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christianity-and-liberalismIt’s been almost a century since J. Gresham Machen’s landmark work, Christianity and Liberalismwas released. What prompted Machen’s book was the descent of many mainline churches into liberal theology and teaching. Higher critical approaches to the Bible were a factor in this development, as well as scientific discoveries that made the Christian’s affirmation of miraculous, supernatural interventions seem embarrassing.

Keeping Morality, Ditching the Miracles

The trajectory of liberalism one hundred years ago went something like this:

  • We are living in a scientific age of discovery.
  • The miracles we read about in the Bible were written from another cultural vantage point.
  • It is important to maintain the ethical and moral teaching of Christianity.
  • Belief in the literal occurrence of biblical miracles is not needed to maintain the moral center of Christianity.
  • If belief in miracles is embarrassing to modern people, we should deemphasize them in order to extend Christianity into the next generation.

Machen’s point countered this line of thinking: You can’t have the moral teaching Christianity apart from its miracles.

The Issue Today

100 years later, we find ourselves in a situation where the trajectory of liberalism is almost totally reversed. Today, the issue is whether you can hold on to the center of Christianity apart from its morality.

Christian apologists today don’t usually have to convince people today that miracles can happen before they get to the specific claims about Jesus of Nazareth. You might run into hardened naturalists every now and then, but it seems like most people have an undefined belief that miracles can and do happen. The question today is whether or not these miracles are from a Deistic God who intervenes only now and then in human history, or whether they are part of a pantheistic worldview where the universe is alive, pulsating with supernatural energy, etc.

Machen wrote about Christians who wanted to cast aside the embarrassing parts of Christianity (such as belief in miracles) and keep “the essence” – Christianity’s moral precepts. What’s changed today is this: it’s not the miracles that are embarrassing but the moral precepts! It’s our view of sexuality, of objective truth claims, and of Christ’s uniqueness.

Keeping the Miracles, Ditching Morality

The trajectory of liberalism today goes something like this:

  • We are living in a tolerant age of enlightenment.
  • The morals we read about in the Bible were written from another cultural vantage point.
  • It is important to maintain the miraculous and supernatural events of Christianity.
  • Interpreting the commands of biblical morality literally is not needed in order to maintain to center of Christianity.
  • If belief in biblical morality is embarrassing to modern people, we should deemphasize it in order to extend Christianity into the next generation.

There are plenty of Christians who think we can shed a traditional, biblical understanding of morality as mere “cultural oddities” and still maintain the core of Christianity. I say they’re wrong. And I think 100 years from now, people will say we were right.

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