In “liberal Christian” teaching, which is not Christian at all, man’s
reason is stressed and is treated as the final authority. Liberal
theologians seek to reconcile Christianity with secular science and
“modern thinking.” In doing so, they treat science as all-knowing and
the Bible as fable-laden and false. Genesis’ early chapters are reduced
to poetry or fantasy, having a message, but not to be taken literally
(in spite of Jesus’ having spoken of those early chapters in literal
terms). Mankind is not seen as totally depraved, and thus liberal
theologians have an optimistic view of the future of mankind. The social
gospel is also emphasized, while denying the inability of fallen man to
fulfill it.
Whether a person is saved from their sin and its penalty in
hell is no longer the issue; the main thing is how man treats his fellow
man. “Love” of our fellow man becomes the defining issue. As a result of
this “reasoning” by liberal theologians, the following doctrines are
taught by liberal quasi-Christian theologians:
1) The Bible is not “God-breathed” and has errors. Because of this
belief, man (the liberal theologians) must determine which teachings are
correct and which are not. To believe that the Bible is “inspired” (in
that word’s original meaning) by God is only held by simpletons. This
directly contradicts 2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed
and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in
righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for
every good work.”
2) The virgin birth of Christ is a mythological false teaching. This
directly contradicts Isaiah 7:14 and Luke 2.
3) Jesus did not rise again from the grave in bodily form. This
contradicts the Resurrection accounts in all four gospels and the entire
New Testament.
4) Jesus was a good moral teacher, but His followers and their followers
have taken liberties with the history of His life as recorded in
Scripture (there were no “supernatural” miracles), with the gospels
having been written many years later and merely ascribed to the early
disciples in order to give greater weight to their teachings. This
contradicts the 2 Timothy passage and the doctrine of the supernatural
preservation of the Scriptures by God.
5) Hell is not real. Man is not lost in sin and is not doomed to some
future judgment without a relationship with Christ through faith. Man
can help himself; no sacrificial death by Christ is necessary since a
loving God would not send people to such a place as hell and since man
is not born in sin. This contradicts Jesus Himself, who declared Himself
to be the Way to God, through His atoning death (John 14:6).
6) Most of the human authors of the Bible are not as traditionally
believed. For instance, they believe that Moses did not write the first
five books of the Bible. The Book of Daniel had two authors because
there is no way that the detailed “prophecies” of the later chapters
could have been known ahead of time; they must have been written after
the fact. The same thinking was carried over to the New Testament books
as well. These ideas contradict not only the Scriptures, but historical
documents verifying the existence of all the people the liberals deny.
7) The most important thing for man to do is to “love” his neighbor.
What is the loving thing to do in any situation is not what the Bible
says is good but what the liberal theologians decide is good. This
denies the doctrine of total depravity, which states that man is capable
to doing nothing good and loving (Jeremiah 17:9) until He has been
redeemed by Christ and given a new nature (2 Corinthians 5:17).
There are many pronouncements of Scripture against those who would deny
the deity of Christ (2 Peter 2:1) (which liberal Christianity does); who
would preach another gospel than that which was preached by the apostles
(Galatians 1:8) (which is what the liberal theologians do in denying the
necessity of Christ’s atoning death and preach a social gospel in its
place). The Bible condemns those who call good evil and evil good
(Isaiah 5:20) (which some liberal churches do by embracing homosexuality
as an alternative lifestyle while the Bible repeatedly condemns its
practice).
Scripture speaks against those who would cry “peace, peace” when there
is no peace (Jeremiah 6:14), (which liberal theologians do by saying that
man can attain peace with God apart from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross
and that man need not worry about a future judgment before God).
The
Word of God speaks of a time when men will have a form of godliness, but
deny the power thereof (2 Timothy 3:5) (which is what liberal theology
does in that is says that there is some inner goodness in man that does
not require a rebirth by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ). And
it speaks against those who would serve idols instead of the one true
God (1 Chronicles 16:26) (which liberal Christianity does in that it
creates a false god according to its own liking rather than worshiping
the God as He is described in the whole of the Bible).