R. Scott Clark (click here for personal info) recently wrote an article on theological liberalism and that included the conflict with and distinction from what J. Gresham Machen wrote. Machen did a wonderful job in distinguishing theological liberalism from Christianity. According to Clark, three areas in which Machen showed the difference between Christianity theological liberalism was in the area of the supernatural, moralism, and in comparing Jesus to Paul (click here for the article).
Though the focus of this article will be on moralism, something needs to be said regarding the areas of the supernatural and in comparing Jesus to Paul.
Regarding supernaturalism, the theological liberalism of Machen's day, and today too much of theological liberalism denies the supernatural and reduces all of reality to the physical. Such a denial cuts at the heart of the Gospel as Machen noted. For without the supernatural intervention of God in history through Jesus Christ, we have neither the vicarious atonement of the righteous one for sinners nor is there the resurrection from the dead for our salvation and the proof that Jesus Christ is God's only begotten son.
Regarding the comparison of Jesus to Paul, Clark makes the point that theological liberalism has wanted to eliminate how Paul showed that he was a follower of Jesus by what he said about Him. Once theological liberals could sever Paul from Jesus, they could make Jesus into any kind of person they want to.
However, we should note one thing here, there seems to be some differences in what Jesus and Paul taught about our obligations in how we treat each other. While Jesus talked about taking those who persisted in unspecified sins before the Church for discipline and possible excommunication, Paul tells believers in Corinth to suffer mistreatment from fellow believers rather than taking each other to court. He said that to protect the reputation of the Gospel and because God will judge those who mistreat others in the Church. Likewise, just as we have the story of Nicodemus and how he promised to repay those he cheated according to the Law of Moses, Paul simply tells those who steal to stop and work to contribute to others.
While what Jesus said in the Gospels went along with the law, what Paul said in several instances showed a difference back then in how Jewish believers regarded the law from how Gentile believers responded to the Law.
But the issue that this article wants to focus on here is the moralism issue. For it seems that when theological liberals and other unbelievers exhort society to pursue justice, some theological conservative Christians counter with cries of 'moralism.' And that moralism label is meant to discredit and dismiss what unbelievers are saying.
Clark illustrates, in this article, one of the major problems that come with these conservative brushing off of theological liberalism's calls for justice. How does Clark do that? He does that by pointing to rules on sexual behavior that theological liberals reject. So why can conservatives like Clark call social rules promoted by theological liberals 'moralism' while what conservatives understand of Biblical sexual morality as being obligatory? That is question that may not be answered here. For while the Bible speaks clearly as to what is allowed and disallowed in terms of how we sexually act, social justice issues promoted by theological liberals more often than not deal with the Commandments that prohibit murder or theft.
When Clark describes the sexual morality supported by theological liberalism, he writes as if the sexual moral sky is falling because of the current state that allowed for same-sex marriages. In addition, Clark gets specific in talking about sexual morals when he mentions same-sex marriage, no-fault divorce, sexual abuse, and a future that will logically bring polygamy and pederasty. Of course that future is logically deduced rather than witnessed by observation.
But Clark gives no such specific examples of social justice either in Machen's day or now. At the most, he equates those promoting social justice with the Methodist teetotalers of Machen's day, which is more historical than trivial since Machen's promotion to be Professor of Apologetics was blocked in a committee of the Presbyterian Church's General Assembly because of his opposition to the 18th Amendment that eventually made Prohibition the law of the land (see https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/j-gresham-machen-the-politically-incorrect-fundamentalist ). Machen also opposed the creation of the Federal Department of Education, the Child Labor Amendment, and any attempt to establish a Christian culture. In the cases of the first two instances, Machen, a political Libertarian, was afraid of the sacrifice of individual freedom to a growing government. With the latter, Machen was a afraid that Christian culture would fail to respect minorities.
Machen also opposed socialism because it would, in his opinion, result in the elimination of individual freedoms. Then again, Machen wrote that in 1923 in his book Christianity and Liberalism where his one possible exposure to Marxist socialism was Lenin and Bolshevism. The problem there is that Lenin ruled as a totalitarian, or a different kind of Tsar, rather than as a Marxist Socialist. A socialist contemporary of Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg, made a similar point though she also excused the Lenin and the Bolsheviks because of the revolutionary endeavors and the then current hardships it faced (see https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/ch08.htm )
Clark then follows Machen's example of claiming that those working for social justice as have rejected the good news of the Gospel in favor of the law--Machen said the same about those advocating the social gospel in his day. But is such a claim true? Consider that the Gospel preaches grace and mercy as ways sinful people can favorably face a just God. Social justice is concerned with stopping current injustices and creating a more just society especially for those who have been oppressed. BTW, we should note that Machen, despite his own racism and opposition to social justice, expressed concern for those who were oppressed. Facing God is not an issue in social justice because social justice is dealing with people and the here and now. So how does promoting social justice imply a rejection of the Gospel?
What is there in the Gospel that prohibits one from working for social justice? Does believing in Jesus for the forgiveness of one's sins mean that one cannot not be concerned with and work to help fix racial inequality, the marginalization of the LGBT community in society, sexism, climate change, income and wealth disparities, economic exploitation, imperialism, or militarism?
Can one believe the Gospel Machen taught and still work for social justice? For those who answer with a 'no,' we should note that we are playing an association game. Just as many unbelievers today might understandably but wrongly associate the rejection of working for legitimate social justice concerns with religiously conservative Christianity, so to did Machen, at least to some extent, and Clark now associate the working for social justice with theological liberalism.
What we might be seeing in Clark and many like him is not just a whole hearted embracing of Machen's theology, it is also a mix that includes a whole hearted embracing of Machen's political libertarianism and enjoying the place of supremacy that Christianity has had in America since its beginning. That is not the same as calling America a Christian nation. That is because the idea that we can have a Christian nation is not supported by the New Testament.
In rejecting today's calls for social justice, Clark just might be reacting the way that we normally react to any calls for change in situations in which one feels comfortable. Change requires more internal energy from us than anything else we do. So besides how Clark seems to easily associate calls for social justice with theological liberalism, another reason for Clark's position here is a very natural resistance to certain changes.
There are other things could be said but we will leave it at that. Many religiously conservative Christians are having quite a difficult time in seeing the social justice movements of today as being anything other than a religious heresy. But they unwittingly do so perhaps in part for the same reasons we all have for resisting change. In addition, he does so because, perhaps like Machen to an extent, he has pronounced social justice as being antithetical to Gospel as a way of pronouncing it guilty by association.
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