Theological Liberalism 19th – 20th century · Schleiermacher to Harnack · Christianity reduced to religious feeling and ethics · the modernist crisis
Theological Liberalism is the Protestant theological tradition that emerged in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries — from Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 – 1834), Albrecht Ritschl (1822 – 1889), Adolf von Harnack (1851 – 1930), and the broader nineteenth-century German theological-philosophical engagement with Enlightenment rationalism and historical criticism — and that reshaped portions of mainline Western Protestantism in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The liberal theological project: redefining Christianity in terms compatible with modern critical assumptions — rejecting biblical inerrancy and the supernatural elements of orthodox Christianity (miracles, the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, the deity of Christ in the orthodox sense); re-locating the essence of Christianity in religious feeling (Schleiermacher's "feeling of absolute dependence"), ethics (Ritschl's value judgements and the kingdom of God as moral community), or religious-existential experience (the broader liberal trajectory); reducing the Christian gospel to the "fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man" (Harnack's celebrated summary in What is Christianity?, 1900); engaging the historical-critical Bible scholarship (the higher criticism of Wellhausen, Strauss, the Tübingen school) and integrating its critical conclusions into theological reconstruction. The Reformed response — Old Princeton (Charles Hodge, A. A. Hodge, B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen), the Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition (Kuyper, Bavinck), and the broader Reformed-evangelical engagement — reaffirmed the Reformed orthodoxy of biblical authority, the supernatural Christian doctrines, the deity of Christ, the penal-substitutionary atonement, and the Reformed-evangelical gospel of grace. J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) is the definitive Reformed engagement, arguing that theological liberalism is not a different version of Christianity but a different religion. The fundamentalist-modernist controversy of the 1910s and 1920s in American Protestantism, the split in mainline Protestant denominations, the founding of Westminster Theological Seminary (1929) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1936), the Bethel and Auburn Affirmations — these are the historical-ecclesial dimensions of the Reformed-liberal engagement. The Reformed Christian engages theological liberalism as the most significant modern theological alternative to orthodox Reformed Christianity, with implications for the contemporary mainline-versus-evangelical Protestant landscape.
WHY THIS PAGE EXISTS — Theological liberalism is referenced across the Sola Fide pillars — the Modern Era survey (where liberalism is one principal theological development), the Contemporary Church survey (where the fundamentalist-modernist controversy and the subsequent mainline-evangelical split are central), the Heresies through Church History survey, the Apologetics pillar. None of those gives the focused theological treatment a serious enquirer needs. This page does that work: (1) timeline of the liberal tradition; (2) Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Harnack, and the principal liberal theologians; (3) what theological liberalism teaches; (4) the Reformed response — Old Princeton, Machen, Bavinck; (5) the doctrinal core; (6) the fundamentalist-modernist controversy; (7) the theological stakes; (8) the hard places — the intellectual seriousness of the liberal tradition, the social-ethical contributions of the social gospel, the Reformed engagement without polemical caricature; (9) the influence on subsequent Christianity; (10) modern parallels — progressive Christianity, the contemporary mainline-evangelical landscape. The tone is doctrinal, historically careful, and recognising the intellectual seriousness of the liberal tradition while maintaining the Reformed conviction that Machen's "Christianity and Liberalism are two different religions" remains the Reformed judgement.
Read liberalism as an intellectual tradition with intellectual seriousness, not as dismissible heresy. The liberal theological tradition emerged from nineteenth-century German intellectual culture — Kant's critical philosophy, Hegel's idealism, the historical-critical biblical scholarship, the Enlightenment-era rationalism — and addressed intellectual challenges that orthodox Christianity also had to address. The Schleiermacher of The Christian Faith (1821 – 1822) is one of the nineteenth-century theological-philosophical minds; the Harnack of History of Dogma (1886 – 1890) is one of the historical-theological scholars of his generation. The Reformed engagement takes the intellectual substance of the liberal tradition seriously, while returning to the Reformed orthodox conviction that the liberal reconstruction redefines Christianity in ways that no longer count as Christian in the sense. Alister McGrath's The Making of Modern German Christology (Zondervan, 1986) and Reformation Thought (4th ed., Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) are scholarly resources.
