Category Archives: Liberalism

One language, two religions

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It was J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism, who commented that thorough-going theological liberalism is actually a different religion from orthodox Christianity.  It is, in fact, a different kind of religion.

This observation was borne out in a recent discussion on Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable? show between Ben Witherington III and Stephen Thornton.  Ben is an evangelical biblical scholar, Stephen a retired URC minister of liberal persuasion.

The topic under consideration was the narratives of Jesus’ birth as recorded in Matthew and Luke. …

Doctrine

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J. Gresham Machen, in his classic 1923 book, Christianity and Liberalism (ch 11), notes a commonly-held objection to doctrine: creeds (it is often said) are merely the changing expressions of a unitary Christian experience, and insofar as they express that experience they are equally good.

But, replies Machen, this objection will not stand.  After all, liberalism itself has its doctrines, as tenaciously held as those embraced by orthodox believers.  Such, for example, are the liberal doctrines of the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of man. …

Resurrection: evangelical and liberal debate

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I’ve been listening to the latest podcast from Premier Radio’s ‘Unbelievable’ show.

Last Saturday (7th August) saw Adrian Warnock and Rev Jonathan Clatworthy debate the resurrection of Jesus.

Adrian represented an evangelical perspective, Jonathan a liberal approach.  At one level, Jonathan tried to present the differences as, ‘Well, we both believe in the resurrection; it’s just that you believe in a physical resurrection, whereas I don’t.’  But the more they spoke, the more you could sense the yawning gulf between them. …

Brian MacLaren: a new kind of liberalism?

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Brian MacLaren’s previous books (A New Kind of Christian, A Generous Orthodoxy, and others) have probed away at prevailing evangelical beliefs and practices.  These writings have been long on questions, but short on answers.  Now, in A New Kind of Christianity,  he has told us more directly, more systematically, where his thinking has taken him.

Of the various reviews on the web, one of the most penetrating is that of Scott McKnight, in Christianity Today. …

Out of the mouth of…Christopher Hitchens

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Noted atheist (anti-theist, really) Christopher Hitchens was once interviewed by Unitarian minister Marilyn Sewell.

The following exchange was enlightening:-

Sewell: The religion you cite in your book [God Is Not Great] is generally the fundamentalist faith of various kinds. I’m a liberal Christian, and I don’t take the stories from the scripture literally. I don’t believe in the doctrine of atonement (that Jesus died for our sins, for example). Do you make any distinction between fundamentalist faith and liberal religion?

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer and John Shelby Spong

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer, it will be recalled, was the German Lutheran pastor who stood up to the Nazis and was hanged for his trouble.  During his short life – he died in 1945, at the age of 39 – he wrote a number of works of considerable insight and influence.  Among these are Discipleship and Letters and Papers from Prison.

John Shelby Spong (born 1931) is the retired bishop of the Diocese of Newark, New Jersey. …

Poor Joseph?

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St Matthew-in-the-City Church in Auckland, New Zealand, has put up a billboard depicting a dejected-looking Joseph beside Mary in bed, beneath the caption, ‘Poor Joseph.  God was a hard act to follow.’

The aim, according to the church’s vicar, Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, is to provoke debate, to ‘challenge stereotypes’ about the birth of Jesus, to lampoon the literal interpretation of the biblical stories of Jesus’ birth.

What we’re trying to do is to get people to think more about what Christmas is all about. 
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Personal salvation ‘a heresy’

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According to US Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, belief in personal salvation is a ‘heresy’.  The grace of God, she is reported as saying, is given to the believing community, not to the individual Christian.

Of course, she may have been misreported.  It wouldn’t be the first time that the religious press has made someone out to be less orthodox than they really are.

Or possibly she just expressed herself badly.  Maybe she just meant to say that rampant individualism (a besetting problem in post-enlightenment liberalism as well as evangelicalism) is sub-biblical and sub-Christian. …

‘Maximal Conservatism’

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It occurs to me that theological liberalism reached the height of its influence in the period leading up to 1977.  In fact, Alister McGrath makes a comment to this effect in his biography of J.I. Packer, To Know and Serve God, p212.  In that year two books were published by SCM Press which seemed finally to demonstrate that liberalism was, in the end, an impoverished, negative, destructive influence that was incapable of serving the purpose of Christ in this or any other generation. …

The Post-Evangelical – 5

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In chapter 5 – ‘Woolly Liberals?’ – Dave Tomlinson informs us that he shares with evangelicals a rejection of theological liberalism.  But what he does not share are evangelicals’ reasons for opposing liberalism.

Indeed, he expresses amazement at ‘how paranoid evangelicals are about liberalism’.  Evangelicals are constantly patrolling their boundaries, lest one of their number should trespass into liberal territory.

This is not to suggest, says Tomlinson, that theology and doctrine are unimportant:

‘Far from it; but there is no evidence from the Bible that it is (sic) of ultimate importance. 

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