Where feminism questions the place of the maleness of Jesus in the bigger story of the Christian gospel, transgender ideology undermines the very reality of his maleness altogether. Whether or not Jesus was a man, a woman, or some non-binary “other” becomes an open-ended question in the worldview of contemporary gender theorists.[6]. What is one to do in the face of such destructive ideological trends that undermine the truth about Jesus?

From its very beginning, true Christianity has been threatened by false teachers that disguise themselves with the terminology of the Christian faith but define the terms in radically different ways. These are the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus and the apostles warned us about (see Matt. 7:15 and Acts 20:29). In Machen’s day, the most threatening wolf among the sheep was classic liberalism in the mold of Schleiermacher, Strauss, Von Harnack, and Rauschenbusch. Such thinkers and their disciples had feasted on the fare of enlightenment modernism and were feeding it in large supply to the unsuspecting masses. In our day, the modernist presuppositions of that age have given way to postmodernism with a plethora of ideologies that are hostile to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Many of these ideas find happy expression under the banner of “progressive Christianity” where they are comfortably peddled with historic, Christian labels. But make no mistake, the labels are not defined in historic, Christian ways. As with the liberalism of Machen’s day, the progressive ideas of our own day are not really a version of Christianity but a different religion altogether.
Major Ideological Challenges to Orthodox Christology
Many are the challenges facing true Christianity generally, and Christology specifically, under the present-day banner of progressive Christianity. In Part One, I summarized the major critiques Machen leveled against liberal Christology. In this second part of the essay I will briefly survey just three of these destructive ideas and how they impact Christology in particular. I will follow this with a summary of three historic, orthodox Christological convictions evident in Machen’s chapter on the person of Christ because no matter the specific form of the doctrine of wolves, the doctrine of the true sheep is consistent from age to age. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). His sheep hear his voice; he knows them, and they follow him (John 10:27). Just as Christ himself does not change, neither does his trusted and true voice to his beloved sheep.
1. Religious Pluralism
One of the banner truths of progressive Christianity today is religious pluralism. According to the ideology of pluralism, all religious truth claims have validity as pathways to ultimate fulfillment. The real test for the legitimacy of religious truth is not the distinctive claims of a particular religion but the common ground they all share. For example, a Muslim may regard Muhammed as the greatest and only infallible prophet, a Buddhist may seek nirvana through transcendental meditation, and an orthodox Christian may seek heaven through faith in Jesus and forgiveness of sins. These evident differences, however, are not the heart of true religion according to pluralism. The heart is to be found in certain moral principles they all share, rooted in love for one’s fellow man. By prioritizing the common principles of love and basic morality (what true Christianity understands in terms of general revelation, common grace, and natural law) over the particularizing doctrinal claims of each tradition, pluralism seeks to eliminate any claim of uniqueness on the part of Christianity or any other religion.
It is not difficult to see how pluralism directly affects the historic doctrine of the person of Christ. Orthodox Christians in every age have believed and confessed that the Lord Jesus Christ, who became truly human, is also truly God from all eternity. Christians affirm the doctrine of the Trinity, that the one true and living God exists eternally as three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One of these divine persons, the Son, “took on flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) as Jesus of Nazareth. The eternally begotten Son of God became the temporally born Son of Mary—two distinct categories of sonship, one and the same Son. If pluralism is true, however, then the historic Christian doctrines of Trinity and incarnation cannot be true. If the eternally divine Son became a man and opened the way for his sheep to have eternal life, that particular way is unique among all other claims. That is, if the New Testament claims about the deity of Christ are true, then its claims of exclusivity are necessarily true as well. If, as pluralism would have it, the New Testament claims of exclusivity are not true, then the deity of Christ is necessarily untrue also, and the historic Christian doctrine of the incarnation becomes mere myth or metaphor.[1]
2. Feminism
Another dominant ideological force of progressive Christianity is feminism. The general narrative that women have been subjugated by men throughout history—and that the chief moral aim of mankind ought to be liberation of women from this oppression—has made its way into the discourse of Christian theology at the hands of feminist theologians. Noting the prevalence of masculine names, imagery, and language for God in the Bible—God as warrior, God as “Father,” male pronouns for God, etc.—feminist theologians have sought to “liberate” Scripture from the “androcentric patriarchy” of the cultural ethos in which it was written. This inevitably resulted in a feminization of God-talk that took many forms—appealing to the language of “goddess,” searching for biblical and theological warrant to call God “Mother,” and the explicit use of feminine pronouns for God.
