"Progressive Christianity"

Hello, and thank you for listening to the Testing the Spirits podcast. In this episode, I'd like to talk about what is called progressive Christianity. So let's begin by defining the term, and I'll be basing my comments off this article from the website GotQuestions .org, as well as my own personal experience, because I'm a conservative Bible-believing pastor in the state of Massachusetts, so I'm surrounded by all this.

Defining Progressive Christianity

The article says, Progressive Christianity is a recent movement in Protestantism that focuses strongly on social justice and environmentalism. Now, I already did a podcast on social justice, so you can go back and listen to that if you haven't already.

But progressive Christianity, the focus is on social justice and environmentalism, and often includes a revisionist or non-traditional view of the scriptures. Since the movement entails a number of different beliefs and views on various topics, it is difficult, the article says, to label the whole movement decisively as either biblical or unbiblical, which I disagree with that, and I'll tell you why in a moment.

Each claim, GotQuestions .org, the article says, each claim and belief of any movement should be filtered through the word of God.

I do agree with that.

And whatever does not line up with scripture should be rejected. Again, I agree. But I do take issue with that one statement, and it's rare that I disagree with this website. GotQuestions .org is a very reliable website.

But I think I have to say I sort of disagree with this idea that it's difficult to label the whole movement as unbiblical. Well, that's exactly what it is. Progressive Christianity is unbiblical. Now, that doesn't mean they're wrong about everything.

I mean, even a broken clock is correct twice a day. But the article continues, and this really stuck out to me. It says, the Bible is replete with instructions to visit orphans and widows in their distress, James 127, and to protect the environment that God has entrusted to us, Genesis 128.

First of all, visiting orphans and widows and the modern social justice movement, that's really not the same thing. That's not what we're talking about. But Genesis 128, let's just read that. Because they say in Genesis 128, the Bible tells us to protect the environment.

What does the Bible actually say? Genesis 128 says, then God blessed them, Adam and Eve, mankind, and God said to them, be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

So, am I to conclude that God telling mankind to fill and subdue the earth means protect the environment?

Okay.

Now, obviously, I'll say this, where we live, and we do live on planet Earth, but even in your local community, we do want to be good stewards of what God has entrusted to us. We all want clean air and clean water.

I don't want to get sidetracked on this. I'm just saying Genesis 128 teaches us to protect the environment. I'm not sure about that. And then the devil is in the details. What does it mean to protect the environment?

Because then you get into the whole climate change agenda and do they really have a sincere motive there? That's really what's at stake. But the article continues, insofar as progressive Christianity is a movement that seeks to emphasize and honor these principles, it certainly lines up with Scripture.

I think that's very naive. I just have to say it. However, there are some aspects of progressive Christianity that contradict a biblical worldview. And in general, members of this movement do not ascribe to the biblical doctrine of the inerrancy of Scripture, and again, in general, do not believe that the Bible is the literal word of God.

Well, if that's true, then why try to say, well, some of it could be biblical and some of it couldn't? No, it's a rotten movement. Progressive Christianity, the article says, also tends to emphasize what is known as collective salvation over the biblical concept of personal salvation.

Collective Salvation Versus Personal Salvation

So here's the thing about progressive Christianity. They have the wrong view of Christ, the wrong view of salvation, and my friends, if you don't have that right, really nothing else matters. The article says the Bible is clear that God redeems those individuals who believe in Jesus Christ as Savior and rescues them from an eternity of separation from Him in torment or in hell, which progressives do not believe in hell, or they redefine the term.

So collective salvation, by contrast, emphasizes the restoration of whole cultures and societies to what progressive Christians believe is the correct socioeconomic structure, namely Marxism. Marxism, in turn, is a theory of economics and politics developed by an atheist, Karl Marx, from unbiblical assumptions.

Okay, so now we get down to the root of it. And knowing what Jesus taught, that a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. Anything that is driven by a Marxist ideology, it is by nature anti-Christian. Okay, and it's certainly unbiblical.

I get it.

The focus on the environment will appeal to many people, many young people in particular, but unfortunately, Marxists, globalists, you know, the people who are currently trying to take over, they're using this issue of global warming and climate change to kind of cram this agenda down our throats by saying that unless we give them all this extra power that the world is going to be destroyed in the next 10 years or it's going to be irreversible, we won't be able to solve it, we're all going to die because of climate change.

And my friends, the people who say this, they are the same people who fly in private jets to these climate change summits. You know, they get on their private jet talking about global warming and they use more fossil fuels in one day than I use all year.

