J. Gresham Machen

According to that fundamental principle, language is truthful, not when the meaning attached to the words by the speaker, but when the meaning intended to be produced in the mind of the particular person addressed, is in…

Material betterment has gone hand in hand with spiritual decline.

It is a pitiable cowardice to try to overcome fear by ignoring the facts. We do not become masters of our fate by saying that we are. And such blatancy of pride, futile as it is, is not even noble in its futility. It wou…

When will men see that nothing but the truth can satisfy the longing of the human soul? Religious conceptions which are merely useful and not eternally true are not useful at all. But as it is, a deadly blight of pragmat…

In the Bible there is that which meets every need of man, which answers every mood, which speaks to every heart.

The movement designated as liberalism is regarded as liberal only by its friends; to its opponents it seems to involve a narrow ignoring of many relevant facts.

The modern world represents in some respects an enormous improvement over the world in which our ancestors lived; but in other respects it exhibits a lamentable decline. The improvement appears in the physical conditions…

But if any one fact is clear, on the basis of this evidence, it is that the Christian movement at its inception was not just a way of life in the modern sense, but a way of life founded upon a message. It was based, not…

The difference concerned only the logical--not even, perhaps, the temporal--order of three steps. Paul said that a man (1) first believes on Christ, (2) then is justified before God, (3) then immediately proceeds to keep…

Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under the intimate control of experts appointed by the state, force them then to attend schools where the higher aspirations…

Modern liberalism may be criticized (1) on the ground that it is un-Christian and (2) on the ground that it is unscientific. We shall concern ourselves here chiefly with the former line of criticism; we shall be interest…

This modern non-redemptive religion is called modernism or liberalism. Both names are unsatisfactory; the latter, in particular, is question-begging. The movement designated as liberalism is regarded as liberal only by i…

But at this point an objection is frequently raised.The otherworldliness of Christianity is objected to as a form of self-ishness. The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how much…

The very center and core of the whole Bible is the doctrine of the grace of God'the grace of God which depends not one whit upon anything that is in man, but is absolutely undeserved, resistless and sovereign. The theolo…

The point is that this thing hangs together. We have in the Gospels an account of a person who was entirely unique. He was totally different from other men in his moral purity and strength. Yet he made the most stupendou…

Freedom of thought in the middle ages was combated by the Inquisition, but the modern method is far more effective. Place the lives of children in their formative years, despite the convictions of their parents, under th…

From every point of view, therefore, the problem in question is the most serious concern of the Church. What is the relation between Christianity and modern culture; may Christianity be maintained in a scientific age? It…

we shall be interested in showing that despite the liberal use of traditional phraseology modern liberalism not only is a different religion from Christianity but belongs in a totally different class of religions.

The very basis of the religion of Jesus was a triumphant belief in the real existence of a personal God.And without that belief no type of religion can rightly appeal to Jesus to-day. Jesus was a theist, and rational the…

The sage of Nazareth may satisfy those who have never faced the problem of evil in their own lives; but to talk about an ideal to those who are under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Yet if Jesus was merely a man…

According to modern liberalism, in other words, Jesus was the Founder of Christianity because He was the first Christian, and Christianity consists in maintenance of the religious life which Jesus instituted.

This question looms very large in the minds of modern men. The burden of the question seems to rest heavily even upon many who still accept the miracles of the New Testament. The miracles used to be regarded as an aid to…

Such considerations have led to a renewed public interest in the subject of religion; religion is discovered after all to be a useful thing. But the trouble is that in being utilized religion is also being degraded and d…

But at this point an objection is frequently raised. The 'otherworldliness' of Christianity is objected to as a form of selfishness. The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how mu…

The sage of Nazareth may satisfy those who have never faced the problem of evil in their own lives; but to talk about an ideal to those who are under the thralldom of sin is a cruel mockery. Yet if Jesus was merely a man…

But at this point an objection is frequently raised. The otherworldliness of Christianity is objected to as a form of self-ishness. The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how muc…

The life which [Jesus] now lives in the Gospels is simply the old life lived over and over again. And in that life we have no place; in that life we are spectators, not actors. The life in which Jesus lives in the Gospel…

Such for example are the liberal doctrines of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man.

The assertion is often made, indeed, that Jesus kept His own Person out of His gospel, and came forward merely as the supreme prophet of God. That assertion lies at the very root of the modern liberal conception of the l…

We may preach with all the fervor 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…

The Christian of academic tastes accuses his brother of undue emotionalism, of shallow argumentation, of cheap methods of work. On the other hand, your practical man is ever loud in his denunciation of academic indiffere…

Instead of destroying the arts and sciences or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the same time consecrate them to the service of our God. Instead of…

The Spirit of Old Princeton is dead.

God grant that there may come a reaction, and that the great principles of Anglo-Saxon liberty may be rediscovered before it is too late! But whatever solution be found for the educational and social problems of our own…

When we come to see that it was no mere man who suffered on Calvary but the Lord of Glory, then we shall be willing to say that one drop of the precious blood of Jesus is of more value, for our own salvation and for the…

I'm so thankful for the active obedience of Christ. No hope without it.(Final telegram to colleague John Murray at Westminster Theological Seminary from hospital in Bismarck, North Dakota, December 29, 1936. He died Janu…

The most important of such institutions, according to Christian teaching, is the family. And that institution is being pushed more and more into the background. It is being pushed into the background by undue encroachmen…

Here is found the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity'liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood, while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative; liberalism appeals to man's will,…

But at this point an objection is frequently raised. The otherworldliness of Christianity is objected to as a form of selfishness. The Christian, it is said, does what is right because of the hope of heaven, but how much…

At any rate, an attack upon Calvin or Turrettin or the Westminster divines does not seem to the modern churchgoer to be a very dangerous thing. In point of fact, however, the attack upon doctrine is not nearly so innocen…

The modern liberal preacher reverences Jesus; he has the name of Jesus forever on his lips; he speaks of Jesus as the supreme revelation of God; he enters, or tries to enter, into the religious life of Jesus. But he does…

The modern liberals, on the other hand, say that Jesus is God not because they think high of Jesus, but because they think desperately low of God.

Clear-cut definition of terms in religious matters, bold facing of the logical implications of religious views, is by many persons regarded as an impious proceeding. May it not discourage contribution to mission boards?…

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,…

A public school system, if it means the providing of free education for those who desire it, is a noteworthy and beneficent achievement of modern times; but when once it becomes monopolistic it is the most perfect instru…

the liberals resort constantly to a double use of language.

It never occurred to Paul that a gospel might be true for one man and not for another; the blight of pragmatism had never fallen upon his soul. Paul was convinced of the objective truth of the gospel message, and devotio…

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 already become preponderant, then, we believe, Christianity would at last have…

In setting forth the current liberalism, now almost dominant in the Church, over against Christianity, we are animated, therefore, by no merely negative or polemic purpose; on the contrary'by showing what Christianity is…

The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations, but also all of human though…