Christianity & Liberalism
by J. Gresham Machen (1923)

Originally published in 1923 (Macmillan, NY), this book is now in the public domain (original pagination and footnotes have been kept intact for purposes of reference). The electronic edition of this book was scanned and edited by Shane Rosenthal. It may be copied and distributed without restriction. In a few cases the spelling has been modernized.



What This Book Is About (In Machen's Own Words).

In my little book, Christianity and Liberalism, 1923, I tried to show that the issue in the Church of the present day is not between two varieties of the same religion, but, at bottom, between two essentially different types of thought and life. There is much interlocking of the branches, but the two tendencies, Modernism and supernaturalism, or (otherwise designated) non-doctrinal religion and historic Christianity, spring from different roots. In particular, I tried to show that Christianity is not a "life," as distinguished from a doctrine, and not a life that has doctrine as its changing symbolic expression, but that--exactly the other way around--it is a life founded on a doctrine. (From "Christianity in Conflict," an autobiographical essay on Machen's life and works).



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