Christianity And Culture
by
J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937)
THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW,
Vol. 11, 1913
One of the greatest of the problems that
have agitated the Church is the problem of the relation between
knowledge and piety, between culture and Christianity. This problem
has appeared first of all in the presence of two tendencies in
the Church—the scientific or academic tendency, and what
may be called the practical tendency. Some men have devoted themselves
chiefly to the task of forming right conceptions as to Christianity
and its foundations. To them no fact, however trivial, has appeared
worthy of neglect; by them truth has been cherished for its own
sake, without immediate reference to practical consequences. Some,
on the other hand, have emphasized the essential simplicity of
the gospel. The world is lying in misery, we ourselves are sinners,
men are perishing in sin every day. The gospel is the sole means
of escape; let us preach it to the world while yet we may. So
desperate is the need that we have no time to engage in vain babblings
or old wives' fables. While we are discussing the exact location
of the churches of Galatia, men are perishing under the curse
of the law; while we are settling the date of Jesus' birth, the
world is doing without its Christmas message.
The representatives of both of
these tendencies regard themselves as Christians, but too often
there is little brotherly feeling between them. The Christian
of academic tastes accuses his brother of undue emotionalism,
of shallow argumentation, of cheap methods of work. On the other
hand, your practical man is ever loud in his denunciation of academic indifference to the
dire needs of humanity. The scholar is represented either as a
dangerous disseminator of doubt, or else as a man whose faith
is a faith without works. A man who investigates human sin and
the grace of God by the aid solely of dusty volumes, carefully
secluded in a warm and comfortable study, without a thought of
the men who are perishing in misery every day!
But if the problem appears thus
in the presence of different tendencies in the Church, it becomes
yet far more insistent within the consciousness of the individual.
If we are thoughtful, we must see that the desire to know and
the desire to be saved are widely different. The scholar must
apparently assume the attitude of an impartial observer—an
attitude which seems absolutely impossible to the pious Christian
laying hold upon Jesus as the only Saviour from the load of sin.
If these two activities—on the one hand the acquisition of
knowledge, and on the other the exercise and inculcation of simple
faith—are both to be given a place in our lives, the question
of their proper relationship cannot be ignored.
The problem is made for us the
more difficult of solution because we are unprepared for it. Our
whole system of school and college education is so constituted
as to keep religion and culture as far apart as possible and ignore
the question of the relationship between them. On five or six
days in the week, we were engaged in the acquisition of knowledge.
From this activity the study of religion was banished. We studied
natural science without considering its bearing or lack of bearing
upon natural theology or upon revelation. We studied Greek without
opening the New Testament. We studied history with careful avoidance
of that greatest of historical movements which was ushered in
by the preaching of Jesus. In philosophy, the vital importance
of the study for religion could not entirely be concealed, but
it was kept as far as possible in the background. On Sundays,
on the other hand, we had religious instruction that called for
little exercise of the intellect.
Careful preparation for Sunday-school
lessons as for lessons in mathematics or Latin was unknown. Religion
seemed to be something that had to do only with the emotions and
the will, leaving the intellect to secular studies. What wonder
that after such training we came to regard religion and culture
as belonging to two entirely separate compartments of the soul,
and their union as involving the destruction of both?
Upon entering the Seminary, we
are suddenly introduced to an entirely different procedure. Religion
is suddenly removed from its seclusion; the same methods of study
are applied to it as were formerly reserved for natural science
and for history. We study the Bible no longer solely with the
desire of moral and spiritual improvement, but also in order to
know. Perhaps the first impression is one of infinite loss. The
scientific spirit seems to be replacing simple faith, the mere
apprehension of dead facts to be replacing the practice of principles.
The difficulty is perhaps not so much that we are brought face
to face with new doubts as to the truth of Christianity. Rather
is it the conflict of method, of spirit that troubles us. The
scientific spirit seems to be incompatible with the old spirit
of simple faith. In short, almost entirely unprepared, we are
brought face to face with the problem of the relationship between
knowledge and piety, or, otherwise expressed, between culture
and Christianity.
This problem may be settled in
one of three ways. In the first place, Christianity may be subordinated
to culture. That solution really, though to some extent unconsciously,
is being favored by a very large and influential portion of the
Church today. For the elimination of the supernatural in Christianity—so
tremendously common today—really makes Christianity merely
natural. Christianity becomes a human product, a mere part of
human culture. But as such it is something entirely different
from the old Christianity that was based upon a direct revelation
from God. Deprived thus of its note of authority, the gospel is
no gospel any longer; it is a check
for untold millions—but without the signature at the bottom.
