Written by Matthew H. Lee |
Thursday, December 7, 2023

For Machen, the great benefit of these school choice reforms was that they would empower parents to oversee their children’s education. As he stated to the Sentinels, the hope is that “we may return to the principle of freedom for individual parents in the education of their children in accordance with their conscience.” School choice policies enacted and expanded this year promote this noble end and serve as an unexpected tribute to Machen on the hundredth anniversary of Christianity and Liberalism.

This year is the centennial of J. Gresham Machen’s magnum opus, Christianity and Liberalism.
Originally published in 1923, Machen wrote the book in response to a rising tide of theological liberalism and modernism in the United States. Machen’s views ultimately led him out of his denomination and out of Princeton Seminary, both of which accepted more liberal and modernist tendencies, and led him to help found two enduring institutions—Westminster Theological Seminary (1929) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1936).
While Machen’s achievements are chiefly theological, he wrote and spoke extensively about education, where he observed some of the deteriorating effects of liberalism. One hundred years of policy and research have proven Machen prescient in his views on education policy, which can largely be grouped into three themes: resistance against standardization, opposition to centralization, and insistence on parental choice.
Resistance Against Standardization
First, Machen resisted trends to standardize both the teaching profession and student learning. The Lusk Laws in New York, for example, required teachers to obtain certification from the commissioner of education and made them subject to state visitation. Though repealed in 1923, less than two years after they passed, the spirit of the Lusk Laws endures. Nearly every state requires teachers to obtain some certification, often in addition to holding a degree in the field of education, despite the fact that research fails to document evidence of a meaningful link between certification and teacher quality.
Machen believed the modernist trend of training teachers in the science of education, rather than with content in their disciplines, marked a fundamental shift in the understanding of what teaching is. He lamented that the primary preparation of modern teachers was not “to study the subject that he is going to teach. Instead of studying the subject that he is going to teach, he studies ‘education.’”
In Machen’s view, the great danger in standardization and in emphasizing methodology over content is that it would place the child “under the control of psychological experts, themselves without the slightest acquaintance with the higher realms of human life, who proceed to prevent any such acquaintance being gained by those who come under their care.”
Treating education as a mechanistic process would result in “intellectual as well as moral decline” because in such a context, morality is based “upon experience, instead of upon an absolute distinction between right and wrong,” Machen said in a 1926 address to the Sentinels of the Republic, a libertarian organization dedicated to resisting federal overreach.
To compensate for the meagerness of character formation in modern education, psychological experts instead try to inject civic and moral values into a standardized, secularized curriculum. Machen wrote about such “morality codes” in a 1925 essay titled “Reforming the Government Schools.” He observed that these codes were “making the situation tenfold worse; far from checking the ravages of immorality, they are for the most part themselves non-moral at the root.” Today, morality codes have many faces, but the same empty core. Social and emotional learning (SEL), for example, provides analogs for cardinal virtues promoted by classical and Christian education, but absent the thick moral context of religion.
Opposition to Centralization
Machen was also opposed to the centralization of oversight of education in the federal government, a natural extension of his resistance to standardization. In February 1926, a month after his Sentinels address, Machen provided expert testimony on behalf of the Sentinels for a Congressional hearing dealing with several issues, including the formation of a federal Department of Education, which he predicted that if enacted, would be “the worst fate into which any country can fall.” While he helped defeat the proposal for a federal department, his victory was merely temporary, as a federal department of education would eventually be formed as a cabinet-level department in 1980.
Machen was not being hyperbolic in his assessment. Since the establishment of the first federal agency in 1867, which started with only a commissioner and a staff of three, the federal role in education has ballooned. For 2023–24, the Department of Education budgeted over $270 billion in spending—all the more alarming when one considers that the Department of Education accounts for only three-fifths of all federal spending on education. Again, Machen has been vindicated by research, which has failed to document a reliable link between spending and student outcomes.
A common argument for centralized control over education, both in Machen’s day and today, is easily addressed.
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When we sin, if we find our natural reaction to busy ourselves with other tasks—to take a shower and get out of the house and listen to music, that might be an indicator that we are refusing to think of God. But if when we sin, we think of our kind Father, and feel the weight of our guilt, and bow before him, confessing our sin and deciding no longer to hold it dear, then the Father welcomes us into his arms and prepares a banquet for us, clothing us in the finest of robes—the righteousness of Christ.

