Why We Believe

Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage-- with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry. (2Ti 4:2-5 NIV)

The two biggest problems with progressive Christianity are (1) the proponents of this ideology make God in their image (God as bobble-head) and (2) the second is like the first, they dilute the authority of Scripture by quoting Scripture out of context to make it seem to endorse one’s personal authority. So how does this work.

God as Bobble Head

We were made in the image of God, not vice versa. What does that mean? In post-modern “thinking” everyone has their own story and their own truth. However, in John 14:6, Jesus says that He is he Way, the Truth and the Life. No man comes to the Father except by Him.” That means that He is the final arbiter on how you go about your business, what you understand as truth, and how you live your life. What the false teachers of progressivism say is that your inner feelings inform your way, truth and life and God agrees with you like a bobble-head. For example, someone might say “I feel attracted to the same sex, so that makes me gay. Therefore, I need to act on that feeling, right Jesus?” Then the Jesus of your imagination lovingly boobs his head and provides you with the affirmation. NO! You do not “inform” Jesus of who you are and who you will be, He informs YOU! See Matthew 5:17-20; Romans 1:18-32; 3:23.

Finally, The LORD said to Job:

2 "Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him? Let him who accuses God answer him!" 3 Then Job answered the LORD: 4 "I am unworthy-- how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. 5 I spoke once, but I have no answer-- twice, but I will say no more." 6 Then the LORD spoke to Job out of the storm: 7 "Brace yourself like a man; I will question you, and you shall answer me. 8 "Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself? (Job 40:2-8 NIV)

Progressives are very inclusive. All of them affirm agendas that focus on the self because it arises from a desire to “find out who I really am by looking inside”. All identification of oneself from looking inside is affirmed by these people, so you can believe a lot of different things about yourself and they will be approved by the “inclusive” group. However, the moment you go outside yourself for an absolute authority on what you do and who you are, they are not so inclusive and will escort you out of the building. They hold similar views to Critical Race Theory (CRT) ideology.

Who does God say that we are to be? Deuteronomy 18:13; Matthew 5:48; 8:12; 19:21. All that Jesus is saying in Matthew as well as Paul in Romans is to inform us that there is no hope outside of the death and resurrection of Jesus. That is the perfection that God the Father accepts.

Dilution of Scripture

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said. 26 He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs." 27 "Yes it is, Lord," she said. "Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master's table." 28 Then Jesus said to her, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed at that moment. (Mat 15:25-28 NIV)

These passages are used by the progressives to demonstrate how Jesus was racist and sexist and the woman helped him change his mind. Proponents of this teaching go on to tell us that we must follow Jesus’ example here and learn from our mistakes of disrespecting other people’s life stories. Just as Jesus “learned” to not be racist and sexist in the presence of this woman, so must we. Of course this is blasphemous and not at all what is going on in this passage.

First, Jesus does not call the woman a dog, and second, the dog analogy is not used in the derogatory sense. He is using the word kynariois which means “little dogs” or “pets”. If Jesus wanted to use a derogatory term for “dog” it would be kyōn or kynos, as in Matthew 7:6 or 2 Peter 2:22. He is using an analogy of a common scene in GENTILE middle eastern homes to show how God prioritizes Israel over non-Israelites who had rejected God and practiced idol-worship. People have pets that they care for, but these pets are prioritized after the children in the household. Currently, Jesus is ministering to Jews but, attention would later turn to the Gentiles. This is the same as what Paul says in Ephesians (2:11+). She did understand this (the NIV posits the women as contradicting Jesus, which is a bad translation). Jesus then commends her faith and heals her child. Matthew and Mark both place this incident right after a discussion on what is and is not pure. The way Jesus deals with non-Jews is similar to the way Elisha dealt with Naaman (2 Kings 5) and Elijah and the widow from Sidon (1 Kings 17). In fact, Jesus refers to both these Old Testament stories (Luke 4:24-27). He intends to heal this woman’s daughter just as He also interacts with her. The placement of these stories follows the norms of organization of themes in ancient biography.

We must rise above treating Jesus/God as a bobble-head and the Scriptures something that we can re-write according to our own fancies.

Proponents of the false teachings of “Progressive Christianity” include authors Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and Richard Rohr. Additional false teachers include Tic Tok “influencer” Brandon Robertson and his mentor Miguel de la Torres.