Christianity and Humanity—from a Distance

In 1923, a young assistant professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary named J. Gresham Machen published a scathing critique of the worldview animating establishment or "mainline" Protestant Christianity in Europe and America. That worldview, Machen argued in Christianity and Liberalism, consisted in a groveling obeisance to anything claiming to be based on "science." So for instance if "science"—or the habit of mind claiming to be "scientific" that amounted to little more than doctrinaire materialism—insisted that a virgin could not conceive of a child and therefore the Christian doctrine of the virgin birth must be based on a myth, a certain class of Protestant clergy and intellectuals would dutifully drop the doctrine. If "science" denied the possibility of the Resurrection, those same Protestants would figure out a way to jettison the doctrine but keep calling themselves Christians.