The Ten Commandments of Progressive Christianity
Cód:
491_9781949253214
A cautionary look at ten dangerously appealing half-truths.In 1923, J. Gresham Machen, then a professor at Princeton Seminary, wrote his classic text, Christianity and Liberalism. The book was a response to the rise of liberalism in the mainline denominations of his own day. Machen argued that the liberal understanding of Christianity was, in fact, not just a variant version of the faith, nor did it represent simply a different denominational perspective, but was an entirely different religion. Put simply, liberal Christianity is not Christianity.What is remarkable about Machen’s book is how prescient it was. His description of liberal Christianity—a moralistic, therapeutic version of the faith that values questions over answers and being “good” over being “right”—is still around today in basically the same form. For this reason alone the book should be required reading, certainly for all seminary students, pastors, and Christian leaders.Although its modern advocates present liberal Christianity as something new and revolutionary, it is nothing of the sort. It may have new names (e.g., “emerging” or “progressive” Christianity), but it is simply a rehash of the same well-worn system that has been around for generations.The abiding presence of liberal Christianity struck me not long ago when I came across a daily devotional from Richard Rohr that listed ten principles he thinks modern Christianity needs to embody. These ten principles are actually drawn from Philip Gulley’s book, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus. In that devotional series, ironically titled “Returning to Essentials,” Rohr sets forth the ten principles as a kind of confessional statement of modern liberalism (while at the same time pretending to deplore confessional statements). They are, in effect, a Ten Commandments for progressive Christianity.Indeed, these ten sound like they were gath
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