So because this is being used to further their political agenda and they don't practice these things themselves, I don't believe you can trust what they say. So yeah, go ahead and recycle, do what you can, great, but don't buy into this scam.

But even if you say that they are right about climate change, which I do not grant that, again, we all want a clean environment, but even if you were to grant that, okay, they're right on this one issue, which again, is questionable.

But even if they were, it doesn't justify everything else. Karl Marx was an atheist, he hated Christ, so progressive Christianity is a Marxist movement. It's not Christianity. So progressive Christianity is really Marxism with a Christian label.

They are trying to destroy Christianity by infiltrating the large denominations, and they have done a really good job at doing so. So you can only get so far, the enemies of Christ can only get so far by attacking the church from the outside.

But if the liberals, the Marxists, the progressives, whatever you want to call them, if they can infiltrate the churches and hold positions of pastor and bishop and archbishop, then they are in a position to do the most damage, and that's exactly what's happening.

But they're not going to creep into the church and say, oh, we're wolves in sheep's clothing. No, they're going to say we're Christians, but what they're teaching is not biblical. Environmentalism, you could say maybe there are parts of the Bible, be a good steward, but this is not the message of scripture.

Social justice is not the message of scripture. And again, go listen to my other podcast on that subject. So like I said, I am a pastor living in Massachusetts. This progressive Christianity nonsense is everywhere.

And trust me when I tell you, these progressives do not believe the Bible. And they look upon true Christians who try to follow God's word, they look at us with contempt. Progressive Christianity denies the authority of the word of God.

You will never see them preaching verse by verse through the scriptures.

What do they do?

They cherry pick the parts that they like, and they twist the meaning to promote their socialist agenda. That's what's happening. Most of them do not believe in the divinity of Christ. They reject the virgin birth.

They deny hell. Many of them deny even a literal concept of heaven. They defend and support every form of sexual perversion, including sodomy and cross-dressing. And even if you thought they had a correct view on a couple things, it wouldn't even matter since they deny many, if not most, if not all of the core tenants of the historic Christian faith.

Just go in. I said, trust me, but what's the name of the podcast? Test the Spirit. So you do need to test what I'm saying. And I don't necessarily recommend you do this, but you could if you wanted to see for yourself.

You could go into a progressive church, one of these places with the rainbow out front, and ask the pastor if they believe that Jesus died on the cross for our sins and rose from the dead. Some of those pastors would probably laugh at you if they did claim to believe in the resurrection, or if you kept prodding them, you would probably find out that they're just redefining the term, that Jesus, oh, we believe in the resurrection.

And what they mean is that Jesus just lives on in our hearts, or Jesus is alive, so to speak, in spirit, in the sense that he lives on in and through the lives of his followers. But they don't actually believe that his corpse came back to life, which that is what the Bible teaches.

Why?

Why do they reject these things? Because they reject the supernatural. They reject the Bible. Now, are there a few exceptions? There may be. Anytime you use words like progressive or conservative, it's a scale.

So some people are more progressive than others. But in general, the best way I can put this, progressive Christianity is an oxymoron. Progressive Christianity is not a thing. It is not Christian. The movement is a corruption of Christianity.

Therefore, it's not Christian at all. The article finishes up, the views of many progressive Christians do not fit with biblical principles. In the end, however, discretion is needed in evaluating a particular claim or belief in terms of scripture.

The whole spectrum of beliefs identified by the term progressive Christianity is too broad to permit an unequivocal conclusion as to whether or not it can be labeled unbiblical. And I disagree with that.

The article says, as with all uncertain issues, the Christian would do well to compare each claim of those in the progressive Christianity movement with scripture. That I do agree with. Asking God for the wisdom to discern truth from error because he has promised wisdom to all who seek it, James 1 verse 5.

So I have to say, and I kind of hate to say it, because I really do like this website, but I think this article is very naive. They seem to admit that the progressives, their views don't line up with scripture, but then they leave the door open that, well, you know, maybe some of it is okay.

No, it's rotten to the core. Why? Because it's a Marxist movement and Marxism is opposed to the Christian faith. If someone is truly progressive in the modern sense of the word, they cannot be biblical.

The one thing I do agree with, taking what they say, the progressives, and comparing it to the scripture, this is what this podcast is all about. Taking what people say in the name of God, comparing it to the word of God, testing all things and holding fast to that which is good.

1 Thessalonians 5 .21. Testing the spirits, whether or not they are of God. 1 John 4 .1. So we're going to continue to do that. Please pray for me. If you like this podcast, click thumbs up, feel free to share it.

And again, thanks for listening. And until next time, may the Lord be with you.

Have a great day.