Rediscovering Biblical Truth Amidst Liberalism's Decline

And I never want to be so liberal that I declare my independence from the authority of God. But I do want to be liberal in the sense of having a positive zeal to discover the truth of God, wherever it may be found. And so, the authentic liberal, historically, is the one who is eager to pursue truth as freely as possible without being enslaved by human conventions. [00:04:55]

Christianity is a religion. It is a faith that is built on the foundation of convictions, and of affirmations. Luther again said to Erasmus, "You don't want to take, you don't want to make assertions." He said, "The making of assertions is the very market of the Christian. Take away assertions and you take away Christianity. And I think it's important that we understand that. [00:07:49]

The term "liberalism" in theology refers to a specific movement with a specific agenda and with a defined theology that occurred on the theological scene in the 19th century in Europe. So, when a theologian speaks about liberalism, he's usually speaking about what we call 19th-century liberalism, 19th-century liberal theology. And, as I said, it has a definite portrait with a definite agenda and so on. [00:08:42]

And the conclusion they came to was that at the core of all religions was basically a concern for ethics, for values, that all the trappings of prayer and the symbols of redemption and the liturgy of salvation, and all of those things are really the externals, the negotiable peripheral matters that aren't of the essence. [00:14:15]

Now, in light of the place where we are in American culture, it may be shocking for an American to hear me say that the Bible does not teach the universal fatherhood of God, and maybe even more shocking to hear me suggest to you that the Bible does not teach the universal brotherhood of man. I mean, how many thousands of times in your lifetime have you heard that said? [00:16:07]

The only way we ever have the right to call God "Father," to cry, "Abba" in His presence is because we have been adopted. And the biblical message of sonship and daughterhood in the body of Christ, is rooted and grounded in this concept of adoption, that only Christ is the natural Son of God, and only if you are in Christ do you become a member of the household of God. [00:21:24]

The Bible doesn't teach the universal brotherhood of man; it teaches the universal neighborhood of man. Biblically, all men are not my brothers. If you are a Christian you are my brother or my sister. If you are not, you're not my brother or my sister in the New Testament sense. But whether you're my brother or my sister, theologically and biblically in that sense, you are my neighbor. [00:22:59]

And originally, the fundamentalist response to liberalism was a response of classical Christian scholarship. Today in our culture, and in religious jargon, fundamentalism tends to communicate the idea of that which is anti-intellectual, legalistic, simplistic and primitive. But historically, in the debate between liberalism and fundamentalism, the fundamentalists were so-called not because they wanted to reduce Christianity to five or six fundamental points. [00:25:04]

You deny the resurrection of Christ as a supernatural event, you have denied Christianity. If you seek to construct Christianity without the resurrection, you have a religion, if you will. You may have an interesting ethical system, but what you have is neither historic nor biblical Christianity. You see what I'm saying at this point. That was the message of the so-called fundamentalist, or the conservative scholar at the turn of the century. [00:27:09]

And Warfield said if you negotiate resurrection, you negotiate Christianity. And so, this was a to-the-death issue. One of the most significant splits in the history of the struggle of the Christian church, the war between historic Christianity and 19th-century liberalism as a movement. What was at stake was the authority of Scripture and the very basic creeds of the church. [00:28:09]

Liberal theology is not only anti-supernatural and anti-personal redemption, it is at its core, antinomian, that is, it is openly manifestly hostile to the law of God. And at that point, it provokes conflict, conflict with orthodox Christianity. Ladies and gentlemen, if no one has ever called you narrow-minded, you may wonder about the state of your soul in this day and age, because if you take the slightest stance for the Word of God in this time and in this generation, somebody is going to call you a Puritan or Victorian or uptight, reactionary, conservative or something of that sort. [00:38:59]

The good news is, and the point with which I'll close, is that I think culturally, nationally and internationally, the world is waking up to the bankruptcy of liberalism. When I was a seminary student, the five largest seminaries in United States, in terms of student enrollment were all liberal seminaries. Today, the five largest seminaries in the United States are all conservative and evangelical seminaries. [00:43:38]