A Strange Group of Christians

Now people freaked out when I said that because it implies that Jesus was wrong, that Jesus made a mistake, that Jesus

had to learn and be confronted by somebody and Jesus grew.

But I think that's precisely what the text says.

That you throw out this idea that Jesus is a divine figure who is perfect and holy.

Universalism is much more of a common Christian opinion in the first three, four centuries.

I'm a pro -choice man.

So it's not selfish to put yourself first.

What exactly is a Christian?

Is everyone who identifies as a Christian really a Christian?

There is a subset of the Christian world that can be categorized as progressive Christians.

And the teachings of these progressive Christians are very interesting to say the least.

Let's take a look at what some of the more popular progressive Christians teach and then we'll consider just

how Christian these progressive Christians are.

Brandon Robertson is a progressive Christian who has gained a significant following on TikTok.

Rolling Stone writes, Recently, this thing has been happening to Brandon Robertson.

He'll be at a gay bar minding his own business, sort of, when someone will approach to ask, Are

you a pastor by any chance?

Robertson will nod.

Are you that pastor who did that video on LGBT inclusion?

If you're struggling to reconcile your Christian faith with LGBT identity, I hope you'll check out my book, The Gospel of

Inclusion, A Christian Case for LGBT Inclusion in the Church.

This book is a result of years of me wrestling with the Bible, wrestling with the ancient languages, wrestling with

the ancient cultures and how the Greco -Roman world and ancient Jewish world understood sexuality and gender identity in order to

understand what the Bible actually taught about LGBT people and our relationships.

And I come to the conclusion that the Bible points us on a trajectory towards radical inclusion, that LGBT

people reflect the image of God and the creativity of God, and that God delights in us and in our

relationships.

Robertson will nod again.

Then the gratitude will start flowing.

Thank you for what you do.

They'll gush.

I was introduced to Robertson when I heard that he called Jesus a racist.

I thought, no way.

What?

There's a part of the Gospel of Mark where Jesus uses a racial slur.

In Mark chapter 7, there's the account of the Seraphim woman, a woman who is Syrian and Greek, both of which there were

strong biases against within the Jewish community.

And she comes to ask Jesus to heal her daughter who's possessed by a demon.

And what is Jesus' response?

He says, it's not good for me to give the children's food, meaning the children of Israel's food, to dogs.

He calls her a dog.

What's amazing about this account is that the woman doesn't back down.

She speaks truth to power.

She confronts Jesus and says, well, you can think that about me, but even dogs deserve the crumbs from the table.

Her boldness and bravery to speak truth to power actually changes Jesus' mind.

Jesus repents of his racism and extends healing to this woman's daughter.

Now, let's just try searching Brandon Robertson on YouTube.

The first result is, Christians stop idolizing Jesus.

I wonder if the video is as bad as it sounds.

Now, people freaked out when I said that because it implies that Jesus was wrong, that Jesus made a mistake, that Jesus had

to learn and be confronted by somebody and Jesus grew.

But I think that's precisely what the text says.

The text doesn't say Jesus was testing her faith.

There's no indication that this was some sort of divine test that Jesus actually all along was going to heal her daughter.

No, Jesus only heals her daughter after he's confronted by this woman.

She holds a mirror up to him and he has to see that he's limiting God's justice.

And Jesus changes.

And Jesus learns.

Jesus repents.

Yes, this means that if you embrace this interpretation of the story, that you throw out this idea that Jesus is a divine

figure who is perfect and holy and so separate from us.

But I think this is what the text is actually conveying.

Wow.

Yeah, that's bad.

If Jesus wasn't perfect, then there is no way he could save us or make us perfect.

Is it your kind of Jesus?

Jesus defined by you?

Or is it the Jesus defined by himself?

And look what he says.

Verse 21.

From that time, Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the

elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and be raised up on the third day.

So we're talking about something more here than a prophet.

We're talking about a redeemer.

Because let me share with you something.

If this day you believe that Jesus is the Messiah and the son of God this very day, and you go

out and buy yourself a Bible.

And if you could, from this very day, you obeyed every command

internally, externally.

Every disposition of yours was perfect.

Every word, every attitude, every thought was sinless.

From this very day until judgment, you would still stand condemned before God.

John Pavlovitz is an American pastor and author known for his progressive social

and political writings from a liberal Christian perspective.

Let's see what kind of a rabbit hole this man will lead us down.

Let's start with YouTube.

Searching John Pavlovitz.

A pro -choice man grieves pro -life women.

Can it really be what it sounds like?

I'm a pro -choice man.

And there's a strange moment in nearly all of my interactions with professed pro -life women.

Whether on social media or in person, I eventually have a realization.

Only one of us believes that she should have full autonomy over her own body, and it isn't her.

Full autonomy over her own body is a very interesting way of saying the right to end

the life of another human being.

You know, that worked.

That question, it's okay to kill a baby in the womb, when?

Stopped his mouth because anger is a sign of conviction.

So I went back and began asking the same question and found that we had a video with people changing their

minds about the issue of abortion.

Here's another video.

No, the Bible doesn't say that being LGBTQ is a sin.

Let's take a look.

