Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:05 To welcome you to village church. My name is Michael fueling. I'm the lead pastor here. I have the joy to open up. God's word with you. Typically, what we do at village church is we teach through books of the Bible where right in the middle of Exodus, we're going to go, whew, we're going to go back into the book of Exodus in two weeks, and we're going to deal with a different subject for the next two Sundays. So what I want to ask you to do is I want to ask you to open up your Bibles with me to the book of Colossians chapter two. And we're going to start in verse eight and we're going to be doing in this two week series is we're going to be looking at a specific cultural moment that we're living in. And we're going to process this cultural moment through the lens of the word of God.
Speaker 1 00:00:51 All right, Colossians chapter two, Paul is deeply concerned for the Clawson church. They are a young church Christianity, as we understand it is brand new, just a couple of decades, old and harmful, spiritually harmful ideas are beginning to sneak in and to most of the people, the ideas feel right. They feel right. Look what happens in verse eight. He says this, see to it that no one takes you captive the word captive. Commonly used in ancient Greek literature refers to very often the plundering of a ship after you have been tied up. So the notion is that somebody jumps onto the ship. They tie you up and then they begin to plunder your valuables into take what is important to you. Now, what is seeking to take us captive? Paul tells us in the next line, he says this C2 at the no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit.
Speaker 1 00:02:03 And this empty philosophy are ideas that feel good. They feel right, but when you double click on them and you kind of expose them and you scrutinize them, you realize they can't really stand the test. They're empty. They're hollow on the surface. It feels good, but there's nothing there. So we get a couch already. What's happening. There are ideas in this world that will tie you up and plunder your soul. There, there are movements, ideas, worldviews, theologies, and philosophies that are not for your good or for your flourishing and their aim is to tie you up and to plunder your soul. Not necessarily the people propagating the idea, but the idea itself. Okay. So where did these empty philosophies come from? Paul us, according to human tradition. And this means the way of the non-Christian world. There's the way of Christ. And then there's the way of the world.
Speaker 1 00:03:08 And the way of the non-Christian world has its own way. And we do not expect the way of the world to be sympathetic or aligned with the way of Christ. There are different, different value sets, different origins, but there are some human traditions that are uniquely insidious. They look to capture you to take you captive, to tie your mind up and then plunder you. Okay. So where do these philosophies, this human tradition. Okay. What's the origin of that. And then listen to what he says. He says, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ, the elemental spirits of the world for Paul are demons who by the way, are not looking out for your good, I don't know if you know that if you ever meet a demon and they offer you something, is it a trap? The answer is always right.
Speaker 1 00:03:57 And so here's, Paul's idea. Here's his view of the world that there are human traditions. There are ways the world thinks and processes and mantras that make sense to the world. And they're actually, even though they feel good, they're fairly insidious. And then really, usually well-intentioned people propagate these ideas because they feel good. How many of you like to tell people information that feels good, everybody. And so many of the people propagating these ideas. I would say almost all of them are not ill intentioned, but they're trying to help you feel good because let's be honest. Sometimes the world just feels really bad. And so you have these ideas and they're propagating, but what they don't know is that the origins of those ideas are demonic. Now I want you to turn with me to the book of Ephesians chapter two. We're going to look at verses one and two.
Speaker 1 00:04:44 And I want you to start to see this pattern for Paul emerge, Ephesians chapter two, he says this talking about before they became Christians. He says you were dead in trespasses and sins in which you once walked, that was then you've come to Christ. So there's a better way. But then he says this before you were Christian, you were following the course of this world. In fact, the Greek word for world here is Ayaan or talks about the ages or the ages past that there is this course, this way of thinking and living that the world has. And it's counter to Jesus. It's not for you. It's not going to help your relationship with Jesus. It is against it. And then he says this talking about the course of the world, the ideas, the philosophies, the worldviews that make you feel good, right? Because they they're just part of our culture.
Speaker 1 00:05:37 He says this following the prince of the power of the air, by the way, who is the prince of the power of the air, his name is Satan. And then he goes on and says the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, turn with me to second Corinthians chapter 10, second Corinthians chapter 10. We're going to look at verse four and five. And here's what Paul says. He says for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh. Why? Because the most insidious things in people's lives are typically not fleshly things. There are things that, that exist in the spiritual intellectual realm, their ideas, and you can't really defeat ideas with the weapons of the flesh. They're spiritual ideas. There's, there's actually people who are tied up and they're enslaved to these wrong ideas. And while their life is being plundered, you can't just talk them out of their bad ideas.
Speaker 1 00:06:29 How many of you ever tried to debate somebody out of a terrible idea? It doesn't really go that well, does it? He says the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they have, they have divine power to destroy strongholds. Strongholds are things that tie you up and keep you captive. And here's Paul's assumption that the world has been taken captive and there are strongholds and they are tied up and they are being plundered. And so we need our spiritual weapons that have the ability to untied them and free them from their captivity and their mental plundering. And they'll give verse five. I mean, this is, he's intense about this. I love this. He says we destroy arguments. And every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, a lofty opinion is like, oh, look how novel my idea is. And in fact, it's just an opinion.
