Progressive Christianity's Fatal Flaw
How the point gets missed
There’s a long-standing, widespread belief that progressive Christianity is the far nicer and more loving wing of the religion.
Because of this, there’s a sense that the two sides of the coin are balanced in their errors. One side is loving, but less truthful, and the other is truthful, but less loving.
I want to challenge the progressive churches’ reputation, though.
Are they really more loving? Sure, they seem nicer, and more open, and more charitable, but how did they get that way?
And, do they have to compromise on truth the way they do? Can a church be just as nice as them, yet still cling to truth?
Why are they soft on sin, downplaying LGBT transgressions, softening the Bible’s stances on divorce and remarriage, soft-pedaling abortion, etc.?
Why do they shrink back from the inspiration of Scripture and “unhitch” from the OT events the world likes to disparage? Why are they often ashamed of the Bible’s teachings on miracles, or creation, or hell? Why do they seem embarrassed by the Bible’s teachings about male leadership and the forbiddance of women preachers?
Why are they so hard on the things that the world also hates, like racism and right wing politics, and so soft on the things that the world loves?
I just recently grasped what’s going on here:
Progressive Christians aim to help people draw near to them rather than to God.
That’s the fatal flaw that introduces all of this error, and what makes their apparent niceness a mirage.
It’s obvious that truth often keeps the unrepentant from drawing nearer to God. But if we water it down, come up with elaborate Greek explanations to twist it, or just straight up ignore it, we can remove that roadblock and bring people in to our community. Mission accomplished.
The problem is, those people are no nearer to God. If they attend such a church for 50 years and are never called to repent of their favorite sin, they still won’t be any nearer to God.
This is why “love” has come to be redefined as “being nice.” And, this is also why many people believe that progressive churches that focus less on doctrine are much nicer.
It’s almost like they’re playing a good cop-bad cop routine with God’s Word, with God and Biblically-based churches being the bad cops. “Hey, sorry those guys were so mean to you and said you had to repent and change your thinking. I’ll be your buddy!”
Well, the conservatives…
This is the part where someone gets ready to drop a comment pointing out the flaws on the other side. Yeah, I know there are errors on the other side. I’ve spent plenty of time addressing those and trying to guard against them myself. The conservative errs not in trying to show others how nice we are, but in trying to show how smart we are.
But I’m going to say the same thing I have to tell my kids every time two of them get in trouble: I’m not talking about someone else’s problem right now. Let’s stay on topic.
Jesus’ warning
In the Sermon on the amount, Jesus told us a good way and a bad way to draw attention by what we do:
“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 5:16 NASB95)
“Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” (Matt. 6:1)
In both verses, Jesus is talking about people who are practicing good works in a public way that other people are going to see. What’s the difference? The faithful group glorifies God with their works. The unfaithful group glorifies themselves.
How do we know where our spotlight is shining? Just see if it’s drawing people nearer to God, or to us. If people are being brought in, yet they are not abandoning their sins and being transformed by the renewing of their minds, we’re just attracting them to ourselves.
Remember what I said at the start about the reputation progressive churches have for being so kind and giving? The biggest reason people know how kind and giving progressives are is because they never hesitate to broadcast their good deeds.
Their light shines directly on themselves. And many draw near to them. God remains distant, but at least everyone knows how nice they are.
As always, subscribing is free. If you’d like to support my work, you can become a supporting subscriber here
Please keep me in prayer for next week’s two day debate on the topic of baptism, hosted on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio!
Really good way to put it. When a church tries to draw people to themselves instead of drawing people to God, it becomes a lateral move, rather than a vertical one. The quality of the drawing near is fundamentally different. They just move from one part of the world to another because this kind of church is both in the world and of the world.
Progressive Christianity, like its cousin Legalist, is performance based with its own fundamentalism. Those who preach “tolerance” are some of the most intolerant people you’ll meet. I dabbled a little in progressive Christianity during Covid. Sure what was being preached sounded nice, but after reading/listening/engaging in books, podcasts, and conversations, it wasn’t really Christian. When an ideology basically becomes “Jesus says to love your neighbor”, while true, it often means “accept them as they are or else”. Proverbs 4:25-27 provides the antidote to the anathema that is progressive/legalistic Christianity.