OpenTheo

What Progressive Christian Teachings Should I Look Out For?

#STRask — Stand to Reason
00:00
00:00

What Progressive Christian Teachings Should I Look Out For?

November 7, 2024
#STRask
#STRaskStand to Reason

Questions about what progressive Christian teachings one should look out for and whether John 16:12–13 provides justification for the views of progressive Christians.  

* I’ve been hearing about progressive Christianity and wondering what I should look for when it comes to unbiblical teaching.

* Some progressive Christians and churches cite John 16:12–13 as justification for their views. If that passage doesn’t mean what they say, what does it mean?

Share

Transcript

This is Amy Hall. Welcome to Stand to Reason’s hashtag, S-T-R-S, podcast starring Greg Koukl. You have never put it that way.
If I rebuke you. I know, I knew you would. I know, Greg.
Okay. Well, today we have a couple questions about
progressive Christianity. So we're going to start with a question from Michelle.
And she asks,
I've been hearing about the progressive church and wondering what I should look for when it comes to unbiblical teaching. Well, one of the, let me back up, the progressive church is very, very broad. So it has a lot of variations.
Okay. It claims to be Christian, but it rejects much of what is considered classical
Christianity, particularly imagine anything that seems in classical Christian teaching, doctrine or ethics, that seems out of step with the culture and almost universally the progressive church is going to reject that. So in many ways, they will hold the name of Jesus, but their understanding of Jesus could be a very, is understanding that it's very consistent with cultural values.
Okay, particularly leftist values. So just to give you a heads up on that,
the reason that there is any concern that they would hold unbiblical views is because the one feature of progressive Christianity that unifies all the groups that are diverse is a rejection of the Bible as an authoritative source. It may be helpful or inspired in some sense, but not in the classical sense that this is God breathed.
And therefore the words are authoritative. And all the words
that's verbal plenary, the words are inspired and all the words are inspired. And they're not going to accept that because that then affirms a whole bunch of theology that they don't think is true.
So they're going to reject that. And that's the bigger problem. Because, and this is why you get
a variety of beliefs.
Who is Jesus? Well, he's not the encounter son of God, who came to die for
man sins and believe in him as necessary to rescue us from judgment. Otherwise, we will receive the judgment in eternal hell, no, none of the hat. He's what social justice warrior, he's a guy who taught peace and love, he's there to help us all get along.
He had insight in some way, whatever, there's all
these different variations that are going to be manifest in the broader progressive church. But what's not going to be there is classical Christianity. So if the question is by Michelle, what should I be looking for? Just keep your ears open.
Because and with it with this in mind that anything that
is offensive culturally to largely leftist culture regarding biblical teachings are going to be rejected by the progressive church, progressive Christians. Now the variety comes when you look at where did they go with alternatives to those theological views and you're going to get on the idea that the Bible does not speak with divine authority. By the way, that's what makes them progressive.
They have progressed beyond that. They have progressed beyond the Bible as the word
of God, beyond all of these things in the scripture that seem to clearly represent ideas that are archaic in their view, old, and worn out, and no longer in step with the culture. So they have not difficult if you're familiar with classical Christianity, just let them talk.
But be sure that
you are getting clear characterizations or definitions of the otherwise biblical words or terms that they may be using. So atonement, they might characterize that as at one mint. And we are all at one with God because Jesus has brought us to God in some way, but not through substitutionary penal substitution.
He didn't die in our place for our sins. No, that's are you kidding? And then
they have some other view. So Michelle, you're going to find that virtually everything that is standard Orthodox classical Christian doctrine is going to be rejected by them because it's just out of step with the culture of the times and consequently, they're going to reject it.
They don't like it. And there's no authority in the Bible anyway.
So Greg, you hit on the point that I wanted to make because the one thing that you need to look for at the root of everything, I agree, is their view of the Bible.
The Bible is not their highest authority. So sometimes in churches, when they first start
moving away, maybe they're not being as open with everyone about their views on everything, but this is where it will start. So this is present, even if the other things aren't yet present, it will go that direction eventually.
I remember I was reading a book by Brian Zahn called
Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, where he was speaking against God. He's progressive. Yes, he's progressive.
He was he was saying that he was speaking against the idea of God having
retributive justice and in the wrath of God. And he was saying that's wrong and the cross is about something else. The cross is about showing us that using your power, I can't remember violence is wrong.
And so that's what we learned from the cross. And so now we can live better lives.
He basically took away the gospel and turned it into law saying, okay, now this is our example.
Now we know how to live rather than saying this is Jesus dying for our sins and now out of God's grace, we're forgiven and we're reconciled to God. So as I was reading his book, I kept saying, but what about this verse? What about this verse? And I was writing down all these notes. I'm like, but that contradicts this thing.
And it just made no sense to me until the very end. And at the very