The biblical authors had weighty things to say about sin. For instance, Paul tells Titus that sinful works can silence and negate professed faith (Titus 1:16). Paul also writes, through tears, that those who set their thoughts on earthly things will eventually be destroyed (Phil 3:19). And the preacher of Hebrews pleads with believers not to be “hardened” by sin (Heb 3:13).
Have you ever stopped to consider what it means that sin “hardens”? If you’ve seen concrete poured, you get the idea. If wet concrete sits for long enough, you can drive a dump truck over it. That’s what happens to sin if it sits on a soul for long enough, baked in by the day-in-day-out little compromises we make. The preacher of Hebrews says one more thing about sin in that verse. He calls it “deceitful.” Sin whispers to us that we have more time before the concrete settles, that our ways are still malleable. But it’s lying.
One of the scariest verses in the New Testament is found a few chapters later in Hebrews. Speaking of Esau, the preacher tells us that after he had given up his birthright, “he found no place for repentance, though he sought for it with tears” (Heb 12:17). This verse tells us a tough reality: Esau tried to repent and couldn’t. The concrete had hardened. And how did this all happen? It must have been an enormous sin that Esau did that would lead him there, right? No. He “sold his birthright for a single meal.” A bowl of stew. It was a moment of immediate gratification. Then another. Then another. Though he eventually realized how far his heart had withered, it was too late. He had become sin’s slave.
And yet, the NT also offers hope to the weary sinner. The letter of 1 John clearly says that believers still wrestle with sin (1:8) and that Christ will “forgive” and “cleanse” those who confess those sins and run to him (1:9).
In his book Spiritual-Mindedness, John Owen asks the question that we, as sin-stained travelers, probably ask after reading what the NT says about sin: “How, then, can one tell the difference between the occasional breaking out of any lust or corruption in the face of temptation, and a person in whom sin still reigns and has dominion?” (90) In other words, how do I know if sin owns me? To put it more bluntly, how hard is the concrete of my heart?
Owen, in a careful and fruitful way, asks questions that probe our hearts.
What are we truly troubled by?
 As we look into our heart and ask the honest question: How do I know if the sin in my life is the “occasional breaking out of lust in the face of temptation or sin still sitting on the throne of my heart?” Owen provides a response: “Quite frankly, it does not matter whether we are able to tell the difference” (90). In other words, we’re asking the wrong question.
The better question is: What are we troubled by? Yes, we may hate the corruption of our hearts. Yes, we may long to be rid of sin. But we would be no different than Esau. The real question is: Do we hate our sin and long to be rid of it because it is sinful, or because of what will happen if our sin is found out (90–91)? Are we humbled by the filth that still lingers in our soul or scared of its consequences? Are our tears and pangs of conscience no more than first cries over the things we’re about to lose as a consequence of our actions?
As depraved humans grimacing through the consequences of our sinful hearts, the sad reality is that we can be selfish even in our sorrow. Here’s the critical test: Are we willing to accept all the consequences for our sin as kindnesses from the Lord? If we are, that’s a good sign that what troubles us is missing sweet communion with our Father, not the things he might pull from our hand.
Owen presses further. He asks his readers what they think of death. Has sin become such a thorn in our lives that the thought of death is pleasant because it means waving goodbye to sin once and for all (92)?
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Both salvation and suffering are gifts from God. We don’t choose our salvation and we don’t choose our suffering. God saves us by grace alone and this same grace enables us to persevere in the suffering He chooses for us. Like Paul, the Philippians would suffer for Christ’s sake. You and I will too. The conflict believers face is the same, even though the circumstances might be different. Therefore, put on the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (Eph. 6:10-17). Submit your suffering to Christ, asking Him to use it to sanctify you and advance the gospel of Christ. 

When Paul wrote to the Philippians he was confined to prison, awaiting his hearing before Caesar (see Acts 23:11; 25:9-12; 26:32). Although he was chained to a soldier at all times, he was able to write letters, have visitors, and boldly proclaim the gospel (28:30-31). During this time Paul’s suffering served to advance the gospel throughout the entire imperial guard, as well as all associated with it (Phil. 1:13). But he was also a witness to his fellow Christians in Rome. As they witnessed Paul’s boldness while in chains, their boldness grew to proclaim the gospel in Rome without fear. They learned that God could turn even prison into a place of gospel advancement. When your present circumstances are not ideal, remember that God often leaves us where we’re at for the advance of His gospel.
Suffering to Advance the Gospel
Sadly, there were some believers who were glad Paul was imprisoned (Phil. 1:15, 17). Even though their message was the same as Paul’s message, their motives were not. They were envious of Paul’s gifts, so instead of partnering with him, they were glad he was imprisoned. It is remarkable, then, that Paul is able to rejoice that their message of the gospel is going forth. Regardless of their motives, he rejoiced that Christ was being proclaimed.
Not all were envious of Paul. There were some who preached Christ “from good will” and “out of love,” recognizing Paul was imprisoned for “the defense of the gospel,” and wanting to partner in truth with him (Phil. 1:15-16). This is the example we should follow. Plead with the Lord to purify your motives, especially when you see envy and rivalry in your heart. Ask Him to keep you faithful to proclaim Christ. Ask Him to help you partner with others for the gospel instead of competing with them.
Serving Others for their Growth in the Gospel
Paul’s mission in life was to make Christ known. Through his words he proclaimed Christ and by his works he adorned its proclamation.
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