Progressive Ideology and the Downfall of Mainline Denominations

Several months ago WORLD magazine recognized as its 2023 book of the year J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism, which is not a new book but a 100-year old reprint.

The book contrasts orthodox Christianity with religious liberalism and argues that the two are not different interpretations of the same religion but are, in fact, two different religions. Written at the height of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy, the book was controversial at the time of publication 100-years ago. Machen was a professor at Princeton Seminary, one of the last hold-outs against religious modernism in the mainline denominations.

By 1926 the leading religious journal of the day, the Christian Century, would announce that the fundamentalist-modernist controversy was over and the fundamentalists had lost. Henceforth, that perspective on Christianity would sink further into obscurity and irrelevance, eventually fading into oblivion. A few years after his book was published Machen was “defrocked” by the Presbyterian Church. He went on to found Westminster Seminary and to form the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

Christianity Today listed Christianity and Liberalism as one of the 100 most influential books of the 20^th Century. I first read the book in 1973, fifty years after its first publication, and remarked in my notes that the book was still as relevant as when first published. Fifty years after, I would agree with World magazine that it is even more relevant.

Today it can be argued that Machen’s perspective was correct and his critics were wrong. It is not that “fundamentalism” (conservative Christianity) was dying and modernism was the wave of the future. It is rather that the Christianity represented by the modernist leaders of the mainline churches is dying and that evangelical and traditionalist Christianity, so spurned by the modernists of 100 years ago, is the best hope for the future of the faith.

A review is in order. What was happening in the Protestant Christian world of 100 years ago and how does that relate to what is happening in 2024? I checked with books in my own library. I have been trying (somewhat unsuccessfully) to downsize my library. Some time ago I started through a section I identified as “Old Liberal Books.” There are thirty books or so dating mostly from the 1880s to the 1950s. I believe I accumulated them when doing research on my book “Evangelical and Methodist: A Populist History (Abingdon, 2004).

There is variation among these books but one thing they share in common: this was a period of extreme religious optimism, at least among the liberal religious leaders of the time. Benjamin Trueblood wrote in 1899 in The Federation of the World:

Christ’s doctrine of the brotherhood of men in the Fatherhood of God was never set forth with so much simplicity, directness, freedom from prejudice, and practical efficiency as in the present generation. (p. 92).

Perhaps the best defense of that assertion, at least for me, was put forward in two books by Harris Franklin Rall, who wrote Modern Premillennialism and Christian Hope (1920) and The Coming Kingdom (1924). Rall was a professor at Garrett Biblical Institute (now Garrett-Evangelical) and was frequently seen on campus in the 1950s when I was at Garrett. He is one of the few writers who even recognized the existence of Premillennialism, which, whether modernists believed it or not, was a major theological option of the end times for many evangelical Christians of that era.

Rall argued that premillennialism was a pessimistic view (the world is getting worse and worse) at a time when the Bible and modern society needed the positive view that the world is getting better and better. Rall’s critique of conservative Christianity was that it took the Bible too literally and did not factor in that God is revealing new truth (progressive revelation). The new truth was that the Coming Kingdom, the brotherhood of man under the Fatherhood of God, was the wave of the future. This is not unlike today when progressives argue that modern culture has taught us that “new truth” and new insights override traditional teaching about matters such as the practice of homosexuality, transgenderism, and the family.

The modernist (progressive) writers of 100 years ago spoke glowingly of a Christian democracy that precluded all authoritarianism. This was often linked with the formation of federations of churches, and/or  leagues of nations. A new social order would arise and the human race would be purged from weakness and ignorance:

These things shall be: a loftier race Than e’er the world hath known shall rise With flame of freedom in their souls And light of knowledge in their eyes. (Hymn 512, 1932 Methodist Hymnal)

The new race would be based on science and social planning. Eugenics and racism would be a part of the planning. Long before conservative Christians were accused of White Supremacy, progressives had set the tone.

