Fear and Loathing in a Liberal Bible Class
The January/February Nine Marks journal on New Liberalism brought back old memories of a particular class I took While in college:
“Bible as Literature.”
That course title was very misleading. Perhaps I was a bit naive.
The course was an elective and since I was a English major and a Christian it would serve two purposes: college credit and religious devotion.
While I got the credit, I didn’t get the devotion. [This was a secular school after all.]
Instead I got a low-grade bender on liberal theology.
A Shock to My System
Understand: I didn’t expect this. I wasn’t prepared for the challenge. Thus, it struck fear in my heart–and probably a handful of other Christians who thought to take the class for the same reasons I did.
[My own experience reminds me a lot of Daniel Wilson's battle with skepticism.]
Soon after the class began I loathed it. All parts of it. The readings before class. The discussions during class. The reeling sense of disappointment following the class.
It was the first time I ever seriously fought for my faith. Not in a public forum. But quietly within my soul.
That fight eventually went in the wrong direction.
Running Rabid and Roughshod over Scripture
Granted, we all have commitments and can never declare strict objectivity in our arguments, but it became quite clear in the first class that the professor wanted nothing more than to dismantle any Christian faith.
She had an agenda.
The classes usually ran like this: Show up to class. Read the text in question. Professor declares what Christians believe. Professor declares why Christians were wrong.
I don’t ever remember reading it as literature.
In fact, I don’t ever remember any serious textual criticism going on or effort root around the historical context.
It was a raw reading and the professors reaction to it. Nothing more.
While it’s not fair to call the professor a liberal [she was an atheist through and through], her approach WAS liberal.
Repulsive and Primitive Doctrines
She liked to pick on those texts that were repugnant to her senses. The wrath of God. Blood atonement. Eternal punishment. Resurrection.
Any feature that sounded primitive and offensive she dismissed. And like the Jesus Seminar she eliminated many of the words of Jesus to mere legends.
But in doing so, she, the Jesus Seminar and any liberal Christian reduced Him to a non-controversial figure instead of the unique Son of God.
If that was the case, why was He crucified if He didn’t offend anyone?
Liberals Love Affair with Man
Back in the early 20th Century, J. Gresham Machen denied that liberalism was Christianity. Whereas Christianity was rooted in supernaturalism, liberalism was rooted in naturalism.
One of the common characteristics of liberalism is an obsession with gaining the world’s approval and admiration–at any cost.
It’s the approval of the culture that counts–not Christ.
“I risk becoming a liberal, because I don’t just love God. I also love the sheep. And I love myself,” Michael Lawrence said. ”And it’s those two loves, wrongly focused, that tempt me down a gospel-denying path.”
Liberalism too often chooses the gospel-denying path.
Liberalism trims God’s Word in favor of the love and esteem of others. This explains why a historically Christian school like Harvard would slip from orthodox to liberalism.
Man has become our measure. Not God.
Liberalisms Motive
Remember liberals operate out of an apologetic motivation. They want to craft something the culture will happily swallow.
What they end up doing is trying to save Christianity from itself. And themselves from academic ridicule.
As Albert Mohler says, “The lesson of theological liberalism is clear—embarrassment is the gateway drug for theological accommodation and denial.”
But Christians are forbidden to court the spirit of the age. We are to cling to the orthodox gospel and all it’s ugly permutations.
One of the main reasons the gospel is such a stumbling block is that it cannot be adapted to suit cultural preferences or alternative worldviews.
Instead, it’s built to confront them all, including the liberal worldview.
Why Did God Create Woman?
Women. Ah. My favorite subject.
Especially since I’m married to arguably the most merciful, kind and generous woman of all.
Indeed. Any amount of success I have as a father, writer or husband I owe to her.
The running joke around our house is that if not for my wife, I’d still be living with my mother.
In her basement.
Dead serious. My wife is classic helper. Classic companion. I’d be lost without her.
But what does “helper” mean? Where did that term come from?
Furthermore, why did God think man EVEN needed woman? And what does the Bible say about this union?
Let’s take a look.
History Before Woman
Long ago God created a man named Adam. He told Adam [a man made in God's image] to cultivate the earth.
To subdue it.
Adam shaped wood into tools. Domesticated oxen to plow fertile soil. He groomed fruit trees. He raised honey bees. He cultivated mint and cornflowers.
But the image of God in man was not complete. God said, “It is not good that man his alone.” He wanted to give Adam a companion.
What’s strange about this arrangement is that Adam doesn’t seem to notice his need for a companion.
He appears perfectly content to be alone.
This is problematic. Not to Adam, but to God. And for reasons we might not consider.
