We live in a world that is constantly revising its moral and ethical norms, usually in favour of progressivism. We’ve even come to a point where it is contentious to offer a definition of the word “woman.” While society celebrates its insistence that everything is plastic, malleable, and in flux, God’s standards don’t change with the times. He is and forever will be just and holy, to pick just two of his attributes. Therefore even if the world continues down the road of increasingly skewed ethics, especially around sexuality, we can be sure that what God finds pleasing and consistent with his will hasn’t changed.

We live in a world that is continually changing, even our moral standards are changing. Change is part of life. It is part of what it means to be human. Without change we cannot progress. Simultaneously, because of it we all have the potential to regress. This is one of the biggest distinctions between God and us. For God doesn’t change. He is what theologians call immutable. And this is what I will be reflecting on in this article.  
Reflecting on the distinction between God and creation, one psalmist writes: “Of old you laid the foundation of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you will remain; they will all wear out like a garment. You will change them like a robe, and they will pass away, but you are the same, and your years have no end” (Psalm 102:26-27; Hebrews 1:10-12). This passage shows the unchanging nature of God contrast with creation. It shows that unlike everything else, which will perish and fade with time, God isn’t subject to change.
How Does an Immutable God Relate to Changing Beings?
The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) says that God is “working all things according to the counsel of his own immutable and most righteous will, for his own glory” (3.5).
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However, if they put their case in such clear terms, it couldn’t do the other thing that such assurances are designed to do: to ease the consciences of the chosen members of the NP that they are not doing anything wrong. As a result, the NP emails almost all sound like this: the PCA is wonderful, and everyone is wonderful, and we are the most wonderful, and our cause is worthy of tireless and sacrificial advocacy.

As I read the now public emails of the secret society called the National Partnership (NP), I was not at all perturbed by their occasional willingness to speak ill of their enemies (people like me). It was obvious from the structure of the group that I stand in the way of what they view as a healthy Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). That they would call me “unhealthy” or “dry bones” makes perfect sense. In fact, I would be disappointed if they didn’t say it because it’s clear enough that we are on entirely different teams, perhaps down to the very bottom of our souls.
What first bothered me about the emails was the sheer number of times that one of the NP leaders reminded his colleagues that what they are doing was not wrong. I thought about it like this: If I told my elders at every meeting that we were not doing anything wrong, could they be faulted if they concluded that I was giving them such assurances because things were really not as rosy as I was proclaiming? It may be that NP members are weighed down with guilty consciences if the leaders must assure the members frequently that their cause is noble.
What also troubled me is that men listed in this group were their repeated accusations of others breaking the ninth commandment. I have heard it from so many and in such varying circumstances that I have wondered why they talk about it as often as they do. For example, a minister with stature in my presbytery, who apparently is some kind of minor director within the NP, has personally threatened me and my session that we would be breaking the ninth commandment if we were to say something is a sin which our confessional documents bluntly call a sin, namely, attempted suicide (cf. WLC 136).
The reason I find their appeals to the ninth commandment so troubling is because their involvement in a secret society designed for the purpose of consolidating political gains is itself one of the most obvious breaches possible of this commandment.
The first thing WLC 144 says is this:
“The duties required in the ninth commandment are, the preserving and promoting of truth between man and man, and the good name of our neighbour, as well as our own; appearing and standing for the truth; and from the heart, sincerely, freely, clearly, and fully, speaking the truth, and only the truth, in matters of judgment and justice, and in all other things whatsoever…”
In other words, what God requires of us most of all in the ninth commandment is truthfulness. A truthful representation of neighbors, ourselves, and in all other things whatsoever.
However, the first requirement of membership in a secret society is that members misrepresent themselves to others. Recall the first rule of Fight Club: Don’t talk about fight club. Other people are not allowed to find out who we are or what we are up to. That is the essence of a secret society, and it is why those who desire to keep the ninth commandment do not join secret societies.
NP members must misrepresent themselves to those outside of their society, because they know that Presbyterians believe that secret societies are impermissible in a denomination that depends upon open discussion and debate in order to promote the general welfare of the church and its mission.
The second requirement of a secret society is that members misrepresent themselves to each other. If they see themselves correctly, then they will realize that what they are doing is wrong on its face and their consciences will suffer dearly for it. Therefore, secret societies wind up misrepresenting themselves to themselves.
It’s striking how often in the emails the NP leaders reassure the members that they are in the majority, and that they are fighting for a grand future which they alone can bring to fruition. We read for example, “If we are clear in advocating for greater health in the Presbyterian Church in America, we will all be part of a more beautiful, more orthodox denomination for Kingdom work around the world. But as always, it will require dedicated and sacrificial efforts” (p. 288).
On the face of it, such sentiments sound noble and virtuous. But only until we realize what it implies about those who are outside the inner circle. It means that those outside the circle are the enemies of beauty and orthodoxy, and the secret members must work tirelessly to defeat them.
However, if they put their case in such clear terms, it couldn’t do the other thing that such assurances are designed to do: to ease the consciences of the chosen members of the NP that they are not doing anything wrong. As a result, the NP emails almost all sound like this: the PCA is wonderful, and everyone is wonderful, and we are the most wonderful, and our cause is worthy of tireless and sacrificial advocacy.
Someday in the not-too-distant future, when the PCA has been splintered, everyone will know that it was the NP who charted the course. The NP will secretly applaud themselves when they are victorious, meanwhile reassuring the losing party that they had no idea that becoming “more orthodox” would make anyone want to leave the denomination. But they will seethe if they are the ones who are cast out.
The members of this secret society clearly perceive that another public group, the Gospel Reformation Network (GRN), is their rival for the future of the PCA (p. 347). However, their leader goes to great lengths to remind the members of the NP that they are not in fact rival political parties, but merely groups that are always opposite sides of the direction of the PCA and the issues related to it.
What is a rival political party if not a group that all of the members of your secret society are always to oppose in votes, committees, etc.? So we find that the destruction of the ninth commandment runs very deep in the National Partnership. Deception to others, bolstered by willful self-deception.
These emails are in fact a study in self and group deception. I accept that everyone who is or has ever been a part of this group are within the fold of Jesus Christ and committed Christians. However, it is striking to see the ways in which their leaders and members gather together to salve each other’s consciences, to the point where they apparently believe that the ninth commandment only forbids speaking poorly about people who are not in their non-secret society.
If you say it within the confines of an exclusive group, whose members are all known to one another, who all imbibe adult beverages too much at General Assembly, and laugh about the “idiot” conservatives, then it’s just words between friends, as Pastor Cassidy so kindly reminded us. On further reflection, I do recall having been to one NP fellowship gathering; I did not find it especially beautiful, orthodox, or sober. And we are to remember that we are not supposed to think critically of the several hundred PCA/NP members who believe that the rest of us are merely “dry bones.”
Mike Littell is a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Pastor of South Dayton PCA in Centerville, Ohio.

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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