I want to suggest to you today that the very statement homosexuality is a sin or being LGBTQ

is a sin illustrates the very problem with this position.

You see, we understand that sexuality is a vast and complex idea.

It involves gender identity and sexual orientation.

But is gender identity really a thing?

More fundamentally, there's an argument about what it means to be a man or a woman.

Just let that sink in for a moment.

We went from having an argument about, you know, what were acceptable sexual

practices to then going to an argument about who are acceptable marriage

partners.

And now to an argument about what is a male and what is a female?

What is a man and what is a woman?

And what about sexual orientation?

Is it really what people claim it is?

I mean, suppose, you know, we can say that I have a genetic predisposition toward violence.

Does that make it OK?

Because we can prove that I have a genetic predisposition.

If I have a genetic predisposition toward drunkenness, does that make it OK?

Officer pulls me over.

Sir, you been drinking?

Officer, I don't even know.

Sir, you want to get out of the car?

OK, but before I do, you should need to know I got that drunk gene.

Oh, well, sir, I'm sorry.

Please weave on your way.

Pavlovitz has a significant following on Twitter.

Now let's take a deep breath and plunge into the cesspool that is Twitter.

If Texas doesn't elect at Beto O 'Rourke, it will be one of the greatest disasters in our days.

A true leader.

Ah, yes, Beto O 'Rourke.

The leader who will save us all, except babies.

With a Democratic governor who's going to restore the right to choose and for every woman to make her own decisions about

her own body, her own health care, her own future.

That's the way forward.

But we've got to win.

Dear Democrats in Congress, fight for us.

Sincerely, America.

Of course, because Democrats are our moral superiors.

If you

see

it.

Richard Rohr has been called one of the most popular spirituality authors and speakers in the

world by PBS.

Rohr is even praised by Oprah.

You are inviting us into a different way of thinking with the universal Christ, how a forgotten reality can change

everything we see, hope for and believe.

What would Jesus, the Christ, think of what has been made of his name if he were to come today, do you think?

And guess who else Rohr is friends with?

That's right.

Brandon Robertson.

It seems these progressive Christians are all friends with each other.

Here they are talking about universalism.

That's why what you call universalism is much more of a common Christian opinion in the first three, four

centuries, you know, and then it became marginalized.

Now it's called universalism.

You know, the assumption is if God is victorious, then God is victorious.

God doesn't lose.

That's what it means to be God.

But the Bible clearly talks about a place called hell.

The atonement is limited because people go to hell.

Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, and I will say to them, depart from me, you workers of iniquity.

I never knew you.

Jesus talked more about hell than he did about heaven.

We know that hell is a reality and we know people go there and perish forever.

Rohr also contributed to a book called Homosexuality and Christian Faith, questions of

conscience for the churches.

We conclude with the practical questions of ordaining gays and lesbians, blessing their unions and

granting them not only full human rights, but wholehearted acceptance in our churches.

Oprah is by far the most progressive who calls herself a Christian.

I am not talking about religion.

I am a Christian.

That is my faith.

I'm not asking you to be a Christian.

If you want to be one, I can show you how.

Unsurprisingly, Oprah's God is also pro -LGBTQ.

The God I serve, the God I serve doesn't care whether you're tall or short or whether

you were born Black or Asian or gay.

And unsurprisingly, Oprah doesn't believe Jesus is the only way to God and salvation.

Christians in life, either you're moving toward the darkness or you're moving toward the light.

She calls it fear and love.

There's this wonderful book called Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

One of the points it brings out is one of the mistakes that human beings make is believing that there is only one way to live

and that we don't accept that there are diverse ways of being in the world, that there are millions of ways

to be a human being.

And many ways, no, but many paths to what you call God.

And her path might be something else.

And when she gets there, she might call it the light.

But her loving and her kindness and her generosity brings her to the same point that it brings you.

It doesn't matter whether she called it God along the way or not.

And unsurprisingly, Oprah's Jesus is a self -help kind of Jesus.

But God said, Jesus said what you do to the least of these and how you treat other people, you treat your

brother like yourself.

OK, that's when you're getting into the service.

But in your life.

Yes.

You've got to be as good to you as you want to be to God in order to be of service to others in the

world.

So it's not selfish to put yourself first.

No, it's selfful.

It's selfful.

It's selfful to be first, to be as good as possible to you, to take care of you, to keep you whole

and healthy.

And unsurprisingly, Oprah's definition of faith has absolutely nothing to do with Jesus.

I think the ability to have a faith in life and breath and presence that is so

strong that you trust this moment and then the next moment and then the next moment and then the next

moment.

There is a way of living that allows you to be fully present in this moment that I think

is faith.

But of course, faith in anything other than Jesus isn't saving faith.

How?

Through faith in Jesus Christ.

Through faith alone.

And here, not just in the book of Romans, but here we see the contrast.

By works cast out, by faith in this first promise, the Protoevangelicum, the first promise of the

gospel.

By faith in this, we are saved.

One final question we need to consider.

Are progressive Christians like Brandon Robertson, John Pavlovitz, Richard Rohr, and

Oprah really Christians?

Are they saved?

The answer is simple.

No.

These people are not Christians.

They are not Christians.

They do not know the God of the Bible.