This sponsored post was provided by Nelson Books and is adapted from Allen Parr’s book Misled: 7 Lies That Distort the Gospel (and How You Can Discern the Truth).

The origins of progressive Christianity are complex. The movement embraces some aspects of liberal Christianity, which can be traced back to both Enlightenment-era rationalism and the Romanticism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. While progressive Christianity shares some features of the social gospel movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it can also be seen as a reaction against it.
The progressive Christian movement says that the church needs to revisit and adjust its methods, practices, and beliefs as the culture changes. In other words, the church should conform to culture rather than holding to the transformative power of the gospel to point culture to Jesus.
Progressive Christianity largely borrows from postmodernism. What is postmodernism? Maybe the easiest way to answer that question is to compare it with modernism. Modernism of the 18th and 19th centuries focused on rational inquiry and empirical evidence. Modernists were optimistic that science and philosophy could explain just about everything; however, when innovation and scientific advancements did not result in a global utopia, postmodernism came in as a reaction against that optimism and questioned the very nature of truth.
Have you ever heard people talk about “my truth” or “your truth,” as if the truth is little more than an individual opinion? That’s postmodernism talking. Have you ever noticed that tolerance and open-mindedness are lifted as the highest virtues, while people who claim certainty (especially about morality) are treated with suspicion or even shouted down? That’s postmodernism talking too.
It’s with this postmodern backdrop that progressive Christianity justifies a relaxed acceptance of sin and the affirmation of all world religions as true. Perhaps the most dangerous tendency of progressive Christians is their rejection of the atoning work of Jesus on the cross.
Many people throughout history have affected “change or transformation in individuals” through “enlightenment, forgiveness, wholeness” and so on. Some would say that about Oprah Winfrey, Mahatma Gandhi, or the Dalai Lama. This description doesn’t distinguish the work of Jesus from the work of any other humanitarian, teacher, or leader. Jesus’ death is said to be simply the ultimate picture of self-giving love, “not as a sacrifice needed to gain approval or forgiveness by God.”
It doesn’t get plainer than that. Progressives do not see what Jesus did on the cross as achieving God’s forgiveness for our sin but rather as “a model for all to follow.”
To suggest that salvation was not a major emphasis for Jesus, or the gospel writers is a huge stretch. But even if that were true, other New Testament writers certainly focused on salvation, which showcases the cherry-picking tendencies of progressive Christianity to water down gospel to relativism rather than transformative truth.
Learn more about Misled and order your copy today.
About Allen Parr:
Allen Parr is a national speaker, YouTuber, author, ordained minister, husband, and father. He is the cofounder (with his wife, Jennifer) of Let’s Equip, a nonprofit organization that equips Christians and Christian organizations with courses and curriculum to aid in biblical literacy and spiritual growth.
Allen is a proud graduate of Dallas Theological Seminary, where he earned his master of theology degree in 2004. He has served on staff at several churches in various positions, including worship pastor and pastor of Christian education. His popular YouTube channel, The BEAT (Biblical Encouragement And Truth) with Allen Parr, reaches millions of believers with encouragement to live out their true calling as Christians.
Allen is also a national speaker and gifted communicator of the word of God and has a passion for equipping other content creators utilize digital media to fulfill the great commission. He and Jennifer and their two children live in Texas.

My gratitude goes to Ligonier Ministries for sponsoring the blog this week. They are offering a free download of the ebook The Legacy of Luther, edited by R.C. Sproul and Stephen Nichols. I appreciate each and every one of the ministries or businesses who sponsor this site!

Today’s Kindle deals include a couple of interesting titles. Also, some of the ones I linked to yesterday were a little slow in dropping their price, but they should be good now.

If you’re the kind of person who likes to build a complete series, Westminster Books wants to help you get started with a new set of John Owen’s works.

“Matthew 25:31-46 is a beautiful statement of Jesus’s concern for the weak and the vulnerable. It’s also a challenging exhortation for Christians to model the same concern. But what exactly does Jesus mean by ‘the least of these’?” Kevin DeYoung answers in this brief article.

