems to do the most good for the most number of people kind of idea.

And, you know, it really doesn't, but we'll talk more about that next week.

So, Father, thank you for our time this morning.

Thank you for these men for getting up early in the morning to discuss these weighty

matters.

Father, I pray that you bless each one, strengthen them as they even consider

the realities that we're talking about, which is this, that there is an assault on the truth, that there are

matters worth defending, that your word is inspired,

that is to say breathed out by the Holy Spirit, that men wrote it, yes, but these

were men moved along by the Holy Spirit.

And, Father, we praise you for the word.

We thank you that you have preserved it against all manner of assaults and even

today against, you preserved it against

mockery, against banning, against all sorts of things.

And, Father, we pray that your word would continue to go forth.

And, Lord, we would pray also for the people of Florida as they recover from this hurricane and just pray that

we would even see more stories like I saw last evening of somebody buried under the debris

and then saved by rescue teams.

And, Father, just bless the rescue workers down there in Jesus' name.

Amen.