The Bible is not a ladder; it is a foundation. It is buttressed, indeed, by experience; if you have the present Christ, then you know that the Bible account is true. But if the Bible were false, your faith would go. You cannot, therefore, be indifferent to biblical criticism. Let us not deceive ourselves. The Bible is the foundation of the Church. Undermine that foundation and the Church will fall. Two conceptions of Christianity are struggling for the ascendancy; the question that we have been discussing is part of a still larger problem. The Bible against the modern preacher. . . . The Church is in perplexity. She is trying to compromise. God grant that she may choose aright. God grant she may decide for the Bible!
J. Gresham Machen, “History and Faith“