Read Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) as the definitive Reformed engagement. J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (Macmillan, 1923) is one of the principal twentieth-century Reformed theological works. Machen's argument: liberalism is not a different version of Christianity (a variant within the Christian family) but a different religion altogether — a different religious-philosophical system that uses Christian vocabulary while denying each of the central Christian doctrines. The Machen argument addresses doctrine by doctrine — God, Scripture, Christ, salvation, the church — showing the Reformed-evangelical position against the liberal alternative. The book remains substantially the standard Reformed engagement with liberalism. Stephen J. Nichols's J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour of His Life and Thought (P&R, 2004) is the accessible Reformed biographical introduction. Machen page.
Read the Old Princeton tradition as Reformed theological foundation. The Old Princeton theological tradition — Charles Hodge (1797 – 1878), A. A. Hodge (1823 – 1886), B. B. Warfield (1851 – 1921), J. Gresham Machen (1881 – 1937) — articulated the Reformed orthodoxy against the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century theological liberalism. The Warfield articulated the Reformed doctrine of biblical inspiration and inerrancy; the Charles Hodge articulated the Reformed dogmatic system; the Machen engaged the twentieth-century liberal challenge. The Reformed-evangelical engagement continues this Old Princeton tradition through the Westminster Theological Seminary (founded 1929 in Machen's break from a substantially liberalising Princeton); the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (founded 1936); the broader Reformed evangelical movement. See Systematic Theology.
Read the Reformed engagement with intellectual seriousness, not with polemical caricature. The Reformed engagement with theological liberalism is most effective where it engages the intellectual substance of the liberal tradition rather than the caricature. Schleiermacher's theological-philosophical work addresses intellectual questions (the relation of religion to Enlightenment-era rationalism, the question of religious experience and religious knowledge); the Reformed engagement addresses the Schleiermacher on his own terms. The Carl R. Trueman's work engages the intellectual substance of modernity carefully. See Apologetics.
1. Timeline and historical overview
Breslau
On Religion
The Christian Faith
Life of Jesus
F. C. Baur
OT higher criticism
Justification and Reconciliation
History of Dogma
What is Christianity?
Rauschenbusch
(12 vols.)
Christianity and Liberalism
(modernist response)
Seminary founded
(Presbyterian split)
Barth, Brunner, Niebuhr
Spong, Borg, others
Principal modern resources: J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Macmillan, 1923; reprinted Eerdmans); Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour (P&R, 2004); D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 1994); George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (2nd ed., Oxford, 2006), and The Soul of the American University (Oxford, 1994); Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Eerdmans, 1992); Alister McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology (Zondervan, 1986); Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Eerdmans, 1973); Bradley Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy: Fundamentalists, Modernists, and Moderates (Oxford, 1991); Diarmaid MacCulloch, Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years (Penguin, 2009), the nineteenth- and twentieth-century chapters; Mark Noll, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind (Eerdmans, 1994).
2. The principal liberal theologians
Friedrich Schleiermacher
Schleiermacher — the German Reformed pastor and academic theologian — is substantially called "the father of modern theology" for his role in shaping the direction of nineteenth-century Protestant theology. His On Religion: Speeches to Its Cultured Despisers (1799) substantially addressed the Enlightenment-era cultured disdain for religion by substantially relocating religion in the"feeling of absolute dependence" (the relation of the finite self to the infinite ground of being). His The Christian Faith (Der christliche Glaube, 1821 – 1822, substantially revised 1830 – 1831) substantially articulated the mature Schleiermacherian system: Christianity substantially as the pious community shaped by Jesus's God-consciousness; doctrine as expressions of religious feeling; the dogmatic system substantially organised around the pious self-consciousness. The Schleiermacher substantially retained Christian-orthodox forms (the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the atonement, the church and sacraments) while substantially re-interpreting them in substantially religious-experiential rather than ontological terms. The Reformed engagement (Barth's Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century; Bavinck's careful engagement; Mark McGowan's modern Reformed scholarship) substantially engages Schleiermacher's intellectual substance while substantially maintaining the Reformed orthodoxy.
