Another Gospel? - A Review

Deconstruction. All the cool kids are doing it these days. Former evangelicals, embarrassed by Trumpism, tired of harassment over adherence to Christian sexual ethics, and often ill-informed about the basis of historic Christianity are becoming “Exvangelicals” and turning on their earlier beliefs. In essence, Christianity is experiencing a new divide between orthodoxy and progressivism.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the fight was between fundamentalists and liberals. Fundamentalists gathered around the five fundamentals of the faith: Biblical inspiration and truthfulness of Scripture; the virginal conception of Jesus; the substitutionary atonement of Christ; Christ’s bodily resurrection; and the historicity of Christ’s miracles. Liberals either rejected these or were not concerned with their truthfulness, because they were deemed accessories to true Christianity, which could be jettisoned as irrelevant in the face of modern naturalism.

Fundamentalists later divided between evangelicals and fundamentalists, whose theology is generally compatible, but who have different understandings of the degree of theological agreement necessary to cooperate. The current focus on revisionists is less on a rejection of miracles, since supernaturalism is no longer a cultural pinch point, and more on sexual ethics and other issues that have cultural controversies associated with them. Add onto that the brutal nastiness of political wrangling by those who have concluded that doctrinal orthodoxy requires vocal support for Trump and his policies which have been accompanied by ongoing revelations of sexual abuse among evangelical institutions.

There is certainly a great deal of room for criticism of evangelicals and their institutions. But it need not follow that criticism of abuses of power should result in abandonment of the historic Christian faith. That is what is happening with the growing “Exvangelical” movement, which is simply a form of progressive Christianity.

Alisa Childers aims to confront the growing progressive Christian movement in her book, Another Gospel? A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity.

Progressive Christianity is difficult to define, as Childers discovers when she opens here book. She writes, “Progressive Christians tend to avoid absolutes and are typically not united around creeds or belief statements. . . Because of this, it might be more helpful to look for certain signs, moods, and attitudes toward God and the Bible when trying to spot it. For example, progressive Christians view the Bible as primarily a human book and emphasize personal conscience and practices rather than certainty and beliefs. They are also very open to redefining, reinterpreting, or even rejecting essential doctrines of the faith like the Virgin Birth, the deity of Jesus, and his bodily resurrection.” As Childers initially describes the movement, it sounds a great deal like the modern liberalism of the last century, but throughout the book it becomes clear that she understands the movement to be in some ways different. Progressive Christianity tends to be less overtly distinct from historic Christianity at the creedal level; the differences tend to be in ethics and the theology that underlies it.

In response to the redefinitions and abandonment of the ancient Christian faith by progressive Christians, Childers responds by pointing people toward “historic Christianity.” She doesn’t perfectly define this term either, but she describes it as a faith “deeply rooted in history. In fact, it is the only religious system I can think of that depends on a historical event (the resurrection of Jesus) being real—not fake—news.” She goes on to summarize her faith as understanding that, “The Bible is [God’s] Word, or it’s not. Jesus was raised from the dead, or he wasn’t. Christianity is true, or it isn’t. There is no ‘my truth’ when it comes to God.” What she defends through the book is the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints,” with the truthfulness of Scripture at the core and the necessary conclusions drawn from that about the nature of God, the importance of the cross, and the goodness of pursuing holiness as it is described in Scripture.

Another Gospel? is framed around Childers’ experience with a pastor who was losing his faith and brought together a group to try to deconstruct the Christian faith together. She describes how her Christian faith collided with that group, her faith was nearly shipwrecked, but by asking honest questions and seeking honest answers she was able to reconstruct her faith in a more robust and biblical way.

This book is interspersed with personal narrative, but it also covers some of the basic apologetic topics: the authority of Scripture, basic epistemology, the possibility of reliable texts of Scripture, the reality (and reasonableness) of hell, the atonement as child abuse, and some other challenges. This is a popular level book, so there are few new arguments here, and those seeking exhaustive discussions of any topic are going to be disappointed. However, what Childers covers is well-done. She honestly represents challenging questions to Christianity and answers them faithfully.

