Written by Matthew S. Miller |
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
We have not yet deprived liberalism of one of its most effective criticisms—namely, that conservative Christianity tends to focus on personal salvation and doctrinal precision to the unnecessary exclusion of concern for the poor and the problems of the world.

As a formal movement embedded in mainline seminaries and denominations, American Protestant liberalism has been on the retreat for the better part of two generations now. Outflanked by more progressive strands of liberation and postmodern theologies on the one side and a resurging conservative Christian orthodoxy on the other, liberalism’s once commanding public voice has been reduced to a pleading whimper. Protestant mainline denominations, once the mainstay of American religion, have seen their numbers steadily plummet. As of 2017, “self-described mainline Protestants composed just 10% of the American public,” a statistic further diminished by the fact that of these, “barely a quarter actually attended church.”[1] By such measures, liberalism appears to be dead, or nearly so. But is it?
If we equate liberalism with its institutional form – the kind that took up residence at Harvard in the nineteenth-century, put forward nationally renowned theologians who labored to make Christianity credible to the modern world, published leading journals and Sunday School curricula shaping the thought life of a generation, and was heralded by celebrated pastors like Fosdick – then the bell tolled for liberalism long ago. In his massive trilogy tracing the history of American liberal theology, Gary Dorrien relays the accepted narrative: “In the nineteenth century it took root and flowered; in the early twentieth century it became the founding idea of a new theological establishment; in the 1930s it was marginalized by neo-orthodox theology; in the 1960s it was rejected by liberation theology; by the 1970s it was often taken for dead.”[2]
We would be mistaken, however, to equate liberalism exclusively with its established, institutional form, just as we would be mistaken to equate Gnosticism singularly with the official movement of self-styled Gnostics that early Christianity defeated. Though the published works of gnostic theologians were entirely lost long ago, the impulse of their thought has persisted to the present day (as Phillip Lee and others have demonstrated).[3] In the same way, liberalism in its institutional form has suffered an outward defeat, but that does not mean liberalism itself has been vanquished.
The heart of liberalism has proven to be not its institutions, but its ideological core. That core was clearly identified by J. Gresham Machen in Christianity and Liberalism, in which Machen pointed to liberalism’s (1) naturalistic approach to religion, (2) appeal to human experience (and ultimately individual experience) as a final authority, and (3) exclusively imperatival message. On this last count, liberalism jettisons the grand “indicative” of the Gospel – that is, the announcement of the great things God has done in Christ for sinners (think Romans 1-8 or Ephesians 1-3) – and is thus left to traffic exclusively in commands and aspirations (imperatives). In one of his most profound statements, Machen announces, “Here is found the most fundamental difference between liberalism and Christianity—liberalism is altogether in the imperative mood, while Christianity begins with a triumphant indicative; liberalism appeals to man’s will, while Christianity announces, first, a gracious act of God.”[4]
What happens when we look for liberalism’s ideological core of naturalism, the authority of experience, and the imperatival mood? We find that liberalism has outlived the decline of its institutional citadels. Notre Dame sociologists Christian Smith and Patricia Snell write, “[A] historical nemesis of evangelicalism, liberal Protestantism can afford to be losing its organizational battles now precisely because long ago it effectively won the bigger, more important struggle over culture.”[5] Put another way, if institutional liberalism is effectively dead, ideological liberalism is more alive than it has ever been. Where do we find it?
The Ideological Core of Liberalism in Liberation Theologies
As a formal school of thought, liberal theology took a back seat to a host of liberation theologies arising with Latin American and black liberation theologies in the 1960s and, in the decades that followed, with feminist and gay rights liberation theologies, among others. In one sense, the projects of liberal theology and liberation theology are quite different. Liberal theology privileges the voices of the scientific and cultural elite in its aim of making the Christian faith more credible to the modern world. Liberation theology, on the other hand, privileges the voices of the marginalized and oppressed (it often maintains that “the cry of the oppressed is the voice of God”) with the aim of raising select themes of the Christian faith in protest against the modern world. That is why liberation theologies position themselves as a rejection of liberalism.
But beneath these above-ground differences, liberation theologies borrow and build upon liberalism’s substructure. Both liberalism and liberation theology see men and societies as facing their problems without the help of heaven—everything is interpreted and remedied naturalistically, within what philosopher Charles Taylors would call the “immanent frame.” Moreover, both place the seat of authority in human experience. Harold O. J. Brown, former professor at RTS-Charlotte, emphasized the underlying connection: “Because this standard [of liberation theology] is drawn from human feelings and experience—although limited to those of a particular group or class—liberation theology also resembles classic Protestant liberalism after Schleiermacher: it has made human feelings and human sensitivity a source of divine revelation that can be placed alongside Scripture.”[6] Finally, both sound their messages entirely in the imperative mood, whether that is the call of liberalism to “end war and poverty,” or the call of liberation theology to “resist oppressive power structures.” If Machen had lived to critique liberation theology, he would only have needed to add an appendix to Christianity and Liberalism rather than write a new book.
The Ideological Core of Liberalism in Progressive Christianity
Second, the core features of liberalism abide in the many leading voices of self-styled “progressive Christianity.” Granted, the term “progressive Christianity” is quite vague. Some define it as liberal Christianity that adopts certain insights and accents of liberation theology. Others find that progressive Christianity is a large umbrella term under which self-identified Christians who prefer egalitarian approaches to marriage and ministry and who support the LGBTQ+ movement can publicly identify (often without having to do the hard work of examining whether these commitments are actually compatible with their other theological positions).[7] Progressive Christianity lacks the established tradition and formidable theological giants that liberal theology in the first half of the twentieth century boasted—liberal theology was a disciplined school of thought, while progressive Christianity consists mostly of a patchwork of blogs, social media influencers, and authors of easy-read books (think Rob Bell). Roger Olson’s observation that progressive Christianity is a kind of “halfway house” between fundamentalism and liberalism seems apt: “Some get stuck there, but some move on to the ‘left’ into liberal Christianity without understanding that tradition.”[8]
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Pray to God for deliverance from the wicked. Pray for Godly laws without partiality. Pray for salvation of the wicked and revival of the church. Proclaim His glorious name and work to all ends of the Earth. He has by Himself purged our sins, He has saved to the uttermost those that should be saved, we must call upon Him in faith, pray to Him for help, and proclaim His glory to all ends of the earth. Prepare for God to give us the good desire of our heart.

