Tag Archives: progressivism

Are Progressives the New Evangelicals?

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Since I finished my recent review of Roger Olson’s book Against Liberal Theology: Putting the Brakes on Progressive Christianity (July 15 and 19, 2022), I’ve wanted to write something on “progressive Christianity.” As you might recall, I criticized Olson’s book for not describing “Progressive Christianity” in detail. In the intervening month I looked for books, podcasts, and essays to see if I could detect a central theme or principle in self-described “Progressive Christian” materials. I discovered that progressive writers are quite diverse theologically. And this can be very confusing because liberals are always progressive but progressives are not always liberal. That is to say, some progressives deny outright or radically reinterpret traditional Christian dogmas while others confess them. What, then, do all progressive Christians (liberals and non-liberals) have in common that makes them “progressive”?

What Makes Progressives Progressive?

My answer to this question must be somewhat tentative at this point. But I will advance an opinion that may need refinement with further study: The “progressive” label as it is applicable to both groups refers to moral rather than theological matters. All progressives believe in the possibility and the fact of moral progress. Christian progressives believe that certain moral insights of modern progressive culture are morally superior to the church’s traditional moral teaching even if that teaching appears to be based on the Bible. Among these progressive changes are looser attitudes toward divorce, gender identity, casual sex, abortion, and homosexuality.

I dare say that most Christian progressives could not explain why modern progressive morality is superior to traditional moral teaching. Tradition just “feels” wrong to them whereas progressive morality “feels” right. Traditional morality “feels” oppressive, intrusive, judgmental, unfair, unrealistic, inhumane, and antiquated. And it produces unhappiness. Progressive morality breathes freedom and allows each person to seek happiness in their own way. And it frees Christians from having to play the role of the “morality police.”

It won’t come as a surprise to readers of this blog when I charge that Christian progressives find progressive morality compelling because they have–whether they realize it or not–internalized the fundamental anthropological principle that has animated the progressive movement for over 300 years:

In its inner essence the human being is free from all alien limits. Its self-appointed task in life is to liberate itself from all external limits and actualize its unique, inner self in the world. Its happiness depends on completing this task.

According to this principle, moral progress in a society is measured by how much self-determination it grants to individuals to pursue their happiness through self-actualization of their inner selves. Needless to say a progressive society will not inhibit the individual’s quest for happiness and, indeed, it will fight against all who would hinder this quest.

Are Progressives the New Evangelicals?

Modern evangelicalism was invented (perhaps reinvented) after WW II by evangelist Billy Graham and theologian Carl F. H. Henry. Between 1925 and 1947, “fundamentalism” had become a term of abuse hurled at conservative Christians. After the Scopes Trial, it became abundantly clear that the fundamentalists had lost the cultural battle and had been exiled from the mainstream to the cultural “backwater” of small town and rural America. Many fundamentalists dusted off their feet and retreated to their cultural islands. Fundamentalists were pictured by the national media as Bible-thumping, science-denying, overalls-wearing hillbillies. After the War, Carl F. H. Henry called on conservative Christians to return to the cultural center of American life under the name of evangelical. Evangelicals founded journals, learned societies, and colleges. They became professors, doctors, and lawyers. By 1976 they had become a significant force in American politics.

After 1990, however, the cultural influence of evangelicalism leveled off and began to decline. After 2010, that decline accelerated so much that the term “evangelical” has become in 2022 analogous to the term “fundamentalist” in 1922. For those enamored by progressive culture, evangelicals are homophobic, transphobic, climate-deniers, and white supremacists. Are such contemporary progressives as Jim Wallis, Jen Hatmaker, Brian McLaren, Tony Campolo, Nadia Bolz-Weber, and Rob Bell attempting to do to evangelicalism what Carl F. H, Henry and Billy Graham did to fundamentalism? Do progressive Christians aim to become the new evangelicals?

I conclude with a quote from a recent critic of progressivism:

For many departing evangelicals, progressivism feels new, fresh, and relevant. But it is actually not new at all—progressivism is only a replay of old-line Protestant Liberalism. This matters because their Protestant Liberalism is among the fastest dying religions in the world. Evangelicals are coming to Liberalism at exactly the moment that Liberalism is proving to provide no real life (David Young, A Grand Illusion: How Progressive Christianity Undermines Biblical Faith, Renew, 2019, p. 14).