Albrecht Ritschl
Ritschl — Göttingen professor — substantially shifted nineteenth-century Protestant theology in a direction substantially distinct from Schleiermacher's. His The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation (3 vols., 1870 – 1874) substantially articulated Christianity as moral-ethical community substantially centred on the kingdom of God understood substantially substantially as the moral community of those who substantially substantially live in the spirit of Jesus's ethical teaching. Ritschl substantially rejected metaphysical theology (the classical Christian doctrine of God as an ontological reality) and substantially substituted value-judgements (theology is substantially the practical religious-ethical engagement with the God who is known substantially substantially in the Christian experience of justification and reconciliation). Ritschl's influence shaped late-nineteenth-century German liberal Protestantism through his students (Harnack chief among them) and through the broader Ritschlian school.
Adolf von Harnack
Harnack — Berlin professor, historian of early Christian doctrine, principal late-nineteenth-century liberal Lutheran theological voice — substantially articulated the mature liberal theological position. His History of Dogma (Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3 vols., 1886 – 1890; substantially expanded in subsequent editions) argued that the classical Christian dogmatic tradition (Nicaea, Chalcedon, the creeds) was substantially a"Hellenisation" of the original Jesus-message — the Greek philosophical-metaphysical accretion substantially overlaid on the simple ethical-religious gospel of Jesus. His What is Christianity? (Das Wesen des Christentums, 1900) substantially reduced the Christian gospel to three elements: the fatherhood of God, the brotherhood of man, and the infinite value of the human soul. The Harnack substantially rejected the supernatural Christian doctrines (the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the bodily resurrection, the penal-substitutionary atonement, the miracles, the creeds) as post-biblical accretions substantially incompatible with modern critical-rational thought. The Reformed engagement (Machen; the Old Princeton tradition; the Dutch neo-Calvinist engagement) substantially rejected Harnack's reductive thesis while engaging the historical-critical scholarship Harnack substantially articulated.
The American Social Gospel — Walter Rauschenbusch
The American Social Gospel movement — substantially articulated through Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis (1907), Christianizing the Social Order (1912), and A Theology for the Social Gospel (1917) — substantially translated the Ritschlian theological framework into the American urban social-reform context. The Social Gospel substantially addressed real social problems ( industrial-era working conditions, poverty, labour rights) substantially shaping American Protestant social engagement; the Reformed engagement substantially addresses the liberal theological framework while recognising the real social concerns. Mark Noll's A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada engages this American context.
The Old Princeton Reformed response
The Old Princeton Theological Seminary tradition substantially articulated the Reformed orthodox response to the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century liberal challenge. Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology (3 vols., 1872 – 1873) substantially articulated the Reformed dogmatic system. B. B. Warfield's body of work on biblical inspiration (particularly the The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible, posthumously collected) substantially articulated the Reformed doctrine of biblical inerrancy against the higher-critical challenge. J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) substantially articulated the Reformed engagement with the mature liberal theological position. The Old Princeton tradition substantially shaped the subsequent Reformed evangelical engagement with liberalism — through Westminster Theological Seminary (founded 1929 in the Machen-led break from liberalising Princeton), the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (founded 1936), and the broader Reformed evangelical movement.
3. What theological liberalism teaches
relocation of Christianity in religious feeling or ethics
The principal liberal theological move substantially relocates the essence of Christianity from the historical-supernatural framework (the Trinitarian God who has substantially substantially acted in the historical events of incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection for our salvation) to the religious-experiential or ethical-moral framework (Christianity as pious feeling, ethical community, moral example). The Reformed conviction retains the historical-supernatural Christian framework as the ground of all the Christian religious experience and ethical life.