History After Woman
Then God created woman. Genesis 2:21-23 tells us what that looked like:
So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Because God created woman even though Adam was content in his solitude suggests God had something else in mind for man than merely tinkering around in a garden by himself.
God wanted to give man a partner in the stewardship of that garden. Together man and woman split the labor of subduing the earth.
He commanded them both to rule. To take dominion over the fish. The birds. The badgers.
And this responsibility–a sovereign authority you might say–is another way that man and woman are made in God’s likeness.
God is in charge of the universe…man and woman are in charge of the earth. But mere stewardship of goats and crops wasn’t all.
Something Adam Couldn’t Do Alone
Part of Adam and Eve’s responsibility involved multiplying humans. Procreation. Making babies.
A skill, we all know, Adam could not perform on his own.
This command would ensure God’s image spread over the earth. It allowed for Adam and Eve to fulfill their cultural mandate by sharing their workload with their children.
Yet another division of labor.
Call it imperialism if you want. But all for the glory of God. Here’s what I mean.
What Male-Female Union Does to God’s Glory
Listen: When man and woman work in harmony–sharing the responsibility of creating culture, raising children and sharing the gospel–God is glorified.
And he is glorified within the ordained parameters of marriage.
From the Genesis narrative of the creation of man and woman God demonstrates his plan for marriage equals a monogamous heterosexual relationship.
Proliferation of mankind–God’s image–could not happen any other way.
God knew that his glory was limited in the creation of one man. So he made woman. And then man and woman made child.
This union and procreation honors God. Glorifies him. Extends his joy as this man, woman and child honor them with their hearts and service.
It’s a lifestyle of adoration for their creator. Incomplete when man was alone.
Recommended resource: God, Marriage and Family Andreas J. Kostenberger
What Is True Saving Faith?
When the Apostles proclaimed the gospel in the first century, it had a certain content.
People could reject that content. But they could also accept it as true.
They could even believe in it.
Yet, that still left them with out true saving faith.
Listen: Accurate content and sincere belief in that content doesn’t amount to saving faith…
Those are necessary elements–but not sufficient elements. There’s one more element.
Let’s address the first two elements before we get to that last one.
Notitia–the First Element of Saving Faith
One, we must make sure that content is accurate. No use believing in something that isn’t true or heretical.
As you probably know, there’s something dreadfully wrong with this statement: “It doesn’t matter what they believe–as long as they are sincere.”
Joseph Kony was sincere in his belief that he was called by God to abduct children, murder entire families and displace over a million Sudanese so he could establish a theocratic kingdom.
Sincerity can go awfully wrong.
The same is true for Christians: It’s meaningless to be sincere in our belief but not know whether our belief is accurate or not.
We risk heresy if we do otherwise. Thus, the first element of saving faith is accurate content–notitia. Let’s look at the second.
Assensus–the Second Element of Saving Faith
Second, we must believe that content is true. We must assent to it. This is assensus.
But it’s still not enough to redeem us.
I believe that Augustine wrote the City of God. However, that doesn’t redeem me. There has to be something more.
Fiducia–the Third Element to Saving Faith
The third element to saving faith is fiducia–personal trust and commitment in the accurate content we believe.
This is when a Christian accepts, receives and RELIES on Christ alone.
Granted, the message of that content is important. I could put my trust and commitment in Augustine–but it wouldn’t do me any good.
He’s not offering salvation. Only Jesus Christ is.
What Saving Faith Does to Our Lives
We look to Jesus [not Augustine nor any man] for justification, sanctification and eternal life.
With saving faith, we tremble at the commands of God…yield in obedience to the mandates of Christ…and put our trust in the promises of God for now and for the future.
In essence, it radically rearranges our lives. Christ becomes our object of delight. Our obsession.
And we long to do nothing more than please him. [We don't always succeed, but that's another story.]
Here’s the core content we we confess as true, deserving of our belief and worthy of our submission:
That Christ was born, willingly and perfectly lived under the law of God and died as an atoning act. We believe he was dead, buried and rose again.
Only when we believe that information is accurate and trust it holds the power to save us can we safely say we are born again. Anything less and Jesus is not saving us.
A Christian’s Approach to the Mind, Death and Persuasion
Not long ago Annie Dillard wrote, “Strange seizures beset us.”
By seizures she meant motifs.
Themes.
Ideas that haunt [whether for good or bad] a writer.
For me, those themes boil down to this: the mind, death and persuasion.
In our culture, anti-intellectualism dominates.
Death is feared.
And persuasion is reframed to mean “manipulation.”
What is a Christian to make of these three topics? Let’s explore.
