The Religion of Progressivism
It is no exaggeration to say that the Western church is as much in need of reformation today as it was at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Roman Catholicism still needs drastic reforms, having largely rejected what was offered in the Reformation. Protestantism has drifted from its roots and to a very great extent lost its catholicity. The Evangelical movement has tried to revive nominal Protestantism since the 1730’s but it has failed to maintain a firm hold on the reformation era confessions and thus has drifted theologically. We are losing our grip on the Trinitarian and Christological orthodoxy symbolized in the creeds of the undivided church of the first five centuries. The situation today, like that of the late medieval era, is ideal for the rise of heresies of all sorts.
Satan lacks the ability to create anything totally new, so all heresy is parasitic on the truth. Heresy always involves twisting, eviscerating, or adding to true doctrine. As the Preacher observed three thousand years ago, there truly is “nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Heresy is usually constructed out of whatever building materials happen to be available in each cultural situation. Elements of the pagan religion of Egypt aided Aaron and the people of Israel in the construction of the first idol at the base of Mount Sinai (Exodus 32). The Baal worship of the Canaanites was combined with Israelite religion in the time of Elijah (1 Kings 18:21). The trendy, Eastern cosmology from Persia was used by Marcion and other gnostics in the early church to create gnostic forms of Christianity. Heresy usually involves drawing in ideas, symbols, doctrines, practices, or deities from the religion of the surrounding culture and combining them in some novel fashion with biblical truth to form a new kind of religion.
If this is true, how does heresy take form in a secularized Christendom? It seems that even though non-Christian forms of religion exist in the late modern West, moderns view themselves as post-religious and thus are unlikely to be drawn into a new form of religion constructed out of non-Christian and Christian elements. Do we not live in a post-religious age?
We should not to jump to conclusions on this point. The secularization thesis has fallen on hard times over the past forty years and what seemed obvious to secular-minded observers in the 1960’s is now uncertain and unclear. What is clear is that Western culture is increasingly hostile to catholic, orthodox, Christianity. But it is less clear to what degree the late modern West is really secular. This ambiguity is evident in talk of the “secular religions” such as Communism, Nazism, and Fascism.
Liberal democratic nations, rooted in Christianity, defeated the totalitarian ideologies in World War II and the Cold War, but since 1945 the national religion of western European countries and the anglosphere has undergone massive changes. The best way to describe what has emerged is to speak of it as a new Christian heresy. An heretical form of Christianity has become dominant in the West and pushed catholic orthodoxy into the background as a continuing minority, which is able to exert less and less influence on the culture. The so-called “culture wars” are the imperialistic wars waged by this Christian heresy against the forces of tradition, catholicity, and orthodoxy within both the Roman Church and Protestant churches, and also within Evangelicalism. There are pockets of resistance to this heresy within certain segments of Roman Catholicism and Evangelicalism, but the “mainline” Protestant denominations have been almost totally corrupted by it.
It is easy for conservatives to sneer at the declining numbers of liberal Protestant churches and assume that their cultural influence is negligible. Yet, the law and public opinion keep changing in lockstep with the pronouncements of the liberal clergy and conservatives keep losing court cases, legislative battles, and public opinion polls. It must not be overlooked that many Roman bishops, having noted which way the wind is blowing, have aligned themselves with the growing heresy in order to keep up to their flocks. Liberal theology is as much a problem in the Roman church as it is in any of the Protestant ones. It is difficult to see much difference these days, in practical terms, between the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Both espouse the new heresy and work tirelessly to see it triumph.
The Heresy of Progressivism
So, what is this heresy? It is, quite simply, the heresy of progressivism. Progressivist Christianity is the new post-catholic, post-protestant, and post-biblical form of Christianity that has swept to power in the late modern west. Like the Golden Calf cult, Baal syncretism, and the Gnostic churches of the early centuries, this new heresy is a synthesis of elements drawn from the surrounding culture and fused with elements of biblical teaching in such a way as to contradict biblical orthodoxy. The key point is not that the new doctrine draws in ideas and practices from outside of biblical faith, but rather that it does so in ways that fundamentally corrupt biblical faith.