I belief Young is correct in his contention that progressive Christianity is unstable and will lead inevitably to liberalism. Let me make a prediction: Progressive Christianity will not become the new evangelicalism. When a departing evangelical runs out of evangelicalism they achieve too much inertial force to stop in the half way house of progressive Christianity. They will move rapidly into liberalism and from there on into secularism. The progressive principle is not consistent with any philosophy resembling Christianity, for it is the deification of humanity.

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…

I Want it All!

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

You Can’t Have it All…That Way

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

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

You Can Have it All

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

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

How Man Became God: The Story of Progressive Humanism

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

God and Human Aspirations

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

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

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

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

How Man Became God—A History

Two Views of God

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

Two Views of Human Nature

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

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

Apotheosis and Utopia

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

Creative Destruction

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

To be continued…

Dust and Smoke: A Tale of Progressive Hypocrisy

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In the past few months I have been addressing the theme of the Bible and Christian ethics. I discussed some of the basic categories and concepts used in Christian ethics: the good, the right, moral law, divine commands, wisdom, the burden of proof, tradition, the concept of a “way of life,” and others. Since it is a burning contemporary issue that cannot be evaded, I have given special emphasis to how the Bible has been used in the contemporary debate over same-sex relationships. In a series of eleven essays I examined Karen Keen’s argument that evangelical churches should affirm loving, same-sex relationships as morally equal to traditional marriages between other-sex couples. I also reviewed Robert K. Gnuse’s argument against the usefulness of the traditional biblical proof texts for the contemporary debate. Gnuse is a progressive Lutheran supporter of mainline churches affirming same-sex relationships. Very soon I want to bring all these ideas to bear on a positive statement on the Christian ethical status of same-sex relationships and how the Bible may be properly used to support this traditional position. In preparation for this statement I want to take stock of where we stand.

Secular Progressives

It is important to keep in mind that the secular progressives do not care what the Bible says. They do not acknowledge its authority and may express great hostility toward it. They don’t mind hearing the Bible quoted as long as it echoes their views but will not accept any criticism of progressive morality based on the Bible. I am not speaking to this group in this series. This task would require a completely different approach. I am addressing people who for one reason or another claim to care what the Bible says. This group falls into two broad categories: traditionalist/conservative and progressive/liberal Christians.

Progressive versus Conservative

Not all progressive Christians are alike. Some reject or extensively revise the doctrines held dear by the historic tradition—the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the Trinity, the incarnation, and the call to conversion. I find it difficult to think of them as Christian at all. Some are less radical in their revisions. What they all have in common is that they feel compelled to revise traditional/biblical Christian doctrine and morals in view of “enlightened” modern culture. The dominant contemporary culture has given up all ethical principles by which it might condemn any behavior that does not involve coercion and lack of consent. The Enlightenment’s emphasis on individual freedom and autonomy, the Romantic Movement’s emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual’s inner self, and post-modernism’s debunking of objective truth have come together in contemporary culture to create a picture of each individual as a self-creating god who can do anything it wants as long as it does not do violence to other self-creating gods. And progressive Christians try to adjust their theology and ethics to this culture. They are as embarrassed by traditional Christian moral teaching as they would be if they suddenly found themselves naked at a Kennedy Center opera performance.

At times I wonder why progressive Christians even bother to appear to care what the Bible says. Traditionalists care what the Bible says because they place themselves under its authority and sincerely believe that God’s speaks through the Bible. They want to live in a community that lives according to the Bible’s teaching. When progressives engage in sophisticated exegesis and hermeneutics, such as that we find in Gnuse’s article, do they do this because they really care what the Bible says? Or, do they know already from the spirit of the times what the Bible should have said? I think some progressives work as hard as they do to reinterpret the Bible, not because they care what it teaches but because other less enlightened people care and stand in the way of moral progress. Progressive efforts seem designed to undermine the certainty of the traditional moral teaching while giving the appearance of sincere desire to understand the scriptures. In other words progressive writing on biblical exegesis and hermeneutics and theological ethics strikes the traditionalist as dissimulation and deception. And it will persuade only those who want to be persuaded.

Proof-Text Hypocrisy

As I outlined in the two previous essays, Robert K. Gnuse argues that the biblical proof texts most often quoted by traditionalists to condemn same-sex intercourse do not explicitly condemn all same-sex sexual relationships. They do not explicitly condemn loving, freely contracted same-sex relationships. These texts, progressives opine, are most likely directed to abusive relationships common in the culture of that day. And because they do not specifically target loving gay and lesbian relationships these passages are irrelevant to the contemporary question about the Christian legitimacy of same-sex relationships. We do not know what Paul would say about loving gay and lesbian relationships, progressives claim; we know only what he said about abusive same-sex relationships. Gnuse is not alone in adopting this line of argument. It is common among progressive Christian writers.

