Tag Archives: heresy

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

7 Replies

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…

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion—Christian Ideals or Golden Calves?

7 Replies

Deceitful Words

Almost every day I have to endure listening to non- or even anti-Christian meanings being poured into traditional Christian words. Even worse, I hear words whose meanings are determined by non- or anti-Christian contexts proclaimed as the height of Christian orthodoxy, piety, and virtue. This experience is as painful to me as I imagine Moses’s experience was to him as he descended mountain having heard the very voice of God only to discover that Aaron and the Israelites had made a golden calf and were worshiping it as the God who brought them out of Egypt (Ex 32). Today we have a multitudes of “Israelites” and plenty of “Aarons” within Christian circles who are only too happy to assimilate Christianity to the pagan culture surrounding it. And playing word games is one way of disguising the substitution.

Some Contemporary Golden Calves

Traditional Words Are Given Alien Meanings

Some years ago I had to study the works of some very liberal theologians. One theologian, Langdon Gilkey (1919-2004), kept using the word “salvation” in an odd way. He kept saying that there is salvation in all religions. What did he mean? Did he mean that the adherents of all religions would achieve what the New Testament offers as liberation from sin, death, and the devil? Do all religions lead to the arms of Abraham, to resurrection of the dead, to union with the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to eternal life in fellowship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit? However as I kept reading I realized that Gilkey meant something quite different. He meant that all the major religions humanize, elevate, and spiritualize their followers in this life. These religions provide meaning, purpose, and identity. They create community, human solidarity, and ethical guidance. And this is what Gilkey meant by “salvation.” Jesus saves, Buddha saves, and Mohammed saves. They all make people better and happier.

Later in my historical studies, I discovered that retaining a traditional Christian word while shifting its meaning has been the strategy of liberal Christian theology from its beginning in around 1800 until today. In the liberal dictionary,

“Resurrection” means not that God raised Jesus bodily from the dead and that Jesus reigns as lord but that Jesus’s influence lives on and exercises a powerful force in the world.

“Atonement” is not about God actually changing the world through the death and resurrection of Jesus but about the positive impact of the teaching and example of Jesus.

The “Holy Spirit” is not the powerful presence of God witnessing to Jesus Christ and transforming people into his image but for all practical purposes is identified with the progressive spirit of the times.

“Justice” in the Bible means individual behavior that measures up to the letter and the spirit of God’s just laws. Today it has come to mean “social justice,” which is an agenda for reordering society toward equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Words with Secular Meanings Declared Christian

As examples secular/pagan meanings being imported into Christian churches and such parachurch organizations as Christian colleges I will examine the pervasive call for diversity, equity, and inclusion—aka social justice—in all spheres of modern society. As someone who lives and works in higher education—today’s literal counterpart to the mythical Pandora’s Box—I hear this triad invoked at least three times a day as a self-evident moral ideal. In the modern university you can blaspheme the Holy Trinity of Christianity or burn the American flag with impunity but questioning the axiomatic nature of diversity, equity, and inclusion is to commit the unforgivable sin and become subject to cancellation or termination (of employment).

Hence I am constantly amazed when I hear Christian people invoke diversity, equity, and inclusion as Christian ethical imperatives. They do this uncritically and seemingly without awareness of the radical political context within which this triad gains its meaning. In its secular context the triad sets the agenda for the fundamental reordering of society at all levels through political coercion, accompanied with violence if needed. Equity is not identical to the traditional ideals of equality before the law and freedom of choice; it is a condition within which equal proportions of society’s goods are distributed among different communities of identity—especially communities determined by race and gender.  Diversity means that the membership of every institution in a society—business, club, school, etc.—reflects proportionally the diversity of identity groups in society at large. Inclusion refers to the intentional effort to include sufficient representatives from every identity group contained within society at large, especially from those groups whom society tends to oppress, overlook, or marginalize.

