The Protestant Prophet: J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism at 100

Can't believe this book is 100 years old. I need to re-read it for sure. I gained a new found respect for another aspect of Machen's life when I learned he loved to climb the mountains of the Swiss Alps, including summitting the Matterhorn. How I would love to do that, but alas, feel like that opportunity has passed me by. I do enjoy visiting the Swiss Alps, which I have done twice, and often think about Machen when I do.

Here is something he wrote regarding his mountain top experiences:

Then there is something else about that view from the Matterhorn. I felt it partly at least as I stood there, and I wonder whether you can feel it with me. It is this. You are standing there not in any ordinary country, but in the very midst of Europe, looking out from its very centre. Germany just beyond where you can see to the northeast, Italy to the south, France beyond those snows of Mont Blanc. There, in that glorious round spread out before you, that land of Europe, humanity has put forth its best. There it has struggled; there it has fallen; there it has looked upward to God. The history of the race seems to pass before you in an instant of time, concentrated in that fairest of all the lands of the earth. You think of the great men whose memories you love, the men who have struggled there in those countries below you, who have struggled for light and freedom, struggled for beauty, struggled above all for God's Word. And then you think of the present and its decadence and its slavery, and you desire to weep. It is a pathetic thing to contemplate the history of mankind.

I know that there are people who tell us contemptuously that always there are croakers who look always to the past, croakers who think that the good old times are the best. But I for my part refuse to acquiesce in this relativism which refuses to take stock of the times in which we are living. It does seem to me that there can never be any true advance, and above all there can never be any true prayer, unless a man does pause occasionally, as on some mountain vantage ground, to try, at least, to evaluate the age in which he is living. And when I do that, I cannot for the life of me see how any man with even the slightest knowledge of history can help recognizing the fact that we are living in a time of sad decadence—a decadence only thinly disguised by the material achievements of our age, which already are beginning to pall on us like a new toy.

I have a 1923 edition of Christianity and Liberalism. I got it about 40 years ago from a retired pastor who at that time was about 85. Doing the math, it’s quite possible he was the original owner.

This book was very eye-opening to me. I really should reread it.

Yeah it’s a great book. For many years Machen has been my favorite author. I recently picked up his shorter works in one volume which I’m looking forward to reading. Here is one short article of his that may wet the appetite of those that have never read him:

https://www.readmachen.com/article/1915/history-and-faith/

Andy, the bio by Stonehouse has some good sections on his mountain climbing if you haven’t read it. That’s one of the things I appreciate about him as well.