Author Archives: ifaqtheology

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About ifaqtheology

Professor of Religion, Pepperdine University Specialties: Systematic Theology, Christianity and Culture Author of: God, Freedom & Human Dignity: Embracing God-Centered Identity in a Me-Centered World (IVP, 2013)

Understanding the Culture Wars…Why it Matters (Part One)

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In every age Christians must consider carefully how to live in their unique circumstances. In one way this task is very simple: keep your eyes fixed on Jesus and hold on to the gospel and the apostles’ teaching. Remaining faithful does not require understanding all the ways people can be unfaithful. Knowing truth does not require studying all forms of falsehood. While this is a very important insight we would do well to keep in mind, not every Christian possesses thorough knowledge of the scriptures or deep understanding of the faith. Not all have become stable in discipleship to Jesus. They are vulnerable to deception by half-truths and clever lies. Hence some within the Christian community need to devote themselves to understanding the cultural context within which God’s people live and sharing their findings with the church. I find myself compelled to engage in this work.

This summer I’ve felt an urgent need for additional insight into the principles that animate the drastically different moral/political/religious visions that do battle contemporary culture. Don’t mistake my concern for despair. I am confident that God’s deity and existence are not at stake, much less in jeopardy, in these controversies. Jesus Christ is and will be Lord no matter what the outcome of the cultural war is. My worry is that some Christians could be swept up in the emotions of the day, take their eyes off Jesus, lose faith in the providence of God, and abandon themselves to hatred, division, and fanaticism.

The Raging Battle

Sometimes I feel like a man standing on a hill gazing silently at a battle raging in the valley below. Who are the participants? What’s at stake in the battle? How did this war begin and when will it end? I understand that I am a part of this world and a participant in this culture. As long as I live I cannot escape the conflict completely. But do not believe I should rush into the battle before I do all I can to understand why the war is being fought and how it relates to the spiritual battle “against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms” (Eph 6:12).

Right and Left

The standard classification of right, left, and center seems inadequate to describe the present cultural landscape. Right, left, and center parties combine greatly disparate ideologies and interest groups to form their coalitions. At first inspection, the whole culture seems to be a chaotic, eclectic patchwork of temporary alliances of convenience.

The right and left are relative terms, and to convey any information they must relate to a fixed point. Historically, these terms derive from the era of the French Revolution (1789). The French National Assembly divided into supporters of the King who sat on the King’s right and supporters of the revolution who sat on the King’s left. Applied to the contemporary social order this mapping makes sense only in relation to an image of the traditional religious/moral/social order taken as a fixed point. The Right maintains a conservative stance toward this order and the Left calls for revolution.

I think the designations “Right” and “Left” are still useful in marking out two general attitudes toward tradition, but they do not help us understand the nuances of difference within each wing. Apart from understanding the Right’s reasons and principles justifying conservation of the past and the Left’s reasons and principles grounding its call for revolution, we can neither understand nor evaluate their programs.

I find it confusing that each party calls to its defense the same set of reasons and principles but apply them in different ways, with different levels of consistency, and in different combinations at different times. Even more confusing, the parties themselves do not seem to be aware, much less possess a theoretical grasp, of how they are using those reasons and principles. To understand the current situation we need greater clarity about the function of principles in the arguments of the parties.

The Rhetoric of Freedom

In the cultural struggle between “Left and Right,” all parties appeal to the same noble and commonly accepted principles. No one says, “I don’t care about other people. I want what I want no matter what others think.” No one lets it slip that they are power hungry or greedy or obsessed with perverted lusts. They talk about legal rights, constitutional rights, and human rights*. They complain of unfairness, injustice, discrimination, and inequality. Sometimes they invoke human dignity, the inherent right to happiness, or autonomy. Let’s explore the meaning of these principles and try to ascertain how they are used by Right and Left to support their positions.

*Note: A “right” is a broader concept than a “freedom” though it includes it. A negative right is identical to a freedom, but a positive right corresponds to what was traditionally known as a “privilege.”

The Many Faces of Freedom

In the history of philosophy and politics “freedom” has been used to designate three basic types of openness for human action. Two of the three have been adapted to develop theories of political freedom. In popular rhetoric, however, they are mixed together, and this conceptual confusion leads to misunderstandings. In view of this confusion let’s first get clear on the differences among the views of freedom being used in contemporary rhetoric.

1. Freedom to Act as One Pleases

According to John Locke, Jonathan Edwards, and John S. Mill, freedom is leeway to act as you please. Freedom understood in this way is openness to pursue your happiness in whatever way you find promising. You are free insofar as nothing outside of yourself obstructs your external action in pursuit of good things. Maximum liberty, then, is a circumstance wherein nothing external to you inhibits acting on your desires. But everyone knows that we will never enjoy maximum freedom in this world. The laws of nature, our finite powers, limited knowledge, and resistance from other people will not allow it. Pursuing maximum freedom despite its impossibility will work only destruction. Like it or not, we are forced to come to terms with our less than maximum freedom. But however realistic we may be about the limits the world places on our freedom, we may not be able to shake the feeling that we are being deprived of happiness. Different people cope with these limits differently. Some find contentment in resignation to their limits. Others nurse perpetual resentment and defiance. Still others are driven to think in alternative ways about freedom and happiness.

2. Freedom in Classic Liberal Politics

At its best, politics is deliberation about the optimum way to order life in society to facilitate the realization and preservation of the cherished values of the people. Adopting Locke’s, Edwards’s, and Mill’s understanding of freedom, classic liberal political theory holds individual liberty as its most cherished value. It aims to advance and protect each person’s freedom to pursue happiness in whatever way the individual finds promising insofar as such action can be harmonized with every other individual’s pursuit of their happiness. Liberty is so precious that it may be limited only by liberty itself.