One challenge that this book will face is that Childers uses the category “Progressive Christian.” In the online world, especially among progressive Christians, one of the greatest sins is using categories (for them) because it “dehumanizes.” Also, since progressive Christianity is an attitude rather than a position, there will be some who are closer or farther from her definition (sometimes based on the day of the week, it seems). At the end of the day, though, Childers is not seeking to attack the beliefs of progressive Christians as much as she is trying to argue for the superiority of historic Christianity. This book does that well.

I commend this book highly for those who are questioning their faith and wondering if there are really answers to cultural challenges. Childers answers as someone who has carefully considered the arguments and come out more convinced of the gospel she learned as a young girl. This would be a good book to read with a youth group, for pastors to have on hand to distribute to those honestly seeking answers, and to put in the church library.

Boredom and Heresy

One the central questions at the heart of debates over modern theological liberal Christianity and orthodox Christianity is the definition of the term Christian. The wide variance between the definitions tends to confound dialog because liberals (I will consistently use this term theologically, in a descriptive sense) have a radically different understanding of the word’s meaning than do orthodox believers.

There were, of course, points in the historic Christian faith at which boundary lines were drawn based on ongoing debates. Those early moments resulted in our statements of orthodoxy, such as the Nicene Creed, which contains the kernel (though not the totality) of orthodoxy.

These creedal statements that define Christian orthodoxy were often surrounded by heated debates as leaders and theologians parsed through Scripture with a critical mind. This has led some to conclude that they were arbitrary statements and that some sort of arbitrary (likely political) power was the determining factor in setting the boundaries of orthodoxy. That, of course, fuels much of contemporary theological revisionism, because Christian doctrine shifts from the faith once and for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3) to oppressive imposition of the ideas of a bunch of patriarchal dead guys.

In this case, I tend to agree with Dorothy L. Sayers, the modern mystery writer and a significant mind of the first half of the 20th century. In her essay, “Creed or Chaos?,” she writes,

“Teachers and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy.”

Compare Sayers’s perspective with that of the so-called father of the social gospel, Walter Rauschenbusch, who argues in his book, A Theology for the Social Gospel,

“The dogmas and theological ideas of the early Church were those ideas which at that time were needed to hold the Church together, to rally its forces, and to give it victorious energy against antagonist powers. To-day many of those ideas are without present significance. Our reverence for them is a kind of ancestor worship.”

There is certainly some similarity between the two. Both Sayers and Rauschenbusch recognize that there was often drama when the doctrines of orthodoxy were outlined and that resolution was needed for cohesion. The difference comes in that Rauschenbusch has very little respect for the formulations arrived at by the councils, whereas Sayers understands them to have been largely successful at arriving at an expression of the truth. Thus, Sayers regularly called believers back to orthodox Christian belief, while Rauschenbusch associated doctrinal orthodoxy with a form of “ancestor worship.” Rauschenbusch is  spiritual father of John Shelby Spong, who argued that Christianity must change or die.

Beneath this discussion is a radically different perspective on the ability of lay-people to grasp Christian doctrine. Both Rauschenbusch and Sayers recognize that many Christians are relatively uninformed about Christian doctrines, which results in doctrinal deviations.

According to Rauschenbusch, “When people have to be indoctrinated laboriously in order to understand theology at all, it becomes a dead burden.” This is a dubious statement, but it shapes the trajectory of Rauschenbusch’s attack on Christian orthodoxy.

This comes several pages after his assertion that,

“[The business of theology] is to make the essential facts and principles of Christianity so simple and clear, so adequate and mighty, that all who preach or teach the gospel, both ministers and laymen, can draw on its stores and deliver a complete and unclouded Christian message.”

The second statement is actually quite helpful. Theology certainly should be clear and simple as much as possible, but to eliminate teaching doctrine as a function of the church because some doctrines are complicated seems counter intuitive.

