A Baccalaureate Address and the Enterprise

I recently picked up for a good price a copy of J. Gresham Machen’s The Gospel in the Modern World. Originally given as a Baccalaureate address at Hampden-Syndey College June 9, 1929, Machen explains the differences between Christianity and the modern mind and how the Gospel can still make an impact in the modern world of his day and ours.

Certain words and sentences have a way of sticking out depending on who reads them, based on personality or interest. Commenting on the logical result of modern forces that he felt threatened liberty, individuality and even what it means to be human, Machen asks, “What sort of world is it to which we are tending? What is really the modern ideal?”

"I suppose it is a world in which the human machine has arrived at the highest stage of efficiency. Disease, I suppose, may be abolished; and as for death, although we shall have not abolished it, we shall at least have abolished its terrors. Vague childish longings, prescientific speculations as to a hereafter, will all be gone; and we shall have learned, as reasonable and scientific men, to stand without a pang at the grave of those whom in a less scientific age we should have been childish enough to love" (p 17).

I read those words and what’s the first thing that popped in my head?

This:

Machen actually described the world of Star Trek. I know, I know, only Kedric could link someone from Old Princeton to Star Trek. I might as well walk around saying with an English accent, "Tea. Earl Grey. Hot." But I can't help but see a correlation.

In the world of Star Trek disease, for the most part (on earth) has been abolished. The terrors of death, for the most part, have been as well. Those who have come before are simply many in a long line of inevitable human progress and evolutionary development. Gregory Peterson, in an article on "Religion and Science in Star Trek" (Star Trek & Sacred Ground) calls this an "evolutionary eschatology in which individuals contribute to their species' evolutionary progression toward higher and more benevolent life forms." Science and reason take the place of supernatural revelation, fulfilling "many of the functions that religion purports to fill" (p. 62).

Machen's statement about the modern ideal is not surprising considering the genre of science fiction was in full force with the publication of numerous pulp magazines, preceded by the famous sci-fi/futuristic novels by Mary Shelley, Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

Machen has a positive view of science, which I will get to shortly. But in his response to his observation of the modern ideal he refers to it as a "mechanistic world." Though speaking as a man of his time, he saw what science could do to human life, having served with the YMCA in Europe in WWI.

"I will tell you frankly what I think of it; I think it is a world in which all zest, all glory, all that makes life worth living, has been destroyed. It will no doubt have its advantages. In it no doubt the span of your life may be extended far beyond the previously allotted period of threescore years and ten. Experts appointed by the state will always be by your side to examine your physcial and mental condition and keep you alive upon the earth. Perhaps they may be successful in keeping you alive upon the earth. But what will be the use? Who would want to live longer in a world where life is so little worthwhile?"

Machen was not talking about a world that is free of war, disease, hunger, poverty, etc. Who wouldn't want to live in that world? I interpret his words--"we shall have learned, as reasonable and scientific men, to stand without a pang at the grave of those whom in a less scientific age we should have been childish enough to love"--as humanity living in an age of "reason" losing all fear of death, seeing those who have come before simply as stepping stones to a higher plane.  Countless numbers who are not immortalized in the history books are wiped away. I am not certain what Machen meant exactly, but he saw a major problem in where the "modern ideal" was leading. Perhaps he saw the loss of the liberty of the invididual as an individual because he or she would be living simply for this life; that is that Man plus Redemption minus God is not equal to a full life.

Machen concludes his address in a hopeful manner:

"There are some of us who have become convinced that the pathway of true progress leads to the feet of Jesus Christ; that, consecrated to his service, the wonderful scientific achievements of the present day, in which we rejoice, far from being, as increasingly they are now threatening to become, the instruments of human slavery, may become the instruments of human liberty. There are some of us who, after listening to many voices, after trying many substitutes, have decided, with a fresh and hopeful joy, to stand by our old allegiance, and to say, not to the reduced Jesus of modern naturalistic reconstruction but to the mighty Redeemer presented in the Word of God: "Lord, to whom shall we go; thou hast the words of eternal life" (pp 25-26)

Jolan Tru.