There is so much that could be said in response to the progressive strategy. But I will limit myself to one observation. It seems to me quite hypocritical for a progressive to argue in such a legalistic way. Progressives are not known for being sticklers for the letter of the law. Are we really to believe that if the New Testament undeniably condemned all same-sex intercourse, even between loving people, that progressives would dutifully follow the New Testament in its condemnation? I do not think so. Progressives also have many strategies for rejecting any explicit New Testament teaching that conflicts with progressive culture. When clear New Testament teaching conflicts with progressive dogma, progressive writers complain that the New Testament authors were limited by their patriarchal, unscientific, homophobic, and sexist culture.

When progressives argue in this legalistic way it is not because they want to obey the Bible to the letter. No. They argue this way to take advantage of the fact that traditionalists want to obey the Bible to the letter. And insofar as traditionalists think that the Bible teaches moral truth only by means of explicit divine commands, they set themselves up for the progressive trap. If somehow the supposed clarity of the biblical proof texts can be obscured by whatever means, the traditionalist is left without recourse. Progressives by throwing exegetical dust into the air and blowing hermeneutical smoke in traditionalists’ eyes hide the rank hypocrisy of their argument. For they have no intention of practicing what they preach.

Next Time: The Plasticity of Principles

“Liberal Christianity”—Neither Liberal Nor Christian!

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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.

The Sins of Christians: Evidence for Christianity’s Immorality?

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In this week’s post I want to continue the theme of moral objections to Christianity. Last week I argued that most moral objections to Christianity can be reduced to fundamental disagreements about the final authority for moral truth and the ends moral behavior should seek. The specific issues discussed by the culture at any particular time are merely occasions for the clash of contradictory fundamental perspectives. The view I called “de-Christianized progressivism” rejects all moral authority beyond the individual’s sense of fittingness and any goal other than individual happiness as understood by the individual. In contrast, Christianity affirms the ultimate moral authority of the Creator, who is the absolute standard of right and good, and views the goal of human action and relationships as the creature’s correspondence in character and life to the Creator as revealed in Jesus Christ.

De-Christianized progressivism appeals to a different source of moral knowledge than that to which Christianity appeals. It cannot accept that individuals need any moral guidance other than their own experience and feeling. After all, if the goal of human life is to maintain a feeling of wellbeing and happiness in the present moment, who knows better than I when I am happy and what makes me happy? But Christianity mistrusts untrained and immediate human impulses. Human beings are sinners in need of forgiveness and spiritual transformation. It asserts that individuals’ consciences need divine revelation, community discipline and tradition as sources of moral guidance.

If people holding opposite sides of these contradictory moral visions clash over issues such as those that excite our culture today without clarifying their deeper disagreements, they cannot possibly understand each other and will simply talk past each other. And since they cannot appeal to the same authority and do not seek the same goal, they cannot even reason with each other. Instead of asking why they cannot reason together about an issue and letting this question drive them to their deeper disagreements—and perhaps agreements on another level—they shift from reasoning to fighting. Opponents begin to view each other as irrational, insincere and evil. Words become weapons instead of vehicles for ideas. Carl von Clausewitz (1790-1831) observed in his book On War, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” Unhappily, von Clausewitz’s aphorism describes only too well the current debate about morality. Christians as well as non- or post-Christians are often guilty of shifting too quickly from reasoning to fighting. And I will have something to say about this in future posts. But here I am dealing with objections to the moral vision of Christianity from its critics.

Many critics illegitimately confuse Christianity with the thought and behavior of churches and individuals who claim to be Christian. Clearly, there is a conceptual difference between the essential teaching and moral vision of the original Christian faith and the practice of individual Christians and institutions that call themselves churches. Lay Christians and clergy have done and do bad things. Bishops acted like secular lords, amassing wealth and building magnificent palaces at the expense of the people while neglecting their duty to care for and teach the people. “Christian” princes conducted wars against other “Christian” princes. So-called “witches” and heretics were burned alive. Christian churches sought power in alliance with the political order. Clergy abused and still abuse their trusted positions by molesting children, living in luxury and seeking honor. Indeed, Christians and so-called “churches” do bad things, horrendous things, and they deserve to be exposed and denounced.

