Some former missionaries will go back on the field with another message—not one of the gospel, but under their new title: Global Ecumenical Advisors. Machen was right. Missions without the gospel is not missions.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) is the old mother Kirk of American Presbyterianism. In her lie all the treasures of the great names and institutions that made up American Presbyterianism and its powerful influence on the world in which we live.

Witherspoon, Miller, Hodge, Warfield, Machen.

Davies, Thornwell, Girardeau.

Princeton, Union, Columbia (GA).

Wooster, Westminster, Muskingum.

Great names. Great institutions.

Fifteen signers of the Declaration of Independence were mainline Presbyterians.

Witherspoon, Madison, Wilson, Jackson, Eisenhower, Reagan.

Frederick Douglass. Fred Rogers.

James Stewart. John Wayne.

Grant Wood. Edward Hopper.

The old mother kirk of American Presbyterianism holds treasures of the mind and heart that few have ever seen. She has lived through a Revolution with England; divided over Black slavery only to be united again; welcomed seceding (Associate and United) Presbyterians into her bosom. Fought for truth. Fought for justice. Shaped the American experience in thought life, high culture, and even pop-culture. “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood,” because of Mr. Rogers’s worldview.

She has sent missionaries abroad, conquered nations through discipleship rather than the sword; she has changed hearts and minds.

She has also been on a century-plus decline. She has tripped, she has harmed her witness, and in many ways she has stumbled over her own candlestick causing not only offense… but its snuffing.

In the 1933 denominational magazine, The Presbyterian, J Gresham Machen wrote: “In foreign lands, as at home, what the modern Church offers is not Christ but a program. It is not Christianity, but a diluted substitute. If the Church desires to maintain a real missionary enterprise, it must first of all return to the faith.”

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