end of the book, he talks about how he doesn't understand God can't be violent and all this. And then he realized as he was sitting in quiet contemplation, having a vision of who God is and seeing him without violence, he realized, oh, this is the true Jesus.
I said, so the whole
thing is based on this supposed kind of contemplative experience of the Jesus that he wants to be Jesus. It was not the Bible. The Bible is not his highest authority.
He is judging the Bible
based on what he thinks God should be like, which ultimately gets shaped by the culture, which is what you were saying, that when your sensibilities are shaped by the culture, you're going to think the Bible is wrong. So you either do that or you let the Bible shape your views of what is good and what is bad and who God is and try to make sense of that. But if it's not your highest authority, that will never happen.
There's no way to correct your
faulty views. If your faulty views are judging everything else, there's no way to correct them. And this is why I'm trying to remember exactly how I put it out.
I was having a conversation with
my sister over the weekend in Seattle when we were at reality last weekend about this very thing. If you reject, look at a person can say, I think the Bible is just written by man, this doesn't have authority, okay? Or it's not historically reliable, whatever. I said, fine, you're welcome to that view, but then you are not welcome to a view about a personal assessment of who Jesus was and what He came to do.
Because if you reject the historical accounts,
the primitive ones, the original ones, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the ones that were written early about Jesus from those who were closest to Him, if you reject them, then you have no Jesus left to have an opinion about. Even what 17 or 18 other historical references that we have from extra biblical sources, corroborate the gospel profile of who Jesus of Nazareth was. So they all say the same thing.
Now, if you reject all of that, what you're free to do,
okay, fine, but what you're not welcome to is an opinion of Jesus because now He's gone. Where are you getting your information and what you suggested as Brian Zahn is just reflecting and having an insight on some person we know nothing about. Because we can't trust the historical record and therefore, okay, well, it must be just now it's a Jesus fashion after Him is His image and His theology, not the Jesus who has His own theology.
And I'm not suggesting it. He flat out says it. Let me just read this one short paragraph.
He says, one day, as I was sitting silently in contemplative prayer, I whispered this to the one who was there. Father, I don't believe you torture people for eternity. And then I began to laugh.
And the one who was there laughed too. So he, again, this goes back to what we were talking about. Actually, that laugh should be a cackle.
The one who cackles because we know the source
of that idea. Look, I understand that it takes some thinking, especially because we have been so shaped by our culture, it takes some thinking to figure out how all of these ideas fit together, the Bible and what it means to be good and to appreciate justice and to understand who God is. We are going against the culture in this and that does take some thinking.
So I don't want to
dismiss the idea that people can be worried about that. But what I want to encourage you to understand is that the Bible is the objective revelation of God. And that is the safe place to go to resolve your questions.
This goes back to what we were saying in the last episode where we were talking
about some religions have this message given to somebody and their entire religion is based on this message that person received. We have no way to check it. We have no way to know it's true.
We have no way to know it was from God. But the way that Judaism and Christianity were revealed, it was always connected to objective reality and objectively seen reality. Third person public.
So we have God revealing himself in all sorts of ways in history. We have the prophets testifying to their message with their miracles. We have Jesus dying and rising again and doing miracles to prove who he was.
That's the basket we need to put all our eggs in. To go to our own subjective
ideas which will inevitably be shaped by a culture that's in rebellion against God. I don't know why we would want to do that.
So even when it seems difficult and you don't understand
how how could God say this or do this, I just encourage you to continue to move forward in trying to figure that out. And so many people have thought about that and written about that. And I just, I don't know, I just encourage you to do that.
Now maybe we've gotten a little bit
off track. But this is the first thing to go in the Progressive Church. So if you end up in a church, I would ask questions about their view of the Bible before anything else.
By the way, when that goes, everything else goes eventually because there's so much that at least on the surface, prima facie is a quick look in light of what our own fleshly desires entails. There are so much in Christianity that just seems unpleasant or offensive. That is, there's things you could look at that you would draw that conclusion, just like Brian's in.
I don't
think you're going to torture and torment people for all eternity. I laughed and I heard a laugh. So why? Because that's to our fallen selves.
This is an untenable kind of thought.
Now, if you think about it further, you know, why would a good God not punish injustice? Why would a good God just wink at all kinds of evil and just let it happen? That happens in our culture. We say that guy got put, he got away with murder.
We are our inherent sense of justice rebels against that.
Why would we think that a perfectly moral and good God would be any different than that? So there are intuitions we can draw on to make sense of these kinds of things. But the initial reaction that we have, especially a reaction that's going to be informed by self-interest, immediate self-interest, pleasure being fitting into society and all that other stuff being liked, this is going to that impulse is going to cause us to reject the straightforward teaching of scripture on this.
