Liberal Christianity
Cover image of Tim Keller, well-known Reformed preacher. Does he promote Liberal Christianity? Read the post. Then you decide.
Marks of Liberal Christianity
L
iberal Christianity:
- Stresses man’s reason.
- Fits Scripture to secular science.
- Considers Genesis 1 – 11 fable and discounts these chapters as poetry.
- Uses modern thinking to understand the Bible, instead of the other way around.
- Emphasises the social gospel.
- Uses generic “love” as the measure of all things.
Liberal Christians often promote mystic meditation – sorcery – under the guise of Christian spirituality. The source of these practices are quite often the (sic) Spiritual exercises of the infamous Jesuit butcher Ignatius of Loyola. They have no place in the life of any believing Christian.
Liberal Christianity departs from the historic faith once delivered to the saints. It is another gospel.
H
ow do Liberal Christians become this way? The most reasonableexplanation is this:
If we measure success by numbers rather than by purity of doctrine, then the Scriptures must be altered, diluted, and perverted to have the greatest possible appeal at the moment. The smallest points of doctrine will grow in significance, as (Christians)1 wander away from the truth in search of error’s success.The power of the Word of God…comes from the Word alone. We do not need to make the Word reasonable, appealing or relevant. The Trinity, incarnation, virgin birth, atonement, and resurrection of Christ are beyond human reason, absurd to the world, yet transcending everthing the world can imagine.Adding reason to the Word, the fundamental weakness of Roman Catholicism and sectarians alike, must eventually lead to placing reason above the Word. The saying is true, as C.P. Krauth said,Young Arminian2, old Socinian3. In other words, the person who adds reason to the Word in his youth will become a Unitarian4 in his old age.
Modernism is the name for liberal Christianity in this 1922 cartoon. Image credit to Clare Spark Blog.
Every denomination which has given reason a place along with Scripture has succumbed to Unitarianism as well, from the Reformed5, who formerly taught inerrancy, to the Roman Catholics, who once condemned evolution and the historical-critical method of studying Scripture.
-Gregory L. Jackson. Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure, p226. Free Christian book in pdf format.
But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtilty, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached…such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 3,4,13-15)
- Original reads “Lutheran”. Jackson writes primarily to Confessional Lutherans.
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- Arminian – A follower of the teachings of Jacobus Arminius who taught that man has free will to choose God.
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- Socinian – The belief that Jesus was only human, not divine. Socinians deny the trinity.
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- Unitarian – One who denies the trinity, the divinity of Jesus, and often believes all will be saved. Unitarians are not Christian.
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- Jackson uses the term “Reformed” to refer to all non-Lutheran Protestant Christians.
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I think Keller is definitely on the liberal side of the spectrum, and I have warned about some of his teachings for quite some time now.
- This is to your credit, Glenn.
To many Presbyterians and neo-Reformed, he is a sacred cow. I have been warned more than once that I break the 9th Commandment for naming him as one who has done great damage. No doubt you get these warnings as well. The evidence is clear for those who have eyes to see – and care to look.
