Machen Chapter 7

 Machen Chapter 7 - "The Church." This chapter addresses the issue of liberally-minded teachers being accepted into the church as teachers and preachers. The issue Machen has with this is not so much that these people want to spread what they want to teach, but rather their dishonesty in it all. Their desire is to spread their message, but they do it through a dishonest way of pretending they agree with the specific church's doctrine but then proceeding to teach otherwise.
      I thought it was interesting that Machen brought up the point of tolerance. Tolerance in our modern American society is much-used word, but I didn't realize it was on the radar of those in Machen's generation. Machen is not saying that, while evangelicals clearly do believe that the liberal "theology" is wrong, that they should not have be allowed to share what they believe. He is simply saying that there is no place for it in the evangelical church. He mentions how tolerance under certain authority such as governmental should be promoted; however, a voluntary organization such as religion (a church), should not be required to be "tolerant" of another belief, as that shakes the very ground the organization was built on.
     I appreciated Machen's balance here, and was actually a little surprised to how much 'grace' he gae to liberals. His argument was on the basis of honesty, which I also found intriguing.
     Considering Biblical as well as the ancient history of the church, the dealings with "false teachers" has tended to be very severe. Paul has some pretty harsh words for those people in his letters. Others in history were accused of heresy. While there must be a balance and an aspect of love for all humans, I might be so bold as to say God has used severe treatment of these false teachers as a way to preserve the Gospel. Of course I do not think this means we should imprison or exile people, it is a duty of Christians to call it like it is: a false doctrine. Not only must we publicly recognize it, but then deal with it as well: it has no place in the evangelical church.
      How might one do this? This would of course depend on the context.
      But it must, first and foremost, start with the church being in agreement of the need to preserve the holy doctrine of the Gospel.


In conclusion, while I don't necessarily agree with everything Machen says, and at times his arguments became a little repetitive, I believe the book was an effective one in recent church history. It was used to call out liberalism for what it was, contrast it to Biblical doctrine, and give Christians a practical response to implement as a result. It is difficult to judge books written in past generations because there is so much modern perspective/bias that influences, but we can only do the best we can to understand where the author is coming from in his time of life and take the good that we can learn from.

Machen Chapter Six

"Salvation" - the title of chapter six of Machen's Christianity and Liberalism.
       I'll admit, I asked myself, "What more can Machen say?" This chapter follows his arguments against liberals' views on God, man, and Christ. Finally we get to the case of the Gospel, but in my opinion, once you've proved the error in their thinking in these areas, there's not much left of the Gospel to need to speak about.
     However, Machen found a new point to bring up.
     This time he brings up the liberal argument that Christ's sacrifice, and God's forgiveness, is simply a matter of looking over trivial issues such as sin.
     This is a perspective that even some conservative Christians can easily fall into. It's easy to convince oneself of doing something with the argument that "It's not that big of a deal; God forgives." 
       But what a messed up world this would forever be if God simply left it at forgiveness. This position denies the very grace of God, because simple forgiveness does not change a person. From the liberal point of view, grace is not needed. They may recognize that people make mistakes, but they would not go so far as to say that sin is deadly and in need of atonement.
     But what would God's mere "looking over" our trivial sin actually mean in the world? It would mean people would be left selfish, unchanged, and even dangerous. It would also show that God does not seem to love people at all.
       People left unchanged would mean they keep sinning. And sin is not just against God (which in of itself is a very great deal), but we also sin against ourselves and others. When we sin against ourselves, we harm ourselves. It would be easy to say "Well, we had it coming then," and maybe that's true. But a God who does not interject in everyday life is not a loving God at all.
     What's worse, if God leaves us to our sin, He leaves us to continue to sin against each other. This is one of the point Machen makes in this chapter. Our actions, for good or bad, have an effect on others. We already get a sense for what this looks like in a world that is full of war, poverty, murder. When we are left to our own devices, we harm others. This can be on a terrible scale such as the points mentioned above, but often it starts on a smaller scale such as lying, crossing our neighbor, and gossip.
     Thus comes a conclusion that I think many times even conservative Christians forget:
Salvation is not merely for the individual.
                         there is an age-old question that states "Why does God not simply sweep up the Christians once they're converted?" The answer is simple, although not easy. God is in the business of redemption. He is not a God of abandonment; He does not avoid conflict. Rather, He promises to renew the world and has begun that process here and now, through the redemption of His children. This redemption is not simply a matter of a golden ticket into Heaven once you die. It is a process of redemption that God works not only in us, but uses us to work in others. As 2nd Corinthians states, we are agents of reconciliation to the world. God has not simply left humankind in despair until Heaven on Earth appears -He has started that ministry already. Thus, salvation is not simply for us. It's for the world.

Sin cannot merely be a looking over of our sin (it must effect a change).