Liberal Christianity is a death sentence in every regard. Those churches and denominations who refuse to stand for the Word of God, salvation through Christ, the virgin birth, the substitutionary atonement, the imminent return of Christ and other core articles of faith soon slide into irrelevance. Worst of all, they fail to point people to the Good News that for all who receive Christ, to those who believe in His name, he gives the right to become children of God (John 1:12).
Because liberal Christianity is a death sentence, in the early 1980’s, the Red Brick Church where I serve as pastor, voted to leave the United Church of Christ. The denomination no longer stood for orthodox Christianity. We had to leave. Had our church not made that move, I would not be the pastor there, and likely no one else would have been left either.
In Sunday’s New York Times, Ross Douthat of the New York Times describes what happens to churches that succumb to the apostasy of theological liberalism:
But if conservative Christianity has often been compromised, liberal Christianity has simply collapsed. Practically every denomination — Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian — that has tried to adapt itself to contemporary liberal values has seen an Episcopal-style plunge in church attendance. Within the Catholic Church, too, the most progressive-minded religious orders have often failed to generate the vocations necessary to sustain themselves . . .
Read the whole thing here.
Churches that allow themselves to be shaped by the world, with the hope of being relevant to the world, soon find out that they are irrelevant. And most people know it . . . .which is why, soon enough, the churches are empty.
Liberal Theology and the Homosexual Debate
Elsewhere, Kevin DeYoung has explained why no denomination will survive the homosexual debate.
There is no way, short of a miraculous and full-scale changing of hearts and minds, for North American denominations to survive the homosexuality crisis. Denominations like the PCUSA, ELCA, RCA, UMC, and Episcopal Church will continue. They won’t fold their tents and join the Southern Baptists (though wouldn’t that be interesting!). I’m not suggesting most of our old, mainline denominations will disappear. But I do not see how any of these once flourishing denominations will make it through the present crisis intact.
Read the rest here.
See also Kevin DeYoung’s post, Toward Denominational Unity
What is liberal Christianity? In the church I grew up in it was those teach justification by faith alone instead of that you have to live morally (in addition to believing in Jesus and being baptized as believers by immersion and attending church every Sunday) to be saved. You can call yourself ‘orthodox’ with respect to the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, and whatever else, all you like, but so long as you teach justification by faith alone you are not one whit different from the churches that have fallen to the homosexual moffia — you are liberal. Oh, so instead of accepting homosexuality you say “Homosexuality is a sin, but it can’t damn anyone who believes in Jesus because we are justified by faith alone” — how does that position at all differ from the Episcopalians? Justification by faith alone is what lead them to accept homosexuality! Duh. Only those churches who reject faith-onlyism (i.e. justification by faith alone) will stand, because only they are standing now. The rest already fell long ago!
Rey,
Thanks for commenting. Yes, “faith alone,” (Ephesians 2:8-9, Romans 6:23, John 3:16) is a part of orthodoxy. But theological liberalism is infamous for rejecting central doctrines such as substitutionary atonement, bodily resurrection, return of Christ, virgin birth, inerrancy of Scripture.
As I think you are saying, “we’re saved by faith alone, but not faith that’s alone.” Faith without works is dead (James 2).
Thanks, again, for commenting.
Chris.
Coming from atheism, I’ve felt this way about liberal Christianity all along. It just doesn’t make sense! If you only believe what the Bible says when you feel like it, then you don’t really believe what the Bible says. If you don’t really believe what the Bible says, why not just throw that book out of the window and get on with your life. Either find another god, in whom you DO trust, or conclude there is no God!
Since liberal Christianity is completely irrational, I suspect that it has something to do with fear. Liberal Christians are probably born and raised in Christian families. They have never experienced true conviction or repentance or Pentecost, so they fear Biblical Christianity. However, having never lived atheism, they fear a life without religion even more!
Liberal Christianity is a meaningless ritual.