And so by the way, there are two books that you may want to consider,
Michelle, anyone else to, at least a children's book, of course, a different gospel. That was one of the first books to explore these problems in progressive Christianity. And then Jason Heman is has written, I think it's hijacking God or hijacking Jesus starts out hijacking Jason.
And he does a great, they both do a great job in coming from different angles and bring a lot of information. And Tim and Alyssa's book, The Deconstruction of Christianity, they make this point that when people are deconstructing, it's because they're not putting the Bible as the ultimate authority. And so they move towards whatever culture is promoting.
And this shows up in
another big one would be sexuality. So I would say the meaning of the atonement the rules regarding sexuality, what else would you say the views on the Bible. There are things that are offensive to them in the Bible, because they misunderstand the alleged genocide, the Old Testament, the mistreatment of women in the Bible, and things like that, slavery in the Bible.
And these are things that they have not looked at with ancient eyes,
so to speak. In other words, in assessment of the cultural circumstances, and also the details of the text itself, they just react when they see these words. And if you're progressive, you can just dismiss all of that, because the Bible is not the word of God.
This didn't happen. Or
I don't believe in that God, I believe in the God of a kind of God of Jesus, a Jesus at their own making. Let's go on to a question from Brad.
Some progressive Christians and churches cite John 16, 12, and 13,
and following as justification for their views. If that passage doesn't mean what they say, what does it mean? Well, it's interesting that they quote, I didn't know that progressive churches do this. I didn't either.
Because this is taking of Jesus at face value here in the upper room discourse,
and also affirming that there is such a thing called truth, that the Holy Spirit is going to lead them in. I'll read the verse in a minute, but you just had an epiphany. I realized I haven't heard that they use this particular verse.
However, I have heard them give the idea that God is giving
some sort of progressive revelation and things are moving in a particular direction that they only went so far in the Bible. But the trajectory we're supposed to follow into God, accepting homosexuality and all those other things. So like inclusion.
Right. But how is that a reflection of progressive
revelation? We'd have to have new revelation then that that expressed that. But my point is that I think that verse could be used to support that idea.
So I'm guessing that's what it is. And also
maybe individual understanding, because this is what it seems to speak to. Let me read the verse.
John chapter 16, incidentally, this very important. This is one of four discourses that Jesus gave, major discourses. It's the last one is called the upper room discourse.
It's almost one third.
It's chapter 13 through 17 inclusive of the gospel of John. It's maybe one quarter of the entire gospel is one evening that Jesus spent just before he dies.
And he's communicating to his
disciples. The last things he's going to tell them. All right.
And one of the things he said,
I'll just read the chapter 16 12 through 13. And he says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when he, the spirit of truth comes, he will guide you unto all truth.
I guess I should, that's usually where they stop. But I'll just read the rest of that
sentence for he will not speak on his own initiative. But whatever he hears, he will speak and he will disclose to you what is to come.
Now, presumably, the point here is Jesus has more things to say,
but he is going to speak them through the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Okay. And what he's going to do is is guide them into all truth.
Now, I've heard many Christians quote this for
themselves. And they say, see, the Holy Spirit said he's going to guide us unto all truth. Okay.
Now, if we take that at face value, and by the way, this is a good way to see if you're taking a verse correctly. And that is just apply it the way you say it is meant and see what happens. So if the whole, if Jesus is talking about all Christians receiving the Holy Spirit, which we do in virtue of the new covenant, the new birth baptism in the spirit, and what that means is he will lead all Christians to all truth, all born again Christians.
Well, it's clear that he's
failed, because even you and I, as much as we agree on so many things, we disagree on some things. And there's hardly a Christian alive that agrees with it every way with even any other Christian. So if the Holy Spirit is meant to be given to Christians to guide individual Christians to all truth, then we all ought to have the same beliefs, but we don't.
So that can't be what he's
referring to. This verse in chapter 16 is actually a repetition of something John Jesus said a little earlier in the evening and recorded in chapter 14 verse 26. Let's start a verse 25.
These things
I've spoken to you while abiding with you. I'm here telling you right here. But the helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things.
Oh, well,
that sounds like a repetition in the same same thing. Keep reading and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. In other words, what Jesus is saying here is in both cases, I've been talking to you, but now I'm leaving, but there will be another source, a helper that will come and will be able to help you recall everything I have taught you.
Now that
who would become the apostles who would be the spokespersons, the authoritative spokespersons for Jesus. And indeed, that's a central part of the issue of the canon. Just written a piece on this.
It might be out by now November 1st. I'm not sure when you're reading this, the New Testament
has to do with what is the source of authority. And that is the apostles with the source of authority.
Therefore, if books are written by the apostles, they were authoritative.
If Paul wrote it, there it is. It's over with.
That's almost immediately in the first century,