And it is precisely by the teaching and example of Jesus Christ and the original Christian faith that they are most decisively exposed and denounced! De-Christianized progressivism cannot possibly be as radical in its criticism. For it possesses no coherent principles by which to criticize such abuses. Non- or post-Christians also seek wealth, desire power and work to satisfy their lusts. And why not? They cannot appeal to moral law or divine judgment or the teaching and example of Jesus to redirect their lives toward the truly good and right. This life is all there is, and it is precarious and short. Carpe diem! Hence their criticism of the behavior of Christians and Christian institutions boils down to criticizing them for not living up to the teaching of Jesus and the original Christian faith, that is, it boils down to an accusation of hypocrisy. They don’t raise any independent criticisms. So, it cannot escape notice that an argument from hypocrisy to the falsehood of the ideals by which hypocrisy is exposed and denounced is self-contradictory. If the Christian moral vision is false, the charge of hypocrisy is evacuated of its moral content. How can hypocrisy be a moral failing if the system within which hypocrisy is condemned is itself false?

Surely it is obvious that failure to live up to an ideal does not disprove the ideal. A bad Stoic does not prove that Stoicism is bad. A bad math student does not prove that mathematics is bad. Nor does a bad Christian prove that Christianity is bad. Hence merely rehearsing the sins of Christians and so-called “Christian” institutions does not constitute a good argument against Christianity’s moral vision. A good argument, that is, a rational argument, against Christianity’s moral vision would, first, need fairly and accurately to describe that vision. Second, it would need to judge Christianity’s moral vision defective according to an alternative moral vision, which as a system can claim as good or better grounding in moral truth. I do not accept expressions of emotion or sentences that begin with “I feel” or “everyone knows” or “we have discovered” or “history will show” as rational arguments.

I challenge the critics of the Christian moral vision to make an argument that meets these two requirements. Only then can we even have an argument. I predict I will be waiting a long time.

Is Christianity Morally Offensive?

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I find it so interesting that many of the most strident opponents of Christianity attack it for its moral teachings. If you didn’t know better, you’d expect these opponents to oppose the Christian moral vision with a coherent and profound moral philosophy based on an altogether different and better foundation. After all, to oppose and replace the religious and moral tradition that created the western world and shaped its moral intuition for over a thousand years is a pretty ambitious agenda. And since the objections I have in mine come from contemporary western people, you would think they would have given serious consideration to how they could escape the influence of the system they now criticize. Do you return to pre-Christian sources? Do you draw on non-western traditions? Do you attempt to derive a new morality from modern natural science? Only Friedrich Nietzsche and a few other adventuresome thinkers attempted to return to pre-Christian paganism. And most modern objections to Christian morality would apply doubly to pagan morality. Nietzsche criticized Christianity for its compassion for the weak, hardly politically correct today. Most non-western moral traditions are as conservative as or more so than the Christian tradition. And science can only describe the way things are. It cannot tell you how they should be. No, there is no alternative for modern progressives who think they have advanced beyond Christianity.

Self-conscious secularists and progressives and throngs of thoughtless people who echo them decry Christianity’s prohibition of sexual activity outside of a marriage between one man and one woman, divorce, suicide, abortion, and homosexual activity. There have always been people who practice these things and who justify them in various ways. But lately we see a new hostility toward Christian moral teachings that views them, not just as backward, but as evil.  What accounts for this new hostility toward Christianity for its teaching on these subjects? The most obvious reason for the new aggression is political. The Christian moral vision dominated western society for many centuries.  In the United States it has only recently become feasible for de-Christianized progressivism to turn the tables and become the dominant philosophy of culture. Christian churches and the Christian moral vision are what stand in the way of this transfer of power. Hence much contemporary criticism of Christianity can be explained by its political aims. But a deeper issue concerns me more than the struggle for political domination.

Why do secular progressives hate Christianity for its views of marriage, divorce, suicide, abortion, and homosexual activity? I do not believe that it is simply because of what Christianity permits or forbids. In truth, it is Christianity’s denial that individual human beings have the right to decide for themselves what is good and right. Christianity teaches that we do not own ourselves and we must give an account to our Creator for what we do and how we use our lives as well as how we treat others. For de-Christianized progressives, Christianity’s denial of their autonomy is deeply offensive. But instead of challenging the Christian moral vision with a coherent and profound moral philosophy, progressives appeal to the flattering but obviously false notion that individual human beings can be their own gods, determining good and evil for themselves. Perhaps Christianity’s exposure of this fiction explains the intensity of progressives’ hatred.

