decadent. For it made superfluous all intellectual labour in biblical and theological studies—not just dogmatics but also higher criticism. Any effort to attach meaning or definition to Christianity was ultimately pointless because what finally counted for Protestant liberals was individual experience. Machen acknowledged that he was no match for the philosophical origins of liberal Protestantism that extended back to Kant and Schleiermacher, though he did relish the irony of systematic thinkers
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