Christianity And Liberalism--Two Opposing Views

As we have said before,

so now I say again.

If anyone preaches any

other gospel to you than

what you have received,

let him be accursed.

For do I now persuade men,

or God? Or do I seek to please men?

for if I still pleased men, I would

not be a bondservant of Christ.

Galatians 1:9-10

      When Paul wrote to the Churches in Galatia he was addressing the fact that they were turning to another Gospel, another message was being preached: "I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ" (Galatians 1:6-7). It was within the Church that this problem arose and not from some people who were outside the Church and opposing the new movement of Christianity. It was those, especially the Judaizers, who did not disclaim the facts of the message, for they did not, the Judaizers held to many of the teachings that other Christians held, but they did the thing that is so prevalent in Churches today, they added to the message making their message a different message from true Christianity. This adding to the message and the avoidance to speak and teach Doctrine and replace Doctrine with the notion that to be a Christian you must experience it and your life becomes justified by God in the way of life. Doctrine is a priori to life, not the other way around but the teachings of such men as Jacobus Arminius and those followers of his theology, the Arminian theolgians, have done just that they have added to the message by insisting on experience as a sign of being a Christian and further they have allowed the culture that was being influenced by the Enlightenment era and now in the Modernism, or Post Modernism, to determine their theology. Yes, there is an experience in Christianity, but that experience comes after Doctrine, otherwise in what is the basis for your experience? Let us look at other men, and women who have forwarded into our time their ideologies, and theologies that are not the message of the Bible.

     William Paley an English Christian apologist, philosopher, and utilitarian; Utilitarianism is an ethical theory holding that the proper course of action is the one that maximizes the overall "happiness." It is thus a form of consequentialism; meaning that only its resulting outcome, is what one can determine the moral worth of an action by weighing the morality of an action after knowing all its consequences. He is best known for his exposition of the teleological argument; that is; is an a posteriori argument for the existence of God based on apparent design and purpose in the universe. The argument is based on an interpretation of teleology wherein purpose and design appear to exist in nature beyond the scope of any such human activities. The teleological argument suggests that, given this premise, the existence of a designer can be assumed, typically presented as God. Paley made use of these arguments for the existence of God in his work Natural Theology, which made use of the watchmaker analogy and is:

1. The complex inner workings of a watch necessitate an intelligent designer.
2. As with a watch, the complexity of X (a particular organ or organism, the structure of the solar system, life, the universe, everything) necessitates a designer.

       Two Christians men stand out as fervent adherents to Christianity although were opposed in theology over Arminianism and Calvinism, yet for the Wesleyan theology that exists in today’s Methodist Churches there as been and expansion of John Wesley’s (1703-1791 A.D.) theology, that had focus on personal faith and holiness, and they succeeded. John Wesley took the reformation churches to task over the nature of sanctification, the process by which a believer is made to conform to the image of Christ, and in many ways restored the New Testament teachings regarding the work of God and the believer in sanctification. Yet, he held to the teaching of Arminius, that man by their works and experience is the way to be justified. When Methodism began in the New World the adherents to John Wesley favor emotionalism and Wesley’s teaching also stressed experiential religion and moral responsibility taking on a form of its own a form that can be found in some Churches today, and can be found to exist in Methodist Churches. George Whitfield (1714–1770 A.D.) was a firm Calvinist in his theology and was an unrivaled aggressive evangelist. Whitefield had profound affect on people and Churches of many traditions, i.e., Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and Baptists. It is calculated that George Whitefield preached over 18,000 sermons in his lifetime. Whitefield held the the teachings of John Calvin stressing the need for believers to remain faithful to the Scripture and to hold fast to the Doctrine handed down from the beginning. With the onslaught of new thought, the Enlightenment era having such an impact on society the voices of men who kept the faith and kept before people God, the God of the Bible, yet even in the Christian circles of men who loved God and desired to serve Him, false teaching was having its way in the Churches. It was and is not Atheism that is causing problems in the Church, the problem exists in the Church. These two forces were at odds with each other and those Christian who held to the Bible, men even with some theology that led eventually to exercises of religion that contradicted each other, did not destroy Christianity and Christianity was not dead and buried, rather it was alive even though wounded and found revival.

 Lutheran Pietism led by Philipp J. Spener (1635–1705 A.D.) and Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772 A.D.) found similarity with Methodism and yet Swedenborg attempted to reconcile science and revelation, and in time his theology led to an emotional and mystic form of Christianity. Spener though, stressed Bible study, hymn singing, (a thing so devoid in many Churches and replaced with little ditty songs), and powerful preaching, especially exegetical preaching and not isogesis preaching whereby preachers use allegory and stories to present the Bible. Count Nicholaus von Zinzendor (1700–1769 A.D.) founder of the Moravian movement was a very eclectic theologian. He called his group the "Church of God in the Spirit" or the "Congregation of God in the Spirit." Zinzendorf's theology is very relational and profoundly Christ-centered. Rather than focusing on doctrine or belief, it emphasizes the growth of the spiritual relationship between the believer and the Savior. It is not hard to find this form of preaching in many Churches today.

      There is a need for those who desire to serve the Lord Jesus Christ to become once again familiar with the Doctrines of the Bible, to return to the message that was the foundation for those in the beginning of this new movement that began a few days after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It can be easily seen that there have been and are some theologians who seem to have a belief that is Christian but have added many things that are not Scriptural, therefore they have changed the message and by changing the message all they have done is to teach what is not Scriptural, their message is a different message, a message devoid of the Doctrines that were in place from the beginning.

You ran well. Who hindered you

     from obeying the truth?

this persuasion does not come

     from Him who calls you.

A litter leaven leavens the 

     whole lump.

                               Galatians 5:7-8

God Is Calling For Obedience

Richard L. Crumb