Speaker 1 00:07:17 It's not rooted in reality or truth. It's, it's sort of the arrogant person that believes they have an edge on truth. It's not tested. It's it's a little bit pompous. It's actually not even good. The more you think about it, it's sort of a rational. And he says this, we take every thought captive to obey Christ. Oh no, we don't give Diaz, worldviews theologies, the power to bind us up and plunder our lives. Now we do something different. We actually take every single thought idea worldview and we take it captive. We bind it up and we make sure that it is according to, to Christ. So let's pull back for a moment. It is a pastor's job to identify philosophies, worldviews theologies ideas that threaten to plunder the minds of our people to not address them as unloving, to let them just go by. Like, they're no big deal is not honoring to you.
Speaker 1 00:08:21 So this pastoral tradition actually goes back 2000 years to the very beginning of the early church. And from the very beginning of the early church, false ideas, worldviews theologies have crept their way into the local church. And nobody, I have never met anybody who has been like, I think I'm going to be taken captive and plundered mentally, intellectually, and socially today. Nobody, but there's nobody trying to experience this. And let's be honest just about everybody in this room. Aren't you pretty much doing the best you can, what you got. And so is everybody outside of this room. And so is everybody watching, like, we're all trying to figure this thing out. We're all trying to figure out how to live in a way that is honestly filled with integrity or truthful. And if you believe in Jesus Christ, you're trying to figure out how to live in a way that brings God glory in accordance to his word.
Speaker 1 00:09:13 And maybe you're hearing, you're searching and you don't know what you believe. Here's the benefit of the doubt to you. You're trying to figure it out. And it's not easy to figure out the purpose of life and the meaning of life and everything else. And so there's a, there's a real struggle. And so it is understandable for 2000 years of church history, bad ideas have crept in and taking captive Christians minds and plundered their souls and lives. And it is the pastor's job to rise up and to say no more. In fact, we're going to, we're going to train you to be able to spot these laws so that they don't have the ability to plunder you anymore. In fact, what we want to do, we want to do is we want to give you the ability to take captive those thoughts to the obedience of Christ and have the no longer take you count them.
Speaker 1 00:09:57 So I want to introduce you to a word. This word has a lot of baggage to it, and maybe it's possible. Some of you have a bad experience with this word, but despite what dumb people do with decent words, the word still has value. It's a theological term and here's the term. It is the word heresy. Now, again, this has been a term that has been wielded, like a sword and people have been burned at the stake for being heretics. But even though people take it out of context and it has a sorted history in and out of the church, um, the word has theological depth and meaning that I want you to understand Hirsi is any false idea that subverts a gospel essential it's any false idea that subverts a gospel essential. And I want to illustrate this with a very simple math equation, three plus three equals.
Speaker 1 00:10:53 It's not a trick. That's simple. All right, pastor's love to trick, you know, Jesus, that's what it equals not good enough. Three plus three equals six. If you change it, any variable in that equation, the equation becomes a lie. You take out any three and you swap it with any other number. You take out the equal sign, you take the plus, you make it a minus. You make it a multiplication. You make it a division. If you take out any variable, the entire equation ceases to be true. Even if all the parts of the equation are decent parts and such, it is with the gospel. The gospel must be simple and pure, but there are some ideas that when you add to the gospel, subtract from the gospel or substitute with the gospel, the gospel no longer becomes the gospel. And if we're going to actually fight ideas that are plundering people's minds and hearts, you need spiritual weapons.
Speaker 1 00:11:54 You need a pure gospel. You need to have clear teaching from God's word. You need spiritual help because these are spiritual issues. And so when we talk about heresy, a heresy is any idea that subverts the gospels, any thing that his attitude, so attracted to or substituted for any element in the gospel. For example, let me give you a couple illustrations of this. In the second century, one of the most famous pastors in the world, his name is Irenaeus. He wrote a book in one 88 D called against heresies. This is 90 years, by the way, after the book of revelation, and we're already experiencing enough heresies to the point where one of the most important pastors in the world is writing a book called against heresies, fighting against this evil insidious worldview of their day called Gnosticism in the second and third century, there was a heresy that emerged called Marcy aneurysm.
Speaker 1 00:12:50 You don't have to remember this, but here's the heresy. They believed that the God of the old Testament was vengeful and terrible and evil. And then there's a new God that came in in the new Testament that God of love. And that God is different than the God of the old Testament. And, and so what happened, pastors would rise up and they would say, no, that is not true. In fact, you have erased the entire picture of who God is by framing the God of the old Testament like this. In fact, that's, that's kind of a really important thing. In the fourth century, there was a heresy called area aneurysm and Erin, Erin is and believed that Jesus, although he was the son of God, he wasn't eternal. He was created. And though he was divine. He was of a lesser divinity than the father.
Speaker 1 00:13:31 Well, let me just little clue for you. Jesus is fully God, fully, man, anything less than that is heresy Jesus ceases to be who Jesus is required to be, to be the payment of our sins. And then in the fifth century, there was a heresy called Pelagianism and plagiarism taught that Christians could earn their way to heaven that people were fundamentally good and that you didn't need God's help in order to be saved. And so there was a pastor in the fourth and fifth century. His name is Augustan. Uh, you might've heard of Saint Augustan or Augustine of hippo. And he wrote the confessions of Augustan. So he spent the majority of his life writing and fighting against area aneurysm. And polygenism equipping the church to not buy into these heresies every scene. I mean, literally we could go every century, there are one, two, three or five Harrises that creep into the church and threaten to subvert the gospel.
