Machen’s "Christianity and Culture"

NickImageRead Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

False ideas are the greatest obstacles to the reception of the gospel. We may preach with all the fervor of a reformer and yet succeed only in winning a straggler here and there, if we permit the whole collective thought of the nation or of the world to be controlled by ideas which, by the resistless force of logic, prevent Christianity from being regarded as anything more than a harmless delusion. Under such circumstances, what God desires us to do is to destroy the obstacle at its root.

—J. Gresham Machen in “Christianity and Culture”

Contemporary discussions of Christianity and culture almost always begin with an analysis of the “ideal types” that H. Richard Niebuhr developed in Christ and Culture. So prominent have Niebuhr’s categories become that one might overlook the fact that Christians were writing and thinking about culture for a very long time before Niebuhr came along. One writer who contributed to this discussion was J. Gresham Machen.

Machen’s essay on “Christianity and Culture” was one of his earliest published works (Princeton Theological Review 11 [1913]). It built upon a lecture that Machen had delivered on two earlier occasions: “The Scientific Preparation of the Minister.” It is decades older than Niebuhr’s work, and it also antedates Machen’s acquaintance with Cornelius Van Til. It cannot be accused of Kuyperian “neo-Calvinism,” but most likely reflects the influences of William Park Armstrong, Machen’s mentor at Princeton.

When Machen wrote about culture, he meant primarily high culture: the arts and sciences, poetry, philosophy, and the like. His special focus was upon academic culture, i.e., the cultivation of the intellect and the life of the mind. The specific problem that the essay addressed was the gap between piety and knowledge, or between what Machen called the “practical tendency” and the “scientific or academic tendency.” As he saw it, every Christian wrestles with the balance between two activities: the acquisition of knowledge and the inculcation of faith.

According to Machen, people attempt to strike this balance in two ways. Some wish to subordinate Christianity to culture. Others try to destroy culture (or at least treat it with indifference) in the interest of faith. While Machen did not say so in his essay, the first approach is one that he later identified with religious liberalism. The second is the tendency that he saw in fundamentalism.

The problem with subordinating Christianity to culture is that it eliminates the supernatural and reduces Christianity to the level of a merely human product. In other words, Christianity becomes nothing but an aspect of human culture. On Machen’s view, this approach was incompatible with revealed religion, supernatural authority, and, indeed, with the gospel itself.

Destroying or ignoring culture, however, amounted to obscurantism. For Machen, Christianity could never be upheld by ignoring evidence. If a real conflict could be discovered between reason and Christianity, then Christianity would have to be abandoned or at least modified (here Machen’s difference with Van Til is significant). Even if the faith were not at stake, culture would still be worth pursuing. Machen believed that both the intellectual and aesthetic capacities come from God. These capacities were created to be used. Scripture displays no lack of appreciation for them.

For Machen, neither conceding to culture nor ignoring it could bring the proper balance to Christianity. Instead, he proposed a third alternative: the consecration of culture. Machen insisted that Christians ought to cultivate the arts and sciences “with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist,” but they ought to do so to the service of God. Such a program of cultivation is necessary because Christianity faces a real danger if it allows any sphere of human activity to continue opposed to, or even disconnected from, Christian understanding.

According to Machen, culture exerts a definite influence upon the human mind. What we receive from culture conditions the mind toward either the acceptance or the rejection of the gospel. If the collective thought of society is dominated by ideas that prevent Christianity from being taken seriously, then even the best preaching will produce only meager results. Christians cannot permit that to happen. For Machen, the only solution was to confront false thinking at its sources, to truncate its influence before it was able to reach the popular mind. In this sense, it turns out that Machen did believe in the destruction of culture.

For Machen, the difference between these three approaches was more than theoretical. He had already provided an example of his approach in his earliest articles, published while he was a student at Princeton (“The New Testament Account of the Birth of Jesus,” first and second articles, in Princeton Theological Review 3 and 4 [1905-1906]). There he examined the New Testament accounts of the virgin birth of Christ, not as theological statements, but as historical narratives. He asked whether the narratives should be seen as factual or as mythical.