So in subordinating Christianity to culture we have really destroyed
Christianity, and what continues to bear the old name is a counterfeit.
The second solution goes to the
opposite extreme. In its effort to give religion a clear field,
it seeks to destroy culture. This solution is better than the
first. Instead of indulging in a shallow optimism or deification
of humanity, it recognizes the profound evil of the world, and
does not shrink from the most heroic remedy. The world is so evil
that it cannot possibly produce the means for its own salvation.
Salvation must be the gift of an entirely new life, coming directly
from God. Therefore, it is argued, the culture of this world must
be a matter at least of indifference to the Christian. Now in
its extreme form this solution hardly requires refutation. If
Christianity is really found to contradict that reason which is
our only means of apprehending truth, then of course we must either
modify or abandon Christianity. We cannot therefore be entirely
independent of the achievements of the intellect. Furthermore,
we cannot without inconsistency employ the printing-press, the
railroad, the telegraph in the propagation of our gospel, and
at the same time denounce as evil those activities of the human
mind that produced these things. And in the production of these
things not merely practical inventive genius had a part, but also,
back of that, the investigations of pure science animated simply
by the desire to know. In its extreme form, therefore, involving
the abandonment of all intellectual activity, this second solution
would be adopted by none of us. But very many pious men in the
Church today are adopting this solution in essence and in spirit.
They admit that the Christian must have a part in human culture.
But they regard such activity as a necessary evil—a dangerous
and unworthy task necessary to be gone through with under a stern
sense of duty in order that thereby the higher ends of the gospel
may be attained. Such men can never engage in the arts and sciences with anything like
enthusiasm—such enthusiasm they would regard as disloyalty
to the gospel. Such a position is really both illogical and unbiblical.
God has given us certain powers of mind, and has implanted within
us the ineradicable conviction that these powers were intended
to be exercised. The Bible, too, contains poetry that exhibits
no lack of enthusiasm, no lack of a keen appreciation of beauty.
With this second solution of the problem we cannot rest content.
Despite all we can do, the desire to know and the love of beauty
cannot be entirely stifled, and we cannot permanently regard these
desires as evil.
Are then Christianity and culture
in a conflict that is to be settled only by the destruction of
one or the other of the contending forces? A third solution, fortunately,
is possible—namely consecration. Instead of destroying the
arts and sciences or being indifferent to them, let us cultivate
them with all the enthusiasm of the veriest humanist, but at the
same time consecrate them to the service of our God. Instead of
stifling the pleasures afforded by the acquisition of knowledge
or by the appreciation of what is beautiful, let us accept these
pleasures as the gifts of a heavenly Father. Instead of obliterating
the distinction between the Kingdom and the world, or on the other
hand withdrawing from the world into a sort of modernized intellectual
monasticism, let us go forth joyfully, enthusiastically to make
the world subject to God.
Certain obvious advantages are
connected with such a solution of the problem. In the first place,
a logical advantage. A man can believe only what he holds to be
true. We are Christians because we hold Christianity to be true.
But other men hold Christianity to be false. Who is right? That
question can be settled only by an examination and comparison
of the reasons adduced on both sides. It is true, one of the grounds
for our belief is an inward experience that we cannot share—the
great experience begun by conviction of sin and conversion and
continued by communion with God—an experience which other
men do not possess, and upon which, therefore,
we cannot directly base an argument. But if our position is correct,
we ought at least to be able to show the other man that his reasons
may be inconclusive. And that involves careful study of both sides
of the question. Furthermore, the field of Christianity is the
world. The Christian cannot be satisfied so long as any human
activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection
with Christianity. Christianity must pervade not merely all nations,
but also all of human thought. The Christian, therefore, cannot
be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must
all be brought into some relation to the gospel. It must be studied
either in order to be demonstrated as false, or else in order
to be made useful in advancing the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom
must be advanced not merely extensively, but also intensively.
The Church must seek to conquer not merely every man for Christ,
but also the whole of man. We are accustomed to encourage ourselves
in our discouragements by the thought of the time when every knee
shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. No less
inspiring is the other aspect of that same great consummation.