A government administered as a classic liberal order refrains from telling individuals in what their happiness consists. In other words, it’s not a “nanny state” that assumes it knows better than you what is good for you. Nor does it take as its responsibility making sure everyone attains happiness; it’s not a “welfare state” whose task is to accompany you from cradle to grave to make sure you have everything you need every step of the way. It assumes that each individual knows best what makes them happy and that they possess the drive to pursue it. The art of politics in the classic liberal state is balancing the liberty of each with all and of all with each. The government assumes the role of a referee that makes sure the game is played according to the rules. There will always be disagreements, conflicting claims, and “bad calls.” The devil is in the details.

As we all know, however, a society ordered purely in accord with the classic liberal political theory has never existed. It’s probably impossible. Other such values as national security, religious and moral belief, human dignity, general welfare, aesthetic tastes, and prejudices often serve as the bases for laws that restrict freedom.

Next Time: Other views of freedom and political order.

I Want it All!

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As regular readers of this blog know, I believe a certain image of the human self drives modern progressive culture ever closer to the abyss of moral nihilism. I argued in the previous two essays that this image of the self was constructed by transferring the divine attributes of absolute freedom and unlimited power from God to humanity. Of course progressives know that human beings are not yet in fact absolutely free from all alienating limits; divine status is an aspiration. As an aspiration, however, it drives technological advancement, individual behavior, and progressive social change toward the goal of total liberation of the self from all limits into complete self-mastery. As this description makes clear, modern progressivism possesses many of the hallmarks of a religion; in fact it is a heretical distortion of Christianity. In progressivism, God is replaced by humanity, divine grace by human striving, sin by finitude, and heaven by an ever-receding earthly utopia. Traditional moral rules and conservative social forces—systemic racism and capitalism—take on the role of the devil. Social activists and political leaders serve as saviors, prophets, and priests. Modern people want it all, here and now, their own way.

You Can’t Have it All…That Way

But that’s not going to happen. Everyone knows in their heart of hearts that we are not gods and will never achieve the status of divinity. We will never be absolutely free from all limits. We will never have power over all things. The progressive image of humanity is an idol, a mental representation of our fantasies. And yet, in service of this falsehood people have fought devastating wars, sold their souls, ruined their health, committed murder, and mutilated their bodies. In their despairing hope they strain to make the impossible happen. Why?

Its falsehood must not be completely obvious to those deceived. Perhaps the growth of control over nature advanced by modern science and technology gives some plausibility to the idea that technology will one day achieve final triumph over all physical limits. Or perhaps there is some truth mixed in with the illusions. Human beings are amazing! Our reason, imaginations, and desires seem unlimited. We have accomplished great things. What may be most significant of all, however, is this: progressivism arose, received its initial plausibility, and still lives parasitically from the energy unleashed into the world by Jesus Christ and his disciples. Progressivism is a secularized form of Christian faith, hope, and love, and in hidden ways—in fading memories and leftover habits of thought—these three virtues still root progressivism in a powerful vision of reality in which all things come from God and move toward God by the power of God. But progressivism has long since cut itself off from Christianity, the original source of its plausibility; indeed progressivism views Christianity as its chief rival and arch nemesis. Hence it is but a matter of time before façade of its idealism falls away and is replaced by the exercise of raw power in service of the interests of whatever progressive group can gain and maintain the levers of power. Idealism without principles leads inexorably to coercion without conscience.

You Can Have it All

The irony in progressivism’s quest to have it all in rebellion to God is that in Jesus Christ God promised that we can have it all! What progressivism attempts futilely to snatch by effort, God wishes to give by grace. Jesus promises a “glorious freedom” (Romans 8:21) wherein God makes us his own dear children who can have anything we want, because, having been made holy by the Spirit, we want only to be with our Father and to receive from his hand all good things (James 1:17). Because God raised Jesus from the dead we can be confident he will raise us to glory, immortality, and incorruptibility (1 Cor 15:53-54). “The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life” (Romans 6:23). When we see Jesus we will be “like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Instead of a pathetic imitation divinity, boastful and proud, but impotent against sin, death, and the devil, the Christian hope envisions for us such an intimate union with God that we will enjoy God’s presence as the true fulfillment of our aspiration “to be as God.” We will be permeated by the Spirit and completely conformed to the image of Christ who is the image of God. Compared with what Jesus promises, progressivism’s ambitions appear shabby indeed.

I want it all! I’ve always wanted it all. But for a long time, I did not know in what the “all” consisted, where to find it, or how. Now I know. I want to know and experience the infinite and eternal good that God is. Nothing greater is possible. Nothing less will do.

Wisdom, Understanding, and the Spirit of the Age

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In the previous essay, written about a week ago, I set out briefly what I think it means to be an educated person. Just a few days later during a conversation with some good friends one of them recalled an article that listed the 100 books one “must read” to become an educated person. Since then I’ve thought about that claim and concluded that—though containing much truth—it misses the mark. Among the many problems with this idea, the most damning is its identification of reading with understanding and knowledge of facts with wisdom. One can read those 100 books and thousands more without becoming wise or gaining understanding. And surely we would call no one educated who does not possess understanding.

Searching for Understanding

So, I’ve been thinking recently about what it means to be wise and possess understanding. As a teenager, I felt a great need for wisdom and lamented my lack thereof. I read the Old Testament book of Proverbs over and over and took it to heart. I read the New Testament book of James for the same reason. I took James at his word when he advised, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you” (James 1:5). And, of course, I pondered Paul’s profoundly counterintuitive claim that God’s deepest wisdom and power were revealed in the cross of Christ (1 Cor 1:18-25). Much of my reading throughout life has been given to the search for wisdom and understanding. What, then, is wisdom and how can we gain understanding?

My search has been for knowledge about how to live a good life, for discernment to make good decisions, and for the intellectual and moral virtues that make that good life possible and protect us from foolishness and evil. It is a quest to understand myself, the human condition, our age, and the possibilities for the future. It is a pursuit of the “happy life,” which Augustine of Hippo defined as “joy based on truth.” It is desire to know my place, do my part, and complete my assignment. It is life in hope of hearing the words of the Master, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!” (Matt 25:21).