Speaker 1 00:14:28 And when the gospel is subverted, it loses its power because it no longer ceases to be the gospel. When you add to it, take away from it or substitute a key element with something else. Now here, here's what I love. Guess who's left standing century after century, after century Jesus pure true, true believers who believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. There, there have been some centuries in church history, by the way, that have looked really, really sad. And yet there is still a remnant faithful people to Jesus, to the word and to the gospel. So today we're launching a two week series on a, it is a heresy, but I want to, I don't mean that to be an attacking word. I mean it to be a clarifying word. Uh, and it's a heresy that has probably affected every single person in this room, whether you have ever heard of it or not.
Speaker 1 00:15:22 And so this morning, what I want to do is I want to give you a vocabulary for this. I want to help you think biblically. And I want to just help protect your mind from some of these really insidious ideas that feel good, but are not actually congruent with historic Christianity and the gospel. All right. So what we're going to look at for the next two weeks is called progressive Christianity. So two things I really want you to know before we talk about this number one, uh, the next two weeks, I'm not going to talk about a specific church, nor am I going to mention any names whatsoever. Uh, it's really unfortunate. We live in a moment where, um, Christians, non-Christians everybody, uh, there is an unusual freedom to just demonize.
Speaker 1 00:16:07 And I just want to say this, even if I believe the ideology has its root in demonic origins, I've never met a person who is a demon. And some of these people are your kids. They're your grandkids, they're your friends, they your coworkers. So let, let it be said of us, whether you're a progressive Christian, you're an atheist, you're a searching agnostic. Whether you're an evangelical Christian, a Pentecostal, I don't care. Let it be said that when you engage anybody at village church, that we loved you well, that we didn't require you to conform to our beliefs and standards to make ourselves feel good. We didn't judge you with this condemning attitude. When you ask some of your most difficult questions, when you had terrible thoughts and ideas about us, let it be said of us that we loved you. Well, let it be said of us that we don't need you to agree with us in order to be great France in order to be family or to have dinner together.
Speaker 1 00:17:05 We're okay with a little bit of diversity in thinking, because I don't believe that me demanding of you, conformity is going to change your mind or your heart. The gospel at the right time will change your heart of God. So wills. And so let it be said of us that, and even in this sermon, that if you're sitting here and you're like, I am a progressive Christian hook line and sinker, um, I am not out to get you. In fact, I would love to talk with you. I love to talk to people that I don't agree with. It is a lot of fun, as long as you like having fun conversations.
Speaker 1 00:17:36 So let it be said of us that we are not demonizing. This is not a sermon for progressive Christians. It's a sermon for village church. It's a sermon for people who love Jesus, who want to be rooted in the word and Christ and the gospel. But there are going to be people who don't believe that that are probably in this room and you're going to send this sermon. If there's anything here that is not accurate or loving, then that's not my intention. And I don't want that to be part of this. If you send this to progressive Christian, you say, let's talk about this. Guy's crazy sermon and debate it may they know that there is not one ounce of hatred. I really believe you're probably doing the best you can just like I am doing the best I can with the limitations that I have.
Speaker 1 00:18:14 Here's the second thing I want you to know. This series short as it is, is designed to help you and to serve you as you follow Jesus. One of my jobs is to inoculate you from insidious ideas and to give you diagnostic tools so that you can be aware of what's happening around you. And when some of these things started to happen inside of you, which is normal, you don't have to freak out. You can actually reroute yourself back into the word of God. So here's how the next two weeks are going to flow this week. We're going to answer the question. What is progressive Christianity? It's probably a question. Many of you are wondering right now, what are key identifiers of progressive Christianity? And why are Christians especially young Christians drawn to progressive Christianity. And the next week we're going to look at these questions.
Speaker 1 00:18:59 How do I avoid future Harris's? Cause this is not the last really bad idea. That's going to subvert the gospel that tries to make its way into the church and pop culture. How do I engage my loved ones who ascribed to pre progressive Christianity and, and are progressive Christians saved. Okay, what is it in the last decade particularly it has taken. It has basically gotten a lot of steam to capture the minds and hearts of some who do and have attended village church. Many of your kids, your grandkids, more and more churches in our area. And honestly the majority of mainline denominations in America. There's this thought, I'll just put it out there for you that when a church is declining, numerically and financially, there are some leadership teams that think let's change our views on really important biblical issues and maybe make the gospel not as essential and open it up to just tell you, anytime you subvert the gospel, the word of God, let me see.
Speaker 1 00:20:00 This is 99.9% of the time you are literally going to send your church red spiral. It never goes well. It does not well anywhere. And, and pastors in decline, they think if we just compromise on a few things that are go better in it, doesn't it doesn't. So here's what progressive Christianity is. It's a movement that seeks to reassess, reinterpret and redefine the core essentials of the Christian faith. I'll say this again, it's a movement that seeks to reassess reinterpret and redefine the core essentials of the Christian faith, including, but not limited to the gospel. The gospel goes from being from good news for anybody who trust in Jesus Christ, no matter where you live to fundamentally and simply a social gospel where we bring equity and justice to the world, do we want to bring justice to this world in a way that brings God glory, for sure, but at the cost of the gospel, never they're seeking to reassess, interpret and redefine the nature of the Bible from God's inerrant and authoritative word to, and here's some phrases as you engage different pastors teachers or progressive leaders, they'll say things like the Bible is a divine book, an ancient writing, uh, revealing snapshots of how God's people express the divine in their context.
