Progressive Christianity, at this moment, is not proposing to change the Evangelical and Reformed Confessions. It simply ignores them or claims to affirm them while twisting their meaning with interpretive gymnastics. How? By something that places Progressive Christianity like Liberal Christianity as an insidious adversary of Biblical Christianity: Confessional deception. 

Why are venerable Evangelical and Reformed institutions systematically departing from theological fidelity to embrace new mission objectives? It seems to be happening in a similar fashion in churches, colleges, seminaries, publishing houses, para-church organizations, and historically reliable mission agencies. Why is there a steady stream of well-known Evangelical and Reformed leaders either denying the faith “once and for all delivered to the saints” or publicly “deconstructing their faith”? Why are first order Biblical doctrines including the Gospel itself—which is the first of the “first things—being adulterated or abandoned for theological novelties that inevitably result in heresies?Why are professing Evangelical and Reformed ministries embracing, celebrating, and propagating Gospel heresies such as the prosperity gospel, the therapeutic gospel, the pragmatic church growth gospel, and the newly renovated social gospel, etc.? Why are unbiblical and Gospel-denying political and social ideologies being quoted and implemented from pulpit ministries and in discipleship strategies?
       Having spent the last two decades prayerfully attempting to respond biblically and pastorally to this seemingly endless series of theological and ministerial aberrations that have penetrated and permeated Evangelical and Reformed churches, it became obvious that it was past time to pause and reflect on the source of this “poison fruit.” As I’ve taken time for renewal, because of ministry exhaustion, and to reflect, because of increasing ministerial bewilderment, two observations have become obvious, which in turn lead to a decisive conclusion.
       First, the content and focus of the identifiable theological and missional poison fruit was obvious. It consistently manifested itself in the theological and missional adulteration of the Gospel Message and the renovation of the Gospel Mission for Christ’s Church. What was not so obvious was the poisonous root at the source of the poisonous fruit.
       Second, over the last two decades I have found myself increasingly recommending J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism even though no one in the increasingly confused orbit of Evangelical and Reformed Christianity seemed to be promoting the radical 19th century theological renovations now known as classical Liberal Theology. Yet not only was Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism helpful to me in the current context, but it was observably helpful to any and all I recommended it to who actively read and used it in addressing this “present distress.”
       The conclusion, as I contemplated these things, became clear. The poisonous root that has produced theological apostasy beginning with the Gospel itself, and the Missional confusion that follows from that, is the 60-year-old movement that calls itself “Progressive Christianity,” a movement which has been and continues to be aimed at redefining the Mission of the Evangelical and Reformed Church as well as its Message. When Progressive Christianity in its 60-year evolution is held under the microscope, the reason why Machen’s Christianity & Liberalism feels so relevant becomes obvious: even though the doctrinal errors and heresies of Liberal Christianity are distinct from the ever-evolving errors and heresies of Progressive Christianity, it becomes undeniable that Progressive Christianity is “cut from the same bolt of cloth” as Liberal Christianity. Both ultimately embrace the fabric of Theological and Missional renovation and therefore inevitably embrace Theological and Missional apostasy.
       In other words, Progressive Christianity, at its core, is Liberal Christianity 2.0. As I’ve continued to explore this connection, I’ve identified five affirmations that reveal the intrinsic connection between so-called Progressive and Liberal Christianity:
Five Affirmations

