Theological Liberalism

“In a time when the political, religious, and cultural challenges strikingly parallel those of Machen’s day, his arguments and actions offer us a set of timeless and timely insights. We would all do well to observe them.” - Public Discourse

“Mainline clergy are more supportive than their congregants of LGBTQ rights, more likely to have opposed the overturn of Roe v. Wade and less likely to believe America is in danger of losing its culture and identity.” - RNS

“It’s the 100th anniversary of J. Gresham Machen’s classic work. It didn’t change American Presbyterianism but should have. Was he just ahead of his time?” - Acton

“Ligonier’s one-hundredth anniversary edition of [J. Gresham Machen’s] classic book, Christianity and Liberalism, shows a new generation that God’s message of salvation is timeless.” - Ligonier

“Olson’s thesis is ‘that liberal Christianity has cut the cord of continuity with the Christian past, orthodoxy, so thoroughly that it ought to be considered a different religion.’” - CToday

“In this book I repeat, but with updated information and insight, J. Gresham Machen’s conclusion in his classic book ‘Christianity and Liberalism’ that was published in 1923. In a way, my book is a centenary celebration of his book but filling in the gap of a century between that book and mine” - Olson

“For as much as Fosdick thought of himself as irenic, moderate, and peace-loving, one doesn’t entitle a sermon ‘Shall the Fundamentalists Win?’ without meaning to pick a fight.” - Kevin DeYoung

“I gladly admit that I am simply bewildered whenever I meet someone who claims to be an evangelical Christianity but rejects substitutionary atonement as the latter is so intrinsically tied in with the former—historically and theologically.” - Roger Olson

“ ‘Liberal Christianity,’ however, IS a tradition and has its prototypes, its theological leaders speaking for it over the past two centuries. What are its hallmarks? First, possibly foremost, a naturalistic theism, belief in a God who does not intervene supernaturally in history or nature.” - Roger Olson

“Americans may need to get used to this kind of syncretism, which is not at all unusual among United Methodists, other mainline Protestants, and liberal Catholics. Because now that progressives are in political power and evangelicalism is discredited for its alliance with Donald Trump, liberal Christianity might be coming back into vogue.” - Veith