Machen recognized that Christians had a powerful incentive to defend the virgin birth because it was a fundamental fact of the Christian faith. Though he might have been expected to argue backward from theological necessity to the historical actuality of the virgin birth, he did exactly the opposite. Theology, he said, depends at least partly on the historicity of the events. Interestingly, he admitted that the historical evidence for the virgin birth of Christ is not conclusive. Therefore, a decision about the historicity of the virgin birth hinges upon one’s prior conclusions regarding the possibility of miracles in general. If one begins by dismissing the possibility of miracles, then the narratives of Jesus’ birth will be unconvincing. If, however, one begins with a prior belief in the miracle of Jesus’ resurrection, then one will find the evidence against the mythological interpretation of Jesus’ birth to be insurmountable.

This was a surprisingly modest conclusion, and it indicates his reluctance to retreat from a serious confrontation with the evidence into a faith that neglected the concerns of intellectual culture. His subsequent study in the German universities further illustrates this commitment. There he was taught by cultured intellectuals who challenged the historical and factual nature of Christian affirmations. He refused to shrink from the honest examination of the evidence, even when he understood that Christianity itself was at stake. For Machen, intellectual dishonesty was a greater sin than unbelief.

In sum, Machen believed that culture (understood in the sense of high culture) was extremely important. The categories that one received from one’s culture either enabled or disabled the understanding of biblical Christianity. Consequently, culture was far too vital simply to be ignored, and it could not be destroyed without doing injustice to our humanity. On the other hand, culture was not simply to be given the final word. Where culture enabled a right understanding of Christianity, it had to be nourished and fostered. Where culture challenged Christianity, its claims had to be faced squarely. If Christianity was to maintain its plausibility, then the possibility of its claims had to be vindicated.

Machen believed that at least some Christians had to be persons of culture—including the culture of high learning. This duty arose partly because intellectual and cultural abilities are gifts of God, valuable in their own right. More than that, persons of culture would be necessary to nourish culture where it was true or to overthrow it where it was false. The neglect of culture, however, constituted a sin for which Machen exhibited little patience.

Eucharistic Prayer B
The Book of Common Prayer

We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation; in the calling of Israel to be your people; in your Word spoken through the prophets; and above all in the Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son. For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world. In him, you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you. In him, you have brought us out of error into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.

Discussion

I understand the need for Christians to be culturally involved. However,it seems to me that the current trend is a lot more about culture and a lot less about Christ. Don’t you think that covenant theology is what is driving a lot more of this push? Dispensationalists don’t have the obligations to turn the present world in to a theocracy in order to be “successful”. We can easily end up tilting at cultural “windmills” without really being able to accomplish anything of substance. It is not often productive to say much about culture unless you can do something about it.

Machen’s point is that disengaging from culture fortifies the windmill. Having taken that path, here we are, tilting anyway.

Steve,

It appears that you do not understand Covenant Theology very well. Very few adherents of CT are Theonomists. CT is not endeavoring to “Christianize” the culture, or to bring in the reign of Christ. That sounds more like Post-millenialism.

Cordially,

Greg Barkman

G. N. Barkman

I think it’s important to remember that liberalism is a theology of subtraction. It reduces the supernatural to the natural, it sublimates the transcendent into the immanent. So, the social impulse of liberalism isn’t foreign to Christianity. It’s what was left of Christianity after being vitiated by materialism and post-Kantian philosophy. What makes liberalism liberalism, then, isn’t the social emphasis; it’s the absence of orthodoxy. Fight the absence, not the only remaining good part.

The cultural/social impulse is the birthright of orthodox Christianity. I implore you, don’t sell your birthright.

My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com

Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin

I remember arriving at an idea sort of like this as an adolescent. Felt the need to come up with a justification for Christians to care about the condition of the society they lived in. At the time, it made sense to me that if you want people to see the light clearly, you should try to get the smog out of the air.

I later rejected the idea because it no longer seemed likely to me that a culture would be the means God uses to draw people to Himself.

In the first century, immorality was rampant, polytheism was normal, dissent from Roman religion was strongly discouraged, etc. Yet the church flourished as enormous numbers of people believed.

It’s interesting that Kevin doesn’t breathe a word here as to whether or not he agrees with Machen or to what extent on what points, etc. I’d love to know.

What biblical evidence do we have of Machen’s thesis?

Of course, God is able to use any means He chooses to bring people to faith, in large or small numbers. But given the centrality of preaching the gospel—both in Scripture and in our own traditions—I wonder how Machen is able to attach so much power to culture in the redemption of human beings.

Or have I misunderstood his idea?

And how does his idea fit the whole concept of presuppositional apologetics?

I’d love to be able to agree with Machen but I don’t see how I can.