Open your mouth for the speechless, in the cause of all who are appointed to die. Open your mouth, judge righteously, and plead the cause of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:8-9 NKJV
Sunday, January 22, 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the legalization of abortion nationwide through the 1973 Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision. Since that terrible date, at least 70,000,000 babies in the United States, more than 18% of all children, have been murdered in the womb. While the CDC and pro-abortion groups show a decline in abortion over time, states including CA, NH, and MD do not report their numbers and abortions through the pill are not all reported (1). Through unreported methods and unreporting states, the number of abortions is almost certainly much higher than the CDC data indicates.
If the U.S. data were not tragic enough, the worldwide practice of abortion paints an even darker picture. Pro-death Guttmacher.org reports that 73,000,000 abortions take place worldwide every year. That number equates to approximately 40% of all children being murdered before they reach birth.
On June 24, 2022 the Supreme Court in a landmark decision overturned Roe vs. Wade in this manner – they turned the question of abortion back to the states. While many Christians and pro-life groups celebrated the outcome, the way the order was written evidenced just how far our country has abandoned any type of Biblical worldview it may have had when it was founded. The court deliberately refused to recognize the baby in the womb as a person protected by God and/or the Constitution.
The 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says the following:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury… nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law…
The Supreme Court ignored the 5th amendment and refused to say the little child in the womb of his mother at any stage, let alone conception/fertilization where God creates life, is a person protected by the 5th amendment. (The full Supreme Court opinion can be read here.)
Held: The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.
The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” (page 1; page 14)
Justice Kavanaugh in his concurring opinion perhaps summarized the “conservative” court justices when he wrote:
Abortion is a profoundly difficult and contentious issue because it presents an irreconcilable conflict between the interests of a pregnant woman who seeks an abortion and the interests in protecting fetal life… On the question of abortion, the Constitution is therefore neither pro-life nor pro-choice. The Constitution is neutral and leaves the issue for the people and their elected representatives to resolve through the democratic process in the States or Congress – like the numerous other difficult questions of American social and economic policy that the Constitution does not address. (Page 124)
When it comes to crimes and great evils such as murder, the interests of the criminal and murderer are always (or almost always) in conflict with the victim(s) of the crime. Conflict between the perpetrator of evil and the victim is the very nature of crime. It is because of this conflict that there are laws with governments and police to protect potential victims when this conflict is acted upon by the criminal. Rather than reiterate the right of the baby in the womb to due process of the law before being executed by his mother, father, and their doctor (so called), one of the most conservative justices defended the evil of abortion by acting as if the constitution was neutral regarding the taking of an innocent child’s life and life in general.
The whole scope of the Constitution, highlighted in the 5th amendment is exactly the opposite – it is entirely concerned about life, so much so, that it is written to protect our freedoms while we live. Under such an argument as Kavanaugh’s there would seemingly be no reason states could not vote to allow abortion proponents, under the euphemism of reproductive rights, to have a conflict with Bible believing Christians, and simply eradicate them by majority vote.
The effect of the so-called Supreme Court victory, is that 2-6% fewer surgical abortions are taking place. However, that estimate includes Texas with nearly a 99% decline in abortion while it does not include the abortion tourism states of CA and MD. It is likely the real change post June 24, 2022 is no decline or even an increase as widespread publicity has been put on the issue. With victories like that, what would a loss look like?
Georgia
In my home state of Georgia, the law recognizes an unborn child in the following way:
A member of the species homo sapiens at any stage of development who is carried in the womb. A person commits the offense of feticide if he or she willfully and without legal justification causes the death of an unborn child by any injury to the mother of such child, which would be murder if it resulted in the death of such mother, or if he or she when in the commission of a felony, causes the death of an unborn child. A person convicted of the offense of feticide shall be punished by imprisonment for life.” § 16-5-80. Feticide; Voluntary Manslaughter of an Unborn Child
This seems like a godly law. Until this point it is. Unborn child murder is feticide. To kill any child at any stage in the womb from fertilization to birth will be treated as if a full grown adult were murdered. But the law does not stop there. It continues in section “f”.
Nothing in this Code section shall be construed to permit the prosecution of: 1) Any person for conduct relating to an abortion for which the consent of the pregnant woman, or person authorized by law to act on her behalf, has been obtained or for which such consent is implied by law; 2) any person for any medical treatment of the pregnant woman or her unborn child; or 3) any woman with respect to her unborn child. § 16-5-80. Feticide; Voluntary Manslaughter of an Unborn Child
The law we celebrate as equal for all and upon all is not equal for unborn children. It discriminates against the youngest members of society. It is partial and unjust. Everyone who kills an unborn child is guilty of feticide except the mother and her doctor. Similar logic was used to justify slavery in generations past. The letter of the law condemns murder and gets around it for abortion by stating that fathers, mothers, and doctors (so-called) will not be prosecuted for child murder.
The Lord has much to say about partiality of the law:
For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality nor takes a bribe. He administers justice for the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, giving him food and clothing. Therefore love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. Deuteronomy 10:17-19 NKJV
Diverse weights and diverse measures, they are both alike, an abomination to the Lord. Proverbs 20:10 NKJV
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“I sympathize with doubters who may feel drawn to Christianity but find plenty of objections to keep them at arm’s distance. If you’re drawn to the message of Jesus but can’t seem to get past your doubts, perhaps it would be helpful if I share how I worked through some of my doubts.” 