No race has ever shown such philanthropy, no race is so easily moved by great moral ideas, none is so capable of a moral enthusiasm, none is so quick to accept responsibility for the ignorant, the degraded, the suffering, or to make generous self-sacrifice in their behalf as the Anglo-Saxon. (Josiah Strong: The New Era or The Coming Kingdom, New York: Baker & Taylor Co. 1893, p. 51)

North America…is twice as large as all Europe and is capable of sustaining the present population of the globe. Such a country, with its resources fully developed; such numbers, homogeneous in their civilization; such a race…fitted to prepare the way for the full coming of the kingdom, must under God, control the world’s future. (Strong, The New Era, p. 75)

The rise of Germany leading to the World War complicated the vision but progressives were convinced this was only a minor blip in the great plan of brotherhood for all. Modernists were supporters of World War I, the war that would end all wars, bring world-wide democracy, and usher in an era of peace. By way of contrast, the fundamentalists of the time did not support the war, nor the idea that world peace was around the corner. The reason was sin. If one person could not order his steps aright, why should one believe that a nation could do so. Such views were criticized by persons like Shirley Jackson Case of the University of Chicago who accused “fundamentalists” of being unpatriotic.

Other books (from my library) reiterated these themes. Horatio W. Dresser, On the Threshold of the Spiritual World, (1919); Cornelius H. Patton, World Facts and America’s Responsibility (1919); S. Earl Taylor and Halford E. Luccock, The Christian Crusade for World Democracy, (1918); Walter Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis (1917).

The predictions of the modernists never were realized. The end of the war brought not world-wide democracy but authoritarian systems in Italy, Spain, Germany, Russia, China, Cuba, and Japan. Still, the idea of new truth being continually revealed kept the dream alive and inspired movements like the World Council of Churches, the Federal Council, the National Council, Churches of Christ Uniting (1960s). Liberation theology led to intrigue with revolutionary movements. One hero, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, is now known for his persecution of Christians. Theological fads, from process theology to idealism to existentialism to death of God theology to womanist theology to feminist theology to Sophia worship kept appearing. By the time I was in seminary (1950s), however, persons like Reinhold Niebuhr and Emil Brunner and Karl Barth began pushing back. In some ways their writings would remind me of Gresham Machen. They spoke of sin and the inability of education and good intentions and political action to bring in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. They spoke of the necessity to revive the Biblical perspective on classic Christian truth. Their theologies were lumped under the title of “neo-orthodoxy.”

Fast forward. At the present time the modernist-liberal-progressive agenda has fallen all over itself to right the wrongs of the world and bring about a new day of justice and equality. There is much talk about “rights” and “equity” and “inclusiveness” and “love,” and yet the world seems more threatening and less accepting of persons different from ourselves than ever.

The recently completed United Methodist General Conference has brought great hope for the progressives, who no longer speak of the “Kingdom of God” (a sexist phrase) but of equity, love and justice for all. At the same time traditional Methodism with Wesleyan doctrines like Original Sin and the Blood Atonement, and long-held traditional values like marriage, the family, and the sexual code of faithfulness in marriage and celibacy in singleness, are cast aside. Justification for this? Keeping up with the times. The wave of history. New truth being revealed that trumps and supersedes long-accepted Bible teaching.

Keep in mind: Mainline denominations are in a 70-year membership decline. Since 1950, the U.S. population has doubled but the churches making up United Methodism today have lost half their members. The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has lost 75 percent of their members across that same period. The Episcopal Church has lost 40 percent of its membership. One statistic now estimates that only about 14 percent of Americans are associated with one of the mainline denominations. Approximately 25 percent of the population, on the other hand, identifies as “evangelical” (that figure needs a lot of interpretation). Meanwhile, none of the 15 largest seminaries in the country is affiliated with a mainline denomination (one of the larger seminaries is Westminster, the school started by Gresham Machen).

For a number of reasons I still hold to my UM credentials. Like others, I am disappointed by the direction the denomination seems to be taking. The leadership is way out of touch with ordinary members. But God can do great things. For that we pray.