Perhaps we wonder at times how Christianity will survive in such a sceptical world. Modernists in the early twentieth century considered the solution to be clear. They thought the church needed to be modernised. They tried to rescue it from irrelevance, putting aside unpopular teachings from the Bible and recasting Christianity simply as a way of life. Resisting these attempts, J Gresham Machen gave an unbending response: Christian doctrine isn’t the problem - unbelief is.
A one-hundredth anniversary edition of Christianity and Liberalism has recently been published. It is intended to remind a new generation that God’s message of salvation is timeless. In defending essential Christian doctrines and exposing liberalism as a false religion, Machen reminds the church that we are entrusted with the truth that the world needs most.
In a footnote in his essay on How Scotland lost its hold of the Bible (see here) Iain Murray says
Christianity and Liberalism (repr. 1997, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans), p. 178. This has to remain one of the most important books of all times.
This refers to Machen's statement about Liberalism that it is ‘a movement which is anti-Christian to the core.’ (He also quotes Machen saying ‘There is sometimes a salutary lack of logic which prevents the whole of a man’s faith being destroyed when he has given up a part.')
