Was Christianity changing toward a more liberal form in the Protestant church? Was it slipping away from the true orthodoxy of the Bible and Christ?In the early 20th Century J. Gresham Machen, a theologian at Princeton and later as co-founder of Westminster Theological Seminary, believed this was the case and put his mark on paper with his book Christianity & Liberalism. In 1923 Machen brought light to the issue of a changing Church.Is this book important?

At the very beginning, I may as well tell you plainly that I am not going to talk about the topics that are usually regarded as most timely just now. I am not going to talk to you about the gold standard or about unemployment or about the NRA or about the Brain Trust. Possibly some of you may discover that certain things that I may say have a bearing upon those topics, but those topics are not the topics about which I am going to talk.Instead, I am going to talk to you about God, a...

It seems to me, as I stand here before you today, that there is one blessing in these days of defection and unbelief which we have come to value as we never valued it before. That is the blessing of Christian fellowship in the presence of a hostile world, and in the presence of a visible Church which too often has departed from the Word of God. Today, during the three meetings of this League, in the portion of the meetings which has been allotted to me, I am to have the privilege of delive...

AN account of personal experiences may be interesting for one or two reasons: (1) because the writer is in some way remarkable; (2) because, not being at all remarkable, he may be able to set forth in a concrete way the experience of a considerable body of men. It is for the latter reason, if at all, that the present little sketch may justify its place in the volume of which it is to form a part. I have been asked to contribute to the volume, I suppose, in order that I may show by the exam...

“Indifferentism about doctrine makes no heroes of the faith.” —J. Gresham Machen———How will the Christian faith survive in a skeptical world? Modernists in the early twentieth century considered the solution to be clear. Thinking the church needed to be rescued from irrelevance, they laid aside unpopular teachings from the Bible and recast Christianity simply as a way of life. Resisting these attempts, J. Gresham Machen gave an unbending response: Christian doctrine isn’t t...

The general purpose of this course of lessons has been set forth in the introduction to the Student's Text Book. There is a tendency in the modern Church to neglect the study of Bible history. Such neglect will inevitably result in a loss of power. The gospel is a record of something that has happened, and uncertainty about the gospel is fatal weakness. Furthermore the historical study of the apostolic age—that age when divine revelation established the great principles of the Church's lif...

Some years ago the world of New Testament scholarship was startled by the conversion of Adolf von Harnack[1] to the traditional view of the authorship of Luke-Acts. The book of Acts, Harnack concluded, was actually written by Luke, a companion of Paul. And what is more, it was written at about A.D. 60, or a little later, near the point of time where the narrative breaks off. Thus with regard to the date of the book the leading representative of modern “liberalism” had become more conservat...

J. Gresham Machen, a prominent and controversial figure of his era, stood out in the ecclesiastical world of the 1920s and 1930s, where few religious leaders commanded as much attention as he did. As a scholar, Professor at Princeton and Westminster Seminaries, church leader, and a staunch advocate for biblical Christianity, Machen emerged as one of the most articulate defenders of the faith in the twentieth century.The compilation "God Transcendent" features Machen's addresses, pr...

The three chapters contained in this book are addresses which J. Gresham Machen broadcast on the radio on the three consecutive Sundays before his death on January 1, 1937.ContentsI. The Doctrine of the AtonementII. The Active Obedience of ChristIII. The Bible and the Cross

Machen's classic defense of orthodox Christianity establishes the importance of scripural doctrine and contrasts the teachings of liberalism and orthodoxy on God and man, the Bible, Christ, salvation, and the church. Though originally published nearly seventy years ago, the book maintains its relevance today.

J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937) was Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary, before leaving in 1929 to establish Westminster Theology Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. Machen was one of the last intellectual defenders of orthodox Christianity in the seemingly triumph of liberalism in the early 20th century.His best-known scholarly work, published in 1921, is "The Origin of Paul's Religion".

In recent years it has become customary to base discussions of the origin of Christianity upon the apostle Paul. Jesus Himself, the author of the Christian movement, wrote nothing—at least no writings of His have been preserved. The record of His words and deeds is the work of others, and the date and authorship and historical value of the documents in which that record is contained are the subject of persistent debate. With regard to the genuineness of the principal epistles of Paul, on t...