Category Archives: Liberal Theology

Young Seminarian Visits With Old Theology Professor (Part Three: The Bible)

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Introduction

The last meeting (posted on December 19, 2023) ended with the professor’s summary of the conversation:

 “To doubt” and “to believe” are acts of situated individual subjects involving judgments, decisions, and moods. Every doubter is also a believer and every believer is also a doubter. The doubter possesses no inherent intellectual or moral superiority to the believer. I think this truth sheds light on your seminary struggles. You may have been beguiled by academia’s spurious claim that doubt is intellectually superior to belief and seduced by the offer of membership in a social class marked by its presumption to higher wisdom.

Setting: The young seminarian drops by the professor’s office without an appointment, hoping that the professor is in and available for a visit.

Seminarian: Hello professor. I remember that you have open office hours at this time on Wednesdays, and I was hoping to visit with you, if you have the time.

Professor: Good timing. A student just cancelled her appointment. Come in. Have a seat.

Seminarian: Thanks. I wanted to continue our conversation. Last time, you mentioned that we’d discuss the Bible next; that is, the contrast between the way the church treats the Bible and the way the modern academy treats it.

Professor: Oh yes, so I did. Since we last talked, I’ve been thinking a lot about the ways, overt and covert, modern academia subverts faith. As we saw in our last conversation, modern academia canonizes doubt and criticism as methods of weeding out superstitions and other unscientific beliefs. It rejects tradition, orthodoxy, and commitment as ways of knowing and living. This institutional stance in itself, apart from any particular criticism, places faith under a cloud of suspicion. Of course, we know that modern academia is deceptive and hypocritical. As we learned last time, the doubter is also a believer and critics of one belief must remain uncritical of opposing beliefs. The modern university cherishes its own traditions, orthodoxies, and commitments, but it calls them by other names: professionalism, science, scholarship, equity, diversity, critical thinking, research, inclusion, tenure, academic freedom, free speech, progress, fairness, and academic integrity. So, as we begin our reconstruction of faith, I suggest we refuse to be intimidated by modern academia’s claims to moral and intellectual superiority over faith and tradition.

Seminarian: The Bible?

Professor: Okay. We are nearly ready for the Bible. But I want to know that you see academia for what it truly is. Its two traditional activities are teaching and research. On the one hand, it is tasked with educating the coming generation. It introduces young people to the current state of discussion among scholars of the arts and sciences and it helps them develop the skills they need to become expert practitioners and researchers in their chosen fields of study. On the other hand, academia is a way of generating and testing beliefs, hypotheses, and theories by means of criticism and doubt. It protests that its purpose is not to pass on political, moral, and religious tradition of any kind. But we know that American universities are much quicker to criticize traditional morality, conservative politics, and the Christian religion than they are progressive morality, leftist politics, and exotic religion.

Seminarian: I get it. I should adopt a critical attitude toward the critical attitude practiced in modern academia.

Professor: Yes! As a way into the subject of the Bible, recall as best you can the view of the Bible and the Christian faith you brought with you to seminary.

Seminarian: I don’t recall that I was taught a “doctrine” of Scripture as a child. In my home and in church, the Bible was quoted, preached, and taught as the true moral, religious, and metaphysical worldview. It was our unquestioned framework for meaning, identity, and purpose. In its teachings about creation, fall, atonement and the world’s end, the meaning of history and the destiny of humanity were laid out before our eyes. Our greatest enemies are sin, death, and the devil, and these foes can be dealt with only through the power of Jesus Christ and the Spirit. The Old and New Testaments’ stories and heroic characters provided examples of courage and obedience. The law, the prophets and the Writings provided moral rules and wise principles by which to live. Jesus’s teaching, example, and above all, his sacrifice on the cross and resurrection from the dead were at the center of our worship and moral lives. Religious and moral disputes were settled by determining what the Scriptures teach. Whatever the Bible says is the truth of God.

Professor: At what point in your development were you taught an explicit “doctrine” of Scripture, and what was it?

Seminarian: I can’t remember a particular occasion, but in my teenage years I became aware that there were outsiders who did not believe. This seemed very strange to me. How could anyone not believe? It stands written in the Bible and has been held true for thousands of years. The voice of the prophets, Jesus and Paul ring out as authentic and powerful witnesses to the truth they experienced. Who would have the temerity to label them liars or fools? Around the same time, I began to notice that the church leaders taught a “doctrine” of Scripture, albeit a rudimentary one.

Professor: I am very interested in exactly what you remember about the doctrine of Scripture you learned at this stage in your life. Understanding this process is important because we need to discover what made you vulnerable to the critiques you faced later on. So, try to remember the view of Scripture you internalized in your late teen years.

Seminarian: I will try. But I am not sure I can remember exactly how I understood things at that stage. I may have to use categories I learned later to express what I remember.

Professor: Okay. Do the best you can.