Speaker 1 00:21:29 Each book of the Bible reflects humanity's evolution in our tr and in turn, as culture evolves, our theology must evolve with it. And so they see the Bible more as a snapshot of a time in history where even plausibly God revealed himself to those people for that moment. But as culture evolves and progresses, therefore the church and our theology from their perspectives should evolve and progress. They're seeking to reassess. We interpret and redefined sexual ethics from seeing sex as sacred and intended for marriage, between a man and a woman, to seeing people as sexually diverse and freed from sexual restraints like marriage or heterosexuality, or you name it, the Bible's sexual ethic was for then, but as a culture, if I'm a progressive, we have evolved since then and our theology and practice and need to evolve with it. They're seeking to reassess, reinterpret and redefine identity ethics from seeing things like sexual biology as God-ordained and good to fluid biology would be suggestive, but in no way, determinative and the Bibles gender and identity ethic was for then, but as culture has progressed and evolved, we now need a new theological ethic that is in line with the times and the progresses are moving.
Speaker 1 00:22:58 And I think this is really interesting because people are moved by vision and their vision of the future. And our cultural moment is very compelling. Their vision of the future is they're going to bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and they are going to fight at all costs for a world where everything, the thing is fair, always just equitable, all are included, no matter what you do or don't do, unless you disagree. And to reject there values is to be for progressives. These are progressive Christians. These are very normal words. They use on the wrong side of theological history, outdated, antiquated, and here's the most personal offensive thing from their tribe that they could say to you. You are unjust.
Speaker 2 00:23:56 So
Speaker 1 00:23:56 What I want to do is I want to take a look at each of these words, progressive, and then Christian, and kind of unpack them. So progressive, progressive Christianity, it's heavily influenced by progressivism. Now some of you think I'm talking politics and I am not because above theology and politics and social views are bigger ideas, ideologies, and philosophies. And one of them is called progressivism. It's actually an entire way of seeing the world and progressivism as an ideology. It is probably not. What many of you understand it to be? I want to, I want to give you just a simple, clear vocabulary. Progressivism transcends all of this, and it is rightly contrasted with the notion of conservative. So you can be, I haven't told you really how this works out, but you can be theologically conservative and politically progressive. You could be politically conservative and feel logically progressive, so less you less.
Speaker 1 00:24:54 You think I'm putting all of this into a political bucket. I'm not, I'm not even dabbling in politics. That is a whole different conversation, not for the pulpit, but careful that when you see a progressive Christian, you don't put them into a political camp because it doesn't always play that way. So for example, the vast majority of village church would be what we call conservative, theologically conservative, but you go to the theological conservative, and you're going to have a very politically and diverse church. So one does not equal the other. So be careful that you don't put words into my mouth that I'm not white. You're not quite saying, so the difference between a progressive and a conservative ideologically, it's one word, it's a thorny who or what gets to determine what is true, right? And just, and whatever it gets to determine that controls how you think.
Speaker 1 00:25:49 And progressives have a very clear, although often unspoken view of authority. So Progressive's whether you're talking politically now, theologically, socially doesn't matter. Typically they have key core authoritative documents. But what you need to know about these documents is that they believe the documents are essentially in fundamentally flawed. And as culture evolves and progresses, the documents need to evolve and progress with them. And so when we get to theological progressive progressivism, well, you understand is that they believe that the inherent documents of the word of God are flawed. And as culture progresses, that the documents need to evolve and progress with them. They have a core conviction and here it is, our core documents should evolve. As culture progresses in progressivism, they have a clear authority and it's not their documents. It is always culture because the documents are always evolving in line with the direction of pop moral culture. And so this is what every progressive needs to understand that whatever you believe today will not be a hundred years from now or 50 years from now. And at the rate, we're going two months from now, what Progressive's believe it's got to change because by its very nature, it's never static.
Speaker 1 00:27:15 Now let's talk about conservative conservatism. They have authoritative documents, but conservatism has a much higher view of their authoritative documents. In fact, they believe their authoritative documents are divinely inspired and they communicate principles that transcend cultures. So they're true, always in everywhere, no matter what culture or time you find yourself in. And so here's the conservatives core conviction. Our core documents transcend our cultural moment because they are rooted in eternal principles. And so for the theological conservative, here's the, that means the Bible is there a it, and it applies to everyone everywhere, no matter what century they live in, no matter what part of the world they live in, because it's true. Always for everyone. Hear me when it's interpreted rightly in its context for conservative, that's our fundamental view.