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

Aaron, these are very good ideas for us to think through. I have a few questions to add into the mix. Why is it that the gospel is more readily accepted in one culture over another? For example, many missionaries speak of great openness to the gospel in parts of Asia while many missionaries speak of great difficulty in sharing the gospel in parts of Europe. How does one account for these differences? Is it possible for one culture to be more or less hardened to the gospel?

http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jgmculture.htm Here is a link to Machen’s essay.

Aaron,

To be clear, I hope you’re not suggesting that the early church supports your thesis. The early church was extensively involved in what we would today call social justice, and that was a significant part of their appeal. See Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity, for data on the growth of the early church and what accounted for it.

And wouldn’t Stark project the LDS model to be the most appealing and successful in America in the days ahead?

The LDS model is remarkable: (1) high emphasis on cultivating the mind, very academic, well educated and (2) high emphasis on industry, giving, meeting social needs, church welfare.

We also have an LDS man who desires to start leading the American nation in 2012 toward conservative utopia.

What more can we ask of our friends?

[Joseph] Aaron,

To be clear, I hope you’re not suggesting that the early church supports your thesis. The early church was extensively involved in what we would today call social justice, and that was a significant part of their appeal. See Rodney Stark’s The Rise of Christianity, for data on the growth of the early church and what accounted for it.
No, I’d be closer to saying that the cultural environment the early church thrived in leads me to wonder whether the “Christianness” of the culture is really much of a factor in responsiveness to the gospel.

I don’t even want to get started here on “social justice.” (Off topic, but, why is it that we now feel the need to attach “social” to justice when all Christians cared about for many centuries was good ol’ justice?)

Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.

[Aaron Blumer]

I later rejected the idea because it no longer seemed likely to me that a culture would be the means God uses to draw people to Himself.

In the first century, immorality was rampant, polytheism was normal, dissent from Roman religion was strongly discouraged, etc. Yet the church flourished as enormous numbers of people believed.
I was reading recently, I think (but am not sure) in Wilken’s The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, that current estimates of the rise of Christianity put the largest increases in the 3rd and following centuries, that is, after they had achieved cultural supremacy.

My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com

Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin

[Kevin Bauder] Where culture enabled a right understanding of Christianity, it had to be nourished and fostered. Where culture challenged Christianity, its claims had to be faced squarely. If Christianity was to maintain its plausibility, then the possibility of its claims had to be vindicated.
This seems to be the approach of the early church apologists. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf01.ix.i.html Against Heresies by Irenaeus is a great example of squarely facing the claims of a pagan culture that was being mixed with Christianity. I believe one of the main reasons for the success of the early church was they took a similar approach to culture that Machen is advocating.

Why are we looking for natural causes of a supernatural working? Have we forgotten about God’s sovereignty and His building of His church. Scripture specifically states that “… the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved (Acts 2:47).” If you need a more natural, human motivation, then perhaps it was the miracles done by the Apostles because “… great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things. And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them. And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.) (Acts 5:11-14)” Somehow, I just don’t see the cultural thing at all.

[Bauder] Destroying or ignoring culture, however, amounted to obscurantism. For Machen, Christianity could never be upheld by ignoring evidence. If a real conflict could be discovered between reason and Christianity, then Christianity would have to be abandoned or at least modified [emphasis added] (here Machen’s difference with Van Til is significant). Even if the faith were not at stake, culture would still be worth pursuing. Machen believed that both the intellectual and aesthetic capacities come from God. These capacities were created to be used. Scripture displays no lack of appreciation for them.

For Machen, neither conceding to culture nor ignoring it could bring the proper balance to Christianity. Instead, he proposed a third alternative: the consecration of culture. Machen insisted that Christians ought to cultivate the arts and sciences “with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist,” but they ought to do so to the service of God. Such a program of cultivation is necessary because Christianity faces a real danger if it allows any sphere of human activity to continue opposed to, or even disconnected from, Christian understanding.
Like us, Machen was a child of his times. He was a stalwart soldier for orthodoxy, although we can observe a few chinks in his armor. Machen, like other orthodox theologians of his era, used his academic training and rationalism to defend the faith. Even so, Machen placed reason above faith and revelation (see emphasized quote above), perhaps naively believing that faith could always be justified by reason. Remember that he lived in an age of rationalistic euphoria and scientific optimism.

