Machen’s "Christianity and Culture"
Read 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.
Kevin T. Bauder Bio
This essay is by Dr. Kevin T. Bauder, who serves as Research Professor of Systematic Theology at Central Baptist Theological Seminary (Plymouth, MN). Not every professor, student, or alumnus of Central Seminary necessarily agrees with every opinion that it expresses.
- 126 views
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
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 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.
http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jgmculture.htm Here is a link to Machen’s essay.
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.
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,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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
If we examine the Reformation era, the next age to see serious persecution of Christians, we find the same. The Reformation flourished only where it was protected by the governmental authorities - England, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden. It made less ground in France, and barely touched ruthless Spain. The same holds true for the Anabaptists; they did best outside zones of persecution.
I’m pretty confident 20th century history will reveal the same. Great growth often occurs after the end of persecution, but rarely within it. Christianity fills the cultural void left by the fall of the previous ideology. However, serious doctrinal maturity usually doesn’t come until the Church has greatly affected culture. Our “post-Christian” America is still leading the world in theological precision, and that’s no small thing. The Chinese church, for all its fantastic growth, is a hotbed of heresy. At least, everyone I know who’s worked with it has told me so.
By the way, if you think Van Til is too rationalistic, which Christian philosophers do you approve?
My Blog: http://dearreaderblog.com
Cor meum tibi offero Domine prompte et sincere. ~ John Calvin
As to culture I believe Charlie states a vital truth, namely that where governments secure and maintain freedom of religion and where oppression is absent or quite minimal, Christianity flourishes greatest. This is not to say that in oppression there is not flourishing but that where freedom of religious expression is maintained men and women are much more apt to explore considerations apart from those that are approved by a tyrannical state.
Let me give an example, not so much of the state but of cultural conditioning that contributes to both the reception of the gospel and theological development. Our culture today is experiencing the results of the anti-authoritarian movement of the late 50’s into the early 70’s. As a result our theological perspicacity as a whole has been greatly diminished. Within all circles of Evangelicalism personalities and teachings that once would easily have been recognized as unauthoritative and unorthodox are accepted as reasonable and possible.
Why? Because the understanding of authority, objectivity and reality has been distorted and has made its way into our thinking, our culture. It is considered virtuous to question authority, to be novel, to be different, even though certain standards are tried and true.
So when men and women hear the gospel, the authoritative voice of God, their cultural conditioning will diminish their consideration if not prohibit it all together! After all, if they reject many forms of authority, God is subject to the same rejection.
The fact that so many people, for example, who identify themselves as born again through faith in Christ, tolerate Rob Bell (and it isn’t a scant few) or other personalities/Teachers who depart grossly from Evangelical orthodoxy, is in part due to a demographic that has lost a great deal of objectivity and orientation to authority. Many do not understand authoritative teaching and reject it for the novel because of their cultural conditioning. In fact to sit under strong exegesis and be certain about your beliefs from an exegetical/theological standpoint is to be considered by many as unenlightened.
While it is true that further enlightenment on existing doctrines or areas yet well explored in Scripture await us, such men seek to redefine the very fundamentals of our faith as if such anti-authoritarianism is a virtue.
Another example is the lack of objectivity easily read online by many Christians in many discussions. If you present a grammatical argument and point out where someone is grammatically in error you get lectured about being a school teacher when in fact grammar is the basis of communication and precision in grammar is the beginning of understanding what people are saying. But today, in our anti-authoritarian culture many believers (even here at SI as I have interacted with) simply cannot receive grammatical/exegetical boundaries or arguments because these, fundamentally, represent authoritative boundaries and they are not trained or conditioned to receive them.
In fact, my best guess is that this very argument I just made will bother a number of people because they have issues with this kind of thinking.
[RPittman]I do not think you evaluation of Machen is entirely correct. Here is a quote from his http://homepage.mac.com/shanerosenthal/reformationink/jgmculture.htm essay .
However, I think Machen’s idea is that culture is a factor in acceptance of the Gospel.
In the first place, I do not mean that most men reject Christianity consciously on account of intellectual difficulties. On the contrary, rejection of Christianity is due in the vast majority of cases simply to indifference. Only a few men have given the subject real attention. The vast majority of those who reject the gospel do so simply because they know nothing about it. But whence comes this indifference? It is due to the intellectual atmosphere in which men are living. 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.
[RPittman] I’m not sure that conditioned acceptance of authority, which mimics classical behaviorist conditioning, is what brings us to God. After all, even the Pharisees, who were masters of authoritarianism, were in rejection of God’s authority.I would make a distinction here with regard to the Pharisees, they were masters of the abuse or misuse of authority. In fact, it was they who rejected the divine limits of their authority and imposed, in their rebellion, many illegitimate burdens upon the Jews.
Then, we may quibble about whether authority in the human realm is really authority at all or simply the power to enforce one’s will. There’s no end to the debate.
But to your other point, whether conditioning to accept authority (when I say authority I refer to only valid/legitimate authority) brings us to God, I would say that statement would be too limited in its exclusive form. But I do assert that being taught and conditioned to identity and respond appropriately to the varying forms of authority develops in a person a greater willingness to give a proper and objective hearing to God’s Word (authoritative thought) as an unbeliever seeing that instead of responding irrationally and/or emotionally or in self-aggrandizing arrogance such a person will have developed a capacity and appreciation for authoritative thought and recognize it, in the least. This certainly is not a replacement for the enlightening work of the Spirit of God but it is a human mechanism that can either function as an unnecessary hindrance or a more deliberate path to reception.
Discussion