Speaker 1 00:28:10 Now, statistically, if you're going to be theologically conservative, you will be more inclined to political conservatism. And if you are theologically progressive, you will be inclined to political progressivism, but that is proving itself, especially in the last six to 12 months. It is unbelievable how many people are picking one and the other and they seem to contradict each other, but they actually kind of don't. And so you can't any longer put a theological conservative into your small little bucket and assume that they're going to agree with you politically or socially and vice versa. So it's kind of a trippy world. You know what that means? You just got to listen to people, talk to them and be really nice. Otherwise you're never going to really know what they think. Let's look at the second word, Christian, progressive Christianity has Christian roots. So from the beginning of time, heresies and bad ideas have loved to attach themselves to the word Christian, because it gives them like immediate credibility.
Speaker 1 00:29:04 It makes you feel good, right? And so it's like, oh, we're a progressive Christian. So it's so fundamental Christian. But just because somebody hijacks the word doesn't mean that it's at all. Christian. In fact, Christian has a very real meaning to, for something to be thoroughly Christian. It needs to be rooted in Jesus, the real historical Jesus, the God man, Jesus through faith and has to be rooted in the gospel. The pure, simple gospel without wavering. It has to be rooted in the word of God as our authority for all of life. When understood and applied in its context. That's what it means to be truly Christian. But we live in a time where there's really not a lot accountability for how people use words and people can self identify in terms of Christian or not, and make it mean whatever they want it to mean.
Speaker 1 00:29:52 But Christianity actually has meaning not progressive. Christianity has emerged primarily, if not, almost exclusively out of evangelical churches, they were born and bred here. There are really legitimate reasons for why they have left it. So what are some of the key identifiers of a progressive Christian? Well, it's actually really challenging because it's a spectrum. So I'm going to read for you seven identifiers and you might not agree with all of them. If you're a progressive, you might actually not consider yourself progressive, but you might agree with one or two of them. And you're kind of wrestling. There are some people who are trying to figure some things out. So you might recognize some of these. Uh, there are some people who are all in bought and sold far, just progressive. Like I'm all in, I'm a progressive Christian. And here's the reality with everybody. You kind of just have to listen to them and talk to them and treat them like a human being and let them process this out.
Speaker 1 00:30:47 Because whether they agree with you or not, you're getting emotional or frustrated or mandating, isn't going to make them change anything. It's going to push them away. And so here's what I think evangelical Christianity has to get this into our brains. We love hard conversations and questions. We're good at it. I don't have all the answers. I don't even know. Like I don't even know where to start with some questions, but doggone, I'm not afraid of it. And so we're just going to, we're going to have dialogue. And, and one of the things we got to get used to is like people, especially if they're trying to like search out the Bible, this can be a multi-year process. You can't rush it by yelling or preaching or getting frustrated or shutting down arguments. Like the church should be one of the most safe place, places to ask and to process or whatever questions you have.
Speaker 1 00:31:34 Historically, we, I'm not speaking for village church per se, but the evangelical church hasn't quite been that place for a lot of people. Then once, once I read this, you, if you're identifying with one, two or three of these things, again, glad you're here. Um, I hope it's helpful for you. Hope it gives you vocabulary. Progressivism has a poll and the poll is only in one direction and that is in to full progressive Christianity. And so I just want to, I want to warn you that if you don't begin answering some of these questions, there is only one direction that you're going to end up in unless you stop the train now. So here's some indicators and by the way, I stole these, these are not mine.
Speaker 1 00:32:13 Uh, you, I hear people refer to the cross as cosmic child abuse. This is very important. And the reason they do this is because they're treating Jesus as a victim. Now, if you sort of pay attention to my sermons, you'll hear me say something subtle very frequently. And I say this because I'm trying to inoculate you from crazy ideas. And this is what I say to you. Jesus was no victim, but a willing participant. If you ever heard me say something like that, he's not a victim. He's not a victim. I am going after subtly. These lies that Jesus is the victim of cosmic child abuse. Instead of seeing him as a fully logical, coherent, willing adult participant in the crucifixion. But here's what you're gonna start to hear. So the goal is to sort of cast doubt and to save things that they kind of feel good. Yeah. Like why would any father ever do that to his son? Except it was a collaborative plan between the father, son of the spiritual Jesus. Wasn't like me,
Speaker 3 00:33:18 Really. I have to do this.
Speaker 1 00:33:22 He was in on it. He willing, went to the cross. Here's the second indicator often you'll hear them less than the authority of the Bible. Often referring to it as a quote ancient document, referring to the authors as the sages of old or people doing. You got to hear this right. People doing their best to understand God, but that was for then and now we're in a different day. And again, I'm going to come back to this bigger idea of progressivism. The whole notion of it is that as culture evolves, our truth and documents need to evolve with it. So the Bible is lessened. It's not for everyone in all time. It's a snapshot so that we can learn how to progress just as they progressed. Number three, we, they elevate the good general goodness of humanity as a basic assumption. And with that comes the lack of total need for hell.
Speaker 1 00:34:17 So rarely will. You made a progressive Christian who believes in how they're almost always inevitably Universalist or moving in that direction. Uh, number four, sin does not separate us from God. Sin is a construction of religion. What is actually separating us from God is our own shame for feeling bad over things that religion tells us as bad, but isn't bad. And so shame is the ultimate enemy. As you get deeper and deeper down the progressive rabbit trail rabbit hole Jesus's humanity at the very beginning is always elevated over his deity. Inevitably, as you get to full progressivism, the DD of Christ is no longer a thing. He might be divine ish, but the idea that he is fully, God goes away. The closer, closer you get to full on progressive Christianity, the resurrection number six, and moves from an historical event to primarily a metaphor of the power of God inside of each and every one of us to overcome bad things in life.