Clearly, achieving diversity, equity, and inclusion at all levels of society cannot be left to meritocratic and free market forces or freedom of choice or speech. The interplay of these forces has always led and will always lead to lack of diversity, inequity, and exclusion. Left to themselves historical prejudices, natural affinities and competition always produce insiders and outsiders, winners and losers, oppressors and oppressed. Hence the government must position itself as a counterweight to these forces in service to the ideals of equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Next Time: Are equity, diversity, and inclusion Christian Ideals? Hint: The answer is no.

The Idol in the Cathedral

3 Replies

The church faces challenges in every age and in every place. They arise from outside and inside, from rulers and from the people. Some strike a sudden blow and others develop slowly. In the moment, it is hard to tell which threats are superficial and ephemeral and which are profound and enduring. What we think is our greatest challenge may turn out to have been a passing fad and an issue we hardly noticed may prove to have been an existential threat. Only with historical hindsight can we discern with any clarity the difference between the two. But we live now, and have no choice but to use the wisdom we have to deal with the challenges we face.

What are the challenges confronting us today and which one is the greatest? Perhaps there is more than one answer to this question. The church exists throughout the world, and circumstances differ greatly from place to place. The greatest challenge for the church in Nigeria may not be the most pressing problem for the church in Russia or Iran or Canada. I cannot answer for my brothers and sisters living in Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia, and South America. I live in the United States of America, and since I live in the State of California it is even somewhat venturesome to speak as an American Christian. For the church in the United States is quite diverse. Even the city of Los Angeles is dizzyingly multicultural. Nevertheless, I would like to share my perspective.

Separating Religion and Personal Morality

Contemporary American culture separates religion (or spirituality) from personal morality, and contemporary Christians seem to be assimilating to that separation at a rapid pace. In my view, this move is one of the most serious doctrinal errors, even heresies, of our time. It is not unusual to hear people express warm personal piety, talk about the love of God and the grace of the Holy Spirit, celebrate Advent and Easter, and speak about the resurrection and eternal life but find it impossible to utter words condemning personal sins having to do with sexual promiscuity, jealously, greed, cursing, selfish ambition, filthy language, litigiousness, adultery, abortion, divorce, factionalism, envy, malice, lying, drunkenness, and many more (See 1 Cor 6:7-20; Rom 1:18-32; Gal 5:19-21; Col 3:5-11). The list of texts of Scripture that churches are embarrassed to read in the public assembly grows yearly. Why am I so concerned about this? Why is this my number one heresy? To answer these questions I need to remind you of something the church used to know but has forgotten.

Ethical Monotheism and Idolatry

The religion of the Old Testament is often called “ethical monotheism.” In stark contrast to the Canaanite and other religions contemporary with ancient Israel, the prophets of Israel taught that there is only one God and that God is perfectly righteous, having no evil impulses. Israel’s God demanded that his people practice personal holiness, justice, and mercy as a religious duty. But Israel always lived on the edge of reversion to idolatry and pagan indulgence. The classic example of this defection is found in Exodus 32:2-6 (See also 1 Cor 10:1-6):

“He [Aaron] took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” When Aaron saw this, he built an altar in front of the calf and announced, “Tomorrow there will be a festival to the Lord.” So the next day the people rose early and sacrificed burnt offerings and presented fellowship offerings. Afterward they sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in revelry.”

The union of personal morality and religious practice became central to the faith of Israel and the Judaism contemporary with Jesus and so passed into Christianity. The New Testament’s critique of idolatry is nearly always at the same time a critique of the idolatrous separation between personal morality and religion. The first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans is an excellent example of the connection between pagan idolatry and immorality: The pagans, says Paul, “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another” (Rom 1:23-24).

Invisible Idols

The pagan impulse to separate religion from personal morality is strong and ever present for the simple reason that, like water poured out, human beings always look for the easiest path and the broadest way. Self-indulgence is the natural ethics and idolatry is the natural religion of every human being. The advantage of idolatry is that we get to “have our cake and eat it too.” We can entice the supernatural powers to work for us at the bargain price of a few sacrifices and prayers while we pursue our bodily lusts and worldly ambitions. Idols do not care how we live our personal lives. They are lenient and indulgent and want us to be happy in our own way. After all, idols are imaginary gods we create in our own image.

