This post is a crash-course in the decline of the Christian church since the late 19th century. The purpose herein is to help you assess the quality of your own faith as you come to understand what Christian Liberalism is and how it is harming Christendom.
The first two videos surround a figure of the Presbyterian church in the early 20th century, J Gresham Machen. [Although Machen was a Presbyterian, his fight against the unbiblical movement of Christian liberalism is relevant to the whole of Christianity.]
Under ‘Study Recommendations‘ there are links to videos 3 and 4 which are also in this blog.
Video 3 addresses the unbiblical nature of conversion via the ‘sinners prayer,’ also contains other assessment information from the works of Jonathan Edwards.
Video 4, (via link) is about C H Spurgeon’s ‘downgrade controversy,’ it is explained by John MacArthur [Spurgeon and MacArthur, Baptists].
Together, these 4 videos will give you much information that will help you assess the quality of your own church and faith as it measures against the biblical faith outlined in scripture.
As we enter an new year, and the world and church get more chaotic every week; those who plan on being in heaven need to have clearer understanding of where they stand. If they are not living a biblical life of faith and are not worshiping in a biblical church, they might begin reading God’s word and praying earnestly to Him for deliverance from those conditions while they are still walking around on top of the earth.
Introduction to video 1:
What is the Orthodox Presbyterian Church? From YouTube site: Ready To Harvest
The Orthodox Presbyterian Church is a result of a split due to modernism’s rise in mainstream Presbyterianism in the early 1900s. In this video we’ll see what they believe and teach today.
Sermon HIGHLIGHTS [of the initial 4 minutes of the 1st video that apply to church history]:
- Fundamentalist – modernist controversy of the early 20th century
- The geographical division in the Presbyterian church in 1861
- Southern body: the Presbyterian Church in the US
- Northern body: the Presbyterian Church in the US of America PCUSA
- The flagship seminary of the Presbyterian church was Princeton Theological Seminary, the 2nd oldest seminary in the USA
- 1920s J Gresham Machen stood out as a defender of the Presbyterian conservativism and the reliability of the Bible
- Machen was a professor of New Testament at Princeton
- 1921 Machen wrote The Origin of Paul’s Religion which was a defense against the accusation that Paul’s Christianity was different from what Jesus had taught
- 1923 Machen wrote Christianity and Liberalism which defended against modernism
- During the 1920s, a cold war was occurring at Princeton
- 1910, 1916, and 1923 the general assembly of the Presbyterian church had given for ordination the following requirements: belief in inerrancy of scripture; belief in the virgin birth; belief in the deity of Christ; belief in substitutionary atonement; belief in Christ’s bodily resurrection and the legitimacy of biblical miracles
- In 1924, thirteen hundred Presbyterian ministers challenged the above position and they signed a document known as the Auburn Affirmation – “to safeguard the unity and liberty of the Presbyterian church in the United States of America”
- The narrator read the words from the Auburn Affirmation that rejected biblical inerrancy made by the 1300 ministers
- Their rationale was based on the assumption that biblical writers were not kept from error, something which they contested that church creeds, and confessions of faith penned after the Protestant Reformation also indicated, as they made no statement of inerrancy…
- Princeton was reorganized to accommodate the above new stance
- Machen resigned Princeton, after teaching there 23 years; he led in the establishment of the Westminster Theological Seminary at Philadelphia
- 1933, Machen, concerned with the liberalism tolerated among PCA missionaries, formed an independent missions board
- The PCUSA board called his actions unconstitutional
- Church trial held, 1935; Machen and his supporters defrocked
- 1936 a new Presbyterian denomination founded, it consisted of 34 ministers; 17 ruling elders and 79 laymen
- 1937 Machen died
- Shortly thereafter, another split occurred from this group led by Carl McIntire, called the Bible Presbyterian Church: they held pre-millennial eschatological views and taught total abstinence from alcohol
- The denomination which Machen led in the split was required to change their name in 1939: they became the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC)
- The OPC stated the following about the Presbyterian church from which they split: “although claiming the name of Christianity, Liberalism began by questioning the authority of the Bible and ended up denying every biblical doctrine that modern secular thinking found disagreeable”
- The OPC was established in direct opposition to Liberalism
- The term, ‘Orthodox’ in the title OPC, stands for alignment with biblical doctrines
- These highlights end at the 4 minute 22 second mark of the video, the rest of the video talks about the following things regarding the OPC:
04:57 Sacraments; 08:06 Scripture; 08:40 Creation/Evolution; 09:30 Sin and Salvation; 11:53 Calvinist Soteriology; 13:42 Entire Sanctification; 14:36 Pentecostal/Charismatic View; 15:55 Eschatology & Israel; 17:21 Marriage & Divorce; 18:28 Abortion; 18:41 Public Worship; 21:19 Alcohol; 21:34 Tithing; 22:13 Sabbath keeping; 22:44 Images of Deity; 23:12 Polity & Offices; and 24:44 Connections & Statistics
The following link is to the above video, for anyone who might want to explore that site:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ytQ-IooZOA
Video 2 is about the life of Machen:
Video 2 begins with Machen’s birth and then discusses his education, ordination, the books he wrote and why he wrote them and details about the events that were noted in the points of video 1.
The following link is to the above video page, there you will find links to free readings of books by Machen he described in his video. They would not work from my blog for some reason.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieQIkp2qCBo&list=LL&index=1
STUDY RECOMMENDATIONS:
Video 3: The Sinner’s Prayer:
Video 4: The Downgrade Controversy:
Downgrade Controversy part 2, 65 minutes also narrated by John MacArthur:
Conclusion:
The above videos were posted to prepare for future posts on apostasy and the narrow way of biblical Christianity, by A W Pink.
I was born mid 20th century, just before A W Pink died. In some of his writings, he talks about how many professing Christians are deceived into believing that they have saving faith.
Before I post anymore of his writings, I believed it was necessary to provide the above foundational teaching so that readers might more easily assess their own status in the faith.