By Shafer Parker

I’m writing this blog a week before FBB’s 2023 Be Ready Conference, “The Little White Lies of Progressive Christianity.” As you may know we are privileged to have secured Alisa Childers and Jon McCray as keynote speakers, two of the finest defenders of the faith in our day. I am also privileged to be a breakout speaker, addressing the question “Is Revival Possible in a Progressive Christian World?” As you can see, I’ve had a lot of reasons, lately, to think about progressive Christianity, and so I thought I’d use this opportunity to address an important difference, perhaps the key difference, between “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3), otherwise known as Christianity, and the new thing that calls itself “progressive Christianity.”

So, to get right to the point, the key difference between Christians and progressive Christians is that Christians believe the Bible and progressive Christians do not. But that, I fear, isn’t clear enough. When I say Christians believe the Bible I mean they agree that humanity has a moral obligation to obey its precepts and commandments as the only way to please the God of heaven before whom we will someday stand and give account for how we lived our lives. I mean, when Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Mat. 24:35), Christians not only believe in the eternal authority of what He is recorded to have said in the four gospels, we believe in the ultimate, eternal authority of the entire Bible. For the kind of Christian Jesus came to save, the entire book should be seen as printed in red letters, from Genesis 1:1 to the last “Amen” in Revelation 22:21.

The importance of this kind of absolute stand on the Word of God was made clear to me (for the millionth time, I suppose) when I watched a short video by Sean McDowell in which he reflected upon a recent discussion he had with a progressive Christian pastor named Colby Martin. Actually, McDowell is reflecting upon Martin’s public evaluation of an online discussion between the two that you can see for yourself on YouTube. In the video McDowell quotes Martin as taking issue with him for declaring that before he (McDowell) could change his mind on the legitimacy of LGBTQ relationships, he would have to hear “better biblical arguments” than those he’s heard so far. 

Martin goes on to accuse McDowell of “holding on to one, narrow view” of the interpretation of the Bible, which to his way of thinking, puts McDowell at odds with himself. He acknowledges that McDowell has a “kind, compassionate heart,” but is astounded that because of his mistaken loyalty to Scripture (in Martin’s view), he cannot accept, or bless, those who live in the LGBTQ world. Here are Martin’s words: “Because of a few ideas written down by desert-dwelling, barely-not-cave-people-anymore-humans, in a massively patriarchal society with zero insight into human psychology and sexuality, at least in comparison to today, just a handful of thousands-of-years-old words have locked people (including McDowell) into a way of thinking where they cannot see the full humanity of queer people. What a tragic shame.” 

Now, to a Christian of my age (seven decades so far), these words might be shocking enough. But this is not the end of the quote, and what follows from Martin is actually far worse, bad enough that I find just reporting his words difficult. “Put your damn Bible down for a second,” he said, “and listen to stories of people who’ve been told their whole life by the church that they are an abomination.” This is still not the end of the quote, but McDowell—rightly, in my judgment—interrupts to declare that he and Martin agree that “queer people” are made in the image of God and thereby possess inherent dignity and worth. This is a distinction that thoughtful Christians have made throughout time, btw, but in the midst of heated disagreements, it is often missed. But back to Martin’s quote. “The ancient Israelites believed God is a god who hears the cries of the oppressed, but the church of today makes earplugs out of the pages of their Bible. What a damn, tragic shame.”

And there you have it. Martin has made it clear that progressive Christians simply do not believe they have a moral obligation to obey Scripture. For most of the 21st century progressives denied this. Instead, they loudly proclaimed their loyalty to the Bible, while expending a lot of effort attempting to show that the passages declaring homosexual behaviour sinful had been misinterpreted. Whole books were written arguing that when Paul wrote such things as “men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error” (Rom. 1:27), he meant just the opposite. 

The Bible is too clear, however, and no amount of hermeneutical legerdemain has succeeded in reversing four thousand years of Christian teaching on the subject of sinful, sexual behaviour. Or natural law teaching, for that matter. This is why McDowel said to Martin, as stated above, that he could not shift his opposition to LGBTQ behaviour without “better biblical arguments.” McDowell could say that, not because he thinks someone will provide him with such, but because he has complete assurance that none will be forthcoming—ever. And Martin apparently agrees. Hence his outburst, “Put your damn Bible down for a second.” I hope you see what just happened. This progressive Christian pastor essentially admitted that to bless homosexual behaviour he is forced to reject the Bible. And, as reported above, his commitment to supporting such people in their sinful acts is complete. Thus, he now rejects the Bible in the strongest possible way.

But what about us Christians, as opposed to progressive Christians?  Jesus said, “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” (Luke 9:26). Do we want to avoid shaming our Lord when we stand in his presence? Then we must not be ashamed of what the Bible teaches, not just about sexual sin, but about a wide range of things. We must not, for example, be ashamed of the early chapters of Genesis. Instead, we should glory in God our Creator, not to mention God the Judge who could cast sinful, rebellious Adam and Eve out of their paradisal homeland, or Who, in reaction to abject human wickedness, could destroy an entire world in a flood.

I have to bring this to a close, but before I do, I must mention one more thing. We must never, ever be ashamed of God’s exclusive offer of grace and salvation through the death and resurrection of His Son. For Jesus is equally clear on the exclusive means by which one is reconciled to God. He, and he alone, is the propitiation for our sins. And the great sin of progressive Christians is not that they affirm homosexual behaviour, but that they reject God’s exclusive offer of reconciliation through His Son! That’s why, at the end of his life, the apostle John could summarize everything in one simple statement: “Everyone who goes on ahead (who becomes progressive) and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son” (II John 1:9).

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