Contemporary culture worships the idol of the autonomous Self, which must be given maximum freedom to pursue happiness in its own unique way and create its own authentic identity. Any attempt to impose on this self a moral code such as the one found in the New Testament is an outrageous sacrilege. Modern culture does not object to the idea of god as long as it is not the God of the Old or New Testament, the God for whom personal morality is a religious duty, the God who cares with whom you have sex, how you spend your money, what you think, and how you talk.

The Idol in the Cathedral

In my view, then, the church faces a stark choice with profound consequences. Will it remain faithful to the biblical view of God in which religion and personal morality are inextricably bound together or will it replace God with a pagan idol whose sole function is to sanctify our self-indulgent pursuit of pleasure?

To be continued…

“Liberal Christianity”—Neither Liberal Nor Christian!

15 Replies

We are nearing the end of our year-long series on the question “Is Christianity True?” One more topic remains to be covered. So far in the series I have attempted to show that we can make a reasonable judgment to believe the Christian gospel and a responsible decision to take up the Christian way of life. Early in the study, in the third essay, I made it clear that by “Christianity” I meant the original faith attested in the New Testament. It is that faith I contend is true. And I responded to outsider critics in defense of this faith. But now I want to deal with those who “defend” Christianity by revising it to make it fit within modern thought and culture.

In the 17th and 18th Centuries many western intellectuals came to believe that Galileo’s and Newton’s scientific discoveries made it impossible to believe in divine revelation and miracles. God made the world and gave it its laws, and there is now no reason for God to interfere. God gave human beings the power of reason as a light to guide their way, and reason is as sufficient for religion and ethics as it is for science and practical life. The first thinkers to adopt these ideas had little use for Christianity; they saw no value in tradition, church and worship. Religion could be reduced to living a moral life outside the church. These are the so-called Deists.

But early in the 19th Century something new came on the scene, liberal Christianity. Liberal Christianity accepts most aspects of the deist critique of orthodoxy. Along with Deism, Liberalism rejects miracles understood as supernatural events in which God reverses, interrupts or sidesteps natural law. Hence it rejects or reinterprets in a non-miraculous way the Old and New Testament miracle stories, including Jesus’ nature miracles (resurrections, healings of leprosy, walking on water) and most significantly Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. Liberalism rejects the apocalyptic elements in Jesus’ teaching and in the rest of the New Testament. And it rejects the substitutionary doctrine of the atonement. But unlike Deism, Liberal Christianity gives Jesus a central role as a religious and moral example and it retains a place for the church, clergy and worship in individual and social life.

During the 19th Century two major forms of Liberal Christianity developed. The first form emphasizes Jesus’ religious experience and was pioneered by German theologian and preacher Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834), who is universally acknowledged as “the father of modern theology.” According Schleiermacher, Jesus experienced a deep God-consciousness so intense that it overcame all resistance from the flesh. Jesus’ God-consciousness differs from other people’s experience in that he was able to inspire that consciousness in others. Only in this way is Jesus our redeemer and savior. The church is the community that cultivates this consciousness and passes it on to others. Christian doctrines derive, not from inspired words revealed by God and recorded in the Bible but from the feeling of absolute dependence on God that Jesus inspires. In Schleiermacher’s now classic work on theology The Christian Faith, the Berlin theologian reinterprets every Christian dogma and doctrine in Liberal way, that is, as reducible to the religious feeling of absolute dependence. For Schleiermacher, Christianity is not the religion about Jesus but the religion of Jesus.

In the late 19th and the early 20th Centuries, another Liberal tradition became dominant. This tradition was begun by Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) and continued by Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) and Wilhelm Herrmann (1846-1922). It focuses not on Jesus’ religious experience but on his moral example. For Ritschl and his followers, Christianity is based on Jesus’ preaching about the kingdom of God, which calls on people to embody perfect righteousness on earth in a community. Jesus inspires us to believe that the cause of the kingdom will prevail over all resistance. Like Schleiermacher, Ritschl rejects miracles, the resurrection of Jesus, substitutionary atonement, the incarnation and other orthodox doctrines. Jesus is a human being who so identified himself with the purposes of God that he functions as the revelation of God in human form. He is not God in his being, but he reflects God in his character and actions. He “saves” by inspiring us to live according to the higher standard of love of God and neighbor.