Seminarian: As I said above, as a child I accepted the biblical portrayal as the true world. The voices within the Bible seemed as real to me as those of my parents and the preacher. I believed not because I compared and contrasted it with other ways of understanding but simply because I was taught it. That is to say, I believed the Bible because I trusted my parents and the church. At some point I began to notice church leaders speaking not simply about the contents of the Bible but about the Bible itself. We learned about the distinctions between the Old and New Testaments and the various types of literature within each division. We memorized the names of all 66 books within the Bible. We even sang songs about the B.I.B.L.E. I could not have put it into words at that point in my life, but I could not help but notice that the scriptures were use as the exclusive source and authority for teaching within the church. The Bible was the authority by which theological disputes were settled. Church teachers and preachers often referred to the Bible as “the inspired Word of God.” I took this to mean that the voice of Scripture was the voice of God. I don’t think I heard the word “inerrancy” until I entered college, but even before then I would have rejected instinctively the proposal that the Bible contained mistakes, lies, and myths. Accepting such a proposal would shatter my biblical worldview and thrust me into an uncertain, chaotic world without guidance.

Professor: I presume that in college or seminary you encountered a more sophisticated doctrine of Scripture?

Seminarian: Yes. I learned what many people pejoratively label a “fundamentalist” doctrine of Scripture. That is that the Bible as a whole and in every part, from Genesis to Revelation, down to every word, is “inspired” or “God-breathed” (2 Timothy 3:16). I took this to mean that God chose every word the human authors wrote and miraculously protected them from error. The words of Scripture are simultaneously the words of the human author and the Word of God. In terms of its use, this conviction reinforced the authority of the Bible for use in teaching and theological disputation. To quote the Bible was to quote God.

Professor: And you accepted this doctrine of Scripture?

Seminarian: Yes. But what I did not see at the time was that I accepted a doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture on the same basis that as a child I had accepted the reliability of the contents of Scripture; that is, that the church whom I trusted believed it and assured me that it is so. I did not ask at the time, “Can the doctrine of the inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible be independently verified?” In my childhood, I could not have asked this question, because I accepted the word of those I trusted. To ask for their assurance to be independently verified would be to abandon the very basis on which I trusted Scripture. But by the time I entered seminary, I came to think that the absolute truth of the Bible could be (and needs to be) verified by reason. How this transition occurred I don’t know, but I think it had something to do with my conservative teachers’ efforts to demonstrate by rational arguments the complete truth of the Bible. In other words, my path to doubt was cleared by the friends of faith.

Professor: Humm. This seems like a good place to end for today. Let’s return next time to this ironic turn of events wherein efforts to make faith secure by rational argument ended up making it doubtful.

Seminarian: I look forward to disentangling the matter.

Professor: Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

Young Seminarian Visits Old Theology Professor

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Introduction

Previously, we listened as a confused young seminarian visited with a progressive bishop. Our troubled seminarian explained to the bishop that he had lost faith in the conservative Christianity of his childhood and inquired whether he might have a future in a progressive church. After three sessions, the young seminarian left just as confused as he had been beforehand, if not more. (To pick up on the story, see the posts of October 7 & 17 and November 4.) After his disappointing series of meetings with the progressive bishop, the young seminarian decides to meet with a professor of theology about whom he has heard some intriguing things. This old professor has a reputation for being orthodox in doctrine and morals but not combative or judgmental. Having taught theology for over 40 years and written many books, the old professor is well acquainted with the history of Christian theology from the first to the twenty-first century and with contemporary issues in theology. Above all, he is known for his honesty and moderation.

Setting: After having previously set up an appointment by phone, our confused young seminarian knocks on the old professor’s office door.

Professor: Come in.

Seminarian: Thank you, professor.

(The old professor closes the book he has been reading and moves from behind his desk.)

Professor: Have a seat. Would you like water or perhaps a coffee?

Seminarian: No, thank you.

Professor: What’s on your mind?

Seminarian: Where to start? I hope you will not be offended if I am brutally honest. I’ve lost faith in the conservative Christian faith I was taught in church. Driven by the obligation to be honest with God and myself, I examined doctrine after doctrine of my inherited faith and found them doubtful. I thought I should not continue to hold to a teaching about which I felt uncertain. I visited recently with a progressive bishop in hope that he could help me sort out what I believe and how I could continue in some form of Christianity. You can imagine, then, how shocked I was when I discovered that the progressive bishop admitted that he lies to his church every Sunday. He uses such traditional Christian language as incarnation, miracles, resurrection, salvation, Holy Spirit, atonement, etc., and allows his people to think that he means what the church has always meant by these terms. In fact, however, he believes none of it and justifies his dissimulation by saying he believes these things interpreted metaphorically. I found it all so disheartening. Can you help me?

Professor: I will try. But you need to be patient. To get a handle on the problem we need to move logically from the foundations to the issues with traditional Christianity that most trouble you. Our first goal is to find the most fundamental point at which your thinking departs from the logic of orthodoxy. You need to ask yourself, “Was that departure warranted?”