Denial of biblical authority and inerrancy
The liberal theological tradition substantially rejects the Reformed doctrine of biblical inerrancy and substantially re-engages Scripture through the higher-critical lens — documentary-source theories of the Pentateuch (Wellhausen's JEDP hypothesis), Tübingen-school reconstruction of New Testament origins, subordination of Scripture to modern critical-rational judgement. The Reformed conviction (Westminster Confession 1; Warfield's work) substantially confesses the biblical authority and inerrancy. See Hermeneutics.
D enial of the supernatural Christian doctrines
The liberal theological tradition substantially denies the supernatural Christian doctrines — the virgin birth, the bodily resurrection, the miracles, the deity of Christ in the orthodox-Chalcedonian sense, the penal-substitutionary atonement, the second coming and bodily resurrection of believers. The Reformed conviction confesses each of these as the biblical orthodox doctrine. See Christology and Soteriology.
R eduction of Christ to moral example
Harnack's reduction of Christianity to"the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man" reduces Christ to the supreme moral teacher and exemplar — the first to teach the highest religious-ethical truths — substantially without the Reformed Chalcedonian framework of one person in two natures, the eternal Word incarnate for our salvation. The Reformed conviction confesses Christ as Saviour and Lord in the Chalcedonian-Reformation framework.
D enial of penal substitutionary atonement
The liberal theological tradition substantially denies the penal-substitutionary atonement — echoing the Socinian denial (see the Socinianism page) — substantially reading the cross as moral example, moral influence, divine self-revelation of love, or victory over evil powers. The Reformed conviction confesses the penal substitution as the ground of the Reformed gospel of grace.
D enial of original sin
The liberal theological tradition substantially denies original sin — echoing the Pelagian-Socinian direction — substantially affirming human moral perfectibility and natural moral capacity. The Reformed conviction confesses original sin in the Augustinian-Reformation framework. See Pelagianism.
4. The Reformed response — Old Princeton and Machen
Charles Hodge's Systematic Theology (1872 – 1873)
Charles Hodge's three-volume Systematic Theology (1872 – 1873) substantially articulated the Reformed dogmatic system against the nineteenth-century liberal alternatives. The Hodge substantially defended biblical inerrancy, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the penal-substitutionary atonement, the Reformed doctrine of salvation. Charles Hodge page.
B. B. Warfield on biblical inspiration
B. B. Warfield's body of work on biblical inspiration — collected substantially in The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (P&R, 1948) — substantially articulated the Reformed doctrine of biblical inerrancy against the higher-critical challenge. Warfield's work substantially shaped the Reformed evangelical doctrine of Scripture into the present. Warfield page.
J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923)
Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) substantially articulated the Reformed engagement with the mature liberal theological position. The Machen addresses doctrine by doctrine — God, the Bible, Christ, salvation, the church — substantially showing the Reformed-evangelical position against the liberal alternative. The book substantially concludes that liberalism is not a different version of Christianity but a different religion altogether. The Machen subsequently substantially led the break from the liberalising Princeton to found Westminster Theological Seminary (1929) and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (1936). Machen page.
The Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition — Kuyper and Bavinck
The Dutch neo-Calvinist tradition — through Abraham Kuyper (founder of the Free University of Amsterdam, 1880; Dutch Prime Minister 1901 – 1905) and Herman Bavinck (Kuyper's successor) — substantially articulated the Continental Reformed engagement with the nineteenth-century liberal challenge. Bavinck's four-volume Reformed Dogmatics (1895 – 1901; Eng. tr. Baker Academic, 2003 – 2008) substantially articulated the Reformed dogmatic system in conversation with the nineteenth-century theological-philosophical context.
5. The doctrinal core — Machen's central distinctions
Doctrine of God — Trinitarian vs unitarian-leaning
R eformed: Trinitarian, classical Christian theism ( divine sovereignty, transcendence, providence, holiness).L iberal: immanentist (God as ground of being or pious feeling) and often unitarian-leaning. See The Trinity.