The moralism that Liberal Christianity emphasizes is not personal holiness, that is, sexual purity, personal honesty and the absence of individual vices. It leaves this to the holiness churches and fundamentalist movements. The Liberal churches of the late 19th and early 20th centuries focused on bringing Jesus’ message of the kingdom to bear on modern social problems: poverty, capitalism’s exploitation of the working class, alcoholism, war and women’s suffrage. Later Liberal churches continued this tradition, adding the campaign for civil rights for African Americans, women’s liberation, environmental justice, gay rights and “marriage equality” for same-sex couples. In other words, Liberal Christianity follows and reflects the trajectory of what the consensus of the progressive element in culture takes for moral progress.

Now let’s address the assertion contained in my title. Is liberal “Christianity” Christian? Of course, it claims to be Christian, and it seems judgmental and rude to deny that claim. But surely it is not judgmental and rude to ask liberal Christians what they mean by the noun “Christianity” and the adjective “Christian”? What are the faith affirmations of liberal Christianity and what are its denials? The liberal Christianity I described above affirms Jesus as a paradigmatic religious man or a profound moral teacher and an extraordinary moral example. And orthodox Christianity also affirms these beliefs. But liberal Christianity denies that Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary, that he was the eternal Son of God incarnate, that he the performed miracles recorded in the Four Gospels, that he died as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and that he was raised bodily from the dead. Liberal Christianity rejects much of the moral teaching of the New Testament because it conflicts with modern progressive culture.

But these rejected doctrines and moral teachings were part of the original, apostolic Christianity. Many of them are confessed and taught in the New Testament as absolutely essential. It’s obvious that in the New Testament era such “liberal” Christianity would have been rejected as unbelief or heresy and moral laxity. Does anyone doubt that had the Paul, John, Peter, James or any of the Apostles encountered someone teaching the liberal view of Jesus and morality that they would have denied it the name “Christian” and rejected it as “a different gospel–which is really no gospel at all” (Gal 1:6-7)? Call it what you will, “ecclesiastical deism” or “progressive religion” or something else. But if the original, apostolic faith is the norm for what qualifies as Christian and what does not, liberal Christianity is not Christianity at all but something else. But is apostolic Christianity really the norm for Christian teaching for all time? This is a decisive question. I affirm that it is, and I suppose liberal Christianity denies it.

My title also questioned Liberal Christianity’s liberalism. How so? The word “liberal” is related to the words, liberty and liberate. Hence liberal Christianity claims to be free and freeing. But from what is liberal Christianity free and from what does it promise liberation? From doctrinal orthodoxy, tradition and a strict and ridged moral code! How does it get free from those authorities? Does it assert anarchy or a latter day revelation? No. Liberal Christianity gets free from orthodoxy by selling itself to de-Christianized progressive culture. To stay relevant and on message it must jump on board with whatever progressive culture designates as the next area ripe for moral progress. Liberal Christianity has no place to stand to critique progressivism. It cannot appeal to tradition or the Bible or the divine authority of Jesus; it cannot even appeal to reason. It is always running to catch up with the next bold effort to liberate somebody from tradition and oppressive social institutions. And its vestigial Christian baggage, as light as it is when compared to orthodoxy, slows it down so that it always behind the curve.

Liberal Christianity “defends” Christianity by giving up its most powerful and liberating teachings. It’s an army that defends its homeland by surrendering the capitol, the best farmland and the most defensible heights. And in doing so it becomes powerless to challenge the world at the place where it most needs to be confronted, where it is most in rebellion to God. Like the ventriloquist’s dummy, it has nothing of its own to say. It looks to its master for what to say next. And so I conclude that liberal Christianity is neither Christian nor liberal. It’s not even interesting.