J Gresham Machen, God's Word Applied to All of Life

First a side note: On some talk I heard Rushdoony quoting from Clark's “Biblical Law” c1943 He said it was worth finding a copy if you could, as it was out of print. It came today, Beth found me a used copy, $10, formerly a public library book! It has the old style library card in the flap, where they stamp the checkout and due date. Now maybe there was an older library card that had been filled up and discarded. This card showed it was checked out once in 1955. The last time anyone thought about reading a commentary on Biblical law was a long time ago.

Last week while reading about the puritans I came across this quote From J. Gresham Machen. He lived at the turn of the last century. Previously I had heard Douglas Wilson comment that when Machen was writing and speaking like this early in the 1900's almost nobody knew what he was talking about.

…Furthermore, the field of Christianity is the world. 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 thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order to be made useful in advancing the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively. The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ, but also the whole of man… 1913 J Gresham Machen

Now I was curious about the context that this quote came from so I googled it and as I read it I thought, we have just been talking about this during comment and question time at Legacy and on some of these emails. He makes many of the same observations that we make today. What he warned about sounded bad, but boy if he could see us today! We are now neck deep past what he noted. Here are some tidbits to prime the pump, bringing Christ to the culture and men to Christ, how he thinks it should be hand in hand….

…Our whole system of school and college education is so constituted as to keep religion and culture as far apart as possible and ignore the question of the relationship between them. On five or six days in the week, we were engaged in the acquisition of knowledge. From this activity the study of religion was banished. We studied natural science without considering its bearing or lack of bearing upon natural theology or upon revelation. We studied Greek without opening the New Testament. We studied history with careful avoidance of that greatest of historical movements which was ushered in by the preaching of Jesus. In philosophy, the vital importance of the study for religion could not entirely be concealed, but it was kept as far as possible in the background…

…What wonder that after such training we came to regard religion and culture as belonging to two entirely separate compartments of the soul,…

The real difficulty amounts to this—that the thought of the day, as it makes itself most strongly felt in the universities, but from them spreads inevitably to the masses of the people, is profoundly opposed to Christianity, or at least—what is nearly as bad—it is out of all connection with Christianity.

The Church is unable either to combat it or to assimilate it, because the Church simply does not understand it…

The modern world is dominated by ideas which ignore the gospel. Modern culture is not altogether opposed to the gospel. But it is out of all connection with it. It not only prevents the acceptance of Christianity. It prevents Christianity even from getting a hearing….

God may, it is true, overcome all intellectual obstacles by an immediate exercise of His regenerative power. Sometimes He does. But He does so very seldom. Usually He exerts His power in connection with certain conditions of the human mind. Usually He does not bring into the Kingdom, entirely without preparation, those whose mind and fancy are completely dominated by ideas which make the acceptance of the gospel logically impossible… (David notes: this is also my experience)

The Church is puzzled by the world's indifference. She is trying to overcome it by adapting her message to the fashions of the day. (David notes: Of course today we have this down to a science)

There has been a bit of a gap since the puritans . But Praise God there are many now who not only understand but are pressing forward the crown rights of king Jesus all over.

The speech was called, Christianity And Culture, find it here by J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)