That will also be a time when doubts have disappeared, when every
contradiction has been removed, when all of science converges
to one great conviction, when all of art is devoted to one great
end, when all of human thinking is permeated by the refining,
ennobling influence of Jesus, when every thought has been brought
into subjection to the obedience of Christ.
If to some of our practical men,
these advantages of our solution of the problem seem to be intangible,
we can point to the merely numerical advantage of intellectual
and artistic activity within the Church. We are all agreed that
at least one great function of the Church is the conversion of
individual men. The missionary movement is the great religious
movement of our day. Now it is perfectly true that men must be
brought to Christ one by one. There are no labor-saving devices
in evangelism. It is all hard-work.
And yet it would be a great
mistake to suppose that all men are equally well prepared to receive
the gospel. It is true that the decisive thing is the regenerative
power of God. That can overcome all lack of preparation, and the
absence of that makes even the best preparation useless. But as
a matter of fact God usually exerts that power in connection with
certain prior conditions of the human mind, and it should be ours
to create, so far as we can, with the help of God, those favorable
conditions for the reception of the gospel. 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. Many would have the seminaries combat
error by attacking it as it is taught by its popular exponents.
Instead of that they confuse their students with a lot of German
names unknown outside the walls of the universities. That method
of procedure is based simply upon a profound belief in the pervasiveness
of ideas. What is today matter of academic speculation begins
tomorrow to move armies and pull down empires. In that second
stage, it has gone too far to be combatted; the time to stop it
was when it was still a matter of impassionate debate. So as Christians
we should try to mold the thought of the world in such a way as
to make the acceptance of Christianity something more than a logical
absurdity. Thoughtful men are wondering why the students of our
great Eastern universities no longer enter the ministry or display
any very vital interest in Christianity. Various totally inadequate
explanations are proposed, such as the increasing attractiveness
of other professions—an absurd explanation, by the way, since
other professions are becoming so over-crowded that a man can barely make a living in them.
The real difficulty amounts to this—that the thought of the
day, as it makes itself most strongly felt in the universities,
but from them spreads inevitably to the masses of the people,
is profoundly opposed to Christianity, or at least—what is
nearly as bad—it is out of all connection with Christianity.
The Church is unable either to combat it or to assimilate it,
because the Church simply does not understand it. Under such circumstances,
what more pressing duty than for those who have received the mighty
experience of regeneration, who. therefore, do not, like the world,
neglect that whole series of vitally relevant facts which is embraced
in Christian experience—what more pressing duty than for
these men to make themselves masters of the thought of the world
in order to make it an instrument of truth instead of error? The
Church has no right to be so absorbed in helping the individual
that she forgets the world.
There are two objections to our
solution of the problem. If you bring culture and Christianity
thus into close union—in the first place, will not Christianity
destroy culture? Must not art and science be independent in order
to flourish? We answer that it all depends upon the nature of
their dependence. Subjection to any external authority or even
to any human authority would be fatal to art and science. But
subjection to God is entirely different. Dedication of human powers
to God is found, as a matter of fact, not to destroy but to heighten
them. God gave those powers. He understands them well enough not
bunglingly to destroy His own gifts. In the second place, will
not culture destroy Christianity? Is it not far easier to be an
earnest Christian if you confine your attention to the Bible and
do not risk being led astray by the thought of the world? We answer,
of course it is easier. Shut yourself up in an intellectual monastery,
do not disturb yourself with the thoughts of unregenerate men,
and of course you will find it easier to be a Christian, just
as it is easier to be a good soldier in comfortable winter quarters
than it is on the field of battle. You save your own soul—but
the Lord's enemies remain in possession of the field.
But by whom is this task of transforming
the unwieldy, resisting mass of human thought until it becomes
subservient to the gospel—by whom is this task to be accomplished?
To some extent, no doubt, by professors in theological seminaries
and universities. But the ordinary minister of the gospel cannot
shirk his responsibility. It is a great mistake to suppose that
investigation can successfully be carried on by a few specialists
whose work is of interest to nobody but themselves. Many men of
many minds are needed. What we need first of all, especially in
our American churches, is a more general interest in the problems
of theological science. Without that, the specialist is without
the stimulating atmosphere which nerves him to do his work.
But no matter what his station
in life, the scholar must be a regenerated man—he must yield
to no one in the intensity and depth of his religious experience.