Progress? Whose Progress? To What End?

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I want to take a week or two out from the 16-part series on the “God and the Modern Self” to address an issue that is on my mind. Recently, I seem to have heard an increased use of the idea of progress to justify certain moral, social and political changes. I don’t want to take up the specific changes that are being advocated, and I don’t do politics on this blog. But I do want to consider the rhetoric of progress because it seems completely confused and confusing. After all, this blog is about “thoughtfulness in religion.”

A few days ago I heard an advocate condemn his opponents because they are “on the wrong side of history.” And quite often lately I hear people speaking of making progress or suffering regress in certain moral areas. So let’s think about progress. It should be clear that there can be no progress unless there is a goal toward which one can move closer. If I am on a road trip from Los Angeles to New York City, my arrival in Kansas City clearly marks progress. I am getting closer to the destination. In general, then, progress is movement toward a goal. We consider progress good when the goal at which it is aimed is desirable. If the end is not desirable, we don’t usually consider movement toward it positive. For example, we speak of a person’s change toward worse health as regress or decline rather than progress toward death, though, if death were desirable, we might call movement toward it “progress”.

Now it is possible for one person to consider the end toward which things seem to be moving as good whereas another person considers it bad. Hence one person’s progress can be another’s regress or decline. My point is that we use the word progress for movement toward an end, and judgment about the quality of that movement depends on our judgment about the worthiness of the goal. There is nothing inherently good about “movement toward an end.” Everything depends on the nature of the end.

Since the Enlightenment, two main types of progress (“movement toward an end”) have been recognized as desirable: scientific progress and moral progress. Since the early 17th century, scientific progress has been measured by the extent of movement toward bringing nature under the control of humanity. Every scientific advance moves us closer toward complete understanding and therefore complete (or at least maximum) control. We want to subject nature to our wills and make it serve us and add to our comfort, health and happiness.

What passes for moral progress follows the same trajectory as scientific progress. Just as the goal of modern science and technology is liberation of human beings from servitude to the ordinary course of nature, the aim of modern moral progress is liberation of the individual from domination by political authority, oppressive social structures and divine and natural moral law. The unarticulated goal implicit in the modern understanding of moral progress is complete liberation the human self from all self-alienating forces into absolute self-determination and unfettered “pursuit of happiness”.

I emphasized the word “unarticulated” because the rhetoric of progress could not be as persuasive as it is if it stated this goal openly. Everyone knows that absolute independence is impossible for human beings, and anyone who claimed to have attained it would be dismissed as crazy. And yet total liberty and autonomy is the ideal by which all “oppressive” structures and forces are exposed and condemned as immoral and unjust.

Universal moral law, natural order or divine purposes are given no role in guiding and restraining the arbitrary, self-determining self. The reason for this exclusion is obvious. The rhetoric of progress views these guiding and restraining structures as oppressive by definition.

We can draw two conclusions at this point: (1) the modern rhetoric of progress aims at a goal impossible to attain, and (2) if it were attained, chaos, anarchy and nihilism would engulf the world. The rhetoric of progress works only so long as it hides its final goal and fails to attain it fully. How shall we judge a moral ideal that, were it attained, would destroy the world?

Allow me to point out one more contradiction in the modern idea of progress. As persuasive as the rhetoric of progress is, it has not been able to persuade everyone. Even though its ideal is total freedom from authority and oppressive structures, it seems to have no moral objection to using social and political power to destroy its enemies and coerce the unwilling to move on to the next phase of human liberation from oppression. The means (coercion) subverts the end (freedom). And since the end can never be attained, the means, which is the exercise of coercive power, replaces the end. The end becomes a mere moral justification for the means. (On second thought, perhaps using coercive power is not inconsistent with the end. If the ideal end consists in the individual self’s exercising power over itself, it makes sense for an individual in a position to do so to use coercive power to attain even more autonomy for the self.)

Conclusion: the fundamental problem with the modern idea of progress is that it measures progress as movement toward a bad end.

Next week: Movement toward what end could be considered “progress” from the perspective of Christian faith? What is the end and what kind of means of moving toward it are consistent with the end?