There is an implicit assault on the intelligence of laypeople in Rauschenbusch’s theology. He assumes that people are simply too intellectually dull to understand Christian doctrine. As a result, he argues, “If we seek to keep Christian doctrine unchanged, we shall ensure its abandonment.”

Rauschenbusch decided he would like to avoid the abandonment of Christian doctrine by changing it. I suppose that is one way of cutting out the middleman. No need to make the laypeople leave doctrine, when you can simply eliminate all the inconvenient parts that matter. This is a way of dumbing down the faith because you don’t think people are smart enough to understand doctrine.

Sayers, however, has a much more positive view of laypeople. She, too, recognizes that many laypeople are ignorant of Christian doctrines, but that is not entirely their fault.

She writes,

“It is not true at all that dogma is hopelessly irrelevant to the life and thought of the average man. What is true is that ministers of the Christian religion often assert that it is, present it for consideration is though it were, and, in fact, by their faulty exposition of it make it so.”

This is exactly what Rauschenbusch does and he encourages others to do the same.

Again, Sayers rejects the need to modify Christianity to make it relevant,

“If the average man is going to be interested in Christ at all, it is the dogma that will provide the interest. The trouble is that, in nine cases out of ten, he has never been offered the dogma. What he has been offered is a set of technical theological terms that nobody has taken the trouble to translate into language relevant to ordinary life.”

The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers

Wipf and Stock

Buy on Amazon

The Christian mind is shaped by the wonder of God’s goodness and the nature of the world he has made. One of the central elements of the Christian mind is an interest in those things outside of ourselves. Sayers understands the Christian mind, while Rauschenbusch did not.

Rauschenbusch’s assumption was that his disinterest in orthodox Christian doctrine and inability explain it to others did not subvert the value of it. The wonder and mystery of a wholly other God whose existence and work are unlike our daily experience makes Christianity so much more relevant and exciting.

Sayers gets at the heart of the problem: ignorance and lazy teaching. Laypeople are not stupid; they have often simply never had teachers who took the time to explain Christian doctrine in terms that they understood. Teaching is a bridging strategy to make truth plain.

Instead of creating heresy as we give way to boredom, faithful Christian teachers need to explain the most exciting story that ever was: Christianity. That story is carried by the doctrines that modernists think people too bored, lazy, or stupid to understand.

The role of theologians and pastors is not to reshape Christianity into something that we find interesting, but to uncover the exciting truths within orthodox Christian theology. Once that happens, based on my experience, the doctrine sells itself.

Christianity or Nationalism

In 1923, J. Gresham Machen wrote a significant and influential book, Christianity and Liberalism. In the midst of a knockdown, drag-out fight between modernist revisionists and orthodox Christians, Machen was a persistent and often forceful voice arguing, among other things, that the revisionists of his day were actually creating a new religion that could not properly be called Christianity. Not surprisingly, the revisionists did not agree and continue to claim to be Christians despite often having little association with traditional Christian belief.

Setting that debate aside for the moment, there is another assault on orthodox Christianity underway. In this case, rather than being an assault from the left, it is an assault from the right. In this case, instead of directly modifying Christian doctrines to make them more palatable, there is a move to substitute the good of the nation. The question is now whether the church will be most attracted by authentic Christianity or nationalism.

Nationalism Defined

As with any critical debate, definitions are important.

As I use it here, Nationalism is the preference of one’s country above all others and the belief that the nation’s interest is (if not ultimate) among the highest goods available to motivate political action. In the most extreme cases, nationalism espouses the idea that what is beneficial (typically economically) for the nation is good without exception. Such nationalism can justify taking over neighboring countries by force, barring refugees, and making policies that recklessly harm minority communities that are not properly considered part of the national identity.

The specter of nationalism is typically a politically right magnet. It often is accompanied by enthocentrism and identity politics. It is on the rise in the United States and throughout Europe. Presently, it is being demonstrated by animus toward people of color, especially refugees and immigrants.