There was nothing wrong with the Israelites borrowing from Egyptian religion. God himself copied the portable worship centers, which existed in Egyptian religion, in commanding Israel in Exodus 25-40 to build a tabernacle for Yahweh worship. The floor plan was a design common in temples throughout the ancient Near East. Israel’s tabernacle, however, had no idol in the holy of holies in accordance with the Second Commandment. The creation of the Golden Calf in Exodus 32, on the other hand, was a violation of the Second Commandment and thus is an example of a borrowed practice that could not be reconciled with the Law. The point is that sometimes borrowing non-Christian elements of religion fundamentally corrupts the Christian faith, and results in heresy.
It is, therefore, of crucial importance that theologians clarify for the church what cannot legitimately be borrowed from the culture, but must instead be opposed steadfastly by the church. Many elements of the culture are good or neutral and can be incorporated into the Christian faith. But not all. Discerning where is the line between assimilating and being assimilated is one of theology’s most important tasks.
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Why Conservatives Lose (and What We Must Do about It)
In the cultural battles of our day, conservatives always seem to lose. Some say progressives win because of their superior funding, organizational prowess, and cultural dominance. Others say conservatives lose because we are disorganized, factious, and lack an activist spirit. Perhaps they’re right on both counts. But that’s not why we lose. We lose because we have a much more difficult position to defend. We cannot go on thinking the left is acting in good faith for a good purpose, when in reality, conservatives and progressives are completely different projects with different goals and definitions of victory.
Roger Scruton once observed, “Good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.” Take the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris, France, for example. It took 183 years to build but was almost completely destroyed by fire in a matter of hours in 2019. This is a fitting metaphor for the modern West, which was carefully built to sustain our civilization for generations, but is now crumbling after decades of relentless attack by a progressive ideology hell-bent on destroying it.
Progressivism is a demon-possessed ideology that seeks to steal, kill, and destroy (John 10:10). The progressive disease has also infected evangelical Christianity, poisoning its bloodstream and spreading the contagion through trusted and once-conservative media outlets and educational institutions.
Conservative Christians, contending for “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3), are being assaulted on multiple fronts by openly hostile secular progressives in government, business, news media, and Hollywood, not to mention apostate progressive pastors who claim to represent “the way of Jesus.”
As Christian schools are overrun by tenured leftist professors and publishers sell cloaked leftist propaganda to unsuspecting conservatives, naive Christians convince themselves that “this too shall pass.” If they keep their heads down, silent and compliant, they’ll leave us alone.
Unfortunately, this is not possible. Sooner or later, conservatives must rediscover our fighting spirit and realize that we cannot play nice with progressives. They do not want to peacefully “coexist” with conservatives. They want to destroy us. Ordinary Christianity is the last major obstacle in their path.
Conservatism Operates Within Reality
Conservatism is only as good as the thing being conserved. In our day, what most needs conserving is nothing less than reality itself. Reality is conservative, and the more one accepts it as such the more conservative one will become. The progressive left is a reality-denying cope for those who would alter reality to match the idealized fictions of their minds.
This puts them at odds with God himself, for God is the ultimate reality. As Joe Rigney recently wrote, “The first imperative is to love the indicative.” We must accept reality as it is, as God made it. Daniel, describing God to Nebuchadnezzar, said,
He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
he reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him (Dan 2:21-22).
This is reality. God made the world, set it on its foundations, made springs gush forth, and caused grass to grow. Finally, he entrusted it to the stewardship of man to subdue and exercise dominion (Gen 1:28-29). He orders the world such that it sustains life. God provides for all man’s needs through the ordinary means of discipline, skill, and work.
God also establishes limits, hierarchies and inequalities, and requires man to live within these constraints. These are not the result of the fall, but built-in manifestations of God’s wisdom in creation. Every restriction or inequality is an opportunity to trust God and work within the boundaries he put in place.
This is the world as it truly is, the world as God made it, that which is revealed in God’s word and observed in God’s world, a reality that must be respected for any society to thrive. Conservatism is a worldview of giving, receiving, and blessing. It dignifies work as a legitimate expression of Christian service, and dignifies man by beckoning him to discover the wonders hidden within creation. Such is the glory of God to conceal a thing, and such is the glory of kings to search it out (Prov 25:2).