Understanding the Spirit of the Age

This morning I read an article on “History” in one of my encyclopedias of theology. I found the section on the philosophy of history especially stimulating. It reminded me of my quest for understanding and wisdom, especially of my desire to understand our age and my place in it. I believe strongly in divine providence: God is the beginning and end of all things and Jesus Christ reveals the goal and meaning of history. This faith gives me confidence that history as a whole possesses meaning, that in looking to Jesus we can know what we need to know about God, and in following Jesus we can live good lives. Nevertheless, in trying to understand the spirit of our age and how I can best live in relation to it, I sometimes feel like I am lost in a forest. I believe the “forest” has an edge and a shape, but I can’t rise above the canopy to find my bearings.

Much of my intellectual quest has been devoted to finding—if not the top of the forest canopy—some higher ground from which to survey a larger area of the landscape in search of a wider historical perspective. At least half of the 350 essays I’ve written for this blog have been devoted to this task. As frequent readers know, I view the “spirit of the age” as the energy unleashed by the Enlightenment’s and Romantic Movement’s transfer of God’s attributes to humanity. In my April 18, 2022 essay, “How God Became Man: The Story of Progressive Humanism,” I observed that human beings always see their ideals and ambitions exemplified perfectly by God/gods. In the late Middle Ages (1300 to 1500) theologians began to view God primarily as an all-determining, omnipotent, and absolutely free will rather than an infinite intellect, perfect in goodness, self-diffusive in love. God is everything and human beings are nothing. The modern world held on to the ideal of absolute freedom as the highest good but reversed the relationship between God and humanity: Humanity became the central player in history and God became no more than a supporting actor! Divine providence was replaced by human planning. For the past 400 years, the driving force of history—the spirit of the age—has been the human quest to realize its ambition and presumed right for absolute freedom, for a sort of divinity.

This quest for unlimited freedom has unfolded in stepwise fashion from around 1600 until today. In an essay from October 11, 2013, “In the Year 2013…Will There Be Faith on the earth?” I distinguish between two different types of logic at work in historical development—linear and dialectical logic. (By “logic” I mean the connections ideas and actions have with each other whereby one leads to another.)

The thesis that

“Humanity is in its inner essence absolutely free from all alien limits and can attain this freedom in actuality through its own effort”

is teeming with revolutionary implications impossible to grasp at once. Only in the history it inspires does its latent meaning become manifest and understandable. Only with historical hindsight can we see that this thesis stated above was at work all along. In that history, the moment human beings are liberated from one alien “oppressor,” others oppressors come into view, and so on without limit, without end. The church and kings were dealt with first. History since the American and French Revolutions witnesses one liberation movement after another driven by the linear logic that seeks to unfold the real-world implications of the principle of self-determining freedom. Today, we have reached the point a which the physical body itself—understood as a biological given—has come to be seen as oppressive. Human nature, body and soul, must now submit to the absolute freedom of human subjectivity and willfulness.

However there is another logic at work in the history of freedom—a dialectical logic.

(“Dialectic” refers to conversation or debate wherein one partner’s affirmation provokes the other’s denial. The denial, then, provokes a defense, and so on. You can unfold an idea linearly by yourself, theoretically, but dialectical logic requires conflict with others.)

Strong and unambiguous assertions always provoke denials, and radical acts provoke strong reactions. At some point it becomes apparent—or at least felt—that if the ideal of absolute freedom was put into practice consistently it would mean absolute destruction of all order, truth, reason, and rules. That is to say, freedom without limits works total destruction. Nihilism is the secret spirit of the age, the source of its power, and the mystery of its appeal. But not everyone is fascinated with the specter of total destruction. They foresee that using the ideal of unlimited freedom even in a relatively just cause—for example, the quest for liberation from slavery, racism, and sexism—will eventually destroy the principles by which we understood those causes to be just to begin with. Hence they push back against the “spirit of the age” and “the arc of history.” Such “conservatives” may succeed in the short term, but they will fail in the long term unless they expose the secret nihilism of the age in a way that convinces the cultural leaders of their errors. Sadly I don’t see this happening. The linear logic of nihilism-disguised-as-freedom, of humanity masquerading as God, will continue its destructive course until it is unmasked by history itself or everything is destroyed.

Christ Crucified or the Spirit of the Age

Christian people are not immune to fascination with the spirit of the age. After all, it appeals to that universal human desire “to be as God” discussed in Genesis 3. And if we think God’s divinity and eternal joy are rooted in his power over everything and his freedom from all limits, we will desire such power and freedom and resent that do not not possess them. We have no defense and nothing significant to say to a culture that pursues openly what we desire in secret. Our only hope is to embrace the counterintuitive truth that God’s deepest wisdom and power are revealed in the cross of Christ (1 Cor 1:18-25). God’s deepest nature is self-giving, other-oriented love. This divine love should be our highest ideal and following the way of the cross our loftiest ambition. The spirit of our age is a substitute god, an idol. And in my estimation coming to see this clearly is a mark of wisdom and an achievement of understanding.

19 We know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control of the evil one. 20 We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true by being in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. 21 Dear children, keep yourselves from idols (1 John 5:19-21).

To be continued…

What Does It Mean To Be An Educated Person?

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What does it mean to be an educated person? This question assumes that becoming an educated person is a valuable goal. Also presupposed is the fact that people are not born educated but must achieve this state through a process of learning. What, then, does one need to learn and how may one become an educated person?

Perhaps the first thing on which to get clear is that one does not need to know everything to be considered an educated person. To begin with, human beings cannot know everything. Much about nature, human history, and culture is not known by anyone or has been forgotten. Future human beings may discover and invent many things hardly imaginable today. Additionally, there is too much knowledge available even now for any one person to master in a lifetime.

The educated person of fifth-century B.C. Greece or eighth-century Persia would not be considered educated for life in twenty-first century America or France. Your ability to negotiate life in rural America won’t sustain you in New York City. Nor could the New Yorker make it on the farm. These examples hint at the nature of education and the basis of its value. Education is a process of gaining at least the minimum of knowledge and skills needed to thrive in a particular society and age.