Liberal Christianity, as it gained influence in the 19th century, entered the 20th century with its sights set upon the Mainline Protestant Church. In the same fashion, Progressive Christianity, having established its footing in the concluding decades of the 20th century, fixed its sights upon the Evangelical and Reformed churches and institutions in the opening decades of the 21st century.
Just as Liberal Christianity inevitably produced the errors and heresies of Liberal Theology, so Progressive Christianity produces its own errors and heresies in Progressive Theology as it adulterates historical and biblical orthodoxy. It does this—in a method poached from Liberal Christianity—by embracing the novelty of a culture-focused Mission for Christ’s Church as superior to the Word of God. This theological downgrade is not only manifested by a loss of Confessional integrity in general, but by the theological devolution of the Christ-given and Gospel-defined Message and Mission of His Church.
Progressive Christianity as Liberal Christianity is both parasitic and destructive. It does not bring forth—it tears down. It does not develop—it destroys.
Progressive Christianity as a movement, like Liberal Christianity with its theological adulterations and apostasies, promotes unbelief and therefore qualifies as the doctrine of demons. Demonic doctrine means that in the final analysis Progressive Christianity, like Liberal Christianity, is not a subset of Christianity but a virulent adversary of Biblical Christianity. Like so-called Liberal Christianity there may be believers and even faithful churches under its influence for a time. But in the name of Biblical fidelity and Confessional integrity, it must be rejected as a professed movement of Christianity and noted as an adversary because in the final analysis it becomes an instrument of sending the souls of men and women to the judgment of God without the Blessed Hope of the Gospel.
Progressive Christianity shares the same three poisoned threads—Motivation, Mission, and Message—with Liberal Christianity. In light of the decimation wrought by Liberal Christianity in the Mainline Protestant Church of the 20th century, the Evangelical and Reformed Church of the 21st century must examine the Motivation, Mission, and Message of Progressive Christianity and its pervasive, penetrating influence. Let’s examine each thread.

Although separated by 100 years, Progressive Christianity in a real sense is Regressive Christianity revealed as Liberal Christianity 2.0. It shares Liberal Christianity’s same failed motivation, it’s committed to its same failed mission, which ensures an inevitable Theological downgrade of its message, though not necessarily adulterating the same particular doctrines as Liberal Theology did. The theological apostasy of Progressive Christianity will not, for various reasons, necessarily mimic all the apostasies of Liberal Christianity but it will be equally destructive.
Motivations
       The self-confessed motivation of 19th and 20th Century Liberal Christianity was not to destroy Christianity but to save the Mainline Protestant Church from “modernity” and the intimidating sophistication of the “modern mind.” This was obvious in the talking points of Liberal Christianity: “in light of modernity the church must be saved from cultural irrelevance” and “Christianity must be saved from the intellectual dustbin of history” and “if Christianity doesn’t change we will lose the next generation.” Sound familiar?
       Likewise, the Progressive Christianity of the 20th and 21st Century does not originate from a desire to destroy Christianity. This time the desire is not to save the Protestant Mainline Church, but to save the Evangelical and Reformed Church from “cultural irrelevance,” “the dustbin of history” and “the loss of the next generation.” There is no doubt in my mind that very few contemporary Progressives are “wolves in sheep’s clothing” such as those Paul warned the Elders of the Church at Ephesus to alertly guard. In fact, I believe the vast majority of them are actually “sheep in wolves’ clothing.” But make no mistake. As affirmed by its celebrated apologists and preachers, Progressive Christianity is “wolves’ clothing” in that it has the identical motivation as Liberal Christianity, and dare I say that in reality it is an arrogant motivation— to save Christianity and the Church from cultural irrelevance. Today, instead of saving Christianity from the “burgeoning movement of modernity”, Progressive Christianity proposes to save Christianity from the triumphal movement of post-modernity.
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All the fullness of God is found in this man Jesus. Full humanity and the fullness of deity. We marvel at his bigness and might and omni-relevance, and we melt at his grace and mercy and meekness, and all that comes together in one spectacular person.