Direct re-thinking of Christology was not far behind the broader trends of feminist theology. Feminist theologians were quick to raise the question of whether a male savior could savingly represent females and whether female priests and pastors (a non-negotiable commitment of feminist theology) could adequately represent a male Christ to their flocks. Thus, the maleness of the incarnate Lord is presented by feminist theologians as a serious problem to be solved rather than a positive aspect of the good news. Some find the maleness of Jesus to be irreconcilable with feminist principles and thus abandon any semblance of Christianity altogether.[2] Others see the problem in the patriarchal worldview of Christian interpretations of Jesus’ maleness, so that the entire theological and philosophical foundation of traditional Christianity must be upended and re-written before a male savior can have any significance, much less saving benefit for women.[3] This upending of the foundations must reach, not only to the interpretations of holy Scripture, but into the very presuppositions, intentions, and claims of the Scriptural authors themselves.
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While there is no single liturgical from demanded by Reformed theology, Reformed churches typically regarded Scripture as regulating worship in a manner which presses towards an aesthetic and formal simplicity focused on prayer, the reading and preaching of the Bible, the sacraments, and singing, the latter of which was historically psalmody but now generally includes hymns as well. Such worship is seen as a practical manifestation of the Reformed commitment to the sufficiency of scripture, not simply for doctrine and ethics but also for church practice.

The term “Reformed Theology” has a range of meanings in contemporary church life and theology. It can be used to refer to the beliefs of any Protestant movement that adheres to a broadly anti-Pelagian understanding of salvation, as, for example, in the Young, Restless, and Reformed phenomenon. At a more technical level it refers specifically to Protestant churches that hold as confessional norms the Three Forms of Unity, the Westminster Standards, or (in the case of Reformed Baptists) the Second London Confession.
History
The Reformed churches trace their origins to the Reformation in Switzerland, specifically to that which originated in Zurich in the 1520s under the leadership of Huldrych Zwingli (1484-1531). Zwingli’s reformation was distinguished from that of Luther theologically in its emphasis upon Scripture as the normative rule of liturgical practice (hence, for example, Zurich churches removed stained glass windows and developed a very simple, Word-centered form of worship) and in its denial of the Real Presence in the Lord’s Supper. This latter point led to a formal break between Luther and Zwingli at the Marburg Colloquy in 1529, an event which divided Reformed and Lutheran churches in perpetuity.
While Zwingli provided the initial formative impulse for Reformed theology, others soon came to play prominent roles. Heinrich Bullinger continued the Zurich reformation after Zwingli’s death; Martin Bucer implemented similar reforms in Starsbourg; John Calvin, Pierre Viret, Guillaume Farel, and Pierre Viret, among others, implemented reform in Geneva and its environs. Then, in the later sixteenth century, Reformed churches spread across Europe. To France, the Low Countries, England, and Scotland. By the end of the seventeenth century, churches adhering to Reformed theology were found.
During this period, Reformed theology also planted itself within the university system and this led to a flowering of Reformed thought in the late sixteenth and throughout the seventeenth centuries, of which John Owen in England and Gisbertus Voetius in the Low Countries are perhaps the two greatest examples. Such a fertile period was not to last, however, and the impact of Enlightenment patterns of thought on universities by the end of the seventeenth century meant that Reformed theology, rooted as it was in traditional metaphysics, was soon either modified beyond recognition or displaced within the curriculum.