Even among non-racist strains of nationalism, there are problematic elements. Nationalism is often summarized in the U.S. by the slogan “America First.” Notably, the government of a territory exists primarily to serve the interests of its people. This is not really debatable. What is often neglected by nationalists is that some actions or policies that privilege American people and businesses may, in fact, unjustly harm people in other nations. For example, protectionist economic policies are often supported by “America First” rhetoric. In some cases, they can be extremely harmful businesses and workers in other nations. When that is deemed either a good thing (or simply a consequence not worth considering), a government and a people may well have crossed from healthy self-interest to nationalism.

To be clear, there is a love for country that is healthy and good. This would better be called patriotism. It is a good thing to cherish the positive events in our nation’s history. It is a good thing to feel a desire to defend our nation against harm. It is reasonable to expect that the government will enact economic policies that serve to correct injustices in another nation’s trade policies.

The difference between patriotism and nationalism is often presented as one of degree. However, it is better understood as one of ends. In other words, for nationalism the primary goal is the good of the nation, for a healthy patriotism, the primary goal is the good, with the expectation that one’s nation will pursue that both internally and externally.

Nationalism and Christianity

There is room for a healthy level of patriotism and Christianity to coexist. Though we are ultimately sojourners in every nation, state, and town we inhabit, Christians are also residents charged with seeking the good of the city. (Jer 29:7)

However, when the good of the nation becomes the summum bonum, it usurps the place of God in the heart of Christians. Nationalism, as I have defined it, is not compatible with orthodox Christianity. It is a replacement for orthodox Christianity.

Evidence for this abounds in our present political context. A few particularly egregious examples will be sufficient to demonstrate the nature of the problem.

One clear example is in the continued defense of sexual immorality by many nationalists. Any stream of political thought that seeks to justify supporting politicians like Roy Moore, who was credibly accused by a number of women (including those politically aligned to him), as necessary for the good of the nation has missed the point. Not only was he politically unsavory in other areas, but there were people (some who identify as Christians) who claimed that his behavior simply didn’t matter. Or, in the accusations against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, those who argue that a sexual assault simply doesn’t matter have supplanted an ideological support for their preferred politics for good. (This is not to say that he did it, or that any accusations should disqualify a person, but there are people arguing that if the alleged assault happened, it simply does not matter.) In another case, President Trump is a known adulterer, has paid hush money to a porn star for an affair while married, and was caught on tape admitting to something that sounds an awful lot like sexual assault. It is one thing to hold one’s nose and vote for such a candidate, but there are Christians arguing that such rank immorality simply does not matter because the good of the nation is at stake, so they continue to vocally support him on that front.

In all of these cases, there is a demonstrated ethical relativism that has evolved. Previously, the sexual exploits of politicians were considered disqualifying for office, often by some of those now vocally supporting sexually immoral politicians. Now, there are people arguing that since David sinned and was used by God, so the most heinous immorality of a politician may be excused because it benefits the nation.

What is clear in these circumstances is that the ultimate good of these vocal supporters has shifted, or, perhaps, the ultimate good has been revealed. Instead of the ultimate good being God’s moral law, which is universally revealed, the ultimate good is whatever is supposed to best serves the nation.

Nationalism is a form of idolatry.

A Christian Nation?

A significant contributor to the subversion of orthodox Christianity and its replacement with nationalism tinged with Christian belief is the perpetuation of the myth that America is or was a fundamentally Christian nation.

Clearly, the United States was not founded as a secular nation in the same sense that the French Revolution or the Soviet Union were. In both those cases, there is a virulent strain of anti-religious sentiment that led to unhealthy attacks against religious beliefs of various types. The ongoing harassment of Muslims by the French government is one symptom of that bigoted bias.