Doctrine of Scripture — inerrancy vs higher criticism
R eformed: biblical inerrancy and supreme authority.L iberal: higher-critical engagement with Scripture subordinated to modern critical judgement.
Doctrine of Christ — Chalcedonian vs reduced humanity
R eformed: Chalcedonian — one person in two natures, the eternal Word incarnate.L iberal: reduced to unique religious teacher or moral example.
Doctrine of atonement — penal substitution vs moral influence
R eformed: penal-substitutionary atonement.L iberal: moral example or moral influence.
Doctrine of salvation — grace alone vs ethical improvement
R eformed: salvation by grace alone through faith alone on the ground of Christ alone.L iberal: salvation as ethical-religious improvement, participation in the moral community.
Doctrine of the church — gospel community vs ethical community
R eformed: the church as the gathered community of those called by the gospel.L iberal: the church as the ethical community cultivating moral-religious life.
6. The fundamentalist-modernist controversy (1910s – 1920s)
The Fundamentals (1910 – 1915)
The twelve-volume series The Fundamentals (1910 – 1915), substantially financed by California oil businessman Lyman Stewart, articulated the Reformed-evangelical fundamental doctrines against the liberal challenge — biblical inerrancy, the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the virgin birth, the penal-substitutionary atonement, the bodily resurrection, the second coming. The series — substantially distributed widely across English-speaking Protestantism — gave the"fundamentalist" movement its name.
The Presbyterian controversy and the 1924 Auburn Affirmation
The American Presbyterian denomination divided across the 1920s over the liberal-conservative dispute. The 1924 Auburn Affirmation, signed by 1,274 Presbyterian ministers, rejected the 1910 General Assembly's five-point statement of fundamentals as binding doctrine. Machen led the conservative response, breaking from Princeton in 1929 to found Westminster Theological Seminary and from the Presbyterian denomination in 1936 to found the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.
The long mainline-evangelical Protestant divergence
The fundamentalist-modernist controversy substantially shaped the long American Protestant mainline-evangelical divergence across the twentieth century. The mainline denominations (PCUSA, ELCA, UMC, Episcopal Church, UCC, ABC) continued substantially in the liberal theological direction; the evangelical and conservative denominations (OPC, PCA, Southern Baptist Convention, Missouri Synod Lutheran, conservative Methodist, etc.) continued substantially in the Reformed-evangelical direction. The contemporary American Protestant landscape reflects this long divergence.
7. The theological stakes
C hristianity vs different religion
The Machen argument stands: theological liberalism is not a different version of Christianity but a different religion. The central Christian doctrines — Trinity, biblical authority, the deity of Christ, the penal-substitutionary atonement, salvation by grace — are rejected by liberalism in ways that no longer count as Christian in the sense. See Systematic Theology.
B iblical authority
The Reformed doctrine of biblical inerrancy stands against the higher-critical challenge. See Hermeneutics.
S upernatural Christianity
The supernatural Christian doctrines — incarnation, miracles, bodily resurrection, second coming — stand against liberal naturalising re-interpretation.
P enal substitutionary atonement
The Reformed gospel of penal substitution stands against the liberal moral-influence and moral-example reconstructions. See Soteriology.
E schatological hope
The Reformed eschatological hope — bodily resurrection, new creation, eternal life in communion with the triune God — stands against the liberal reduction to ethical-religious community in the present age only.
G round of Christian apologetics
The Reformed apologetic engages contemporary liberal-leaning theological proposals from the Machen-Warfield-Hodge foundation. See Apologetics.
8. The hard places — read honestly
The intellectual seriousness of the liberal tradition
The Reformed engagement with liberalism is most effective where it recognises the intellectual substance of Schleiermacher, Ritschl, Harnack, and the broader liberal tradition. The intellectual figures addressed real intellectual challenges (the Enlightenment, the rise of historical criticism, the nineteenth-century philosophical-cultural questions) and engaged them with scholarly care. The Reformed engagement returns to the Reformed orthodox case while respecting the intellectual seriousness of the alternative.