It is a fascinating reality that many people are coming to Christ through the influence of Jordan Peterson even though he is not a Christian. This article considers where he is on his spiritual journey. “Peterson feels the pain of those who he so clearly wants to help. I feel his pain. He reminds me so much of Pilgrim in Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress—with his burden still on his back. Until he stops reading the bible through his Jungian spectacles, he won’t be able to be ‘unburdened’. He needs to come to the Cross.”

The Gettys have released another new song, this one titled “Christus Victor (Amen).”

Kamal Weerakoon provides a biographical account to explain how, despite the many charges, Christianity is not colonial.

This may be good to read on a Saturday if you’re considering skipping out on church tomorrow. “When Christians go to church, we do not merely gather in a local setting. In these earthly assemblies, we are lifted by God’s Spirit to His heavenly presence.”

There is lots to think about here. “A strange theology has overtaken American Christianity, a force that has largely remained oblique and unpopular for the first 1900 years of the faith and yet that has become popularized and spread in the emergence of Fundamentalist Evangelicalism’s ascendency. This strange belief has become the default view among American Evangelicals and effectively denies the role of the sacraments in the healthy life of the church.”

“God’s blessings are upon those who come to him with broken hearts—with deep sorrow over their sin and sinfulness. People who come to God in this way will naturally relate to him with a quiet spirit—with what we know as meekness. 

An evangelicalism with no boundaries will inevitably result in an evangelicalism with no orthodoxy.
—Matthew Barrett

This week, the blog is sponsored by Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. This article is adapted from Jason G. Duesing’s chapel message, “A Portrait of the End of Religious Liberty,” given during the Spring 2024 semester at Midwestern Seminary and Spurgeon College. You can watch the full message here.  
The beautiful hymn in Philippians 2 tells of the humbling, sacrifice, and exaltation of Jesus Christ. And, it also tells us when religious liberty will end.
Paul reveals that a future day is coming when the name of Jesus will go forth and all creatures will bow and confess him as Lord. At this time, which Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:24 calls “the end,” Jesus will finally destroy death and see the complete fulfillment of Psalm 8:6, when all things are put in subjection under his feet.
Only on that day, the time of religious freedom will end. Everyone will bow and acknowledge the one true religion and one true God. 
When we talk of religious liberty in the United States, we acknowledge its present fragility, and, to be sure, as long as we have religious liberty, it is worth defending.
When we can hold onto the present and future glory of God as the reason why religious liberty is worth defending, we can adjust our thinking about what religious liberty is and why it matters.Jason G. DuesingShare
However, should believers find their liberties removed or suppressed in the days ahead, we should recognize that we will not really reach the end of religious liberty until Jesus returns.
Given this reality, how are Christians now to think about the purpose of religious liberty as something bigger?
In Philippians 2:11, Paul says that the universal submission of humanity to the lordship of Christ at the end of time takes place “to the glory of God the Father.”
This is “the end” goal, or bigger purpose, of religious liberty.
When we can hold onto the present and future glory of God as the reason why religious liberty is worth defending, we can adjust our thinking about what religious liberty is and why it matters. This adjustment allows us to step back and affirm:

Our hope is that one day Jesus will be exalted on earth even while suffering continues, whether to us or to our brothers and sisters around the world.
True faith cannot be coerced. The best cultural environment for faith to take root is one where there is religious liberty for all religions.
One day true religious liberty will end and all knees will bow, whether they want to or not.
Until then, the good news that Jesus is Lord is shared, with reasoning and pleading, while there still is time.
It is worth proclaiming Christ even at the risk of security, safety, and rights—all for the glory of God.

This is the end of religious liberty.
Go deeper with Dr. Jason Duesing, Dr. Thomas Kidd, and Dr. Patrick Schreiner on the relationship between politics and the Christian life in Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s newest free course through For the Church Institute, Politics and the Christian Life.