However, organizations like David Barton’s Wall Builders that attempt to argue that the founders were largely orthodox Christians with a view for an abashedly Judeo-Christian nation are unhelpfully imposing their desires onto the historical record. Though Barton, who has slim academic credentials in history, claims to have rediscovered historical truths that others have failed to understand for centuries, the reality is that he is doing hack history that distorts the reality of the history of the United States. Inadvertently, such romanticizing about a supposedly Christian United States significantly contributes to the problem of the conflation of Christianity and nationalism, with the usual result of a nationalism that trumps Christian ethics.

When one believes that Christianity is the only fully true religion--a reasonable belief for any orthodox Christian--and combines that with the mistaken idea that one nation in particular is a distinctly Christian nation, it can easily lead to switching the order of the old slogan “God and country” to “country and god.” Few would articulate it that way, but in light of the present secularism and cultural hostility to Christian ethics, it can be tempting to do whatever is necessary to “return” to a previous state of “greatness” in which a presumed Christian consensus existed. Though “God and country” might remain the order of the slogan, the closer one views a particular view of “country” to embody God’s own ideal for country, the more likely it is for nationalism to become the functional idol.

The Idolatry of Civil Religion

There is a popular song that embodies some of the most sentimental, but potentially dangerous attraction of the idolatry of nationalism.

Lee Greenwood’s song is played at many civic ceremonies as a tear-jerker that is meant to inspire patriotism. But the lyrics of the song reflect a tendency to misunderstand the purpose of Christianity lived out in the public square. The most egregious of the saccharine lines is, “I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m free.”

Human freedom is a good thing, in general. It is frequently misunderstood in our contemporary context as a freedom from all restraint rather than a freedom to do that which is good and right. However, that is an argument for another post.

However, a Christian should carefully consider what that line means. Is freedom the ultimate good? Is that, then, the main purpose of the nation? Is the United States primarily a vehicle for guaranteeing that good? And, if so, for whom?

Believers are called to seek the good of the city, even when we are not free. That is the message of Jeremiah 29. On the balance, it is better to have freedom to seek the good of the city in the way that is most consistent with one’s religiously formed conscience. However, it would be better to pursue justice and virtue as a prisoner than to promote an idolatrous quest for power in the name of Christianity, even if that power promised to promote a version of Christianity in the culture.

Civil religion is attractive, because it can be useful for generating cohesion and, especially in the West, often has a strong connection to the language of historical Christianity. The difficulty here is that civil religion in the United States often sounds an awful lot like Christianity. Like theological liberalism, such terminological similarity is simply a means of hiding doctrinal revision under the cloak of traditionalism.

However, civil religion is often merely the ideology that enables nationalism.

When one views one’s nation as divinely ordained, then the defense of that nation becomes an ultimate good. The logic runs something like this: America is a Christian nation. God has particularly blessed the United States to be a testimony of his goodness in the world. Therefore, whatever is good for the nation is glorifying for God. This is idolatry, even when it is pursued in more oblique language.

Christianity or Nationalism

American Christians, particularly those on the political right, are faced with a pretty clear decision: Will be put our faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ or in our nation?

In Machen’s day the split occurred on the left, with the revisionist Christians attempting to make the United States into the Kingdom of God through comprehensive welfare policies. There was often an unnecessary conflation between a view of a welfare state as the Christian ideal and a Christianity that had little connection to the orthodox faith.

Now, the decision is on the political right, with people that go to congregations with orthodox faith statements needing to decide whether the ultimate good of the nation is synonymous with the goodness and justice intrinsic to God’s nature. In other words, will we be American Christians or Christians who reside in America? There is a fundamental difference that cannot be overlooked.

For those who desire to remain authentically Christian, we must remember that our allegiance is ultimately to the King of Kings and not to a political party. Good should be judged not by an upward trend in GDP or the number of cabinet members who attend evangelical churches, but by the unchanging Word of God.

The choice is clear, and our decision should be reflected in how we live our lives. Will we pursue holiness in the Christian tradition or a form of nationalistic idolatry?