The social-ethical contributions of the social gospel
The Social Gospel movement addressed real social problems ( industrial-era working conditions, poverty, labour rights, racial injustice). The Reformed engagement addresses the liberal theological framework while recognising the real social concerns. The Reformed evangelical engagement with social ethics (through Kuyperian neo-Calvinism, modern Reformed engagement with poverty, Reformed engagement with racial reconciliation) addresses similar social concerns from Reformed orthodox foundations.
The Reformed engagement without polemical caricature
The Reformed engagement with liberalism is most effective where it engages the intellectual substance rather than the polemical caricature. Machen's Christianity and Liberalism models scholarly engagement; the Reformed engagement continues this scholarly tradition.
The complicated mainline-evangelical division
The twentieth-century mainline-evangelical Protestant division substantially shaped the American Protestant landscape in complicated ways. The Reformed engagement recognises real Christians continuing in the mainline denominations alongside the Reformed evangelical departure. The Reformed conviction maintains the Machen judgement on the theological position of liberalism without dismissing individual mainline Christians.
The neo-orthodox engagement
Karl Barth's twentieth-century neo-orthodox engagement (the Church Dogmatics, 1932 – 1968) addressed the liberal theological tradition from a substantially distinct direction — re-emphasising biblical revelation, Christological centrality, divine transcendence — while substantially differing from the Reformed orthodox position on questions ( biblical inerrancy, election, natural theology). The Reformed engagement addresses Barth carefully — recognising the neo-orthodox engagement with liberalism while maintaining the Reformed orthodox distinctions. Barth page.
The contemporary liberal-progressive Christian tradition
The contemporary progressive Christian tradition — descended from the nineteenth- and twentieth-century liberal tradition — continues in the mainline Protestant denominations and the progressive evangelical movement. The Reformed engagement addresses contemporary progressive Christian proposals on doctrine and ethics from the Reformed orthodox foundation. See Discernment.
9. Influence on later Christianity
The twentieth-century mainline Protestantism
The liberal theological tradition substantially shaped American and European mainline Protestantism through the twentieth century into the contemporary period.
Reformed evangelical separation and renewal
The Reformed evangelical separation from liberalising denominations — Westminster (1929), OPC (1936), and the broader evangelical movement — shaped the Reformed evangelical movement through the twentieth century to the present.
The neo-orthodox response
Karl Barth's neo-orthodox engagement shaped the mid-twentieth-century Protestant theological landscape. Barth page.
The contemporary progressive Christianity
The contemporary progressive Christian tradition continues the liberal theological direction in the twenty-first-century mainline Protestant context.
The Reformed engagement with biblical authority
The Reformed doctrine of biblical inerrancy — articulated by Warfield and defended in the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978) — stands on the Old Princeton engagement with the nineteenth-century higher-critical challenge. See Hermeneutics.
The Reformed evangelical resurgence
The late-twentieth- and early-twenty-first-century Reformed evangelical resurgence — building on the Old Princeton and Machen tradition — continues the Reformed engagement with theological liberalism and the broader contemporary theological alternatives.
10. Modern parallels and misuses
Progressive Christianity
The contemporary progressive Christian tradition — figures like John Shelby Spong, Marcus Borg, Brian McLaren, the Jesus Seminar — continues the liberal theological direction in the contemporary American context.
Mainline-evangelical denominational divisions
Various American Protestant denominations continue to divide over liberal-conservative theological questions — PCUSA-PCA, ELCA-LCMS-WELS, UMC-Global Methodist, Episcopal Church-Anglican Church in North America. The Reformed engagement addresses the theological substance of each division.
The higher-critical Bible scholarship
contemporary higher-critical biblical scholarship continues elements of the nineteenth-century liberal scholarly tradition. The Reformed evangelical biblical scholarship (D. A. Carson, Tom Schreiner, Greg Beale, the Reformed biblical-theological tradition) engages contemporary higher-critical scholarship.
