In 2002, John MacArthur preached a message saying that the Church’s biggest problem was not knowing and not wanting to distinguish between a true Christian and a false Christian. I agree with him. All consider themselves Christians: Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Spirits, Roman Catholics, Liberals, Fundamentalists, Orthodox, etc. , unless we are universalists and reduce Christianity to the definition of Schleiermacher (“Is religion simply the conscience of God’s dependence?), we must admit that not everyone who claims to be Christians is truly Christians.
One of the most important works produced in the heat of the debate between fundamentalists and liberals at the turn of the 20th century was Christianity and Liberalism by J. Gresham Machen (already published in Portuguese), probably the most prepared exegete of the conservative front. Machen’s thesis was that the religion of liberalism was simply not Christianity. They believed in another God, used another Bible, followed another Christ, and preached another gospel.
- Machen was absolutely right.
- But he wasn’t heard.
- Sock.
- Among the main denominations.
- Thought that liberalism was just one more chain of the already fragmented Protestant wing of Christianity; they thought that the confrontation between conservatives and liberals was intramural.
- Two legitimate Christian factions fighting Today.
- However.
- It is becoming increasingly clear that this confrontation goes beyond the limits of Christianity.
- It is a conflict of religions.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that all liberals go to hell, or that all conservatives go to heaven, I’m just saying that what theological liberalism believes is completely different from what Christianity believes. I reply that this is not possible, because they have not yet reached agreement on the accounts and words of Jesus in the Gospels that are true or not and therefore cannot tell whether they believe Christianity or not.
We have to take liberals seriously and understand very well what they believe, for them truth evolves, grows and changes. And not only that, but our understanding evolves to the point that past certainties can be replaced by new and contradictory truths. Yesterday’s beliefs aren’t for today. Liberals sincerely believe that the faith professed by the Christian Church over the past two thousand years is false and outdated, in whole or in part; sincerely believe that it is necessary to reinvent the Church, to remake the theology from head to toe, to reformulate old beliefs, to create new liturgical forms and to adopt new attitudes towards science, culture and other religions; and from this point of view, the greatest enemies of truth are the conservatives, the closed, obtuse, intransigent and fundamentalists who have barricaded themselves in denominations and seminaries and insist on preserving ancient beliefs.
What liberalism proposes is not a patch in Christianity, it is a replacement.
Otherwise, let’s see. Theological liberalism believes that the Trinity and the divinity of Jesus Christ is the fruit of the invasion of Greek philosophy into the nascent Christian theology, that God did not reveal himself propositional, that perhaps he is immanent and no longer transcendent, that the Bible is only what is written . (and fallible) testimony to the faith of Israel and the early Church, that Paul distorted the simple Christianity of Jesus and the twelve apostles and invented the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. Paul also invented that Jesus died for our sins and rose physically from the dead. They believe that as the Christian Church began to develop beliefs and denominations, it moved away from the simple Christianity of the historical Jesus and gave us a Christ of faith, a process that would have already begun with the apostles. , especially Paul. They believe that the Christian Church has been completely lost in the interpretation of the Bible throughout the centuries and that it is only with the advent of the Enlightenment, rationalism and the resulting philosophies that the Bible and Christian theology began to be analyzed. critically, purifying them of supposed myths. , fables, legends, additions, such as creation and flood myths, made-up characters like Adam and Moses, etc.
While not all of the above points are professed by all liberals, they reasonably express what liberalism in general believes, and as you can see, liberalism is not Christianity, despite the use of its form and language.
Liberals believe their mission is to stay in churches and seminaries and fight for change. They have a mission, a dream, an ideal. Liberal mesianism aims to enlighten the ignorant trapped in the darkness of tradition and free the Church from the obtuse, obscurantist, and enemies of the progress of truth. They’ll fight to the end for it. They don’t feel like they have to leave their denominations. It is legitimate for them to use their resources in this holy crusade. Mainly because, as I said in another post, they have no other form of support or support. Many evangelicals today do not see the difference between liberalism and Christianity. The reason, in part, is that liberals continue to use traditional ecclesiastical structures and traditional Christian vocabulary, albeit with a different meaning. Another reason is the lack of doctrinal convictions of Brazilian evangelism, undermined by the pragmatism and relativism of our time.
We have to take liberals seriously. This means clearly recognizing the great gulf between what you believe and Christianity.