Machen Chapter 7

            This chapter of Machen’s book “Christianity and Liberalism” is about the physical church, and different perspectives on the church depending on one’s standing between Christianity and liberalism. I have to be honest, I struggled getting through this chapter, because I think I tend to lean more towards the “liberal” Christian that Machen often disagrees with in his book. Up until this chapter, I was able to see his perspective and take it mostly positively. However, this chapter was one that I found myself getting frustrated for what seemed as though he was making assumptions and “lumping” all liberal Christians into one small box. The part of the chapter that I struggled most with was the majority of page 140 and 141.

         

         In this part of the chapter, Machen states 

“If a man believes that salvation from sin comes only through the atoning death of Jesus, then he cannot honestly support his gifts and by his presence a propaganda which is intended to produce an exactly opposite impression… if the liberal party, therefore, really obtains control of the church, evangelical Christians must be prepared to withdrawal no matter what the cost” (141). 

There are a few issues I have with this statement. First, I’m beginning to question what Machen truly means by “liberal” at all. Throughout this book, he has never really explained what a liberal (to him) is, other than using negative condemnation to identify them. Machen also makes it seem as though a liberal person simply cannot be an evangelical Christian. Whether this is what he meant to imply, I’m not sure, but that is how I read it, and I have a problem with that statement.

            I guess because of my frustration with Machen’s assumptions with liberals, I should explain my standing with liberalism. There are a lot of extreme liberals that I wouldn’t say I agree with. One major issue conservative people have with liberalism is the issue of pro-choice. I completely disagree with abortion and would never even consider this as an option if I were to become pregnant, so in this sense, I would say I lean on the conservative side. However, when it comes to issues with church and state, and conservatives often arguing that taxes shouldn’t be a thing, I would say I lean on the liberal side. Taxes are often used towards community resources for people who are living in poverty and can’t afford these resources without the help of their community. Because I am a social work major, my job will be to constantly seek out resources for people in need to utilize. If there were no taxes, unfortunately a lot of people would be out of resources that they need. Some people see those in poverty as lazy individuals who want to mooch off of everyone else for “free money”. While there most definitely are people like this, the majority of those living in poverty are trying their best to make ends meet for themselves. All this being said, because of my major and my future job in advocating for people who are often unable to advocate for themselves, I consider myself more of a “liberal” than “conservative” evangelical Christian.

If I’m being honest, I think all churches need both conservative and liberal views. I feel like this brings perspective from both sides to the spectrum. Machen seems to argue that liberals need to back down and conservatives need to take over the evangelical church. To me, this seems like it goes against what the Bible says about loving each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. I have no issue with having a conversation about beliefs on what is “right” and “wrong”. I would rather be able to have a civil conversation with someone who has disagrees with me, than push them away and never talk because I don’t agree with them. I think God wants us to wrestle with these issues of the church. Unfortunately my take from Chapter seven was that Liberals need to “withdrawal” (141) and conservatives need to take over.

Machen Chapter 6

Machen talks at the end of chapter 6 by saying 

“… the Christian man may not simplify his problem by withdrawing from the business of the world, but must learn to apply the principles of Jesus evening to the complex problems of modern industrial life” (130). 

Through this, he explains the importance of combining our “modern” lives with our life of love. While I completely agree with the concept Machen telling his readers to do, I can’t say that it’s always easy to do. I think that it is really easy for us as Christians to separate our “modern” lives from our “church” lives. Something that is important to wrestle with is why we do this.

I’m not sure there is one correct answer to this, but I’m going to discuss and wrestle with why I might do this. At school, it is easy to combine the principles of Jesus with modern life because I attend a Christian bible college that forces me to do this without much effort. Even classes that aren’t Bible classes are engrained with spiritual principles and apply the teachings of Jesus in our lectures. However, I work in an agency that is not faith based, and very few strong believers work with me. Sadly, sometimes it is “easier” for me to go to work and not combine the teachings of Jesus with my work life. My sinful nature sometimes runs with the lies that people will not accept me or like me if I try to talk to them about my spiritual life and the fruit that comes with that.  

In contrast, I have found that when my heart turns away from those lies that people won’t accept me, I have been able to have fruitful conversations with people about Jesus and what he has done for my life. LBC has actually been a conversation starter for me as I discuss biblical principles and teachings of Christ. During my first week at my job, one of the caseworkers came up to me and said she heard that I go to Lancaster Bible College, and excitedly said “I’m a Christian too!!”. Through this quick conversation, we were able to go out together to do some work, and do a prayer walk together for the families we serve. We also attended a seminar together by circuit riders. If she wouldn’t have stepped out of her comfort zone and approached me on this topic, we would not have been able to create the relationship we have today.

Through this friendship that I have created at work, I have found that stepping out of my comfort zone and allowing God to do the talking and work for me. This friendship has allowed for me to do things that i wouldn’t have thought about or been comfortable doing before. for example, while we were driving to a home visit, we saw an Islamic sign stating something about the “messiah” coming, but not Jesus, an Islamic messiah. She asked to pray about the sign, not only that people would believe in Christ instead of this Islamic messiah, but that we could have hearts of understanding for people who might believe in it, so that we can have conversations about it. I have never prayed about a billboard that I saw while driving before, but this moment was so meaningful for me. this is a small example of combining my work life with my spiritual life.

Machen Chapter 5

Christ

In this chapter, Machen talked about the fact that before the Bible can really be discussed, or “considered”, we must think about the Person who the message is really about. He explains that the attitude towards Jesus is shown throughout the New Testament. Machen talks at the end of the chapter about the natural and supernatural acts of Jesus that He passed along to Paul and the epistles. His definition of the differences between natural and supernatural struck me. He says on page 85, 

“The distinction between the natural and the supernatural, in other words, is simply the distinction between God’s works of providence and Gods work of creation; a miracle is a work of creation just as truly as the mysterious act which produced the world” 

I found this to be really interesting because, while I knew in the back of my mind the difference between natural and supernatural, I really never thought deeply about them. Machen’s argument that a miracle is a work of creation sort of blew my mind. A miracle is a work of creation because God created miracles. God created these miracles for a purpose. From my understanding of Machen’s argument, he supernatural acts of a miracle are intertwined with being natural, because miracles were intended to accomplish something natural. It is hard to know where the natural act ends, and the supernatural act begins within a miracle. While I have experienced a miracle happen (witnessing people being healed), I can’t say I could distinctly tell when the supernatural began. The best I can say is that I know it happens, because it is “unnatural” for one to be blind and suddenly see, or lame and suddenly walk, deaf and suddenly hear.  

Another example of this supernatural act that God intended to accomplish something natural would be the “natural” concept that Jesus gave his life for the life of others and their sins, and he supernaturally rose again. His desire was to make “naturally” create a way that people could have a personal relationship with God and be in communion with him. Sadly, many of us today do not take this truth and live it out. God sent this person just for me to be in communion with Him. While I love this truth, it is easy to not see the value in it. We have the ability to be a vessel for God and utilize the natural and the supernatural gifts that He has given to us through Christ’s natural act of dying for us, and supernatural act of rising again. In other words, all of these gifts are intertwined, and given to us as gifts from our Father. How could we not take that seriously? As it was stated in the beginning of this chapter, it is so much easier to understand the rest of the Bible when we understand the gospel. This concept of natural and supernatural acts would not be in existence without Christ.