How dare you question someone else's faith!

Both Barack Obama and Donald Trump consider themselves to be Christians. Those who have had the audacity to call their claims into question have often stirred a firestorm of criticism. Faith is often seen as a very private thing which no one has the right to challenge or question. I would suggest that the difference of opinion stems in part from two different ways of understanding faith and Christianity. For lack of better terms, I will call these two viewpoints “Traditional Christianity” and “Progressive Christianity.”

Traditional Christianity

Traditional Christianity crosses denominational boundaries and has always taught that all human beings have sinned against God. Our sinfulness manifests itself in specific attitudes, thoughts and actions, but is more deeply rooted in ultimate allegiances to power, glory, honor, wealth, religion, family, self, entertainment—anything but absolute allegiance to the God of the Bible! This sinfulness has separated us from a holy God and results in his wrath against us. No amount of good works on our part can make up for our rebellion. By ourselves, our situation would be hopeless.

The solution, however, was provided by God Himself who became human in the person of Jesus Christ, lived among us as a perfect example, and died a torturous death as an atoning sacrifice in our place. God applies the benefit of this sacrifice—a right standing before Him—to all who repent of their sin and turn in faith to Jesus as their lord and king.

Repentance is often misunderstood. To repent is not just being sorry we’ve sinned. To repent means to have a change of mind or a change of heart. A repentant heart is one that no longer looks at sin as merely a mistake. It no longer relativizes sin as if the fact that I’m not as bad as others somehow excuses me. It no longer excuses sin as the fault of my environment, or circumstances or genetics, or parents. Repentance emotionally and intellectually comes to grips with the fact that I have rebelled against a holy God and am without excuse. This heart attitude, coupled with a sincere desire to change, is repentance.

Faith is also widely misunderstood. Biblical saving faith is not just believing certain facts about Jesus, like his deity or resurrection—as important as those facts are. Even demons have that kind of “faith”! Saving faith is not just trusting that God is going to take you to heaven. Jesus said that many on judgment day will say to him, “Lord, Lord…”, but he will say to them, “Depart, you workers of iniquity.” Biblical saving faith is a heart attitude of loving devotion/ commitment/ dedication/ allegiance, to Jesus Christ as Savior, Lord and King; trusting him alone to make us right with God. This kind of repentance/faith cannot help but result in a change that produces increasing obedience to Jesus, our King, resulting in love, kindness and compassion (theologians call this “sanctification”). Biblically speaking, repentance and faith are like two sides of the same coin. Repentance turns from sin. Faith turns toward Jesus.

Although some traditionalists will quibble with my wording, I would argue that this gospel has basically been the core teaching of Christianity for 2,000 years, precisely because it is so thoroughly and solidly rooted in the New Testament. Admittedly, this teaching has been widely distorted at times by both Catholics and Protestants. For example, many in the Roman Catholic Church have, throughout history, seemingly substituted good works, or adherence to rituals, or commitment to “the Church” for genuine devotion to Christ. Among Protestants, John Calvin, once denounced those who have no devotion toward God and yet falsely think they are saved just because they intellectually believe certain doctrines. The view Calvin denounced is still wide-spread in contemporary Christianity. But these are distortions of Traditional (biblical) Christianity.

Progressive Christianity

A second kind of “Christianity” is what I will call, “Progressive Christianity.” This also crosses denominational boundaries but tends to be found more in old, mainline denominations. In his book, The Heart of Christianity, Marcus Borg calls this the “emerging paradigm.” This is misleading, however, since Borg’s “emerging paradigm” is pretty much the same as “liberal” or “modernist” Christianity and has been around for over two hundred years. Progressive Christianity tends to deny what Traditionalists have—for almost two thousand years—seen to be core doctrines of the Christian faith—e.g. the inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Christ, the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and the bodily resurrection, etc. In Progressive Christianity, the core ideas of sin, repentance and final judgment tend to be ignored, downplayed, denied or even denounced. Progressive Christianity is primarily, if not exclusively, concerned with being kind, compassionate, loving, tolerant and non-judgmental towards everyone (the book by Marcus Borg cited above gives a detailed explanation and defense of this view). In this view, faith is not so much loving devotion to a person but a feeling or preference for a particular religious worldview. How dare anyone call in to question your personal preference!

Evangelicalism once stood firmly in the line of Traditional Christianity, though in recent times, many evangelicals seem more like practicing progressives. What I mean is that while these progressive evangelicals technically still hold to core tenets of the faith, they tend to shy away from teaching doctrine, and they ignore or downplay ideas like sin, repentance and final judgment. Preaching on sin and repentance may seem too judgmental, intolerant and politically incorrect to Progressive congregations. Like the liberal version of Progressive Christianity, the evangelical version seems to focus largely on tolerance, love, and compassion.

Evaluation

Of course, love and compassion are essential features of any version of Christianity, but the Progressive version is problematic. First, traditional Christianity places a great deal of emphasis on biblical standards of honesty, ethics, biblical morality etc. In the book cited above, Marcus Borg characterizes this as an emphasis on purity rather than on compassion. The problem is that when compassion and tolerance are separated from biblical standards or “purity,” they quickly descend into inconsistent and sometimes even hypocritical relativism.