The Reformed engagement with social ethics
The Reformed engagement with contemporary social ethics — Kuyperian neo-Calvinism, Reformed engagement with poverty and racial reconciliation, the Center for Public Justice — addresses social concerns from Reformed orthodox foundations.
The Reformed engagement with the academic theological world
The Reformed evangelical engagement with the contemporary academic theological world — through Westminster Theological Seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Reformed Theological Seminary, Covenant Theological Seminary, the broader Reformed evangelical academic engagement — continues the Old Princeton tradition of scholarly engagement with contemporary theological liberalism.
The contemporary Reformed-Catholic-Orthodox-mainline conversation
The contemporary ecumenical conversation continues to address Reformed-mainline-Catholic-Orthodox theological questions. The Reformed engagement maintains the Reformed evangelical convictions while engaging dialogue partners with care.
The Internet "liberal" labelling
Modern online theological discussion uses "liberal" as insult for substantially any theological position the user substantially disagrees with. The Reformed engagement uses the label with discipline — for the nineteenth- and twentieth-century theological tradition and its contemporary continuations.
11. Where to start reading about theological liberalism
A four-step reading path for beginners
- Start with J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Macmillan, 1923; reprinted Eerdmans). The definitive Reformed engagement.
- Then Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour (P&R, 2004). The accessible Reformed biographical introduction.
- Then George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (2nd ed., Oxford, 2006). The standard scholarly account of the American fundamentalist-modernist context.
- Then Alister McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology (Zondervan, 1986). The accessible scholarly engagement with Schleiermacher and the German liberal tradition.
Going deeper — works a Reformed reader will find helpful
- J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Macmillan, 1923).
- Stephen J. Nichols, J. Gresham Machen: A Guided Tour (P&R, 2004).
- D. G. Hart, Defending the Faith: J. Gresham Machen and the Crisis of Conservative Protestantism in Modern America (Johns Hopkins, 1994).
- George M. Marsden, Fundamentalism and American Culture (2nd ed., Oxford, 2006).
- Bradley Longfield, The Presbyterian Controversy (Oxford, 1991).
- Mark Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Eerdmans, 1992).
- Alister McGrath, The Making of Modern German Christology (Zondervan, 1986).
- Karl Barth, Protestant Theology in the Nineteenth Century (Eerdmans, 1973).
- B. B. Warfield, The Inspiration and Authority of the Bible (P&R, 1948).
- Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. (1872 – 1873).
- Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, 4 vols. (Baker Academic, 2003 – 2008).
- Carl R. Trueman, The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self (Crossway, 2020).
- The Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy (1978).
12. Conclusion: Christianity and Liberalism are two different religions
Theological Liberalism is the nineteenth- and twentieth-century Protestant theological tradition that substantially redefined Christianity in terms compatible with modern critical assumptions — rejecting biblical authority, the supernatural Christian doctrines, the deity of Christ in the orthodox sense, the penal-substitutionary atonement; re-locating Christianity in religious feeling, ethics, or religious-existential experience. The Reformed response — Old Princeton, Machen, Bavinck, and the Reformed evangelical engagement — reaffirmed the Reformed orthodox confession against the liberal reconstruction. J. Gresham Machen's Christianity and Liberalism (1923) remains the definitive Reformed judgement: liberalism is not a different version of Christianity but a different religion.
The Reformed posture toward theological liberalism is doctrinal, historically careful, pastorally engaged. D octrinal, because the Reformed orthodox doctrines stand against the liberal reconstruction. H istorically careful, because the intellectual seriousness of the liberal tradition requires careful engagement, not polemical caricature. P astorally engaged, because the mainline-evangelical division continues to shape the contemporary American Protestant landscape and requires Reformed pastoral wisdom. One God, one Lord Jesus Christ truly God and truly man, one Spirit, one biblical revelation, one gospel of grace through faith on the ground of Christ's penal-substitutionary atonement — the Reformed orthodox confession is the gospel the Reformed church preaches against the liberal alternative.