I think it is helpful to distinguish between acquisition of technical skills—brick laying, cooking, farm animal care, or welding—and acquisition of social skills, the so-called “liberal arts.” In our society we don’t consider a person “educated” simply because they are skilled at husbandry or car repair. We reserve the label “educated” for a person who possesses the knowledge and skills that enable them to engage fully and gracefully in all sectors of the dominant society in which they live. Of course we need to understand our subculture as well, but we don’t need a formal education to achieve this goal. We acquire this knowledge in the same way we pick up our local dialect.

(Note: Acquiring “cultural competence” is all the rage in education circles these days. It seems to mean learning about other people’s subcultures–especially “marginalized” cultures–when what is needed is for everyone to learn how to live in the national/international culture.)

Usually, then, acquiring an education is a self-conscious process of learning the inner workings and interrelationships of the major sectors of the society within which we live—economy, politics, art, literature, law, science, technology, ethics, and religion. Since each of these institutions has come to be what it is today over a long period of time, study of their history is an essential part of understanding their present constitutions. Communicating effectively and gracefully with people from different places and backgrounds is an essential social skill. Reading, writing, and speaking well are, therefore, essential marks of an educated person. And no one can learn to write well or speak well without reading examples of well written literature.

The process of education requires some institutionalization: libraries, schools, presses, and publishers. The reason for this is simple: the knowledge and skills needed for education has been produced over centuries by millions of people living at great distances from each other and speaking different languages. This knowledge must be collected, winnowed, concentrated, and, for the last 2500 years, usually written in books. Becoming an educated person is a process of assimilating the knowledge and skills discovered and developed by many other human beings. Becoming an educated person is a social affair, a process of socialization or even humanization.

As a cautionary note, something has gone terribly wrong if education itself becomes a narrow subculture that so alienates students from the major institutions of society that they cannot skillfully and gracefully live within them.

Questions for future essays: What does it take to be an educator? What does it mean to be a theologically educated person? What does it take to be a teacher of theology?

The Slippery Slope Argument: Always Fallacious?

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The slippery slope argument appears often in political, theological, and ethical debates. Simply put, it argues that accepting one questionable idea leads to a downward slide to worse and worse ideas and finally to an abyss of absurdity. It burdens the first idea with the weight of the last. Political progressives use it. Political conservatives use it. Theological liberals and theological traditionalists love it. And all parties criticize each other for making it! When it supports our side we think it brilliant and when it doesn’t we reject it as fallacious. Which is it?

Both the admiring and dismissive reactions to the slippery slope argument (SSA) are evoked by the claim that the cascade of ideas moving from bad to worse to absurd are linked by necessary relationships so that accepting the first leads inexorably to the last. The paradoxical tendency of the argument to provoke both reactions lies in its confusing combination of very different kinds of relationships used to map the descending cascade: logical, psychological, sociological, and individual tastes and preferences. An SSA is strongest when it relies heavily on logical relationships. Such an argument begins with clear definitions and principles, true premises, and progresses with valid inferences to its conclusions. In politics, theology, and morality purely logical arguments are too abstract to get the job done. In these areas where so much more than truth is at stake—money, pleasure, power, and honor—rarely can people on different sides of a debate agree even on definitions, principles, and foundational premises; and without clarity and agreement on a common beginning point, each move’s validity will be called into question.

Confusion is compounded when psychological and sociological connections are presented as if they were logical inferences. Our understanding of human psychology and particular behavior patterns associated with particular psychological states is derived from empirical experience. Human behavior patterns derived from empirical experience cannot infallibly be extrapolated into future behavior. I doubt this would be possible even if we assumed that the exact same conditions will obtain for a future act as were present for the observed past behavior. But of course, conditions are never the same, and there are way too many factors to take into account, many of them hidden. Moreover, human beings are highly susceptible to influence from the concentric circles of groups to which they belong. Behavior that would not make psychological sense when acting alone makes perfect sense when contemplated in its sociological dimension and vice versa. Lastly, individual human beings differ from each other in ways that are unpredictable from the usual psychological and sociological patterns.

Hence the SSA must be used with caution and evaluated with a critical eye. And yet, it is incorrect to label its every use a “fallacy.” Even at the psychological and sociological levels human behavior falls into repeating patterns that can be somewhat predictive. Also, even though not all human behavior patterns can be described in purely logical terms and people are not logical machines, our minds are structured in a way that we experience dissonance when we are confronted with a tension between our desire for money, pleasure, power, and honor on the one hand and truth, fact, and logical coherence on the other. Hence behaving rationally, which includes tracing out and accepting the implications of one’s basic axioms, is a psychological need as well as a rational duty. Social pressure, too, can drive one to seek praise from others for being courageous enough to take the next bold step in unfolding the logic of one’s foundational premise.

Hence the SSA can be a sound and persuasive argument if proper attention is paid to its different dimensions: logic, psychology, sociology, and individual variability. It cannot show us what will happen if we adopt a particular axiom as foundational, but it can show us what might happen if we do so. And that may be enough to provoke some to engage in serious reflection before they embark on a journey whose downward trajectory leads to the abyss of absurdity.

The Real Jesus—A Progressive Humanist?

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In the previous three essays I have been addressing the problem of people who claim to be Christians but wittingly or unwittingly use Christian words primarily to celebrate the progressive agenda of liberation of the self from all oppressive structures, political, religious, social, moral, and natural. They give the impression that Jesus would fit right into progressive culture. And if one carefully selects sayings and stories from the Bible and places them in the progressive narrative, such a view seems plausible to people ignorant of the whole story. But things look very different if we reverse the procedure and think about ethics and salvation from within a full biblical picture of Jesus Christ and the nature and destiny of humanity. Context is everything.