A Sanctified Mind
I love learning. I love facts. I love knowledge. And doctrine. But there are enormous problems with a “cold, speculative, unsanctified head-knowledge of Christianity.”
It’s bound to feed you enough rope to hang yourself.
No.
That head knowledge must be sanctified. And your mind must be matured in Christ because the mind is important to God. Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength.”
The moral: Use your mind to love the things of God.
In the book of Romans Paul writes, “Do not any longer conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
In other words, your mind must be dominated by the Spirit. Romans 8:6 says, ”For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”
Only then can we understand spiritual truths. Only then can we make sense of heavenly wisdom.
Even in the Old Testament we see an emphasis on the mind: God said to Isaiah, ““Come now, let us reason.”
It takes a mind to reason. A mind nurtured on biblical truths. Mature in spiritual wisdom. Your mind has a purpose. It’s to be worked out. For Christ. Use it.
A Sanctified Death
Susan Cheever said, “Death is terrifying because it’s so ordinary. It happens all the time.”
Perhaps this is why Kierkegaard said that death is the single most important philosophical topic known to man…
It is knowledge that separates us from God. We must make meaning of it.
Yes, death is a metaphysical issue. It goes beyond the physical. But it is real. And it haunts humanity.
An unsanctified mind might treat death as a sleepless demon bent on ruining your life. Or a bony clown who can drink you under the table.
For the Christian, though, death is stripped of it’s power to terrorize.
John Wesley, paraphrasing 1 Corinthians 15:55, said about death, “Thou art now robbed of all thy spoils; all thy captives are set at liberty.”
In the end, death is the gate to the garden of our Lord.
A Sanctified Persuasion
As a writer, I’ve got a particular investment in being understood. And getting people to believe me.
That means I appeal to reason. I use wisdom. Much in the same way a lawyer tries to persuade a judge that a person is innocent.
Like the mind, persuasion is a tool we MUST use for the cause of Christ. But first it must come under Christ.
An unsanctified mind will pervert persuasion and use it to seduce and deceive. To accumulate wealth and conquer woman.
To push God-denying ideas.
Before Christ, I adored the mind. Was spellbound by death. And toyed with persuasion to gain an advantage on other humans.
After Christ, these things came under Christ. But that doesn’t mean they lost their allure to tempt in unbiblical ways.
To pride. To fear. To greed.
I’m still dogged by the baggage of being an intellectual snob. Occasionally haunted by death.
For whatever reason, these are my motifs. Topics I churn regularly. In the end, whatever I write will be used to glorify God.
What I wrote before Christ will glorify by demonstrating his justice and judgment on a deliberate rebel.
When I write after Christ, I will glorify him by demonstrating his mercy and faithfulness, power and glory.
So tell me, what themes possess you? What haunts you? Dogs you–whether good or bad? How have you seen those things sanctified after conversion?
Looking forward to your thoughts. Brutal and all.
Theology Will Keep You from Committing Suicide
A systematic study of what the Bible says about a particular topic is theology proper.
It’s a pursuit every Christian must vigorously and regularly engage…
Because it’s the means by which we answer the hard questions of life.
Questions like who am I? Why are we here? What is God? What happens when I die? Do I have a soul?
Questions no one is immune from. And questions science ultimately can’t answer.
NIH Director Francis Collins put it this way:
Belief in God was for me anyway, a much more defensible, plausible position. Not something I could prove but something that made great sense and also provided a powerful answer to some of the biggest questions we all ask of our selves and that science can’t really help us with. Like why am I here? And what does life mean anyway?
Without thoughtful, coherent answers to our big questions, life makes no sense at all.
It would be nice if we could simply stop asking those questions. But that’s impossible. We are forever curious. We constantly ask these questions.
We are natural born theologians.
To look for the answers outside of Christ, however, leads to confusion. All other disciplines lead to dead ends. Isolation. Incoherence.
As Gene Fant said at the Evangel blog, “A secularist worldview is hopelessly fractured…. There can be no meaningful interpretive key for knowledge because there is only disintegration and brokenness among the various stakeholders.”
Theology, on the other hand, offers us a relentlessly unified, comprehensive answer to the hard questions: Christ is lord over all.
Listen: If our questions go unanswered, everything remains in the air. Everything becomes unanchored.
Without theology, despair looms. Without theology, suicide knocks at our door.
Heavy prices to pay for not believing in God.
Thus theology leads to relevance. In fact, while regarded as a rather stuffy, arid discipline, it’s the cornerstone on which a Christian must build AND maintain his life.
There is no choice. We must use our minds in this pursuit. Let me know what you think.
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