Speaker 1 00:35:22 And then finally, number seven, there's a general downplaying ignoring redefining of miraculous events like the Virgin birth or the resurrection. If it's too magical, mystical mysterious. If it requires too much divine intervention, all of these doctrines slowly go away because in the progressive world, inevitably, the closer you get to full on progressive Christianity, it ceases to be about a personal transcendent God and it's functional agnosticism. So if you go online and you watch interviews with progressive Christians, they're almost pastors, by the way, they're almost all agnostic, almost all of them. So, but interestingly, they call themselves pastors and Christians. That's number three. Why are Christians, especially young Christians drawn to progressive Christianity. And I need you to pay attention to this because for some of you, you are mad at this because it has really impacted your life, but you need to have your empathy on because there are really understandable and legit reasons. People go down this path and it's usually some combination of four things. Number one, there, their experience that the Bible does not adequately answer. Life's most pressing questions.
Speaker 1 00:36:38 I wanna get maybe a couple of categories specifically, that they have felt that the Bible does not address adequate adequately, suffered evil pain, injustice. And I'm going to be honest. These are some of the most impossible and difficult questions to answer, because I can't tell you why God allows ordains or PR or permits, whatever specific events like I'm not in the mind of God. I don't know why these things happen. Here's what I do know if I am having questions and struggles and doubts and I come to you and I don't get an answer that is helpful, those questions and doubts and struggles, they don't go away. Do they? They percolate. They might go quiet for a season, but they're still there. Here's the second, second reason why they leave their understandable perception that the church has failed to care about or solve problems of evil and justice and oppression. What's interesting is I want to preach a whole sermon on how the world has been transformed for good through Christians and how, if Christianity was not a thing, the Judeo-Christian world, like I want to preach that sermon pronounced at the time, because it doesn't matter what I say. When they look at the world, Christianity has been the dominant force of Western culture and we see oppression and evil and pain and injustice.
Speaker 1 00:38:12 Mm. The three, their real experience of mean, and graceless Christians. All right. If you grew up in the church, do you remember that mean old guy, not here per se, but just wherever you grew up, do you remember the curmudgeony graceless woman? You got him praise. If you didn't have that, most churches have it. And what happens is some people grew up with that in their home. And this is their vision of Christianity, mean graceless judgemental, needing an enemy to thrive off of, to make ourselves feel good and elite. That's what they say. Number four, their sincere love for their LGBTQ friends and acquaintances. Just trying to figure out like, if Christianity is true, what does that mean for them? And it feels incompatible. And so you put these together. Some combination of these are going on inside of especially young people as they're trying to navigate the world.
Speaker 1 00:39:23 Because sometimes it feels like if I'm going to give my life to Jesus, a lot of the people that I know that did that they're really mean, and they're judgemental, does that mean I have to become that. I mean, honestly, don't even want to be associated with them. It's embarrassing. And yet these are some of the decisions that young people have to make. Let me just tell you a very common way that a young person or any person goes from being in a church to ultimately becoming a progressive Christian. It's almost always some variation of a very simple process. It starts off with very real,
Speaker 2 00:40:00 By the way, who doesn't have doubts. Everybody does.
Speaker 1 00:40:06 But there's this fear that if I articulate the doubt, I don't know what they're going to say. I don't know how they're going to react. And, and so a lot of times, especially if you grew up in the church, you have these doubts percolating in your brain. And you're like, I don't know what to do with them. I don't know who to tell. Then they get the guts to tell somebody and their doubts are dismissed, minimized, or poorly answered, uh, dismiss or minimize doubt. Doesn't go away. Does it? And then we feel like we have to have the perfect answer, which sometimes there is no good answer to tough questions, but you look at pain, evil, and justice, by the way, the progressive worldview offers nothing. It just tells you we're not then like, these are really hard questions to answer. And so they're dismissed. They're minimizing poorly answered. And I'm going to say one word here that I, I don't want you to laugh at because if you're over 35, you may not get this, but this is real. What I'm about to tell you someone in authority and more and more, this person is a YouTuber.
Speaker 2 00:41:11 Sometimes a teacher and older your sibling,
Speaker 1 00:41:15 A pastor, they use cultural logic to answer their deep questions. And you know what? Cultural logic feeds feels like a warm hug. It feels good, but it's empty philosophy. I am struck when I engage people who are willing to engage in ideas. When you hit an empty philosophy and you bring it to its limit, they either have to face it or get mad at you because to face that you believe is an empty philosophy. For some people that is way too hard to handle because the implications are great, but someone in authority gave them an answer. And that answer feels really good here. Here's, here's a cultural mantra. That's like a big hug. A God of love would never have allowed that to happen. There are so many things wrong with that statement, but what does it feel like? It feels like a warm hug,
Speaker 2 00:42:21 But it's false.