The Real Jesus of the New Testament

According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is Lord, Messiah, and Savior. He is the definitive answer to the questions, “Who is the true God?” (John 1:18, 14:9, 1 John 5:20; 2 Cor 4:6) and “What is the nature and destiny of human beings?” (1 John 3:1-3; Phil 3:21; 1 Cor 15:49). He is the Word of God who is God, who was with God in the beginning, and through whom God created all things (John 1:1-5; Heb 1:1-3; 1 Cor 8:6). He is the Savior, who through his death and resurrection saved us from sin, death, and the devil. In him God reconciled the world to himself “not counting people’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:18-19). In the end, everything in heaven and on earth will be unified in Christ (Eph 1:10). In sum, Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is the image of the invisible God (Col 1:15), the purpose of creation and providence, the means of salvation, and the consummation of all things in which God will be “all in all” (1 Cor 15:28).

Unless they are ignorant or are being disingenuous, anyone who claims to be a Christian should be willing to confess the New Testament teaching summarized in the previous paragraph. Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead, is the measure of all our knowledge of God and of every dimension of our relation to him. To be a Christian is to be one under authority, to submit one’s mind and heart to the true teacher of what is right and good. Jesus made this clear many times: whoever claims Jesus as their guide must “deny themselves and take up their cross” and follow him (Mark 8:34). They must obey everything he taught (Matt 28:20; Heb 5:9). Already with this step, however, we stand in complete contradiction to progressive humanism, which will admit no other will or external order to which we must conform.

Jesus and the Law

Jesus’s teaching cannot be reduced to a few platitudes about love, tolerance, acceptance and belonging. Jesus showed the typical Old Testament prophetic ethics of care for the poor and the oppressed. But he did not exempt the poor and oppressed from the commandments. Following in the wake of John the Baptist, Jesus also preached “Repent for the kingdom of heaven has come near” (Matt 4:17). The one whom Jesus called “your father in heaven” is the God of Israel. Jesus fully and without hesitation acknowledged that the Old Testament law embodied God’s will and human righteousness:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt 5:17-20).

In the following chapters, known as the Sermon on the Mount, far from liberalizing the law, Jesus intensified it and demanded internal as well external obedience. The law against adultery was expanded to include lust and divorce. The command not to murder was extended to hatred and harsh speech. Jesus ends with a warning to his audience to build their lives on his teaching or risk calamity in the day of testing (Matt 7:26-27).

Jesus criticized the Pharisees for focusing on externals and extra biblical traditions not because they oppressed our autonomy or made us feel uncomfortable but because they voided the original divine commands. When he spoke of genuine evils he made a very traditional list:

“For it is from within, out of a person’s heart, that evil thoughts come—sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and defile a person” (Mark 7:21-23).

Jesus the Obedient Son

Jesus set an example of obedience to his father in heaven and demanded obedience from his disciples. He prayed in the garden for exemption from suffering and death but submitted his will to that of the father (Matt 26:39). Paul holds up Jesus’s attitude toward the will of God as a stance all believers should follow (Phil 2:5-8; cf. Heb 5:8):

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

Jesus: Not a Progressive Humanist

I could continue indefinitely with this line of thought showing that Jesus does not fit the image of a modern progressive. Only with great distortion and huge omissions can his teaching and his example be used to support this view. Jesus was a faithful Jew. He affirmed the biblical framework for understanding our duties to God: God, creation, moral law, providence, righteousness, judgment, and salvation. Within this framework, human beings are God’s creatures made in his image. They depend on the Creator for their existence and sustenance. They owe God thanks and worship. God’s wisdom and will are displayed in the created order. Hence human beings should trust, obey, and love God. God is the designer of human nature and therefore the author of the moral law, known in creation by reason, in the law and the prophets, and in the teaching, action, and example of Jesus Christ.

Within the progressive humanist framework, attitudes of worship, faith, humility, trust, confession, obedience, repentance, conformity, and submission are rejected as self-loathing born of internalized oppression. Within the Christian story, however, they are pathways to freedom and wisdom and salvation. They are characteristics of a good person. From a biblical perspective, attitudes of rebellion, defiance, self-indulgence, transgression, and self-assertion are judged to be ungrateful, self-destructive, foolish, and sinful. But within the progressive value system they are celebrated as heroic, virtuous, enlightened, and right. They are evidence of self-respect and authenticity.

Conclusion

These two frameworks are irreconcilable. Jesus’s observation concerning the love of money applies equally to the choice between the biblical and the progressive narratives:

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other” (Matt 6:24)

Hence it is completely illegitimate to quote Jesus in an argument designed to deny the moral law, efface the order of creation, or nullify the commandments. To reject the biblical framework within which Jesus lived and taught while quoting him in support of the progressive agenda is to reject the real Jesus and invent another.

How Man Became God: The Story of Progressive Humanism

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In the two previous essays we considered the phenomenon of Christian people who adopt a progressive humanist framework to guide their moral actions but continue to use Christian words to express their progressive views. Old words, lifted from their original scriptural matrix and placed in a new setting, acquire alien meanings. Scripture texts are quoted selectively and are reinterpreted by clever exegetes to conform to progressive values. And they believe this sterile hybrid is true Christianity. This essay is the first of two in which I dig down to the foundations of these two moral visions to show at what point they diverge and how much they differ.

God and Human Aspirations

Everyone by nature desires good things. No one can be satisfied with good when they can have better; and who can be happy with better when the best is available? Why be satisfied with little when you can have much? Though we know we can’t have it all, we still want it all.

In the history of religion, people always attribute to God (or gods) the maximum of wealth and power and life conceivable. Augustine of Hippo (354-430) articulates this principle in a memorable way:

For on this principle it is that He is called Deus (God). For the sound of those two syllables in itself conveys no true knowledge of His nature; but yet all who know the Latin tongue are led, when that sound reaches their ears, to think of a nature supreme in excellence and eternal in existence… For when the one supreme God of gods is thought of, even by those who believe that there are other gods, and who call them by that name, and worship them as gods, their thought takes the form of an endeavor to reach the conception of a nature, than which nothing more excellent or more exalted exists… All, however, strive emulously to exalt the excellence of God: nor could anyone be found to believe that any being to whom there exists a superior is God. And so all concur in believing that God is that which excels in dignity all other objects (Saint Augustine, On Christian Doctrine 1. 6-7).