A Place for Christian Creeds

During times of cultural acceptance, Christianity in the United States has grown in many directions, some of which are not healthy. Setting aside the heretical movements of Christianity, like the prosperity gospel, which should be rightly be anathematized, there has been a growing movement toward fragmentation.

Denominations have divided. Often this has been for good cause, as when revisionist tendencies have denatured the gospel by rejecting the clear content of Scripture. However, there have been other cases where new denominations and congregations have been formed over non-essential doctrines or mere stylistic preferences.

As orthodox Christian ethics are more consistently and violently rejected in contemporary society, the resident alien church will need to form coalitions more broadly than in recent years. Congregations that refuse to revise doctrines for the spirit of the age will likely face greater punitive forces in society, which will require consolidation of small congregations.

If this scenario unfolds, a central point of contact will need to be established. One possible point of contact for broader Christian coalitions is the traditional Christian creeds.

No Creed but the Bible

Earlier in my life, I embraced the idea that creeds were an unhealthy addition to the Christian tradition.

I found myself fond of the idea, “No creed but the Bible.” This happens to be a refrain that was uttered explicitly by Alexander Campbell, whose primitivist Christian movement has done some good, but has sown a great deal of confusion by reviving the idea of baptismal regeneration.

As I’ve studied Church History and Historical Theology, I’ve realized that those that argue for no creed but the Bible often end up in heresy. If not them, then their followers have significantly modified Christian doctrines through spurious interpretation.

It’s taken years, but I’ve come around to an appreciation of the creeds. They have a place in grounding contemporary Christians in the great tradition.

The Authority of Scripture

Part of my rejection of the Apostles’ Creed, when I was first exposed to it, was due to the phrase describing Christ’s decent into hell. 

Used by CC license from: http://ow.ly/NzHt302yzkO

When I tried to reconcile that passage with Scripture, I simply couldn’t. There might be themes that resonate somewhat with a descent into hell, but there was an insufficient connection between that firm theological statement and Scripture. As a result, my primitivist leanings were validated, and I ignored creeds for another decade.

As it turns out, there is a convincing case to be made for a textual variant in the Apostles’ Creed. It should read that Christ descended to the dead, which is clearly a biblical concept. In this case, textual criticism saves the day. A bad text only cost me a decade of being more strongly connected with traditional Christianity.

My instincts were right. Scripture is the ultimate authority, but when the creeds are rightly presented, they connect us to the theologians who were wrestling with the Bible in light of the controversies of their day. The creeds help me to interpret Scripture rightly to avoid the heresies that drove the creation of the creedal statements in the first place.

Creeds do no replace the authority of Scripture, they help ensure continuity of interpretation of Scripture.

Are the Creeds Enough?

The traditional, ecumenical creeds of the church are documents that reflect the time in which they were written. This is evident as the Christology in the various creeds becomes more complex over time, because the Church was responding to new attacks on a biblical view of Christ.

As a result, the creeds for a common center around which we can worship, but they can’t be used as final guidelines for the extent of Christian doctrine. In other words, they do a great deal to ensure that everyone is worshipping the same God, but there are a whole lot of errors they don’t prevent.

The contemporary church must go beyond the creeds. Even the early church did. For example, the prohibition against abortion was universally accepted in the early church, but since it was not contested within the church, it didn’t need an article in the creeds. Refusing to participate in abortion was also a product of discipleship, which is the result of proper belief in who God is, so it wasn’t necessary to affirm such an obvious ethical claim immediately after conversion.

Although the creeds are not complete, we should consider how we can anchor our worship in the creedal tradition. They provide a strong, common center around which community can be constructed. A creedal center allows others who differ from the majority of the congregation to worship together, even when differing on important secondary matters.

Conclusion

No one knows what the future holds. It may be that the present rumblings in opposition to the free exercise of religion come to nothing.

However, it may be that a crisis due to political machinations can unite faithful Christians around the central doctrines of the church and creeds can help form a common foundation.