Seminarian: Okay. I don’t know for sure where that point is, but when I spoke with the progressive bishop, I said something like, “Well, I suppose it all started with the Bible. Before I entered seminary, I believed that everything the Bible says is true because it is the inspired word of God….”

Professor: We will get to the Bible, but first allow me to share some general observations about the transition from childhood faith to mature faith. As children of Christian parents grow up in the home and in the church, they accept what they receive from these sources as unquestionably true. And this is a good thing. Children need simplicity, certainty, and a clear identity; they do not have the maturity to cope with ambiguity and uncertainty. At some point, however, they must learn to deal with challenges to inherited faith and embrace it as their own. Ironically, those children of the church who decide to attend seminary to prepare for ministry face greater challenges to their faith than those who take another path. In seminary they are introduced to the academic study of the Bible and theology. Nothing is taken for granted. Every fact, doctrine, and practice that is taught in church as “what we believe” or “what the scriptures teach” is placed in doubt. In academia, every doctrinal claim must be backed up with persuasive evidence before its validity and truth can be admitted. And even in faith-affirming schools under the guidance of conservative teachers, students must read the works of atheist, deist, liberal, and progressive authors. Many beginning students find this experience shocking, disorienting, and horrifying. What they experienced in their lives up to that point as matters of prayer, reverence, worship and comfort they now hear dissected, debated, and doubted. Even blasphemed! Many students find that seminary study dilutes, cools, and sometimes shatters the faith they received from their parents and churches.

Seminarian: That’s my story exactly! I entered seminary with a sense of God’s presence and confidence in the truth of the Bible. By the time I left, God seemed distant and the Bible no longer seemed sacred. Why does seminary study have this effect on some students?

Professor: I have a theory about that. Would you like to hear it?

Seminarian: I’d love to hear it! Because it does not seem plausible to think that everything my parents and church taught me was wrong and that I needed to attend a seminary to discover this.

Professor: I do not believe that what your parents and church taught you was wrong. But I think you may have formed the impression that what you learned in church was not only right but self-evident, certain, and so obviously right that no right-thinking, good person could object. Now I am sure that neither your parents nor your church made such a bold claim, but perhaps you took this expectation with you to seminary.

Seminarian: I certainly did not expect to have my faith so thoroughly deconstructed!

Professor: Now for my theory. Academia does not understand the way faith works in real life. Modern academia is a laboratory, designed originally to examine critically every inherited belief and practice, looking for superstitions, fancies, and opinions masquerading as knowledge. It had rather reject a dozen true beliefs than risk being taken in by single false one. It prefers never-ending criticism to the slightest commitment. For above all, it does not wish to be fooled. It would prefer to be teleported naked to a White House gala dinner than to be exposed as naïve and gullible to its peers. The academic study of the Bible and theology follows the same pattern. It feels obligated to challenge traditional Christian beliefs from every angle: historical, logical, and metaphysical. Never has a belief system been so criticized by so many for so long with so little results. Rarely does this history yield a credible claim to have falsified an essential Christian teaching.

Seminarian: Then why do so many seminarians get confused by it?

Professor: Because they enter seminary thinking wrongly that their inherited faith is so obviously true and certain that no serious objections can be made against it! Implicit in this naïve faith is the notion that the unimpeachability and certainty (for me) of the Christian faith is part of the faith itself. That is to say, they accept the absurd idea that the faith can be falsified merely by showing that it could be false. As the student encounters a barrage of historical, logical and metaphysical objections to Christian faith, they lose their naïve confidence in the impregnability of the fortress of faith. Then comes their greatest mistake: they conclude that, because they are fallible and a cherished Christian belief could be false, they ought not remain unreservedly committed to the faith they were handed by the church. They unwittingly accept the enlightenment view that it is better to reject a dozen true beliefs than risk being taken in by single false one. What young seminarians overlook as they enter the world of academia is the nature of faith. The preaching of the gospel of Christ does not call us to gnosis, absolute knowledge and complete certainty, but to faith. If Christian beliefs were as self-evident as 2 + 2 = 4, it would not be called faith. The terms “self-evident faith” or “proven faith” are contradictions.

Seminarian: Wow! I’ve never encountered this perspective before. My head is spinning. I’d like to think about it for a few days before we continue.

Professor: Of course. You think about it and we’ll set a time to meet again.

Seminarian: Thank you. I will check in soon.

Professor: Goodbye.

Seminarian: Goodbye.

Conclusion: Seminarian Meets Progressive Bishop for a Third Time

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Setting: Our anxious seminarian returns for a third visit with the progressive bishop. The bishop’s office door is open. They make eye contact.

Bishop: Come on in. I’m just finishing my midmorning coffee. Would you like a cup?

Seminarian: No thanks. I’ve had two cups already.

Bishop: What’s on your mind today?

Seminarian: Since we last spoke, I had a conversation with one of my former professors. Our paths crossed quite by accident, and he asked me how things were going. A few minutes into the conversation, I decided to risk telling him about my doubts and my conversations with you. (I didn’t disclose your identity.)

