By Pastor Stephen Hess –
I recently came across a headline about a large church in the Nashville area that was making waves on social media by promoting the idea that the Bible is not really the word of God. One of the church’s provocative statements said, “The Bible isn’t the Word of God, self-interpreting, a science book, an answer/rule book, inerrant or infallible. Rather, it is a product of community, a library of texts, multi-vocal, a human response to God, living and dynamic.”
Being curious, I decided to visit the church’s website to learn more about their beliefs. I quickly discovered that they are part of a movement of churches that identify with what they call “Progressive Christianity.” Progressive Christianity has become an increasingly popular term used among churches that reject many traditional Christian doctrines. In addition to questioning the inerrancy and authority of Scripture, progressive Christians are typically known for rejecting the idea that Christ is the only Savior and reinterpreting traditional Christian ethics, particularly when it comes to things like sexuality and marriage. In doing this, progressive Christians claim that their brand of faith is more tolerant, open-minded, and relevant to modern society.
It’s worth noting that none of these ideas are new. People have been seeking to reinterpret traditional Christian doctrines for centuries. Back in the early 1900s the movement known as theological liberalism sought to reinterpret the Christian faith to make it more “consistent” with modern science. In the process, this movement rejected many of the miraculous claims of the Bible such as the virgin birth and the resurrection. In many ways, this movement was just a product of even earlier movements that called into question the reliability of the Bible.
At the core of all these movements there seems to be a rejection of idea that God has revealed unchanging truth in his word. As the Nashville church states on their website, “God is a mystery to be explored, not a doctrine to be espoused.” But there is a glaring problem with this: If we cannot trust what the Bible says about God, then how can we know anything about God at all? If culture and human experience become the primary authorities to tell us what to believe about God, then how do we know that we aren’t just creating a God that is a product of our own imaginations?
Christianity has always affirmed that God is infinite, and we are finite. Consequently, we cannot know anything about God unless he reveals it to us. But the good news is that he has revealed himself to us in his word. Once we acknowledge this reality, we must come to grips with the fact that we are not free to pick and choose what we want to believe about God, nor are we free to reinterpret Scripture according to our own whims. We can either believe in the God of the Bible or we can reject him, but we are not at liberty to reinvent him. As theologian J. Gresham Machen observed many decades ago, those who seek to reinterpret the Bible in order to “update” the Christian faith are no longer practicing Christianity but an entirely new religion altogether.
And herein lies one of the central problems with progressive Christianity: It isn’t progressive. The term “progressive Christianity” implies some sort of progress. The very name of the movement suggests that its brand of faith has somehow progressed past the older and more antiquated forms of faith. But to paraphrase something C.S. Lewis said many years ago, if you are driving somewhere and you have taken a wrong turn then sometimes progress means turning around and going back the way you came. In a Christian sense, progress means progressing closer and closer to the truth.
In the American church today, the most “progressive” thing we can do is return to the Bible. We may be traveling in all sorts of different directions, but until we are ready to believe, obey, and teach what God has revealed, we won’t be making progress.