I was raised in an environment of skepticism, during a time of questioning, amid a culture that preferred sarcastic mocking over serious thinking. We liked simplistic slogans more than complex considerations. We loved to point out religious hypocrisy but rarely turned the light of inquiry on our own assumptions.
On top of all this, I was raised in a Jewish family who firmly believed that “Jews don’t believe in Jesus.” So, to say the least, I had many doubts about the Christian faith my friends encouraged me to consider. After all, it was hard to give much credence to a religion that supposedly dominated Germany as it incinerated six million of my fellow Jews. A “Christian nation” thought they had found “the final solution” to the world’s problems: get rid of people like me.
So, I sympathize with doubters who may feel drawn to Christianity but find plenty of objections to keep them at arm’s distance. If you’re drawn to the message of Jesus but can’t seem to get past your doubts, perhaps it would be helpful if I share how I worked through some of my doubts.
Out of Absurdism
As I’ve said, many factors pointed me away from accepting the Christian faith. In addition to those already mentioned, I immersed myself in absurd literature and comedy for several years as I began my university studies. I mixed together an intellectual cocktail of Samuel Beckett, Kurt Vonnegut, and Woody Allen — with large quantities of alcohol added in. It made for a lot of laughs, even more smirks, and a great deal of what felt like fun. But there were hangovers as well — and not just from the alcohol. After the intoxication of laughter wears off, absurdism leaves the mind and heart with existential emptiness.
Immersed in meaninglessness, I continued to seek something transcendent in the world of music. I attended concerts, practiced, performed, and listened desperately, hoping to find a portal to the supernatural or divine. But every piece, every concert, every experience left me disappointed.
I was experiencing the kind of chronic disappointment C.S. Lewis describes in his book Mere Christianity, in the chapter titled “Hope.” Although I had not read anything by Lewis at that point, my life bore out the truth of what he said. Since even my best experiences proved unsatisfying, I could essentially respond in one of three ways:

I could embrace godless hedonism and keep trying to chase momentary intoxicating pleasures.
I could embrace cynicism and reject any hope that life might have some ultimate meaning.
I could embrace the possibility, as Lewis so eloquently puts it, that “if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world” (Mere Christianity, 136–37).

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From Desiring God: Randy Newman, our longtime friend, wrote this article just weeks ago to be published May 30 at Desiring God. Last week Randy died unexpectedly of heart complications. We publish this article with the blessing of his wife and family, and in gratitude to God for Randy’s faithful ministry and contagious joy in Jesus.
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