Secular progressives, for example, loudly preach tolerance, and yet they are often among the most intolerant people on the planet—showing tolerance only toward the views they support! Being compassionate toward someone (e.g., a rapist) may unintentionally involve being uncompassionate toward someone else (e.g. his victim). Non-discrimination toward one group may necessarily involve discrimination toward another. Love, compassion and tolerance must be rooted in absolutes—what Borg decries as “purity” standards, which Traditionalists find in the Bible—or else the result is often inconsistent relativism.

Second, unless love and compassion flow out of a heart of repentance and loving devotion (faith) toward Jesus Christ, our acts of love and compassion are really nothing more than the kind of works-righteousness or works-salvation denounced so strongly by the Apostle Paul. Paul strongly and repeatedly insisted that no one is saved by the good works they do, but only by God’s grace through faith in Christ. Besides, if our ultimate allegiance (faith) is not to Jesus as King, then any good works we do are but “filthy rags” to God since they would be coming from a heart which is ultimately in rebellion against God.

Finally, the idea of faith as a feeling or personal preference is a modern viewpoint congenial to modern pluralist sensibilities in which would be loath to place any one “faith” or religion over another (except by way of personal preference). It is certainly not, however, the viewpoint which, according to the New Testament, was taught by Jesus and apostles. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus taught, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” 

It is hard for me to avoid the conclusion, therefore, that the apostles and very earliest followers of Jesus would have considered many modern “Progressive Christians”—whether of the liberal version or the “evangelical” version—to be Christians in name only. And when I look at the "fruit" of the words and deeds of Barack Obama and Donald Trump, I find it hard to believe that the apostles would have considered either of them to be Christian.

"Is God a Moral Monster"

I've been reading Is God a Moral Monster by Paul Copan. Overall a good book so far, but I'm wondering if some of his points are a bit wrong-headed.

I'm thinking specifically of his dealing with ceremonial purity laws in the Old Testament. Copan is reacting to what one atheist called, "The Bible's ubiquitous wierdness." Copan spends considerable space explaining why he thinks these purity laws were given and what the symbolism was behind these laws.

For example, Copan suggests that "Genesis 1 divides animals into three spheres: animals that walk on the land, animals that swim in the water, animals that fly in the air." He says that "animals that 'transgressed' boundaries or overlapped spheres were to be avoided as unclean." So eels or shellfish are unclean because they don't have scales or fins (80).

But eels and shellfish don't walk on land or fly in the air. Saying that they've "crossed boundaries" simply because they lack scales or fins seems to be a stretch.

Copan points out that according to Old Testament law, a "clean" land animal must be a "cud chewer" and have split hooves (80).  

True, but just because a land animal does not chew the cud or have split hooves, does not mean they have "crossed boundaries." They are still land animals. They don't swim in the sea or fly in the air.

Copan writes "swarming and slithering animals in any sphere (eels, snakes, flying insects) were reminiscent of the fall in Genesis 3 and of the cursed slithering serpent" (81).

I might be able to see Copan's point in the case of the slithering animals, but applying it to flying insects seems to be a stretch.

I agree with Copan that the purity laws in the Old Testament were intended to symbolize the importance of holiness or "set-apartness." God's chosen people were to have lifestyles that were markedly set apart from the degrading, immoral, and idolatrous lifestyles of their national neighbors and the all-pervasive nature of the purity laws were intended as tangible, daily illustrations of that fact.

Although many of Copan's explanations are quite good, for example, he did a good job debunking the theory that some animals were said to be unclean for health reasons (79-80), when Copan feels it necessary to explain why some things were declared to be ceremonially clean and other things were not, I think he has weakened his argument by offering explanations that seem to be scholarly conjectures at best. The fact is that the Bible itself doesn't explain why some things are said to be clean and others unclean.

If Copan's point is only that there may be valid reasons behind laws that may seem arbitrary and "weird" to us, I agree, but his argument has been weakened by not making that point explicitly.

I think I would approach the topic from a different angel.What if there is no reason why some things are declared clean and others are declared unclean? If God wanted to set before His people a symbolic but tangible reminder of how important holiness or "set-apartness" was to Him, why should we think that there must be a reason for why some things are "clean" and other things are not? 

For example, maybe there was nothing fundamentally holy about a cow or fundamentally immoral about a pig? (From a Christian perspective, this is supported in the New Testament by the fact that unclean foods are declared clean). The point was only to provide a daily, tangible reminder that separateness (holiness) was important to the God of Israel. God could just as well have said, you may eat green things which are "clean" but you must avoid red things (like red peppers or apples) which are unclean. My guess is that if God had said to avoid red apples someone would probably have conjectured that this was because it was reminiscent of the fruit that caused the fall of Adam and Eve!

My point is that the reason for clean and unclean animals did not lie so much in the animal itself, but in the illustration. The reason was to provide a daily tangible reminder of the importance holiness--something about which modern atheists (and many Christians, for that matter) seem to be clueless.

Finally, regarding what one atheist called, "The Bible's ubiquitous weirdness" I would answer that this smacks of ethnocentrism or cultural snobbery. Some condemn the "weirdness" of the Bible because it looks strange to them from the perspective of their own 21st century, Eurocentric culture. Although they may be very tolerant of all other cultures and are often blind to the weirdness of our own culture, they are very selectively intolerant of ancient Jewish culture.

I'm only up to chapter eight but so far the book has been excellent, notwithstanding my nit-picky criticisms.