Christianity And Liberalism New Ed

This classic defense of orthodox Christianity, written to counter the liberalism that arose in the early 1900s, establishes the importance of scriptural doctrine and contrasts the teachings of liberalism and orthodoxy on God and man, the Bible, Christ, salvation, and the church. J. Gresham Machen s Christianity and Liberalism has remained relevant through the years ever since its original publication in 1923. It was named one of the top 100 books of the millennium by World magazine and one of the top 100 books of the twentieth century by Christianity Today. / An admirable book. For its acumen, for its saliency, and for its wit, this cool and stringent defense of orthodox Protestantism is, I think, the best popular argument produced [in the controversy between Christianity and liberalism]. / Walter Lippmann in A Preface to Morals / It is my conviction that Machen s book can still speak today. . . . Even for those who do not agree with his central thesis, Christianity and Liberalism can still be understood as representing one of the literary artifacts of a generation that had come to see liberalism as leading inexorably to a sentimentalized religion that had nothing to do with the God of the Bible or, indeed, with real life. / Carl R. Trueman (from the foreword) / Westminster Theological Seminary

One of the most complicated and ambiguous tendencies in contemporary western societies is the phenomenon referred to as the "turn to religion." In philosophy, one of the most original thinkers critically questioning this "turn" is Jean-Luc Nancy. Re-treating Religion is the first volume to analyze his long-term project "The Deconstruction of Christianity," especially his major statement of it in Dis-Enclosure. Nancy conceives monotheistic religion and secularization not as opposite worldviews that succeed each other in time but rather as springing from the same history. This history consists in a paradoxical tendency to contest one's own foundations--whether God, truth, origin, humanity, or rationality--as well as to found itself on the void of this contestation. Nancy calls this unique combination of self-contestation and self-foundation the "self-deconstruction" of the Western world. The book includes discussion with Nancy himself, who contributes a substantial "Preamble" and a concluding dialogue with the volume editors. The contributions follow Nancy in tracing the complexities of Western culture back to the persistent legacy of monotheism, in order to illuminate the tensions and uncertainties we face in the twenty-first century.

J. Gresham Machen (1881-1937), writes D. G. Hart, was the scion of a prominent and genteel Baltimore family, who studied at the finest American and European universities and, while teaching at Princeton Seminary, went on to become one of the United States's leading authorities in New Testament studies. Defending the Faith explains how a privileged and learned Protestant became embroiled in the religious disputes of the 1920s, writes Hart. This study, he continues, has much to tell us not just about the issues that unsettled--some would say unseated--mainstream Protestantism's hold on American intellectual and cultural life. But it also offers a distinctive and revealing perspective on the way we have come to assess and locate religion, science, and modernity in the early twentieth century. This biography, the first of Machen since 1955, originally appeared in 1994.

What you believe about politics matters. The decades since the Cold War, with new alignments of post–9/11 global politics and the chaos of the late 2010s, are swirling with alternative visions of political life, ranging from ethnic nationalism to individualistic liberalism. Political ideologies are not merely a matter of governmental efficacy, but are intrinsically and inescapably religious: each carries certain assumptions about the nature of reality, individuals and society, as well as a particular vision for the common good. These fundamental beliefs transcend the political sphere, and the astute Christian observer can discern the ways—sometimes subtle, sometimes not—in which ideologies are rooted in idolatrous worldviews. In this freshly updated, comprehensive study, political scientist David Koyzis surveys the key political ideologies of our era, including liberalism, conservatism, nationalism, democracy, and socialism. Koyzis gives each philosophy careful analysis and fair critique, unpacking the worldview issues inherent to each and pointing out essential strengths and weaknesses, as well as revealing the "narrative structure" of each—the stories they tell to make sense of public life and the direction of history. Koyzis concludes by proposing alternative models that flow out of Christianity's historic engagement with the public square, retrieving approaches for both individuals and the global, institutional church that hold promise for the complex political realities of the twenty-first century. Writing with broad international perspective and keen analytical insight, Koyzis is a sane and sensible guide for Christians working in the public square, culture watchers, political pundits, and all students of modern political thought.

John Gresham Machen (July 28, 1881 - January 1, 1937) was an American Presbyterian theologian in the early 20th century. He was the Professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary between 1906 and 1929, and led a conservative revolt against modernist theology at Princeton and formed Westminster Theological Seminary as a more orthodox alternative. As the Northern Presbyterian Church continued to reject conservative attempts to enforce faithfulness to the Westminster Confession, Machen led a small group of conservatives out of the church to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. When the northern Presbyterian church (PCUSA) rejected his arguments during the mid-1920s and decided to reorganize Princeton Seminary to create a liberal school, Machen took the lead in founding Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia (1929) where he taught New Testament until his death. His continued opposition during the 1930s to liberalism in his denomination's foreign missions agencies led to the creation of a new organization, the Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions (1933). The trial, conviction and suspension from the ministry of Independent Board members, including Machen, in 1935 and 1936 provided the rationale for the formation in 1936 of the OPC. Machen is considered to be the last of the great Princeton theologians who had, since the formation of the college in the early 19th century, developed Princeton theology: a conservative and Calvinist form of Evangelical Christianity. Although Machen can be compared to the great Princeton theologians (Archibald Alexander, Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, and B. B. Warfield), he was neither a lecturer in theology (he was a New Testament scholar) nor did he ever become the seminary's principal. Machen's influence can still be felt today through the existence of the institutions that he founded--Westminster Theological Seminary, The Independent Board for Presbyterian Foreign Missions, and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition, his textbook on basic New Testament Greek is still used today in many seminaries, including PCUSA schools. (wikipedia.org)

This book contains information that can help you make decisions about what and who to believe, or not believe, and why. Religions, which are human inventions, ultimately fail to deliver what they most claim to seek: universal peace and harmony. Instead, they always seem to become instruments of conflict and engines of war. It must surely be possible to embrace the spirituality in us all while avoiding those things that divide us. We've found the cosmos to be a pretty roomy place, filled with wonders discovered and yet to be discovered. Filled with infinite space. Our expanding universe inspires an expanding consciousness which gives us welcome alternatives to territorial ferocity on this tiny, turquoise jewel of a planet. A New Religion traces the roads from the past that brought us to where we find our world today. And it offers hope for tomorrow...

Both religion and anarchism have been increasingly politically active of late. This edited volume presents twelve chapters of fresh scholarship on diverse facets of the area where they meet: religious anarchism. The book is structured along three themes: • early Christian anarchist “pioneers,” including Pelagius, Coppe, Hungarian Nazarenes, and Dutch Christian anarchists; • Christian anarchist reflections on specific topics such as Kierkegaardian indifference, Romans 13, Dalit religious practice, and resistance to race and nation; • religious anarchism in other traditions, ranging from Wu Nengzi’s Daoism and Rexroth’s Zen Buddhism to various currents of Islam, including an original Anarca-Islamic “clinic.” This unique book therefore furthers scholarship on anarchism, on millenarian and revolutionary thinkers and movements, and on religion and politics. It is also of value to members of the wider public interested in radical politics and in the political implications of religion. And of course, it is relevant to those interested in any of the specific themes and thinkers focused on within individual chapters. In short, this book presents a range of innovative perspectives on a web of topics that, while held together by the common thread of religious anarchism, also speaks to numerous broader themes which have been increasingly prominent in the twenty-first century.