Any kind of political or social conservatism that does not acknowledge God as the ultimate reality will inevitably fail. Christians are conservative not merely because we admire the constitution or love tradition, but rather for the sake of the transcendent, eternal reality upon which those things stand.
In other words, Christians aren’t merely conserving a nostalgic political worldview, but rather the application of Christian truth to all of life, including our society. Jesus said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me” (Matt 28:18). Paul said, “God” commands all people everywhere to repent” (Acts 17:30). Christ is “highly exalted” and has been given the “name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil 2:9-11).
This is the worldview that built Western society. To be sure, not all of our founding fathers were regenerate Christians, but they did draw upon centuries of Bible-saturated political theology and wisdom. In short, we’re not merely conserving something political, but convictional: we’re fighting to conserve and rebuild a once-respected Christian heritage that is now under siege by a demonic ideology of pagan progressivism.
The progressive project is not a matter of alternate policy preferences in pursuit of a shared, common vision for society. Progressivism is a political and cultural attack directed squarely at Christianity itself. It is more than a political ideology, it is a rebellion against nature, nature’s God, and an attack on all who worship him.
The Sin of “Equalatry”
Contrary to what we’ve been told, human differences inevitably produce inequalities–divinely established natural hierarchies hard-wired into creation for his glory and our good. While some inequalities can be exploited for sinful gain, a virtuous society organizes them into a productive division of labor that benefits everyone. The most fundamental, inescapable human difference is sexual: God made us male and female from the beginning (Matt 19:4). The inequalities between men and women are a divinely designed gift for the harmonious joining of the sexes in mutual love and the creation of new life. Similarly, other human inequalities are positively presented in scripture as gifts for the edification of the church.
The left cannot accept this fact. Their sin is “equalatry,” which is making equality into an idol. The sin of equalatry is what Murray Rothbard once called a “revolt against nature,” rooted in envy and resentment towards those with superior skills, intelligence, beauty, or accomplishments. It regards all inequality as oppression and all hierarchy as tyranny. Since it bears a superficial resemblance to fairness, a biblical virtue, equalatry makes the left’s demands for “social justice” feel virtuous to Christians. But since the left defines justice as the elimination of all inequality, exceptionalism must not be tolerated.
The left subverts reality through media “narratives” that reward grievance. A man’s feelings of envy are merely a byproduct of his oppression. All inequalities are “privileges,” unjustly acquired. Their propaganda campaign that relentlessly categorizes the whole human experience as an epic struggle between oppressive villains and oppressed victims slowly brainwashes ordinary people into vicious cycles of self-righteous indignance or self-loathing guilt.
Deep down, people intuitively know that society cannot function without the basic virtues of hard work, competence, and honesty, yet they are gaslit into affirming the opposite. They gradually find themselves nodding along with the guilt-inducing narrative that they are oppressors whose sins can only be absolved by yielding to the irrational demands of the state, BLM activists, and the rainbow mafia. Over time, the propaganda wears them down. One can only resist for so long.
The left regards our Christian heritage as a blight that spawned injustices that can only be remedied by tearing it all down and rebuilding anew. Captivated by the social Darwinist “myth of progress,” humanity must break free from the antiquated shackles of Christianity and march towards their vision of an eschatological, secular utopia.
As Thomas Sowell once said, we have “reached the ultimate stage of absurdity where some people are held responsible for things that happened before they were born, while other people are not held responsible for what they themselves are doing today.” Americans have now reached peak efficiency in our ability to manufacture victims at warp speed through a malicious parade of patriarchs, homophobes, and white supremacists. It doesn’t matter that their thinking is irrational, because they have already determined that rational thought is yet another tool of oppression.
Progressives arrogantly believe reality itself can be bent to their wishes. With enough funding and power, they can refashion the world any way they choose. With enough medical technology, they can overcome the dreaded gender binary. They act with high-handed moral certitude, believing they possess sufficient wisdom to save our planet, end hunger, correct injustice, house the homeless, eliminate suffering, maximize erotic pleasure, turn men into women—you name it. This is delusional, of course, but they can’t see it because their worldview is predicated upon a carefully curated denial of reality.
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We Cannot Be Faultless (But May Still Be Blameless)
Shouldn’t we believe that God treasures what we do, however feeble, however immature, however bungled and blundered it is? For though what we do is most certainly not faultless, it is any father’s joy to count his children as blameless.