Speaker 1 00:42:23 Our God is perfect and righteous and holy and there have been hundreds of millions of people who've died in war and the 20th century alone and the two don't negate each other. Do I have an answer for that? Not really, but the cultural logic feels good. Here's the next step there? Cultural logic is, is beginning to give them a hope that they don't have to feel like the questions are unanswered. Then they see their LGBTQ friends and they can't believe that God would not want them to love who they want or to be who they want to be. And that is the straw that breaks the camel's back for most people it's in-congruent, they don't get it. They can't understand it. And they almost feel like if they become a Christian, then they're forced to hate these people, which that is a ridiculous dichotomy as well. Like how has being a Christian make you hate anybody? That's just so backwards.
Speaker 1 00:43:24 Then they find a Christian teacher somewhere or a church that allows them. I want you to hear this to have Jesus and do whatever they want to do without judgment. You get heaven and you're free without judgment to do anything anywhere. Anyhow. And then finally they're in a community that accepts them and loves them no matter what. And rarely if ever calls them out on anything, unless they begin to move towards conservatism. And that is to lose your entire life. Do you see the story? And it's everywhere. Progressive Christianity offers heaven and freedom to sin and that's, you can see why that feels good, but here's the problem when you take away or when you add or you any piece of the gospel, it ceases to be the gospel and it ceases to have the power to transform you and to save you. And so when we see an insidious idea that threatens to slowly dismantle someone's confidence in Jesus, the word or the gospel, I want to open up God's word and say, listen, this is here and this is real.
Speaker 1 00:44:57 And there are things that we can do to mitigate the damage. Just being done. I want to end with a couple. So what's number one, ask and invite the hardest questions you have questions. Ask them. Don't hesitate. I may not have the answer. Some answers by the way, don't come right away. Some answers take time. Some answers take thoughtfulness. But I have found is that the best things in life, the best answers are usually nuanced. They usually don't come and fluffy mantras that make me feel like bunny rabbits. They usually come through pain and through thought and prayer and processing. And so one of the things we tell people is like, sometimes you got to do some hard work in order to get to the answer. Sometimes the answer is simple as open up a Bible verse. And here's what it says. And it means what it says.
Speaker 1 00:45:49 And this is true. And this is real. Sometimes it's that easy, but some of these questions, if they were so easy to answer, we'd be able to open up a Bible verses say, here, take this pill. You should be better, but it's not that easy. So here's what we do. We ask the hardest questions, but we also invite the hardest questions. And so some, some young people, especially they've brought up some ideas or questions. Their mom and dad and mom got freaked out. And it's like, you don't need to freak out about anything. You, you literally don't. Jesus is good. He is God, he is sovereign. He loves your kids and grandkids and neighbors and friends and coworkers more than you ever could imagine. And he is patient. And that process can sometimes take years. Obviously we want everybody to love Jesus. We want everybody to be deeply rooted to have no doubts ever, but that's not real life is it?
Speaker 1 00:46:36 And so here's what we find. We are going to be profoundly patient with the process and the process can be gut wrenching. And the closer you are relationally, it can bring you to tears and prayer, like nothing else, but these are spiritual strongholds. And sometimes people got to go through their process. So we ask and we invite the hardest questions. I went to Michigan state university for my freshman year of college. And I took a class my first semester called Judaism. And the teacher is so smart at a bajillion degrees in Hebrew and Aramaic and every the language. And you can imagine, and he had like one objective, uh, in this class. And it was to get every single person to believe that the Bible was a fairytale by the end of the semester. And I sat in that class for two weeks and he was talking and here's what went through my brain.
Speaker 1 00:47:23 I cannot think of anything anybody could ever tell me that could prove this guy wrong, his logic, his documentation, from where I was sitting, I was like, I think this might be the undoing of my faith. I'd never in my life, heard somebody so smart with so many resources dismantled the word of God. So I went to the Michigan state university library and I found book after book, after book that basically corroborated his entire view, go figure they didn't have any like conservative theologically Christian books on the issues of the inerrancy authority, reliability of the historical documents of the Bible. Right? So then I went to my church and I was so glad because my church, they are, they were thinkers. Uh, they invited the toughest questions and our pastor put a sophomore at Michigan state named Scott on me. And Scott helped me read a couple books.
Speaker 1 00:48:16 And it was very interesting because as I read and I read and I read one of the things they did, which was so amazing is that they actually brought me to the original documents of the, of the problems that my, my actual teacher, my professor was quoting. So he would read a book and say, this is what this book says. It would quote a document and take it completely out of context. And you know what I've found with most of the theological progressive literature, it has no integrity there, freedom to misquote, and to take things out of context blew my mind for two weeks. I sat in that class, not knowing what to do with these factual propositional statements said by this guy read in this book. And then you look at the note at the bottom and you would go read what was actually written in those.
Speaker 1 00:49:00 And they did not agree with each other. It was amazing. And I would bring these eventually to the professor and say, you said this, the book says this here's the original, how do you make sense of this? You're not even quoting this in context. And I learned at that moment, truth always wins. Eventually truth is true, no matter what, I don't need to be afraid of anything. And here's what I have found in 20 some years of pastoral ministry. And trying to figure this stuff is, is that inevitably the right information when you get it, it is true and it is helpful. And there is a lot of terrible wrong information. And what I found at Michigan state, and I've learned over and over again with multiple students in this church, went to college, is that these books are not always telling you the truth and they don't care to quote accurately.