Augustine reminds us that human beings think of God as the perfect being who actually possesses everything we desire and is everything we wish to be. Your view of God determines your view of humanity and vice versa. The history of theology is simultaneously the history of human ideals and aspirations.

How Man Became God—A History

Two Views of God

During the high Middle Ages (1000-1250) a debate ensued among theologians in the newly established universities in Europe (Paris and Oxford) about the nature of God. Should God be understood primarily as an infinite Mind that produces the natural world logically and by necessity? This view of God and creation enables theologians and philosophers to know something of the mind of God, natural law, and the good by contemplating nature and reflecting on their own minds. On the other hand, some thinkers argued that we should view God primarily as an all-powerful Will who creates nature freely and always retains freedom to change the order of nature in anyway God chooses. This view protects the freedom of God and makes God inaccessible to the human mind apart from his free choice to reveal his will. The first view is designated intellectualism and the second is called voluntarism. Many thoughtful students of the history of theology consider both of these views extreme. Surely we should think of God as both mind and will in perfect harmony even if we cannot harmonize them perfectly in thought.

Two Views of Human Nature

Because human beings always view God as the perfect being and the goal of human aspirations, the two views of God (intellectualism and voluntarism) generate two views of human nature and human aspirations. In the late middle ages and Reformation era (1300 to 1600), voluntarism became a powerful theological and cultural force. God was conceived primarily as an all-powerful, absolutely free, and self-determining Will. God is free not only from nature and natural law but from his own past actions. And in this theological environment, human aspirations were directed toward maximum freedom from external determination, aimed at dominating nature, and focused on expressing one’s arbitrary will in word and deed. To be in the fullest sense of the term is to be nothing but what one wills to be in the same way and to the same extent that God is only what God wills to be.

It would be a great mistake to think that the seventeenth-century Enlightenment signaled a return to intellectualism. The Enlightenment rejected intellectualism and viewed reason as an instrument to uncover the secrets of the physical world that could then be used for human purposes. In other words, the Enlightenment was an expression of the desire of the human will to dominate and recreate nature in our image in imitation of the Creator. What God is eternally, humans beings strive to become in the course of history. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Romanticism turned its attention from the will to dominate nature to the self-creative will of the unique individual.

Apotheosis and Utopia

Contemporary progressive culture combines the impulses of the Enlightenment (the will to dominate nature) and the Romantic Movement (the will to recreate oneself as one pleases). After all, they are but different forms of the desire to be like the voluntarist God, to free oneself from all alien structures, laws, and forces. Progressive humanism was constructed by removing God from the picture and transferring the divine qualities of unlimited will and absolute freedom from God to human beings. Without God in the picture, nothing remains to remind us of our limits, the order of nature becomes plastic subject to no law but human will, and absolute freedom from every restriction becomes the aspiration toward which we strive. God’s eclipse from human consciousness made it possible to deceive ourselves with the illusion that human beings could take their destiny into their own hands and achieve individual apotheosis (transformation into a god) and social utopia.

Creative Destruction

The LGBTQ+ liberation movement is but the latest chapter in the story of progressive humanism’s quest to overcome all limits and achieve individual apotheosis and social utopia. It will not be the last. The destructive impulse at the heart of progressivism will not have reached its goal until every boundary has been erased, every limit has been transgressed, and every rule has been abolished. Progressivism cannot acknowledge a principle of limitation and order without destroying itself. The political philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) envisioned pre-political humanity living in a “state of nature” marked by social chaos, without rules, where everyone has a right to everything, and human life is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Hobbes devised a plan to escape the undesirable state of nature into a condition of order and peace. In contrast, contemporary progressives work to create a world where “there are no rules and everyone has a right to everything.” And they call it “progress.”

To be continued…

The Social Justice Gospel: Wrong Battle, Wrong Weapons, Wrong Prize

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In the previous essay, we considered the tendency of some well-meaning Christians to accept as compelling the social analysis and ethical vision of progressive humanism while continuing to confess the central Christian doctrines. Progressive humanism’s program of social justice becomes in the hands of believers the social justice gospel, a message of social reform that except for the surrounding patina of Christian language differs little from its secular counterpart. This essay continues the meticulous process of disentangling the genuine Christian elements within this “gospel” from secular and pagan ones.

Social Conflict

The social justice gospel (SJG) divides the human world into overlapping sets of identity types: classes, genders, and races. Each of these classic identity types is characterized by internal divisions and oppositions, which lie at the root of social conflicts. The most abstract and fundamental opposition is “same versus other.” Human beings tend to misunderstand, distrust, dislike, fear, and sometimes hate those whom they deem “other,” “weird,” or “strange.” They feel greater levels of comfort and trust in the company of those like them than they feel when with those unlike them. The dynamic tension of “same and other” comes into play in other more specific oppositions: wealthy versus poor, owners versus workers, powerful versus powerless, and cultured versus common. But in the latter oppositions, more is at work than mere subjective discomfort. In them, we also find unequal access to the coveted goods of money, social power, and honor. These inequalities occasion feelings of condescension, resentment, envy, pride, shame, or arrogance from the opposing sides. And these attitudes, then, lead to social conflict.

The Line Between Good and Evil

As a description of the contemporary social world, I cannot find anything terribly wrong with the above account. However, as the SJG moves from description of social phenomena to moral and theological analysis and from there to practical action, I find much to which to object. First, instead of seeking a deeper solidarity between the oppositions described, the SJG tends to heighten them by transforming the social distinctions within the identity types of class, gender, race into moral oppositions: guilty versus innocent, exploiter versus exploited, oppressor versus oppressed, and hater versus hated. Once this judgment has been ventured, the SJG makes the easy case that justice demands that Christians take the side of the innocent, oppressed, exploited, and hated group against the guilty, oppressor, exploiter, and hater group. Whenever Christians accept SJG’s description and moral analysis of the social situation and consent to take the side of the “innocent” against the “guilty,” they tend to rationalize their decision in religious terms: the just God demands that we do justice.