Bishop: Oh really? And what did he say?

Seminarian: I imagined I would hear the same old assertions you’d expect from an uncritical traditionalist. You know: The Bible is the inspired, infallible Word of God, heresy is insidious, and doubt is spiritually dangerous. But he challenged me in ways I did not expect.

Bishop: How so?

Seminarian: Well, in essence he asked me to explain how progressives can justify calling a religion “Christianity” that contains no authoritative Bible, no incarnation, no miracles, no resurrection, no supernatural revelation, and no resurrection of the dead. He urged me to consider what is left of the faith documented in the New Testament when all of these elements are excluded.

Bishop: And what did you say?

Seminarian: Actually, I didn’t know what to say. Oh, I remembered your explanation: that is that the supernatural elements of the New Testament are not essential to the Christian message and that the miracle stories teach important moral and spiritual lessons in a metaphorical way. But I could not bring myself to say this.

Bishop: Why not?

Seminarian: In that moment I couldn’t think of a way to defend the idea that the supernatural elements of the New Testament message are superficial features that can be removed without changing its essential nature. When I think about how the gospels tell the story of Jesus, I doubt that the gospel writers would agree with progressive Christianity’s view of Jesus. They seem to think that it is very important that Jesus healed the sick, raised the dead, exorcised the demonic forces, that his death was part of a divine plan to save the world, and that God raised him from the dead. Paul, John, Peter, and the writers of Acts and Hebrews, while viewing Jesus’s ethical teaching as authoritative for the community, place his divine nature, atoning death, and resurrection at the center of their message. In fact, the first generation of Christians seems to view the Christian gospel primarily as a message of supernatural salvation from sin, death, and the devil.

Bishop: You’re scaring me! Let’s think this through. Perhaps the gospel writers, Acts, Paul, Peter, and the writer of Hebrews would not have agreed completely with progressive Christianity, if they had encountered it. I don’t deny this. But keep in mind that they did not have access to the discoveries made by modern natural science or the moral progress made by modern liberation movements. Progressive Christianity developed by incorporating these new perspectives into a Christian framework. Surely, we should not view those elements in the New Testament that are based on ignorance, superstition and prejudice as of the essence of religion! In removing such superstitions, we actually purify the original Christianity and make it better.

Seminarian: You misunderstand. I didn’t say I changed my mind. Still, I think my former teacher asks some good questions. If, as you admit, progressive and “purified” Christianity would be unacceptable to the original apostles and likely to Jesus himself, why is it legitimate to present it to the world as authentic Christianity? The first generation of evangelists proclaimed Christianity as a message of supernatural salvation from sin, death, and the devil whereas progressive churches present Christianity as a message of humanly-achieved social justice. New Testament Christians worshiped Jesus as the Messiah of Israel and risen Lord and Savior whereas progressive Christians admire Jesus as a purely human champion of the oppressed. I have to admit that I have a hard time thinking of a Christianity stripped of all supernatural elements as having much in common with its original form. Perhaps it’s time for progressives to admit that progressive Christianity is not Christianity at all but a kind of religious humanism, that is, progressive culture infused with vague spirituality expressed in traditional Christian language understood metaphorically. In any case, before I enter a career as a clergyman in a progressive church, I’d like to get clear on this matter. Maybe I would be better suited for a career in political advocacy, social services, or education.

Bishop: I think I see now what’s troubling you. You haven’t given up your progressive views to return to the supernaturalism of your fundamentalist past. It’s too late for that. You are bothered, instead, by the apparent duplicity of working for secular progressive causes within an institution that presents itself as a Christian church continuous with the historic church all the way back to the apostolic era and that speaks to its members in traditional Christian language—miracles, resurrection, incarnation, the Spirit, the Holy Trinity—but takes it all metaphorically. Right?

Seminarian: Yes. That’s pretty much it. I am attracted to the institution of the church because of the opportunity it affords for influencing society in a progressive direction. But I also recognize that most people that are attracted to progressive churches view them as gentler and more enlightened—but genuinely Christian—alternatives to the harsh fundamentalism of conservative churches. Herein is the dilemma of the progressive clergyman: if we teach the congregation what we really believe—that we do not believe the apostolic faith—most of them would be shocked and would leave our church. We would lose our audience and our influence. On the other hand, in every service when we read the Bible, recite the Nicene Creed, perform baptisms, and celebrate the Eucharist, Christmas, and Easter, we allow the people to believe that we affirm the literal truth of these things when we mean them only as metaphors expressing humanistic aspirations and values. I’m not sure I can do that.

