Machen, Van Til and the Apologetical Tradition of the OPC (Greg L. Bahnsen)

“Machen, Van Til and the Apologetical Tradition of the OPC” by Greg L. Bahnsen

Apologetics gave birth to the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and continues to be its legacy and reputation. The modernism of the early twentieth century was not simply a theological variant within historic Christianity, not merely a new version of Christian doctrine which retained at its center the evangel. It was, according to J. Gresham Machen’s analysis in Christianity and Liberalism, a departure from the Christian religion altogether, abandoning the proclamation of the supernaturalistic good news of redemption which had distinguished the Christian church throughout history. Liberalism was simply another religion or philosophy of man in competition with the historic biblical faith. Accordingly, the battle with modernism was more than “polemical theology” against an exegetically weak or inconsistent school of evangelical Christianity. It was apologetics with unbelief. …