Tag Archives: liberalism

The Question Not Asked of Rob Bell

  By Craig | March 17, 2011 - 11:29 am | Book Review
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I’ve watched a couple of interviews on Rob Bell in recent days and have downloaded Love Wins on my Kindle.  I actually plan to reference it in this week’s sermon on the doctrine of glorification.  Some of the interviews with Bell have been done very well (I especially fond of Martin Bashir’s interview).

Honestly, though, I’ve had two surprises related to Bell’s interviews.  The first is what appears to be a complete ineptitude and lack of preparation on the part of Bell to answer questions that he must certainly have known were coming.  When asked if he had “Amended the gospel,” Bell simply has no coherent answer.  For a man as often in the public eye and who writes so readily, it is almost unbelievable to me that he has no better answers to his interviewers than I have seen provided.  Certainly his publishers and even his media-savvy staff could have helped him to be better prepared.

The second surprise for me comes on the part of the interviewers.  Take Bashir, for instance.  He is very pressing in his questions to Bell, but the one question for any universalist is this, “Is Hitler in heaven?”  It is encouraging for many to believe in a God who forgives everyone, until the one given the free pass is a mass murderer, a pedophile, or a rapist.  There is no justice served in Bell’s universalism/inclusivism.  Perhaps Bell has refused to answer that question in an interview, perhaps interviewers do not want to hear an answer to that question…who knows.  Either way, I find it incredibly ironic that Bell has not been pressed with that question.

What other questions are begging to be asked but have been ignored by interviewers?

Monday Amusings: Stephen Colbert the Apologist

  By Craig | April 13, 2009 - 9:35 am | Monday Musings
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The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Bart Ehrman
colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor NASA Name Contest

 

Copied from Denny Burk:

For those of you who may have forgotten, Bart Ehrman is a New Testament scholar at the University of North Carolina. I have written about him numerous times on this blog. He’s the guy who used to be an evangelical Christian but who left the faith some years ago. He is now writing popular level books trying to convince others to leave the faith as well. I wrote a review of one of his books that you can read here.

I am not sure why Ehrman would subject himself to this, but I don’t mind that he did. Colbert is actually pretty effective at poking holes in his arguments.

Favorite line: “What’s the son of a duck? It’s a duck.”

Book Review: Christianity and Liberalism

  By Craig | February 27, 2009 - 6:30 am | Book Review
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Recently, I posted a review of Michael Horton’s Christless Christianity.  In that book, Horton makes many references to liberalism and to J. Gresham Machen’s classic book Christianity and Liberalism.  Horton inspired me to pick up this nice little book by Machen, and I am indebted to him for doing so. 

The blurb on the back cover of the book describes well Machen’s reason for writing this book:

This book, written in response to the liberalism that arose in the early 1900′s, is a classic defense of orthodox Christianity.  TO expose the fallacies of liberalism and strengthen the orthodox position, Machen establishes the importance of scriptural doctrine and contrasts the teachings of liberalism and orthodoxy on God, humanity, the Bible, Christ, salvation, and the church.  These issues remain in conflice today, testifying to the continuing relevance of this important work.

The most shocking aspect of Machen’s work, is that it could well be a book that was written in the last five years rather than nearly a century ago.  Machen’s attention to the declining orthodoxy in the church was a warning in 1923 and can be seen as prophetic words looking back upon the demise of the mainline church in America and the world as it’s leaders left the religion of Christ and embraced instead the religion of humanism that revels in human ability known as liberalism.

Machen speaks of the dangers of liberalism this way:

In the sphere of religion, in particular, the present time is a time of conflict; the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.  This modern non-redemptive relition is called “modernism” or “liberalism.”

Of course his critique of liberalism as non-redemptive because it holds as its basic tenet that humanity is basically good and that given the proper direction, humanity will save itself.  Liberalism views salvation, not as eternal redemption from sin, but rather as temporal release from the evils of this world.  Harking back to Horton’s work, liberalism bears a stark resemblance to the prosperity gospel of the 21st Century with people like Joel Osteen, Robert Schuller, and Joyce Meyer and as it’s primary proponents.