Bishop: We do believe them, just not literally. Think of it this way: we endure the pains of conscience provoked by our duplicity because we love our members. We want them to be happy. Like Jesus Christ in traditional theology, we bear their sins and weaknesses. That is our cross. There is no need to trouble their already troubled lives with further doubts and questions. We ease their troubled consciences by reassuring them that God wants them to be happy. We tell them that they don’t need to follow the Bible’s rules about sex, gender, marriage, and divorce in a legalistic way…if they lead to unhappiness. Pursuing a love that leads to happiness can’t be wrong. Okay, we don’t really know this, but it helps them to hear it. We allow them to believe in miracles and divine providence and to hope for life in heaven after they die. True, we don’t believe. But they do. And without explicitly denying their beliefs, we can channel their moral energy toward the causes of justice, equity, and peace. And that is a good thing, isn’t it?

Seminarian: Humm. I see your logic. But I am still troubled. I may have rejected the supernatural religion I was taught as a child, but there is one thing I can’t shake off from my fundamentalist background. And I thought progressives believed it too. My Sunday school teachers presented Jesus as an example of someone willing to die for the truth rather than tell a lie, even for a good cause, and he reserved his greatest scorn for the religious hypocrites who pretended to be one thing when in their hearts they were another. I gave up the clarity and comfort of my childhood religion because I thought keeping my integrity required it. Now I discover that becoming a successful progressive clergyman demands that I give that up too. I don’t think I can do that.

Bishop: Well, that is your decision to make. Perhaps you have not really thoroughly purged your mind of your fundamentalist upbringing. Maybe we can work on that next time.

Seminarian: I don’t know about that, but I am pretty sure that a religion that can be sustained only by deception and dissimulation can’t be the answer to the world’s problems. Oh, is that the time! It’s almost one o’clock. I need to return to my job.

Bishop: Will I see you again?

Seminarian: I don’t know, but I think not. I will show myself out.

Progressive Christianity (Part Three): The Far-Left (conclusion)

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Today’s essay brings to a conclusion my review of David A. Kaden, Christianity in Blue: How the Bible, History, Philosophy, and Theology Shape Progressive Identity (Fortress Press, 2021, pp. 168).

Chapter Four, “Saint Paul the Progressive”

The writings of Paul like other parts of the Bible contain good and bad ideas. Progressive Christians will interpret the letters of Paul in the same way they interpret the gospels. “Any interpretation that degrades human personality (i.e., human well-being) should be rejected in favor of interpretations that uplift human personality” (p. 103; emphasis original). Hence no one should interpret Paul’s letters as “affirming the institution of slavery, the oppression of women, the condemnation of LGBTQ+ people, or hatred of immigrants” (p. 105).

Central to Paul’s preaching was the assertion “Jesus is Lord.” In his day this claim challenged the Roman emperor’s claim to be “Lord.” It was a political claim in both cases. What does the confession “Jesus is Lord” mean for today? “Today’s Caesars,” urges Kaden, “appear in the form of ideologies and actions that degrade the human personality” (p. 120; emphasis original). Hence Paul’s message should “be interpreted in a compassionate way, a way that uplifts human personality” (p. 121).

Sensitive to the charge that Christianity is anti-Semitic, Kaden applies the criteria mentioned above—not degrading but uplifting to human personality—to Paul’s relationship to Judaism. Kaden argues that Romans 9-11 should be interpreted to mean that “Jews do not need to convert to Christianity in order to be saved because Christ is not their way into Abraham’s family” (p. 128; emphasis original). Paul would agree also, speculates Kaden, that Muslims do not need to convert to Christianity, for they too are members of Abraham’s family. With respect to Paul’s “restrictive” texts wherein the apostle seems to exclude certain types of people from inheriting the kingdom of God (1 Cor 6:9-10), Kaden muses that perhaps Paul did not know about Jesus’s eating with sinners or perhaps he still harbored prejudices from his previous “fundamentalist Pharisee” life (p. 132). In any case, a progressive interpretation of Paul will read his assertion about “every knee” bowing to declare “Jesus is Lord” (Phil 2:5-11) as proclaiming the universal love of God that will result in universal salvation.

Paul has been transformed into a modern progressive. Why, then, bother with interpreting Paul?

Chapter 5, “Designing a Loving and Progressive Church Where No One is Out”

Progressive Christianity wishes to redesign church in a way that does not set boundaries…

that demarcate insiders and outsiders, true believers and heretics, orthodoxies and heterodoxies. This version of Christianity instead reinterprets Scripture and tradition in order to demolish such false binaries and invites us to privilege those features of our past that can help us live more compassionately in the present and future (p. 142).

Progressive Christianity erases the boundary between the sacred and the profane. The whole world and everyone in it is sacred. Everyone is invited into the church. “No one is out” (p. 158). Everyone can undertake the journey into the mystery of being and life: poor, rich, black, white, brown, gay, trans, queer, and straight, doubters, theists and atheists. Community is not about sharing common beliefs but sharing a common life. Love is the only virtue and exclusion the only vice.

Evaluation

It would take more space that I want to allot to analyze and evaluate this book thoroughly. Besides, I don’t think the message of this book will be very persuasive to my target audience. It’s too radical. But I think a few observations are in order.