We are well supplied in the world with excellent scholars who
are without that qualification. They are doing useful work in
detail, in Biblical philology, in exegesis, in Biblical theology,
and in other branches of study. But they are not accomplishing
the great task, they are not assimilating modern thought to Christianity,
because they are without that experience of God's power in the
soul which is of the essence of Christianity. They have only one
side for the comparison. Modern thought they know, but Christianity
is really foreign to them. It is just that great inward experience
which it is the function of the true Christian scholar to bring
into some sort of connection with the thought of the world.
During the last thirty years there
has been a tremendous defection from the Christian Church. It
is evidenced even by things that lie on the surface. For example,
by the decline in church attendance and in Sabbath observance
and in the number of candidates for the ministry. Special explanations, it is true,
are sometimes given for these discouraging tendencies. But why
should we deceive ourselves, why comfort ourselves by palliative
explanations? Let us face the facts. The falling off in church
attendance, the neglect of Sabbath observance—these things
are simply surface indications of a decline in the power of Christianity.
Christianity is exerting a far less powerful direct influence
in the civilized world today than it was exerting thirty years
ago.
What is the cause of this tremendous
defection? For my part, I have little hesitation in saying that
it lies chiefly in the intellectual sphere. Men do not accept
Christianity because they can no longer be convinced that Christianity
is true. It may be useful, but is it true? Other explanations,
of course, are given. The modern defection from the Church is
explained by the practical materialism of the age. Men are so
much engrossed in making money that they have no time for spiritual
things. That explanation has a certain range of validity. But
its range is limited. It applies perhaps to the boom towns of
the West, where men are intoxicated by sudden possibilities of
boundless wealth. But the defection from Christianity is far broader
than that. It is felt in the settled countries of Europe even
more strongly than in America. It is felt among the poor just
as strongly as among the rich. Finally it is felt most strongly
of all in the universities, and that is only one indication more
that the true cause of the defection is intellectual. To a very
large extent, the students of our great Eastern universities—and
still more the universities of Europe—are not Christians.
And they are not Christians often just because they are students.
The thought of the day, as it makes itself most strongly felt
in the universities, is profoundly opposed to Christianity, or
at least it is out of connection with Christianity. The chief
obstacle to the Christian religion today lies in the sphere of
the intellect.
That assertion must be guarded
against two misconceptions. 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.
In the second place, I do not
mean that the removal of intellectual objections will make a man
a Christian. No conversion was ever wrought simply by argument.
A change of heart is also necessary. And that can be wrought only
by the immediate exercise of the power of God. But because intellectual
labor is insufficient it does not follow. as is so often assumed,
that it is unnecessary. God may, it is true, overcome all intellectual
obstacles by an immediate exercise of His regenerative power.
Sometimes He does. But He does so very seldom. Usually He exerts
His power in connection with certain conditions of the human mind.
Usually He does not bring into the Kingdom, entirely without preparation,
those whose mind and fancy are completely dominated by ideas which
make the acceptance of the gospel logically impossible.
Modern culture is a tremendous
force. It affects all classes of society. It affects the ignorant
as well as the learned. What is to be done about it? In the first
place the Church may simply withdraw from the conflict. She may
simply allow the mighty stream of modern thought to flow by unheeded
and do her work merely in the back-eddies of the current. There
are still some men in the world who have been unaffected by modern
culture. They may still be won for Christ without
intellectual labor. And they must be won. It is useful, it is
necessary work. If the Church is satisfied with that alone, let
her give up the scientific education of her ministry. Let her
assume the truth of her message and learn simply how it may be
applied in detail to modern industrial and social conditions.
Let her give up the laborious study of Greek and Hebrew. Let her
abandon the scientific study of history to the men of the world.
In a day of increased scientific interest, let the Church go on
becoming less scientific. In a day of increased specialization,
of renewed interest in philology and in history, of more rigorous
scientific method, let the Church go on abandoning her Bible to
her enemies. They will study it scientifically, rest assured,
if the Church does not. Let her substitute sociology altogether
for Hebrew, practical expertness for the proof of her gospel.
Let her shorten the preparation of her ministry, let her permit
it to be interrupted yet more and more by premature practical
activity. By doing so she will win a straggler here and there.