the majority of what we don't know is the New Testament canon was already accepted by Christians at large because of the authorship, because of the promise being fulfilled that Jesus is making here at John 14 and John 16, that the Holy Spirit will lead the apostles to all truth. This is why we have what's called the analogy of faith, that if we look at different passages, here's John writing and then here's Paul writing and here's James writing. Well, they're all apostles.
They're all filled with the Holy Spirit and giving us truth. So they're
not going to contradict. So we're looking for a way to harmonize their ideas, whereas, when it comes to Christians at large, they contradict each other all the time.
Do we have an authoritative source of information? Yes, the orators saw that, the apostles, to whom this promise was given. So there's a principle here of human eutics, by the way, when you're reading something that Jesus says to a group of people, you need to ask yourself, based on the circumstances that this happens in, whether it appears that Jesus is speaking to them as those individuals as such, and therefore his common is limited to those individuals. Jesus says, tells Peter, throw the net on the other side of the boat.
Well, we're not all supposed to throw the net on the other side of the boat. That was Peter in that circumstance, or whether he's speaking to them as believers, and these are universal principles that apply to them as believers. Now, there's a lot in the upper room, with you, peace I give to you.
Not as the world do I give it to you, do not let your heart be
troubled, don't let your be fearful. Well, that's a verse that would apply to all of us. But the verse just above that, he's giving specific instructions to the disciples, and it's obvious.
All that I have taught you, the Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance, and then later in chapter 16, he will teach you all truth. So this is a promise that is limited in scope to the people. And I think obviously to the people, to whom he's speaking, and that is the apostles, and therefore it wouldn't have application to Christians in general at any period of time, even at that period of time.
And so down the line for a progressive to cite this concept in favor
of, well, we have progressive revelation continuing on, and now we have insight that they didn't have. Well, first of all, now they're quoting the scripture as a prooftext, which is odd for a progressive. And secondly, it's a prooftext about truth, which they also are kind of mushy on the concept of, generally speaking, it's subjective, not objective.
And so it just
dikes me as unusual they will cite this passage, especially since there's a whole bunch of other stuff in the upper room discourse that they're probably not going to agree with. It's ever Jesus washing feet. Well, I've found that there are a lot of people out there that will use verses to try to convince people who actually do take the Bible seriously, and think that it's the highest authority.
So they're trying to convince them. I mean,
I don't want to say that's what everyone is doing, but I think even if it's not their highest authority, they'll often use it to try and convince people for whom it is the highest authority. But even if even if it were true that the Holy Spirit will lead people in that way, he's not going to contradict himself.
God didn't change the moral standard doesn't change.
Now, what they might cite is, well, it used to be just be for the Jews and now it's for the Gentile. So this is a totally new thing.
Well, not really, because from the very beginning,
God was saying that all the nations would be blessed through Abraham. There was always, there are other parts in the prophets where he talks about bringing the Gentiles into the temple. And this was always hinted at and I mean, not even hinted at, it was promised from the beginning.
So this fits into the story. And then you have the law and people might say, well,
then God got rid of the law and brought in the Gentiles. Well, what actually happens is, Jesus dies and rises again.
And because he's died, he's released from the law and when we're
joined to him, we're released from a lot. There's actually an explanation of how this comes about. It isn't just just randomly, oh, and now this is different.
There's a reasoning behind it.
Yeah, more specifically that the Mosaic law was a conditional contract that God made with the Jews and they broke it. And that's why Jeremiah says, I'm going to give you a new covenant, not like the one which God gave at Sinai, which you broke.
Okay, so that's a broken contract and now he's giving
a new one. So there's a progression that makes a lot of sense. It isn't just willy-nilly, the old rules have changed and the new ones are coming.
And the law is based on God's moral standard.
So it's the laws weren't random. I mean, there were other purposeful ones that didn't have to do with the holiness codes and certain things that that could end because Jesus fulfilled them.
But then there are other ones that are based on the moral standard and since God's morality doesn't change. So we are still to be like Christ, we're still to be like God, we're still to reflect his his morality. So if anyone comes in and says, well, this morality is different now, well, now we've got a problem.
So I think with all this in mind, like this, you cannot use this
first to support that. Yeah, it might be. That's a good observation you made that maybe they are just trading on the Christian source of authority and saying your authority agrees with us.
I mean,
that's a, there's nothing wrong with that strategy, you know, and we use it actually with regards to the Quran to, to commend the gospels, for example. But it's interesting, though, that also it's in John 14 where Jesus says, I am the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father but through me. And of course, no progressive is going to affirm that.
Well, thank you, Michelle and Brad, we appreciate hearing from you. Send your question on X with the hashtag SDRask or just go to our website and look for the hashtag SDRask podcast and you'll find a link there to send us your question. We look forward to hearing from you.
This is Amy Hall and
Greg Coco for Stand to Reason.