Coercion: Always the Final Solution

Second, the SJG concerns itself with society-wide social conflicts that arise from differences among and within identity groups—class, gender, and race. Progressive humanism sees these problems as amenable only to political solutions. Because the SJG presents itself as a Christian movement, it views social problems as fundamentally moral and religious in nature. If it can persuade the oppressors, exploiters, and haters to change through argument and prophetic calls for repentance, it will do this. But in practice the SJG often joins secular progressive social justice activists in using protest and cancellation to achieve its ends, if persuasion does not work. Ultimately, because oppressors, exploiters, and haters rarely give up power willingly, preachers of the SJG are tempted to seek the desired change through political action and state power. Those Christians, then, who come to see pursuit of social justice (understood as diversity, equity, and inclusion) as the primary message and work of the church in the world tend, almost without realizing what they are doing, to adopt the coercive methods of the secular progressive social justice movement. In doing so, they end up thinking and behaving in the name of Christianity much like the people they oppose.

Solidarity

I do not believe that the moral and theological analysis of the SJG measures up to the Christian understanding of the human condition. Whereas general society is in fact divided by class, race, and gender and the subdivisions within them, Christianity points to a deeper solidarity that embraces all of them. All human beings have been created by God in the image and likeness of God, and everyone sins and fails to live up to the glorious calling of God. And all are invited to be reconciled to God and each other through faith and obedience to Christ. Christianity encourages humility born of the consciousness of our sin and love even for enemies engendered by knowledge of God’s forgiveness. In contrast, the SJG fosters a spirit of self-righteousness among the “innocent” and justifies hatred of the “guilty.” But according to Christianity, self-righteousness is just as sinful as unrighteousness and hatred of the “oppressor” is just as bad as hatred of the “oppressed.” The SJG does not because it cannot overcome the hostility among and within class, race, and gender. It merely takes a different side in the wrong battle, fought with the wrong weapons, over the wrong prize.

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms (Ephesians 6:10-12).

More to come…

Gnosticism and the Gospel of Social Justice: Heresies Old and New

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Genesis of a New Heresy

In the course of the past few years I have noticed within my circle of associates, acquaintances, and students, as well as those at a distance, a change in theological orientation. The focus has shifted from heaven to earth, from individual to society, from church to world, from doctrine to ethics, from divine to human action, from conversion to belonging, and from separation to engagement with the world. They’ve not become totally secular. Nor have they adopted one of the historical heresies. They do not deny the incarnation, the resurrection, or the Trinity. They still speak about God and invoke the Spirit; the name of Jesus is ever on their lips. They attend church, quote Scripture, pray, and live good lives.

And yet, in their hands the meanings of traditional Christian words have undergone a subtle change. The words are there: Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, faith, salvation, justice, peace, and love. But the way they are related to each other and appear in the narrative differs dramatically from the biblical order and narrative flow. The priorities, ends, and orienting markers create a very different map of our relationship to God and human beings than that of the New Testament. Some things prominent in the biblical narrative are omitted and others less prominent are given leading roles. God, Christ, Spirit, and other Christian words have been pried loose from their original placement in the Bible and reset in an alien setting. Christian terms are used to legitimate and serve a quite different philosophy, another gospel.

Genesis of an Old Heresy

As I think about how to unravel this tangled web of Christian, pagan, and heretical ideas the work of Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130 – c. 200) to expose the deceptions of the heresy known as Gnosticism comes to mind. Gnostic theologians commandeered Christian language and set it in their philosophical matrix so that Christian words were given Gnostic meanings. In this way they could present their rational, quasi-mythical speculations as “true” Christianity, intellectually superior to the Christianity of the literally minded common people. Irenaeus’s illustration created to describe the Gnostic strategy applies equally well to the philosophy I am considering:

Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1. 8. 1; ANF, 1: 326).

Progressive Humanism

Irenaeus dealt with Gnosticism. What is the name of the contemporary philosophy with which we must deal? I find it difficult to give it a name because it is so eclectic and incoherent. But perhaps “Progressive Humanism” is the least problematic term. It expects the arc of history to bend toward greater and greater liberation of human beings from oppressive forces. It is in this respect a philosophy of history, a secularized version of the traditional Christian doctrines of providence and eschatology. In so far as it views progress toward perfect liberty as inevitable and achievable, it is a utopian vision unattainable under the conditions of history. Within Progressive Humanism two incompatible visions of liberation vie for dominance. One views human beings primarily as individuals and seeks to liberate individuals from all supposedly normative, preexisting political, social, moral, natural, and theological frameworks so that they may define themselves as they please. The other vision views human beings as having primarily a group identity, as members of a class, race, or gender. The goal of this second form of progressivism is liberation of the oppressed group from entrenched, oppressive political and social structures and interests. Clearly, these visions of liberation are incompatible because an individual may be a member of an “oppressed” race or gender but simultaneously a member of an “oppressor” class. Moreover, an individual of any “oppressed” group may find that group itself oppressive to them as individuals if they fail to conform to its expectations.

Progressive Humanism Baptized

The church-going, scripture-quoting Christians I described in the first paragraph of this essay have been converted to the essential ideals and programs of Progressive Humanism. They’ve not stopped talking about God, Christ, the Spirit, and other Christian ideas, but these Christian words have been made subservient to Progressive Humanism. They are no longer of independent interest and authority. They function as metaphysical legitimations for progressive ideals. Under the rubric of “social justice,” the system of Progressive Humanism is breathlessly proclaimed as the gospel of Jesus. And those who are not thoroughly conversant with the whole Bible may mistake the carefully selected quotes from the scriptures and the constant references to Jesus and the Spirit as the proof of the gospel. As Irenaeus observed, those who have no conception of the beautiful mosaic of the king may be deceived to think “that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.”

To be continued…

Who Speaks for Christianity on Moral Issues? Series Conclusion

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For some time now, I have been pursuing the question of the proper use of the Bible in Christian ethics, using the issue of same-sex relationships as a test case. This essay is the tenth in this series, which is a sub-series within a larger 35-essay series on Christianity and the contemporary moral crisis that began July 01, 2021. Though there is much more to be said, it is now time for me to end this series by stating in a positive way my view of the proper way to use scripture to address this issue.