1. Nowhere in the book does Kaden attempt to ground the progressive vision of human well-being in objective reality. He takes it as axiomatic. More accurately, he draws on the cultural consensus of the progressive left and appeals to those to whom those ideals resonate with their experience and feelings. As I have shown above, Kaden does not ground the progressive vision in the action of God in Jesus Christ. Though he does not say so, I believe that he, like his mentor Harvard feminist New Testament professor Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza on whom he draws heavily in this book, derives the progressive way from the experiences of liberation and oppression of those marginalized by traditional religion and culture.

2. Kaden does not spend any time denying Bible miracles or the incarnation, atoning death, or resurrection of Jesus, even though it is clear that he no longer believes these doctrines in any but a metaphorical/mythical sense. Nor does he engage in examining the events and words of Jesus to distinguish between those that are historically reliable and those that are not. Careful exegesis and theological discernment of the New Testament are of little concern. Why? The answer is clear. Dr. Kaden has moved way past this phase of faith deconstruction. For Kaden, the “truth” of progressive Christianity does not depend on the outcome of these debates. Progressive Christianity is true not because Christianity itself is true but because the progressive vision of human flourishing is true. Christianity plays a supporting role. And that brings me to a third observation.

3. Throughout this review I kept bringing up different forms of a question: “Why Christianity?” Why Jesus? Why Paul? Why Church? I discussed above one reason why he insists on discovering or constructing a progressive core to Christianity. For people who live in the Western world, ethical values and a distinctive sense of the mystery of life and being have been transmitted in the language of the Bible and the Christian tradition. It is so deeply embedded in Western language and culture that there are no substitutes. Hence even though Progressive Christianity revises and critiques traditional Christianity and treats it as metaphor and parable, it cannot simply abandon it altogether. For then it would have no language in which to express its vision of life.

There is a second reason why Progressive Christianity does not abandon Christian language, and it’s a bit more cynical. In Chapter One, Kaden discusses the changing attitudes toward religion in the United States. More and more people have become disenchanted with evangelicalism and conservative churches. Many Christians do not want to drop out of church completely, but they want a more accepting, open-minded, compassionate community. Using the language of market analysis and religious entrepreneurship, Kaden observes, “The time is ripe for such a perspective. Americans now more than ever are open to progressive religion. While we still cling to religious traditions, we are becoming more socially liberal” (p. 13). Progressive Christianity gives those religious exiles what they want: traditional Christian language and ceremony—God, Christ, the Spirit, incarnation, community, resurrection, baptism, Eucharist, the preached word, Scripture readings, Lent, Easter, and all the rest—but no orthodoxy, no excommunication, no moral rules about sex and abortion, and no cognitive content. There is always a market for such a bloodless and adaptable religion. Unfortunately, unlike the automobile or real estate industries, there is no penalty for false advertising.

The Essential Progressive Attitude

Having examined a far left form of Progressive Christianity I want to pose a question that I intend to pursue in future essays. Are less radical forms of Progressive Christianity animated by the same progressive principle that drives the more radical form? Where is the dividing line that marks the boundary between genuine Christianity and fake forms such as the one described in Christianity in Blue?

Progressive Christians: Beware of Liberal Theology (Part Two)

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Today’s post is part two of my review of Roger Olson’s new book Against Liberal Theology (Zondervan, 2022).

Chapter Six, “Liberal Theology and Salvation”

Liberal theology rejects the traditional doctrine that salvation comes to human beings through the atonement and resurrection accomplished in Jesus Christ. If Jesus’s death plays a part at all in the process of salvation, it is as a noble example of faithfulness to God. Jesus saves only by the continuing influence of his teaching and example. Salvation in Christ does not involve atonement for sin, supernatural transformation, a new heaven and a new earth, or the resurrection of the dead. For liberal Christianity, salvation is about psychological healing, moral improvement, liberation from oppression, and greater social justice in this life. Salvation is “a new principle of life implanted in the heart” (p. 130, quoting Washington Gladden). According to Gary Dorrien, “The liberal gospel is that the victory of spirit over nature may be won if men will appropriate the light and life which are mediated to them through the impact of the historical Jesus” (p. 128).

Chapter Seven, “The Future in Liberal Theology”

It is not an exaggeration to assert that liberal theology possesses no eschatology. Everything in liberal religion focuses on this life. All liberals agree that the resurrection of the dead, the Second Coming of Christ, the transformation of creation, the final judgment, and heaven and hell are at best symbols of an afterlife and at worse left over imagery from Jewish apocalyptic fantasy. If there is an afterlife at all, which many liberals deny, no one will be excluded. All will be saved. Olson quotes John Shelby Spong who entertains the possibility of an afterlife in which there is “some sense of eternity in which my being, differentiated and empowered by the power of love, is joined with the being of others who are at one with the Ground of all Being” (p. 158). As is the case with so many liberal assertions, what they say is not wholly false from a traditional viewpoint. But the claims they make are ungrounded in the historical events of the gospel and what they leave out is essential to the biblical, orthodox faith.