More on OpenTheo

Why Does It Seem Like God Hates Some and Favors Others?
Why Does It Seem Like God Hates Some and Favors Others?
#STRask
April 28, 2025
Questions about whether the fact that some people go through intense difficulties and suffering indicates that God hates some and favors others, and w
Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?
Why Do You Say Human Beings Are the Most Valuable Things in the Universe?
#STRask
May 29, 2025
Questions about reasons to think human beings are the most valuable things in the universe, how terms like “identity in Christ” and “child of God” can
Is Morality Determined by Society?
Is Morality Determined by Society?
#STRask
June 26, 2025
Questions about how to respond to someone who says morality is determined by society, whether our evolutionary biology causes us to think it’s objecti
Can Secular Books Assist Our Christian Walk?
Can Secular Books Assist Our Christian Walk?
#STRask
April 17, 2025
Questions about how secular books assist our Christian walk and how Greg studies the Bible.   * How do secular books like Atomic Habits assist our Ch
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 1
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 1
Knight & Rose Show
June 21, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose explore chapters 1 and 2 of the Book of James. They discuss the book's author, James, the brother of Jesus, and his mar
Licona and Martin Talk about the Physical Resurrection of Jesus
Licona and Martin Talk about the Physical Resurrection of Jesus
Risen Jesus
May 21, 2025
In today’s episode, we have a Religion Soup dialogue from Acadia Divinity College between Dr. Mike Licona and Dr. Dale Martin on whether Jesus physica
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 2
Bible Study: Choices and Character in James, Part 2
Knight & Rose Show
July 12, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose study James chapters 3-5, emphasizing taming the tongue and pursuing godly wisdom. They discuss humility, patience, and
What Should I Say to Someone Who Believes Zodiac Signs Determine Personality?
What Should I Say to Someone Who Believes Zodiac Signs Determine Personality?
#STRask
June 5, 2025
Questions about how to respond to a family member who believes Zodiac signs determine personality and what to say to a co-worker who believes aliens c
Pastoral Theology with Jonathan Master
Pastoral Theology with Jonathan Master
Life and Books and Everything
April 21, 2025
First published in 1877, Thomas Murphy’s Pastoral Theology: The Pastor in the Various Duties of His Office is one of the absolute best books of its ki
Why Do Some Churches Say You Need to Keep the Mosaic Law?
Why Do Some Churches Say You Need to Keep the Mosaic Law?
#STRask
May 5, 2025
Questions about why some churches say you need to keep the Mosaic Law and the gospel of Christ to be saved, and whether or not it’s inappropriate for
The Biblical View of Abortion with Tom Pennington
The Biblical View of Abortion with Tom Pennington
Life and Books and Everything
May 5, 2025
What does the Bible say about life in the womb? When does life begin? What about personhood? What has the church taught about abortion over the centur
Licona vs. Shapiro: Is Belief in the Resurrection Justified?
Licona vs. Shapiro: Is Belief in the Resurrection Justified?
Risen Jesus
April 30, 2025
In this episode, Dr. Mike Licona and Dr. Lawrence Shapiro debate the justifiability of believing Jesus was raised from the dead. Dr. Shapiro appeals t
What Would You Say to Someone Who Believes in “Healing Frequencies”?
What Would You Say to Someone Who Believes in “Healing Frequencies”?
#STRask
May 8, 2025
Questions about what to say to someone who believes in “healing frequencies” in fabrics and music, whether Christians should use Oriental medicine tha
What Evidence Can I Give for Objective Morality?
What Evidence Can I Give for Objective Morality?
#STRask
June 23, 2025
Questions about how to respond to someone who’s asking for evidence for objective morality, what to say to atheists who counter the moral argument for
Jay Richards: Economics, Gender Ideology and MAHA
Jay Richards: Economics, Gender Ideology and MAHA
Knight & Rose Show
April 19, 2025
Wintery Knight and Desert Rose welcome Heritage Foundation policy expert Dr. Jay Richards to discuss policy and culture. Jay explains how economic fre