Bid Adieu. Machen Was Right.
The Presbyterian Church (USA) is the old mother Kirk of American Presbyterianism. In her lie all the treasures of the great names and institutions that made up American Presbyterianism and its powerful influence on the world in which we live.
Witherspoon, Miller, Hodge, Warfield, Machen.
Davies, Thornwell, Girardeau.
Princeton, Union, Columbia (GA).
Wooster, Westminster, Muskingum.
Great names. Great institutions.
Fifteen signers of the Declaration of Independence were mainline Presbyterians.
Witherspoon, Madison, Wilson, Jackson, Eisenhower, Reagan.
Frederick Douglass. Fred Rogers.
James Stewart. John Wayne.
Grant Wood. Edward Hopper.
The old mother kirk of American Presbyterianism holds treasures of the mind and heart that few have ever seen. She has lived through a Revolution with England; divided over Black slavery only to be united again; welcomed seceding (Associate and United) Presbyterians into her bosom. Fought for truth. Fought for justice. Shaped the American experience in thought life, high culture, and even pop-culture. "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood," because of Mr. Rogers's worldview.
She has sent missionaries abroad, conquered nations through discipleship rather than the sword; she has changed hearts and minds.
She has also been on a century-plus decline. She has tripped, she has harmed her witness, and in many ways she has stumbled over her own candlestick causing not only offense... but its snuffing.
In the 1933 denominational magazine, The Presbyterian, J Gresham Machen wrote: “In foreign lands, as at home, what the modern Church offers is not Christ but a program. It is not Christianity, but a diluted substitute. If the Church desires to maintain a real missionary enterprise, it must first of all return to the faith.”
Earlier, in 1925, he wrote, “Christianity is a missionary religion. It cannot be kept to ourselves. We must tell the world—not about our ideals, but about the acts of God in history, culminating in the resurrection of Christ.” (What Is Faith?)
Machen was right.
As he watched, what at one time was the old faithful mother, stepping into liberal theology, he sounded warning.
She did not hear.
At the end of last month, with little fanfare, the Presbyterian Church (USA) closed its central office of missions—the PC(USA) would no longer be sending missionaries. Their 200 missionaries will be recalled and assigned work elsewhere. One interviewed said:
"The shift appears to reflect the denomination’s sensitivity about criticism of paternalistic colonial-style mission work by U.S. missionaries in foreign countries, reflected in its 2003 document, “Presbyterians Do Ministry in Partnership,” which emphasized the self-reliance and self-determination of mission partners. “We’ve done a fabulous job along with other denominations and other faiths in spreading faith traditions around the globe.”'
Some former missionaries will go back on the field with another message—not one of the gospel, but under their new title:
Global Ecumenical Advisors.
Global.
Ecumenical.
Advisors.
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) was a Presbyterian missionary in the first half of the 20th century. Mrs. Buck denied central truths of the Christian faith: original sin, substitutionary atonement, the deity of Christ—and other things.
Machen, who openly opposed Mrs. Buck being on the mission field, wrote, “Miss Pearl Buck... does not believe that Jesus is God. She does not believe that he was raised from the dead. She does not believe in any real sense that he is our Savior. She is in the foreign field representing, not the gospel of Christ, but another gospel which is no gospel at all.” (Modernism and the Board of Foreign Missions)
Many believed that Machen was unkind concerning these missionaries. They were doing good work, some said.
Machen was right.
And a century later, we bid adieu to the PC(USA)’s missionaries and welcome their global ecumenical advisors.
Machen was right.
Missions without the gospel is not missions.
Adieu.