Category Archives: Liberal Theology

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…