Machen's Softer Side?

In the Briarwood Church library today, I pulled a book from Machen and read his chapter on Christianity and liberty. It surprised me, honestly, because having previously read Christianity and Liberalism, I have often thought of Machen primarily as a warrior — a defender of orthodoxy willing to stand against the theological drift of his day no matter the personal cost.

I still admire that deeply. But this chapter felt different.

One line especially stayed with me: “The Christian man is free from the whole weary burden of the law.” Machen was not speaking of freedom from holiness or obedience, but freedom from the crushing weight of trying to establish righteousness through performance, appearances, or human approval. That kind of liberty is deeply personal and deeply spiritual.

Reading it, I sensed beneath the polemics a man who understood something profound about grace and the freedom it creates within the Christian life. Machen’s concern was not merely defending doctrine as an intellectual exercise. He seemed deeply concerned with protecting the liberty of the Christian conscience from both theological corruption and human control.

Another phrase that struck me was Machen’s insistence that Christianity “does not mean slavery but liberty.” That sentence challenged some of my own assumptions about him. Because if I am honest, grace has made me feel almost rebellious at times — not rebellious against God, but against the subtle culture of fear, judgment, and performative religion that can grow around Christianity.

Today, for example, I hugged a man with purple hair, piercings, and tattoos and told him I loved him. To some Christians, that might seem compromising or careless. But to me, it felt deeply Christian. I did not see a stereotype or a threat to moral order. I saw a human being made in the image of God.

Years ago, I might have hesitated. I might have subconsciously filtered the interaction through questions of appearance, acceptability, or what others might think. But grace has a way of freeing the heart from that kind of fear-driven religion.

And strangely enough, reading Machen today made me feel that perhaps he understood this better than I once assumed.

Warriors rarely sound warm while they are fighting battles. Much of Machen’s writing emerged from conflict, controversy, and institutional struggle. A man defending what he believes to be the integrity of the gospel will naturally sound sharp at times. Yet this chapter revealed glimpses of something gentler beneath the armor.

Machen wrote that the Christian “has been set free from the consciousness of sin.” That does not mean the believer becomes morally indifferent. Rather, the Christian no longer lives trapped beneath condemnation and fear. Acceptance before God rests on grace rather than social respectability or religious performance.

Jesus Himself was often criticized because His love crossed boundaries respectable religious people preferred to keep intact. He moved toward outsiders, touched the unclean, ate with the unwanted, and showed startling tenderness toward people others reduced to categories.

Reading Machen today made me reflect on how easily Christians can defend truth while forgetting the texture of grace. Truth without love hardens into sterility. But grace-filled truth produces both conviction and tenderness.

Perhaps that is what stayed with me most in this chapter: the realization that genuine Christian liberty should not make us colder, more suspicious, or more isolated from people unlike ourselves. Properly understood, grace should make us freer — freer to love, freer to see people clearly, freer from fear, and freer from the exhausting need to preserve appearances.

Maybe even Machen, beneath all the controversy, longed for that kind of Christianity.