Not only do books change lives, but paragraphs do. And not only paragraphs, but even single sentences. “Paragraphs find their way to us through books,” John Piper writes, “and they often gain their peculiar power because of the context they have in the book. But the point remains: One sentence or paragraph may lodge itself so powerfully in our mind that its effect is enormous when all else is forgotten.”
In fact, we might even take it a step further, to particular phrases. That’s my story. It’s been a loaded phrase, but a single phrase nonetheless, penned by Jonathan Edwards and printed in a book by Piper, that has proved life-changing: “admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.”
Lionlike Lamb

As a sophomore in college (and with the help of some older students), I was becoming wise to the bigness and sovereignty of God, but I was still naïve about how it all related to Jesus. Help came when Piper published Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ.
At first, I read it too fast, and benefited little. But when I came back to it, and read each chapter devotionally (thirteen chapters plus the intro, so a reading a day for two weeks), it awakened in me a new love for and focus on Jesus.
The most transformative section of the book was chapter 3. The chapter begins like this, landing on the phrase from Edwards that lodged itself so powerfully in my mind:
A lion is admirable for its ferocious strength and imperial appearance. A lamb is admirable for its meekness and servant-like provision of wool for our clothing. But even more admirable is a lionlike lamb and a lamblike lion. What makes Christ glorious, as Jonathan Edwards observed over 250 years ago, is “an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies.” (29)
No One Like Him

The life-changing phrase first appears in a sermon, “The Excellency of Christ,” preached under the banner of Revelation 5:5–6. Edwards says,
There is an admirable conjunction of diverse excellencies in Jesus Christ. The lion and the lamb, though very diverse kinds of creatures, yet have each their peculiar excellencies. The lion excels in strength, and in the majesty of his appearance and voice: the lamb excels in meekness and patience, besides the excellent nature of the creature as good for food, and yielding that which is fit for our clothing and being suitable to be offered in sacrifice to God. But we see that Christ is in the text compared to both, because the diverse excellencies of both wonderfully meet in him.
I was captured by the thought, and reality, that Jesus brings together in one person what no other men or angels — or even the Father or the Spirit — unite in one person. Lionlike strength and lamblike gentleness.
What I began to see for myself in those days is that Jesus isn’t just the means for humans to get right with the Father. Christ, the God-man, is also the great end. He is the fullest and deepest revelation of God to mankind. To see him is to see the Father. And the Father means for us to see, and savor, his Son as the great treasure of surpassing value, as the pearl of greatest price.
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Transgenderism is a philosophy that aims too low and accomplishes too little. Our identity is not in our genitals. Our salvation does not come from cutting off working organs. Our identity comes from the Lord Jesus Christ, who is transforming us into new creations! 

A Pseudo-Identity
One of the most damaging aspects of sin upon the soul of fallen man is that it will lead a person on a never-ending goose chase to find their “true self” or “true identity.” Unfortunately, this quest bears about as much fruit as a group of first-year boy scouts going snipe hunting in the dark. Yet sin propels humanity onward like a hungry beast chasing the elusive carrot.
Instead of looking outside of ourselves to the one true God, who is blessed forever, sin will coax men and cajole women to search for their identity within their gender, sexual preferences, body size, wealth, status, children, careers, emotions, diseases, and virtually everything else. This is the very picture of idolatry: finding yourself defined by and controlled by the creaturely instead of the creator (Romans 1:25), which lead nowhere but hell.
Today, the most pervasive and pernicious campaign to derail human identity, in my humble opinion, is the transgender movement. Like all idolatrous movements before it, it has its own myth concerning its version of the fall, redemption, and future glory that it shamelessly puts forward to unsuspecting victims.
Instead of seeing the fall as separation from the one true God, transgender ideology sees that they have been separated from the correct set of genitals, which becomes fuel for their version of salvation. Instead of repenting, accepting who God designed them to be, turning to Christ for regeneration and hope, and then living in the Spirit for their sanctification, the transgender community promises that salvation can only come if you will surgically remove your breasts, chemically castrate your penises, take dangerous hormone therapy, and make your innies into outies. If you submit to Dr. Waldman’s madness, becoming a modern-day Frankenstein, you can have a mirage of hope. You will be promised freedom and salvation from the sin of being born in the wrong body, but that salvation is only skin deep.
Tragically, this has led to disastrous outcomes for many people, who, instead of finding heaven on the other side of a scalpel, have found only hellish depression, phantom pains, and the despair of unmet expectations leading many to commit suicide in their hopelessness. So clearly, the trans myth of salvation is just that, a myth.
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