Speaker 1 00:49:47 That is not their highest value, their highest values to when a generation over to their thinking. When it comes to this stuff, I got to tell you truth will win. And if Jesus is true in the word of God is trustworthy. Be patient, do the research. Watch, watch God prove himself to be true eventually. And sometimes it's not easy. Let me be clear again, one and maybe a hundred thousand people, not even that, like who's going to wake up and say, today, I'm going to reject 2000 years of church history and doctrine be a heretic.
Speaker 2 00:50:19 Nobody. It's not how it works.
Speaker 1 00:50:23 I sat in that class trying the best I could to make sense of this information without the resources. And thank God I had a good church with a bunch of pastors who had tons of degrees who were exactly where I was. And they connected me with great literature that taught me how to bypass the mumbo-jumbo that I was getting, what a gift. So what I learned is I may not have the answers right away. I might have to do a lot of research, but truth is there when you find it. It's wonderful. Number two will Willow Creek a couple years ago, put out a, uh, these signs and I loved them. And they said, love everyone, always, and people all over Chicago had, do you remember that? And I remember looking at that and it's like, what's so funny about that. That was novel.
Speaker 3 00:51:12 Yeah. That's crazy. Like, how is that novel? And I remember I was looking at him like, do I agree with that?
Speaker 2 00:51:21 Why would I agree with that?
Speaker 1 00:51:23 Like love everyone. One always sometimes love disciplines. Sometimes love is quiet. Love looks different, all different circumstances, but let it be said of us that we are the most loving people on the planet. Let it be said of us that when you call me names and you disagree with me, or you got questions that I am patient, and my identity is not bound up in what you think it's clear in Christ. Let it be said that I walked with you. If you were willing to let me walk. And if you weren't, I still loved you. Anyway, let it be said of me that I don't need you to agree with me to be friends with me, let it be said of us that these things are true. When people interface with us, like let's give them no reason whatsoever to say I'm not listening to that person, project my ideas, but man, I'm going to, I'm going to love you the best that I can. And here's number three, choose your ultimate authority on purpose. Uh, Christian's authority progressive or otherwise comes down to one or two options. And there really aren't any others. Your authority is either going to be the Bible or it's going to be culture. These are your options.
Speaker 2 00:52:29 And the reason I say on purpose is this because
Speaker 1 00:52:33 You are born and bred in this culture, it is your heart language. If you don't choose intentionally and on purpose, a different authority, you will, you will default to culture. That is the default. Every person has to come to grips with the person of Jesus Christ and they have to come to grips with his Lordship and salvation and authority over your life. And then they have to come to grips that he's revealed himself in Jesus. He's revealed himself in the word and the word of God is authoritative and truthful. And it will be the transcultural rule of our life. No matter where I am, when I am, it will be the standard for life truth in faith when understood rightly and its context. And so everybody has to make that decision. And what I want to encourage you is if you've personally trusted in Christ, but you've never made the commitment to have the Bible be your authority.
Speaker 1 00:53:23 Now's the time to do that. If you've trusted in Christ, before you get to the Bible, let's start with Jesus. Have you personally trusted in Christ that he might be the Supreme Lord of your life, your God, your Lord, your master, and these two things. When they come together, the gospel gets so clear, the simple, pure, beautiful gospel. So what I want to do is I want to close it. I want to pray for you and for a time. And, uh, Hey, congratulations. By the way you made it through a 53 minute lecture on progressive Christianity. I'm so proud of you. You did amazing all the kids like rocking and only 17 of you fell asleep. No, I'm kidding. I didn't see anybody fall asleep. All right. I want to pray for you. And then we're going to celebrate communion together, father, I love you.
Speaker 1 00:54:06 We love you. It's hard to weed out all the ideas of this world. And Lord as Christians, we get to disagree on so many secondary and tertiary ideas and doctrines, but Lord, there are some of these ideas that are just too close or give us the wisdom and discernment to see these ideas, worldviews philosophies and theologies for what they are, but word, would you also give us a heart of patience and compassion because we have been called to be bright shining lights of love and gospel truth to this generation, help us. We want to be faithful, but we also want to be fruitful and love. Well, Lord, in this time in history, the two feel almost really hard to keep, to keep together that you're bigger than all of this. And you given us your spirit to help us know. There are probably many watching and listening who are just struggling through this and what it means.
Speaker 1 00:55:08 And maybe there's been vocabulary puts the things that they've never had before. And, and Lord, I I'm just so thankful that you are patient. You walk with us through our questions or doubts and our struggles. I think of Thomas, who just struggled and, and you let him live in that doubt and struggle for a time. And then you revealed yourself to him in such such a personal and beautiful way that he can never deny in that, that man went on to change the world. So God, I just think if your patients and I pray for my brothers and sisters in the room who are watching her, just struggling through this Lord, would you prove yourself to be true and patient and kind, and good despite how hard it is to get some of these big questions answered Lord, most of all, thank you for Jesus. All of our wrong thoughts, all of our wrong ideas, all of her wrong approaches. You cover us by the blood of Christ and we are righteous before you. So when we die and we stand before you, we are saved. We are forgiven and we are redeemed and our eternity is secure. Not because we had perfect doctrine, but because we believe the gospel and you save us. We love you. We thank you in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