But her winnings will be but temporary. The great current of modern
culture will sooner or later engulf her puny eddy. God will save
her somehow—out of the depths. But the labor of centuries
will have been swept away. God grant that the Church may not resign
herself to that. God grant she may face her problem squarely and
bravely. That problem is not easy. It involves the very basis
of her faith. Christianity is the proclamation of an historical
fact—that Jesus Christ rose from the dead. Modern thought
has no place for that proclamation. It prevents men even from
listening to the message. Yet the culture of today cannot simply
be rejected as a whole. It is not like the pagan culture of the
first century. It is not wholly non-Christian. Much of it has
been derived directly from the Bible. There are significant movements
in it, going to waste, which might well be used for the defence
of the gospel. The situation is complex. Easy wholesale measures
are not in place. Discrimination, investigation is necessary.
Some of modern thought must be refuted.
The rest must be made subservient. But nothing in it can be ignored.
He that is not with us is against us. Modern culture is a mighty
force. It is either subservient to the gospel or else it is the
deadliest enemy of the gospel. For making it subservient, religious
emotion is not enough, intellectual labor is also necessary. And
that labor is being neglected. The Church has turned to easier
tasks. And now she is reaping the fruits of her indolence. Now
she must battle for her life.
The situation is desperate. It
might discourage us. But not if we are truly Christians. Not if
we are living in vital communion with the risen Lord. If we are
really convinced of the truth of our message, then we can proclaim
it before a world of enemies, then the very difficulty of our
task, the very scarcity of our allies becomes an inspiration,
then we can even rejoice that God did not place us in an easy
age, but in a time of doubt and perplexity and battle. Then, too,
we shall not be afraid to call forth other soldiers into the conflict.
Instead of making our theological seminaries merely centres of
religious emotion, we shall make them battle-grounds of the faith,
where, helped a little by the experience of Christian teachers,
men are taught to fight their own battle, where they come to appreciate
the real strength of the adversary and in the hard school of intellectual
struggle learn to substitute for the unthinking faith of childhood
the profound convictions of full-grown men. Let us not fear in
this a loss of spiritual power. The Church is perishing today
through the lack of thinking, not through an excess of it. She
is winning victories in the sphere of material betterment. Such
victories are glorious. God save us from the heartless crime of
disparaging them. They are relieving the misery of men. But if
they stand alone, I fear they are but temporary. The things which
are seen are temporal; the things which are not seen are eternal.
What will become of philanthropy if God be lost? Beneath the surface
of life lies a world of spirit. Philosophers
have attempted to explore it. Christianity has revealed its wonders
to the simple soul. There lie the springs of the Church's power.
But that spiritual realm cannot be entered without controversy.
And now the Church is shrinking from the conflict. Driven from
the spiritual realm by the current of modern thought, she is consoling
herself with things about which there is no dispute. If she favors
better housing for the poor, she need fear no contradiction. She
will need all her courage. she will have enemies enough, God knows.
But they will not fight her with argument. The twentieth century,
in theory, is agreed on social betterment. But sin, and death,
and salvation, and life, and God—about these things there
is debate. You can avoid the debate if you choose. You need only
drift with the current. Preach every Sunday during your Seminary
course, devote the fag ends of your time to study and to thought,
study about as you studied in college—and these questions
will probably never trouble you. The great questions may easily
be avoided. Many preachers are avoiding them. And many preachers
are preaching to the air. The Church is waiting for men of another
type. Men to fight her battles and solve her problems. The hope
of finding them is the one great inspiration of a Seminary's life.
They need not all be men of conspicuous attainments. But they
must all be men of thought. They must fight hard against spiritual
and intellectual indolence. Their thinking may be confined to
narrow limits. But it must be their own. To them theology must
be something more than a task. It must be a matter of inquiry.
It must lead not to successful memorizing, but to genuine convictions.
The Church is puzzled by the world's
indifference. She is trying to overcome it by adapting her message
to the fashions of the day. But if, instead, before the conflict,
she would descend into the secret place of meditation, if by the
clear light of the gospel she would seek an answer not merely
to the questions of the hour but, first of all, to the eternal problems of the spiritual world, then perhaps,
by God's grace, through His good Spirit, in His good time, she
might issue forth once more with power, and an age of doubt might
be followed by the dawn of an era of faith.
Princeton.
J. Gresham Machen
 J.
Gresham Machen was professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary
before becoming one of the founders of Westminster Theological Seminary and the
Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). This address on The Scientific Preparation of the Minister,
was delivered September 20, 1912, at the opening of the one hundred
and first session of Princeton Theological Seminary, and in substance
(previously) at a meeting of the Presbyterian Ministers' Association
of Philadelphia, May 20, 1912. It was first published in The Princeton
Theological Review, Vol. 11, 1913.
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