Chapter Eight, “The Crisis in Liberal Theology”

After the American Civil War, liberal Christianity steadily gained influence in mainline Protestant denominations—Disciples of Christ, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Lutheran—reaching its high point in the middle of the twentieth century. Since then it has declined precipitously. According to Olson, liberal theology “is frustratingly vague, shallow, limp, unhelpful in answering life’s ultimate questions. It is dying out except in certain mainline Protestant colleges, universities, and seminaries” (p. 174). Liberal theologian Donald Miller may have put his finger on the reason for the decline: “the Christian message [as preached by liberal churches] may become a mirror reflection of the spirit of the age” (quoted on p. 171). Liberal Christianity remains, however, attractive to some people wounded by their narrow, rigid, and dogmatic, fundamentalist upbringing. On their journey toward liberalism (or pure secularity) they move through a progressive stage but do not find it satisfying. Something drives them onward toward liberalism.

What then is “progressive Christianity,” and why does it serve as little more than a rest stop on the way from fundamentalism to liberalism? According to Olson, many on this journey find it [progressive Christianity] “fuzzy, unclear, mediocre, and on a trajectory toward liberal Christianity” (p. 173). Olson observes that,

“Progressive Christianity is not a tradition or a movement or even a real identity. It is simply a label used by many different individuals who do not want to be thought of as conservative and who are attracted to social-justice issues [LGBTQ+, racial justice, etc.], often to the neglect of evangelism, sound doctrine, and traditional Christian norms of belief and life” (p. 173).

In the book’s concluding paragraph, Olson urges progressive Christians to “beware of liberal Christianity, because it is not real Christianity at all. Look for and find a church, a seminary, whatever, that truly takes the Bible and orthodox doctrine seriously but is not cultic in its ethos, like most fundamentalist churches, seminaries, and other ultraconservative Christian organizations” (p. 174).

Observations

In Against Liberal Theology, Roger Olson argues that liberal Christianity is not authentic Christianity but another religion. I believe he develops and sustains this thesis admirably. But Olson also wanted to make a case for “putting the brakes on progressive Christianity.” I think the book is less successful in achieving this second aim, though not by any means a failure.  On the positive side, by reading about liberal theology in such detail and realizing that it is not true Christianity but a heresy, progressive Christians may become more self-aware of their drift and reassess their thinking in the way Olson recommends. However I think Olson’s case is weakened by the book’s lack of a detailed description of what makes a theological position “progressive.” Not every Christian who holds “progressive” views uses that label as a self-description. In the absence of a profile of the progressive stance how will individuals number themselves among the book’s target audience? Olson points to progressive Christianity’s diversity and lack of inner coherence. Perhaps this diversity provides an excuse for not attempting to describe progressive Christianity in greater detail. Nevertheless there must be a family resemblance or an inner principle that unites these diverse positions under the label “progressive.”*

Moreover, while Olson warns progressives against becoming liberal, he does not criticize progressive Christianity as such. At the end of the book I am left with several unanswered questions: Do progressive Christians need to rethink their progressivism? After all, it is in Olson’s words a “halfway house” to liberalism. Has progressive Christianity become “progressive” precisely because it has unknowingly adopted and internalized some of liberal theology’s original critical principles, specifically its view that affirming human freedom and dignity demands liberation from all forms of oppression, with such liberation defined as the right and power of self-creation and self-definition? Is there an internal logic at work driving progressive Christianity inevitably toward liberal theology? If so, wouldn’t “putting the brakes” on progressive Christianity require exposing and rooting out the progressive/liberal principle that drives it forward?

*Do a quick Google search for “progressive Christianity” and I think you will see that for many self-designated “Progressive Christian” groups you could substitute the word “liberal” for the word “progressive” without distortion. For example, see The eight points of Progressive Christianity listed on the progressivechristianity.org website.

Progressive Christians: Beware of Liberal Theology

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I’ve read several books so far this summer. I can’t write a review of all of them. However, because of its direct relevance to issues I often discuss on this blog, I want to share my thoughts on Roger Olson, Against Liberal Theology: Putting the Brakes on Progressive Christianity (Zondervan, 2022). Olson has written a very good book with a simple argument whose relevance will be immediately apparent even to casual observers of American Christianity. The book contains 174 pages printed in larger than average type. It is divided into eight chapters and an introduction. Olson writes in a non-technical style readable by a wide audience, though even those educated in theology can benefit from reading it. It is apparent that Olson works hard to present the ideas of liberal theologians accurately and assess their merit fairly.

The Argument

As the title indicates, the book criticizes liberal theology and issues a warning to “progressive” Christians. The argument of the book is designed to achieve two goals: (1) to demonstrate that liberal Christianity is not Christianity at all, or at least it that is not biblical, classical, orthodox Christianity. It is a “heresy,” “counterfeit,” “a false gospel, apostasy” (p. 14); (2) to convince progressive Christians not to slide into liberal theology. Progressive Christianity is on a downhill trajectory toward liberal Christianity. Hence those progressive Christians who wish to remain truly Christian need to understand that there is a stable middle ground between a cult-like fundamentalism and full-blown liberalism. Olson urges them to take this path (p. 174).