None-the-less, Machen has left a hole in the dike he built. The predominance of reason is the inducement that modern conservative evangelical theologians working in a rationalistic-academic environment have found to return to some form of theistic evolution. Even some of the Princeton theologians held theistic evolutionary views.

Rationalism assumes that everything is knowable and understandable by man’s reason. Machen, evidently, bought well into this concept. The Biblical teaching, however, is that man’s knowledge is not exhaustive (Deuteronomy 29:29), his understanding is limited (Isaiah 55:8-9), and revelation is the only sure means of truth (1 Corinthians 2:10-14). Thus, reason alone is insufficient lacking three essentials—data, comprehension, and verification. Realizing our rational limitations, it is reasonable to conclude that we must accept some things by faith based upon revelation. Orthodox rationalists are constantly looking for explanations to bolster their faith. Some things we don’t know and can’t explain.

Miracles place orthodox rationalists in a dilemma. As orthodox, they must believe them and as rationalists, they must explain them. A miracle that can be explained by natural means is no miracle—it is only a natural phenomena whose cause is obscured. Whereas some will argue that God used natural means to perform miracles, it will be noted a supernatural influence controlled the natural phenomenon. Furthermore, there are miracles that are clearly outside the use of natural processes (e.g. feeding of the four thousand, raising Lazarus from the dead, etc.). The greatest miracle of all is the Virgin Birth. Some have tried to explain it by parthenogenesis, which is unacceptable to both sides.

Van Til is closer to the truth with his presuppositionalism, but he somewhat follows rationalism after postulating his presuppositions, even though he knew our knowledge and thinking is analogical to God’s knowledge and thoughts. At best, “… we see through a glass, darkly … (1 Corinthians 13:12).”

Having said so much, my point is simply that we must buy into Machen’s view of reason and faith before his view of culture becomes persuasive for us. This view, IMHO, is an antiquated view from the Orthodoxy v. Liberalism war and is no longer suited for current struggles with Post-Modernism, materialism, pluralism, etc. Culture is important for Christians but it portends either to good or evil. Thus, it is always a point of tension for Christianity.

[Bauder] In sum, Machen believed that culture (understood in the sense of high culture) was extremely important. The categories that one received from one’s culture either enabled or disabled the understanding of biblical Christianity. Consequently, culture was far too vital simply to be ignored, and it could not be destroyed without doing injustice to our humanity. On the other hand, culture was not simply to be given the final word. Where culture enabled a right understanding of Christianity, it had to be nourished and fostered. Where culture challenged Christianity, its claims had to be faced squarely. If Christianity was to maintain its plausibility, then the possibility of its claims had to be vindicated.
This is a very interesting proposition. There is no better place to test it than the mission field. In bygone generations, missionaries sought to westernize the native cultures to a style fostering Christianity. This fell out of vogue when it was characterized as subversive. Today, missionaries try to speak the Gospel through the native culture. Should missionaries try to change the native culture? In light of the highlighted statement, what is the best approach?

[Aaron Blumer] I remember arriving at an idea sort of like this as an adolescent. Felt the need to come up with a justification for Christians to care about the condition of the society they lived in. At the time, it made sense to me that if you want people to see the light clearly, you should try to get the smog out of the air.

I later rejected the idea because it no longer seemed likely to me that a culture would be the means God uses to draw people to Himself.

In the first century, immorality was rampant, polytheism was normal, dissent from Roman religion was strongly discouraged, etc. Yet the church flourished as enormous numbers of people believed.

It’s interesting that Kevin doesn’t breathe a word here as to whether or not he agrees with Machen or to what extent on what points, etc. I’d love to know.

What biblical evidence do we have of Machen’s thesis?

Of course, God is able to use any means He chooses to bring people to faith, in large or small numbers. But given the centrality of preaching the gospel—both in Scripture and in our own traditions—I wonder how Machen is able to attach so much power to culture in the redemption of human beings.

Or have I misunderstood his idea?

And how does his idea fit the whole concept of presuppositional apologetics?

I’d love to be able to agree with Machen but I don’t see how I can.
Have you compared the state of the modern church in the supposedly Christian culture of the West to the church in the totalitarian atheistic culture of the former Soviet Bloc countries and the Far Eastern culture of Communist China? A casual perusal of history would seem to indicate that Christianity thrives in alien cultures even in face of open opposition and adversity. Machen’s view, I think, are attributable more to his academic-rationalistic worldview than his Biblical understanding.