Liberal Protestantism
I actually never really set foot into a liberal church, but I have been exposed to Protestant liberalism. My first exposure was in college. It was a state university, so there was not much in classes about religions. But after my conversion to Christ, I noticed that were was a class called “The Bible as Literature”. Many of my evangelical friends enthusiastically signed up for this class. The teacher was a Baptist minister. We thought this was going to great. We were in for a shock. This is what we were taught in class:
- The first five books of the Bible were written by several different unknown writers at different times of Old Testament history, the earliest writer being a thousand years after the events occurred.
- Obvious, according to this class, all the events in those first five books were just legends.
- None of New Testament was written by people who actually ever met Jesus. The “eyewitness accounts” were written by people centuries later.
- The events recorded about Jesus, such as His virgin birth, His miracles, and His resurrection, were mere myths made up by people who never knew Jesus.
Remember, the guy who taught this class was a Baptist minister! I knew something was wrong on the first day when I noticed that he was not above using the Lord’s name in vain now and then. He also was a chain-smoker; this is not what I imagined when I thought of a man of the cloth. As the saying goes, with friends like these who needs enemies?
Many Atheists use these very arguments as part of their arsenal.
I find it interesting that state universities offer many classes in comparative religions, and they would be very sympathetic toward religion. But when in comes to Christianity, the only time they have a class on Christianity, is to attack the Christian faith. I guess this is what is meant by separation of church and state.
There was a fundamental flaw in what these liberal scholars were teaching. If the writers of the Bible got these events all wrong, what makes these liberals think that they are able get to these stories right 2,000 years or more later. It was, as C.S. Lewis once said, chronological snobbery. These liberals were being chronological snobs - for them to think that they knew what happened to Jesus better than His followers did in the first century. Even if, just for the sake of argument, these writers personally did not know Jesus, they would have been disciples to those who did know Jesus. But even their contention that the Bible was written by people who did not know Jesus is very suspect. The early church fathers taught that many of them did know Jesus. The early church fathers wrote that the Gospel of Matthew was written by Matthew and the Gospel of John was written by John.
For instance, we have the writings of Irenaeus, who wrote in the second century. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, who personally knew the apostles. This is what he wrote:
Matthew proclaims his human birth, saying, 'The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham,' and, 'The birth of Jesus Christ was in this manner' . for this Gospel is manlike, and so through the whole Gospel [Christ] appears as a man of a humble mind, and gentle. (Adversus Haereses 3.11.8)
For that according to John expounds his princely and mighty and glorious birth from the Father, saying, 'In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,' and, 'All things were made by him, and without him nothing was nothing made' . Therefore this Gospel is deserving of all confidence, for such indeed is his person. (Adversus Haereses 3.11.8)
http://www.ntcanon.org/Irenaeus.shtml
Liberal scholars ignore the evidence of the early church fathers and rely more on their gut feelings and speculations (so much for scholarship!). For instance, in the first five books of the Bible, they deny the traditional view that they were written by Moses. Why? Because one verse refers to God as “the Lord your God” and the next verse says just “God” and a verse later on says “God Almighty”. So the liberal scholars speculate that this must mean that there were three different authors. This makes sense – NOT! It never occurred to them that the same author could have used different names for God for theological reasons, or maybe it was a matter of style to use various words for God. On this website, I sometimes refer to Jesus as God, and sometimes as the Son of God, or as Christ. It is just a matter of what word I feel like using at that time. It does not mean that this website is actually written by three different authors!
Another example of how the liberal scholars treat the Bible is their denial of authenticity of the Gospel of Matthew. They argue that the Gospel of Mark was the first gospel written, and that the gospels of Matthew and Luke used the Gospel of Mark as a template. They give a gut reaction that Matthew the apostle would not have used Mark, since Mark did not know Jesus, and it is unlikely that Matthew, someone who actually knew Jesus, would have used Mark.
I have two main problems with this.
That the Gospel of Mark was written first is not accepted by all scholars. There are scholars who disagree with this. See http://www.amazon.com/History-Synoptic-Problem-Composition-Interpretation/dp/0385471920 or http://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Synoptic-Problem-David-Black/dp/0801022819/ref=pd_sim_b_1
Anyway, the early church fathers wrote that Mark was a close disciple of Peter and that the Gospel of Mark is actually a dictation from Peter. For instance, Papias (AD 125) wrote “Mark having become the interpreter of Peter, wrote down accurately whatsoever he remembered. It was not, however, in exact order that he related the sayings or deeds of Christ.” If this is the case, then this would explain why Matthew would have used Mark’s gospel as a template for his. Although Mark would not have personally known Jesus, he was merely writing the memoirs of Peter, who did know Jesus. So it would be natural that Matthew would have used Peter’s memoirs as a template for his gospel.
One problem I constantly see among the liberal scholars is their disdain for tradition. They quickly throw away the traditional view that the first five books were written by Moses, or the traditional view that the Gospels of Matthew and the Gospel of John were written by the apostles Matthew and John. Or the reject they traditional view of the resurrection of Christ or the virgin birth. They assume that what was modern is always better than what was traditional.
But, ironically, their disdain for tradition has been part of their own Protestant tradition, going all the way back to Martin Luther. Liberal Protestants think they are the ones who are faithfully keeping the teachings of Luther. Luther was willing to throw away any tradition that contradicted his brand of the gospel. Not only that, he was willing to throw away parts of scripture if it conflicted with his view of justification by faith.
- He took out seven books in the Old Testament that was accepted by Christians both in the East and the West.
- He called the letter of James “the epistle of straw”
- He rejected the Book of Hebrews and the Revelation of John
- He added words to certain verses in the Bible to support his doctrine of justification by faith alone.
See http://www.catholic.com/thisrock/quickquestions/?qid=171
Martin Luther championed sola scriptura not because he had such a high view of the Bible but because he had such a low view of tradition. When the parts of Bible contradicted his position, he was willing to get rid of it. When he could add a word here and there to the Bible in order to make it seem to support his view, he was willing to do it. He judged the Bible based on his doctrine of justification by faith rather than judging his doctrine based on the Bible.
Apologists for Luther usually try to argue that Luther simply misunderstood the Letter of James, and if he had understood it he would never had referred to it as the epistle of straw. For instance, see
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_did_Martin_Luther_say_The_Epistle_of_St_James_is_truly_an_Epistle_of_straw. This defends Luther by saying that he said that it was an epistle of straw only because he did not understand what it was saying. He write “That's all it was - a misunderstanding of the Doctrine that not all of Scripture is not doctrinally applicable to all times.” Oh I see! That’s all. Luther just misunderstood what James was trying to say! But that is missing the point. We do not arrogantly reject the Bible until we can understand it. We do not throw it away until we can find a way to reconcile it to our own ideas. Instead, we humble ourselves to God’s Word. We tremble at His Word. We say as Samuel did – Speak Lord for Thy servant is listening.
But this attitude of Luther’s is prevalent in today’s liberal Protestantism. If the parts of Bible conflicts with one’s ideas then just say that this part was added on later by the Church and disregard it. Liberals believe that Martin Luther was the first true modern liberal. He was willing to throw away tradition for his new modern ideas. Liberals believe that we must continue to be as bold as Luther was. Luther just did not go far enough. He still held to some Catholic traditions such as the virgin birth of Christ and His resurrection. Liberals believe that they are carrying the torch for what Protestantism really stands for – the willingness to discard our traditions and look at things in a bold, new way.
But who knows where this bold, new way will lead next?