In more recent centuries, Reformed theology played a significant role in the political and cultural life of the Netherlands, particularly through the figure of Abraham Kuyper who founded a denomination, a newspaper, a university, and a political party. He also served as Prime Minister. In Kuyper, Reformed theology came to take on a cultural ambition not seen since the Reformation of the sixteenth century and, through Kuyper’s friend and colleague, Herman Bavinck, found one of its most articulate and talented theologians. The latter’s four volume Reformed Dogmatics represents the last great attempt to offer a comprehensive account of Reformed theology in dialogue with modernity. One unfortunate dimension to Dutch Reformed theology was the role it played in South Africa where it was used as partial justification for apartheid, although, in a more liberal form, it also proved a resource for those who opposed the regime such as Alan Boesak.
In Scotland, the Free Church of Scotland and its educational institution, New College, provided some theological leadership particularly through its preeminent theologians, William Cunningham and James Bannerman. In America, Princeton Theological Seminary was the center of Reformed theology in the nineteenth century, and its two most famous faculty, Charles Hodge and Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield, also made significant contributions to Reformed thought, particularly on the issues of evolution and scriptural authority. Further, thanks to American missionary endeavors, Korea, and then after partition, South Korea, became a center for Reformed theology in the non-Western world.
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As Pride Month and its demands increasingly invade all of life, Christians must understand the semireligious nature of the culture war we’re fighting. Homosexual behavior and cross-dressing are nothing new, but as Scrivener, Holland, and (I suspect) Chesterton would argue, the way these things are sold today—as a matter of oppressed and outcast minorities in need of compassion and deserving of equality—is new. And that’s because of Christianity.

Watching the music video for the new song “Boys Will Be Girls” by former Caedmon’s Call lead singer Derek Webb, I experienced a strange mixture of disgust, pity, and clarity about the appeal of his message. That message, part of Webb’s new album, The Jesus Hypothesis, is anything but subtle: it’s a celebration of gender transition and drag, written in response to the coming out of a close friend. In the chorus, Webb sings,
Where sometimes boys will be girlsSometimes armor will be pearlsWhat you put on, oh, it shows the worldHow hard you’re fightingBrother, sometimes boys will be girls
Appealing to Jesus
The video is, if possible, even more in-your-face. Webb goes under the brush for his own drag makeover by (self-described) “shame-slaying, hip-swaying heathen” singer-songwriter Flamy Grant (real name: Matthew Blake). It opens with a quotation by progressive pastor Stan Mitchell that reveals something of Webb’s evolved thinking on the church and LGBT+ issues: “If you claim to be someone’s ally, but aren’t getting hit by the stones thrown at them, you’re not standing close enough.”
So Webb shows us how close he’s standing. After Blake plasters him with a wig and layers of flamboyant makeup, both appear on the stage of what looks like an empty church and sing the on-the-nose final verse:
I heard Jesus loved and spent his life with those whoWere abandoned by proud and fearful menSo if a church won’t celebrate and love youThey’re believing lies that can’t save you or them‘Cause you’re so beautiful by any name
For a guy who grew up hearing Caedmon’s Call hits like “We Delight” on the radio and loved the band’s collaborations with and tributes to the late Rich Mullins, gut punches like this can tarnish what felt like purer years. Webb’s moral deconstruction is neither the highest profile nor the most unexpected in recent memory. But in many ways, it’s one of the most revealing for those who want to understand why LGBT+ ideology has made inroads within evangelicalism.
Musically and instinctively, there’s an appeal to Webb’s message. As he looks you in the eye and sings of love and compassion, as the instrumentals suggest the struggle of a tender soul against cruel and repressive social demands, you feel what he’s saying. The lyrics—in spite of a conspicuous f-bomb—pointedly invoke the listener’s nurturing impulses. It’s not “sometimes men will be women” but “sometimes boys will be girls.” To laugh this off, to ridicule or inwardly gag at this spectacle, feels like attacking something childlike and even pure. Webb may be the one caked in makeup, but his song and music video are a calculated dare to critics: Go ahead. Paint yourself as the churchy villain I’m talking about. Be the “proud and fearful” Pharisee who abandons people like me. Jesus won’t. 
And yet, stop and remember what we’re talking about. This song is a celebration of an impossible delusion that has turned society upside down and led to the physical and mental devastation of countless souls, young and old.
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