Christianity and Liberalism is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in combatting the modernism of the past, the post-modernism of the present, and the temptation to tickle men’s ears with words they want to hear that persists throughout the history of the church.  Machen wrote this book directed at a specific group of people, the liberals of the early Twentieth Century, but it is applicable as an apology against many who have followed their lead.

Interview With Michael Horton Pt. 1

  By Craig | February 17, 2009 - 7:20 am | Ask the Author, Book Review
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Today and tomorrow we will be sharing a recent interview that Passion for Preaching (P4P) held with Michael Horton, author of Christless Christianity, which we reviewed here recently.  Dr. Horton has some wonderful insights into the world of popular American Evangelicalism. 

  

1.     What prompted you to write Christless Christianity? 

 

Michael Horton (MH): Lots of conversations with believers—pastors and parishioners—across a wide spectrum over many years, as well as my own growing sense that it’s tough to find churches where Christ is clearly proclaimed in his saving office, from Genesis to Revelation.  This provoked me to investigate the state of things by reading popular sermons and books on ministry, as well as sociological analyses.  Unfortunately, this research confirmed my suspicions about a creeping fog across the ecclesiastical spectrum, which I nickname “Christless Christianity.”

 

2.      Near the beginning of your book you write, while the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church, the assimilation of the church to the world silences the witnesses (p. 16). How do you suggest the church contextualize the communication of the gospel without compromising the message of the gospel? 

 

MH: I think that we often assume a pretty naïve view of the cultural contexts that shape us.  That’s understandable.  After all, it’s hard to see the ways in which we are being mis-shaped and thrown off course by assumptions and practices that are so deeply embedded in our own lives.  I think we need less talk about contextualizing the gospel and more talk about the clash between the gospel and what we think “the real world” happens to be.  Our context, after all, increasingly makes Christian faith and practice unintelligible.  People may go on repeating orthodox slogans, formulas, and phrases, but our daily lives are often shaped by narcissism, consumerism, pragmatism, and a therapeutic orientation that has us asking the wrong questions.

 

3.      How does the message of this book apply equally to orthodox Christians who may have different denominational background than you?  For instance, how can Baptist or Methodist believers connect with your message that is very Presbyterian in nature? 

 

MH: A Methodist bishop wrote the foreword!  I won’t deny that I come from a particular perspective: I’m a Reformed minister.  However, my reflections are shaped by interaction with believers from a wide spectrum.  I’ve been amazed by the response to the book: agreement from Lutherans, Baptists, Episcopalians, Methodists, and independents.  The problem cuts across denominations, even across the deeper divides not only between Roman Catholics and Protestants and Arminians and Calvinists but even between conservatives and liberals.  We’re all struggling with this.  Christ-centered faith and witness is, of course, an ecumenical concern, so I’m glad that so many brothers and sisters outside of my own tradition see the same problems and encourage some of the same solutions. 

 

4.      You are careful to point out that an emphasis on personalized religion has in large part removed the objective message of the gospel and transformed the gospel into a subjective reality.  How would you reconcile the evangelical emphasis of personal conversion with the reformed emphasis on faith within the covenant community?  Is faith necessarily an either personal or communal reality, or is best understood as a both and?  

 

MH: Both/and.  Individualism is a big problem, especially in our culture, where narcissism has practically become a virtue—in subtle and not-so-subtle forms, even in the church.  When the supreme demographic of being “in Christ” is no longer the focus, churches coalesce around niche demographics: defined by race, generation, socio-economic and political affinities, and cultural tastes.  But deeper even than the problem of individualism versus a more communal/covenantal approach to things is the way in which we have turned the objective gospel—an announcement about what God has done in Christ to save the ungodly—into a subjective message about our transformation, our experience, our piety, our zeal, and our service.  It’s our version of the perennial debate between Pelagian works-righteousness and the gospel of salvation by grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone.  When the church loses its confidence in the power of the gospel to create the new world of which it speaks, we turn to other sources of power that we find more culturally “contextual.”