The opposite of the “Religious Right Gospel” we spoke about last week is the “Liberal Gospel.” If you haven’t noticed, there’s a little of each of these “other gospels” in every one of us and in every church. That’s scary. But please, read on…
The liberal gospel picks and chooses what to believe and when to believe it. The word liberal means, “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to disregard traditional values.” Liberal thought is nothing new. People have been picking and choosing what to believe and follow since the Garden of Eden. When God created man in His own image, He actually gave us the power to pick and choose and do what we want. That is the essence of liberty and freewill. However, liberal thinking is like a ship without a rudder, sailing on a sea of emotions being tossed and turned by every wave of teaching, eventually leaving a person shipwrecked in their faith.
In the book of Judges, we read: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them.” (Judges 2:10-12). We are living in a post-Christian country. The days of “IN GOD WE TRUST” are fading. A new generation is rising up. One that has no fear of God nor has seen all that the Lord has done. One that is “forsaking the God of our fathers” and is open to “following the various gods of the people around them.”
The danger of the liberal gospel is its progressive behavior. Liberal thinking along with discontentment and the unlimited spread of information at our fingertips, has developed what is called “Progressive Christianity.” In an effort to see Christianity progress in an age of doubt and disbelief in Jesus, God and the authority of the Bible, Progressive Christianity will help you “deconstruct” the traditional and fundamental teachings of our Christian doctrines that are irrelevant and “reconstruct” it with the more modern and relevant views of today. The virgin birth? Not important. Jesus is the only way? That’s too exclusive. The Resurrection? I doubt that happened. Jesus walking on water? That’s impossible! Jonah swallowed by a whale? Yeah right. Sin and its consequence? We’re all sinners. God is a loving God; I don’t think He will send anyone to hell. For the Progressive Christian and liberal thinker, it is encouraged to think “out of the box”.
This kind of thinking is not coming from new believers. It is coming from the older generations who have grown up in church, who know the stories and the strong fundamental teachings of the Bible but may have been hurt by the church or seen the moral decline of their leaders, parents or someone they trusted. They may have been pushed and maybe even shunned by a legalistic gospel. They see the institutional church model as nothing more than a manipulative scheme for money and power. Or maybe they have never really experienced Jesus and the claims of the Bible because they were fed such a liberal gospel that left them flailing in disbelief. They doubt the authority and liability of the Bible, so they are left to figure out what seems right and wrong according to their own moral and emotional beliefs. Basically, they are rebelling against God and any type of fundamental teaching or thought. They want to call the shots. They want to say for themselves what is right and wrong. It’s back to Eden and the question that changed the world, “did God really say this?” Welcome to the liberal gospel and the new Progressive Christianity.
We must always remember, the gospel we teach has a direct impact on the kind of disciple we make.
The liberal gospel picks and chooses what to believe and when to believe it. The word liberal means, “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to disregard traditional values.” Liberal thought is nothing new. People have been picking and choosing what to believe and follow since the Garden of Eden. When God created man in His own image, He actually gave us the power to pick and choose and do what we want. That is the essence of liberty and freewill. However, liberal thinking is like a ship without a rudder, sailing on a sea of emotions being tossed and turned by every wave of teaching, eventually leaving a person shipwrecked in their faith.
In the book of Judges, we read: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what he had done for Israel. Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the Lord and served the Baals. They forsook the Lord, the God of their ancestors, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them.” (Judges 2:10-12). We are living in a post-Christian country. The days of “IN GOD WE TRUST” are fading. A new generation is rising up. One that has no fear of God nor has seen all that the Lord has done. One that is “forsaking the God of our fathers” and is open to “following the various gods of the people around them.”
The danger of the liberal gospel is its progressive behavior. Liberal thinking along with discontentment and the unlimited spread of information at our fingertips, has developed what is called “Progressive Christianity.” In an effort to see Christianity progress in an age of doubt and disbelief in Jesus, God and the authority of the Bible, Progressive Christianity will help you “deconstruct” the traditional and fundamental teachings of our Christian doctrines that are irrelevant and “reconstruct” it with the more modern and relevant views of today. The virgin birth? Not important. Jesus is the only way? That’s too exclusive. The Resurrection? I doubt that happened. Jesus walking on water? That’s impossible! Jonah swallowed by a whale? Yeah right. Sin and its consequence? We’re all sinners. God is a loving God; I don’t think He will send anyone to hell. For the Progressive Christian and liberal thinker, it is encouraged to think “out of the box”.
This kind of thinking is not coming from new believers. It is coming from the older generations who have grown up in church, who know the stories and the strong fundamental teachings of the Bible but may have been hurt by the church or seen the moral decline of their leaders, parents or someone they trusted. They may have been pushed and maybe even shunned by a legalistic gospel. They see the institutional church model as nothing more than a manipulative scheme for money and power. Or maybe they have never really experienced Jesus and the claims of the Bible because they were fed such a liberal gospel that left them flailing in disbelief. They doubt the authority and liability of the Bible, so they are left to figure out what seems right and wrong according to their own moral and emotional beliefs. Basically, they are rebelling against God and any type of fundamental teaching or thought. They want to call the shots. They want to say for themselves what is right and wrong. It’s back to Eden and the question that changed the world, “did God really say this?” Welcome to the liberal gospel and the new Progressive Christianity.
We must always remember, the gospel we teach has a direct impact on the kind of disciple we make.
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