Distraction and Declension in the Church

Working through a landmark Machen article, part 10

Though Machen had not yet been excommunicated in 1933, he clearly saw the writing on the wall—he knew his future and that of orthodox Christianity lay beyond the mainline which (to his mind) had already moved on to become something else.

So, in speaking about the responsibility of the Church in the new age, I want it to be distinctly understood that I am not speaking about the responsibility of the existing Protestant church organizations (unless they can be reformed), but about the responsibility of a true Christian Church. The present ecclesiastical organizations may have their uses in the world. There may be a need for such societies of general welfare as some of them have become; there may be a need for the political activities in which they are increasingly engaged: but such functions are certainly not at all the distinctive function of a real Christian Church.

Before the New Deal and World War II, church and church-adjacent organizations delivered many social services that civil governments picked up after the war. Machen did not totally discount the practical value of some of these efforts, but still lamented the way they 1) were often done better by non-ecclesial organizations, and 2) distracted from the real mission of real churches.

Even in the sphere of such worldly functions, I am inclined to think that there are agencies more worthy of your attention than these Protestant church organizations, or than, for example, such an organization as the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America. The trouble is that the gentlemen in control of these organizations are, though with the best and most honorable intentions in the world, in a hopelessly false position. The churches are for the most part creedal; it is on the basis of their creeds that they have in the past appealed, and that to some extent they still appeal, for support; yet the central organizations of the churches have quietly pushed the creeds into the background and have devoted themselves to other activities and a different propaganda. Perhaps in doing so they have accomplished good here and there in a worldly sort of way. But, in general, the false position in which they stand has militated against their highest usefulness. Equivocation, the double use of traditional terminology, subscription to solemn creedal statements in a sense different from the sense originally intended in those statements—these things give a man a poor platform upon which to stand, no matter what it is that he proposes, upon that platform, to do.

In plain language, Machen said that the churches of his day were engaging in evangelical-confessional cosplay to raise funds and placate the normie pewsitters. As long as they maintained a vaguely Christian veneer and vibe the do-gooders could carry on their projects, aided by the credibility of earlier days and running on the fumes of the previously faithful. The respectable mainliners were also helped by their ivy-covered institutions and beloved buildings that eventually became high-maintenance albatrosses when the pews emptied. Many are now derelict a century later—abandoned after the Seven Sisters¹ had abandoned the historic Christian faith in favor of worldly respectability in a “New Age.”

Have evangelicals and confessional protestants learned anything from the demise of the 20th-century mainline? Could faithful churches today (leaning left or right) be convinced that a “New Age” demands reckless ecumenism or political accommodation? Machen will conclude with a picture of “a true Christian Church” and her work.

Read The Responsibility of the Church in Our New Age in full.
Listen to a fine reading of the article (39 minutes) by Bob Tarullo.

Stay tuned for future installments - by Brad Isbell

READ PART 9:

1. “…the term ‘Seven Sisters’ was added to the lexicon of mainline Protestantism.  This narrowed down what denominations fell under the umbrella of mainline Protestantism.  Those ‘sisters’ are the United Methodist Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church, American Baptist Churches, United Church of Christ, and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).” https://fccmelrose.org/2020/02/11/the-mainline-seven-sisters/