A devotional writer from a bygone era believed it was crucial to carefully distinguish faultlessness from blamelessness, for while we cannot live faultlessly in this world, we may live blamelessly. Even the best deeds we do cannot be faultless when we ourselves are so very imperfect and when this world is so firmly arrayed against us. Yet we may still remain blameless before the Lord, even in light of our many imperfections.
A fictional illustration may serve. Let’s suppose a day came when my father, a landscaper, was hired by one of our neighbors to design and install a garden. He dutifully sat before his drafting table to create the design, he visited the nursery to purchase the plants, he stood in the garden and began to create the shape of the different beds. But then a serious illness overcame him and he was forced to remain indoors for days or weeks.
And though at the time I was merely a child, I was a son who loved his father, so took it upon myself to surprise him by completing the project on his behalf. I studied the plans as carefully as I could, I carved the shape of the different beds, I put down a layer of topsoil, I planted the ferns and hostas, the roses and euonymus, doing my absolute best to lay them exactly where the plans dictated. When my father recovered sufficiently to venture out-of-doors, I led him to that garden and happily presented the work I had done for him.
His reaction was both joy and concern. He felt great joy that I had attempted to serve and please him, that I had done my best with the little knowledge and minimal skill I possessed. But he felt concern that the job was done more poorly than he would have done it. He noticed that the flower beds were not quite the right shape, that the edges were ragged, that many of the plants and flowers were a little out of place. He knew that he still had work to do in order to make it right.
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The Controversial Birth of Jesus
Written by R.C. Sproul |
Friday, December 24, 2021
The question of the virgin birth is not so much a philosophical question as it is a historical one. If one whom we call God has the power of being—sovereign efficient and sufficient causal power—then we cannot rationally object to the virgin birth on the grounds that it couldn’t happen. The real issue is not could it happen but did it happen. It becomes then a question of history and drives us once again to the historical sources.The records of Jesus’ life and ministry cause controversy from the very start. The extraordinary narrative of the circumstances surrounding His conception and birth provokes howls of protest from the critics of supernaturalism. They must begin their work of demythologizing early, wielding scissors on the first page of the New Testament. Following Matthew’s table of genealogy, the first paragraph of the first Gospel reads as follows: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:18).
Though the New Testament is replete with miracles surrounding the person of Jesus, none seems more offensive to modern man than the virgin birth. If any law of science is established as immutable and unbreakable, it is that human reproduction is not possible without the conjoining of the male seed and the female egg. We may have developed sophisticated methods of artificial insemination and “test- tube” intrauterine implantations, but in some manner the reproduction process requires the contribution of both genders of the race to succeed.
Thus, the birth of Jesus violates the inviolable; it mutates the immutable; it breaks the unbreakable. It is alleged to be an act that is pure and simple contra naturam. Before we even read of the activities of Jesus’ life, we are thrust headfirst against this claim. Many skeptics close the door on further investigation after reading the first page of the record. The story sounds too much like magic, too much like the sort of myth and legend that tends to grow up around the portraits of famous people.
The arguments against the virgin birth are many. They range from the charge of borrowing mythical baggage from the Greek-speaking world, with parallels evident in pagan mythology (Ovid’s Metamorphosis is cited as “Exhibit A”), to the scientific disclaimer that the virgin birth represents an empirically unverifiable unique event that denies all probability quotients. Some have offered a desperate exegetical argument trying to show that the New Testament doesn’t teach the idea of virgin birth. This we call the exegesis of despair.
The real problem is that of miracle. It doesn’t stop with the birth of Jesus but follows Him through His life, ministry, death, resurrection, and ascension. The life of Jesus carries the aura of miracle wherever it is described in the primary sources. A “de-miraclized” Jesus is not the biblical Jesus, but the invention of those who cannot abide the biblical proclamation. Such a Jesus is the Jesus of unbelief, the most mythical Jesus of all, conjured up to fit the preconceived molds of unbelief.Behind the problem of miracle are certain assumptions about the reality of God the Creator. Matthew’s infancy narrative raises questions not only about parthenogenesis but about genesis itself. Creation is the unique event to beat all unique events.
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