Chapter-by-Chapter Summary

The introduction and each chapter of the book contributes a different piece of evidence that supports Olson’s conclusion that liberal Christianity is not Christianity but “an alternative religion to true Christianity” (p. 33). In this section I will summarize briefly the essential argument of each chapter.

Introduction

A standard definition of liberal Christianity is “maximal acknowledgment of the claims of modernity in Christian thinking about doctrines” (p. 6; quoting Welch). Christian doctrines are adjusted or rejected to conform to modern science and progressive morality. If this definition seems rather abstract, it is because liberalism finds it easier to specify what it does not believe than what it believes. Orthodox Christianity submits to a fixed canon whereas liberal Christianity adjusts to the ever-changing spirit of the age.

Chapter One, “The Liberal Tradition and its Theology.”

The story of liberal Christianity begins with the German theologian and preacher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834). Schleiermacher rejected a Christianity whose content and truth are rooted in external authority. Everything supernatural must be reinterpreted as natural and rooted in human experience. He reframed Christian doctrines as articulations of the human experience of dependency, a kind of mystical experience of our contingency and the reliability of a mysterious ground of our being. Other liberal theologians followed Schleiermacher’s lead in retaining Christian language and churchly practice but changing its inner meaning and the ground of our knowledge of its content and truth. Many liberals following in Schleiermacher’s wake, however, shifted from mystical to moral experience as the source and meaning of doctrine. None returned to the “external” authorities of scripture, tradition, or the church as the source and norms of Christian truth. Christian truth in all forms of liberal theology comes from within the human self. According to Olson, Douglas Ottati in his book A Theology for the Twenty-First Century (Eerdmans, 2020), though compensating for changes in science, culture, politics, and morality, reinterprets Christian doctrines in much the same way as Schleiermacher did 200 years earlier.

Chapter Two, “Liberal Theology’s Sources and Norms”

As I indicated above, liberal Christianity refuses to allow scripture and tradition to trump reason and human experience as sources and norms for Christian belief and practice. Whether it is the private or the social self, humanity is the measure of all things.

Chapter Three, “Liberal Theology and the Bible.”

For Liberal Christianity, the Bible is not authoritative in any way that would require us to trust it as telling the truth about God or God’s historical interaction with humanity. Its stories may “form” us but they do not “norm” us (p. 63, quoting Delwin Brown). Not to put too fine a point on it, we can accept the Bible when we agree with what it says and reject it when we do not. It’s not too early to ask a question: if scripture and tradition do not tell us anything we cannot learn from our own experience and we can reject anything that does not resonate with our experience, why read it and why preach it at all?

Chapter Four, “God According to Liberal Theology.”

Liberal theology rejects the traditional doctrine of God as omnipotent, independent, omniscient, and transcendent. It rejects miracles and the distinction between nature and the supernatural. But liberals do not want to move to deism or atheism. According to Olson, they opt for a “third way,” which he calls “panentheism.” Panentheism considers God and the world to be one eternal, ever-evolving reality. God depends on nature and nature depends on God. As some liberals put it, the world is God’s “body.” Olson quotes liberal theologian Donald Miller who explains, “God is synonymous with the search for human wholeness, for confidence in the ultimate meaningfulness of human existence” (p. 87). It seems that Miller here identifies God with a deep dimension of human consciousness. Peter Hodgson avers that “God actualizes godself in and through the world” (quoted on p. 88). As is clear from these two statements there is much diversity among liberal theologians in their affirmative statements. As I said earlier, it is easier for liberalism to tell you what it does not believe than what it believes.

Chapter Five, “Jesus Christ in Liberal Theology.”

For liberal Christianity, Jesus is a religious human being who “saves” us by setting a powerful example of ideal humanity. Jesus is not the incarnate Son of God. He did not die for our sins; nor did God raise him from the dead. And yet liberals keep talking about incarnation, resurrection, and salvation. Donald Miller says the quiet part out loud when he admits, “I presently feel comfortable reciting the creed without editing it or feeling a pang of conscience if I affirm something I do not literally believe” (quoted on p. 109). We might want to ask Miller this question: if you don’t believe it “literally,” why say it at all? Perhaps you’ve worked it out with your own “conscience,” but what about the people listening to you who are deceived into thinking that you are one of them? Olson cites Miller’s confession “as an example of how slippery liberal Christians can be” (p. 109). In brief, for liberal theology, Jesus is either an example or a symbol but not the Lord and Son of God of the New Testament or of the creeds. Reliance on symbols rather than historical reality frees liberals from having to defend the facts of the gospel and supposedly makes Christian faith a matter of inner certainty not subject to refutation by historical research. But it also transforms it into a myth whose truth lies not in the storyline taken literally but in the longings the story evokes in the listener.

To be continued…