The Question of Teaching Authority

Investigation into the proper “use” of scripture in Christian theology and ethics presupposes someone or some group that “uses” it. Who is that? Are we speaking about individual believers, exegetes, and theologians? Or, are we speaking about churches and denominations? Individuals are free to “use” scripture according to their understanding to construct their personal theological and ethical systems. But the opinions of individuals possess no authority for others. No Christian is obligated to accept an individual’s opinion as binding Christian doctrine. The discussion about same-sex unions is ultimately about what the church should teach and what moral behaviors the church should promote, accept, or condemn for its members. In contemporary society a person is legally free to have sex with whomever they please as long as there is mutual consent. In these essays I am not discussing sexual ethics for contemporary society. I am discussing whether or not the church should affirm those who claim to be Christians and wish to participate in the life of the church while also living in a same-sex sexual relationship. How should the church use scripture in its deliberations?

It is not enough for exegetes to opine on what the scriptures say about same-sex relationships. The church has to decide what it should say to itself and the world about this matter in obedience to scripture. The church may wish to hear the opinions of individual exegetes, historians, and theologians as part of its deliberations. But no matter how ingenious or sophisticated they may be, these proposals possess no doctrinal or ecclesiastical authority. The church as a community must decide in the spirit of obedience whether or not it should affirm same-sex unions as morally acceptable Christian behavior within that community.

Christian denominations often acknowledge areas where diverse private opinions on theology are allowed and different areas where private choices of ways of life are permitted. But nearly all Christian denominations hold adherence to some doctrines necessary and anyone who teaches a different doctrine is deemed a heretic. The recalcitrant person may be stripped of their office and excluded from teaching within the church. Likewise, anyone guilty of behaviors deemed by the denomination as immoral is subject to discipline and perhaps excommunication. And a person who rejects the church’s moral teaching and teaches others to do the same may be subject to excommunication.

The Weight of Tradition

A church’s official doctrine and moral teaching are the result of long-term communal experience and reflection on scripture, perhaps reaching all the way back to the apostles. Whereas most churches do not hold their confessions of faith to be infallible and irreformable, they are, nevertheless, slow to accept proposals for radical change. There is much to consider, too much for any one individual to grasp and too important to rush the process. On the matter of the moral status of same-sex unions, it would be difficult to find a moral or doctrinal teaching on which there is a greater and longer-term consensus within the world-wide church. The church is right to be skeptical of proposals that interpret the scriptures in ways radically different from the way it has understood them for 2,000 years. As I demonstrated in my reviews of works by Karen Keen and Robert Gnuse, critics of the tradition can achieve no more than opening a mere possibility that the Bible does not condemn loving, non-coercive homosexual relationships along with its clear condemnation of exploitive same-sex intercourse. Gnuse admits that Paul probably would have condemned even non-coercive same-sex relationships, if he had been asked about them. The leap from these meager, tentative, and speculative exegetical results to affirmation of same-sex unions as morally equal to traditional marriage is huge and completely unwarranted. It seems to me that those who make this giant leap do so for reasons other than desire to obey scripture and use their exegetical gymnastics as a diversion to distract readers from the real reasons for their decision.

Church Decision Making

How does the church make decisions on doctrine and morals? The first thing on which to get clear is that the Christian church does not claim the freedom to create doctrine and moral law arbitrarily or to change it to fit the spirit of the age. Faithful churches acknowledge that they are charged with passing on the faith as they received it from Christ and his apostles. For my part, I will not acknowledge any institution as the church that will not make this confession or that I sense does not make it sincerely. Hence the church’s decision-making process should focus on remaining faithful to the original gospel and moral vision in our present circumstances. I am suspicious of any church that seems to allow other concerns to divert it from this task. Churches, too, can be carried away by grave error and even become heretical.

The second thing to keep in mind is that the decision-making process of the church cannot be made completely formal and procedural. For example, it cannot be carried out through the mechanisms of direct democracy wherein a majority of the living members can legislate for the whole body. Nor is the church a representative democracy. It is certainly not a dictatorship. The goal is not to canvass the will of the people but to discern the will of God and seek God’s guidance on how best to remain faithful in the present age. On matters that a church—a local congregation, a denomination, or the ecumenical church—confesses and teaches to itself and the world, the community as a whole must come to consensus on the issue, and this may take a long time. And the process of coming to consensus may take place quite informally. And of course on most doctrinal and moral issues the present consensus was achieved centuries ago and reaffirmed by many succeeding generations of believers.

With respect to the challenge of those who argue that the church should affirm same-sex unions on the same basis as it affirms traditional marriage, what factors should the church consider? If it is determined to remain faithful, the church must continue to read scripture as the standard of its faith and morals. Because it is open to deepening its understanding of God’s will, the church will not refuse to listen to voices that propose new interpretations of scripture. But the church did not begin to read and interpret scripture yesterday. Hence it listens to those new interpretations only in light of what it has been taught by tradition. Tradition embodies the long-term, time-tested wisdom of the faithful about the meaning of the scriptures, and a church that desires to be faithful will not discard it lightly. The burden of proof will always fall on those who challenge the wisdom of tradition. Moreover, the church will exercise discernment about whether or not these new voices speak with sincere desire to seek the will of God or speak deceptively. Both Jesus and the beloved disciple tell us not to be naïve about new teachings:

“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruits you will recognize them” (Matthew 7:15-16). “Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world” (1 John 4:1).

My Final Word

I cannot speak for the whole church or any particular congregation or denomination, and I possess no authority to obligate anyone to obedience. However, I urge believers individually and the church corporately not to be deceived by sophisticated arguments that, contrary to the unanimous Christian tradition and against the grain of reason, claim that scripture does not condemn and perhaps even approves of same-sex unions. I believe these arguments possess moving force only for those already persuaded by the spirit of the age, which elevates the authority of a subjective sense of identity and well-being above reason, moral law, traditional wisdom, and scriptural teaching.