Psalm 1

The Way of the Righteous and the Wicked

1 Blessed is the man

who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,

nor stands in the way of sinners,

nor sits in the seat of scoffers;

2 but his delight is in the law of the Lord,

and on his law he meditates day and night.

3 He is like a tree

planted by streams of water

that yields its fruit in its season,

and its leaf does not wither.

In all that he does, he prospers.

4 The wicked are not so,

but are like chaff that the wind drives away.

5 Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment,

nor sinners in he congregation of the righteous;

6 for the Lord knows the way of the righteous,

but the way of the wicked will perish.

Justification by Grace Alone!

Justification by Grace Alone in the Church Fathers - Ambrose

I never cease to be amazed by the many treasures I find as I study the writings of the ancient Church Fathers. These were not men who ignored the scriptures or who tore them down in the name of "church tradition". Instead, over and again you see in their writings an authentic desire to be faithful to the scriptures and wrestle with its meaning while defending the church from heretics as well as helping the faithful properly understand its correct meaning.
One thing that is very apparent in the writings of the Church Fathers is that neither Tridentine Roman Catholicism nor American Evangelicalism are represented as the mainstream of the ancient church's theological thinking (far from it). In fact, I am convinced that members of both camps would equally struggle with the reality that the ancient Church didn't teach many of their doctrines and oftentimes taught doctrines that contradict core tenets of both systems.
Case and point is the wonderful little letter written by the late 4th century bishop of Milan, Ambrose. In this letter, he is answering a question posed to him by a young man named Irenaeus regarding the purpose of the Mosaic Law. Irenaeus, having been taught from Paul's Epistle to the Romans that the law brings knowledge of sin and wrath and that the Law does not profit for salvation asked Bishop Ambrose the logical question, "Why was the law then given (promulgated)". Ambrose's answer is the equivalent of a 4th Century primer on the proper distinction of Law and Gospel with a clear affirmation of salvation by grace through faith and not by works of the law. This poses a significant challenge to Tridentine Roman Catholicism which anathematized the very doctrine that Ambrose affirms in this letter. Yet, particular details of his answer also challenge a few closely held beliefs of American Evangelicalism. The letter is reproduced below.
Enjoy.
χάρις ἔλεος εἰρήνη σοι,
Chris Rosebrough from Fighting for the Faith,



Ambrose Letter 73 to Irenaeus: LINK!

Can We Trust the History in the New Testament Documents?

 

Can We Trust the History in the New Testament Documents?

Can We Trust the History in the New Testament documents? The short answer to this question is, absolutely!

From time to time, Christians may encounter an atheist or nonbeliever who is armed with the latest "higher" critical arguments against the veracity of the New Testament documents. These opponents of Christianity claim to have evidence that Matthew didn't write the Gospel of Matthew or that the Gospel of John wasn't written until the early 3rd century, etc. But, if you take the time to read good scholarship on these matters you will find that, for all their claims to being deep thinkers and strict evidentialists, the arguments employed by these atheists and "higher" critics against the historical reliability of the New Testament documents are not based in solid evidence. But are, in fact, based in skeptical conjecture and unfounded assertions that, ironically, are irrational and stand contrary to the solid evidence.

Christians have nothing to fear from the historical evidence regarding the New Testament documents. Instead, when Christians take the time to read good scholarship that examines the historical evidence for the New Testament they will find that their faith is built up and strengthened and that they are then armed with solid arguments and evidence to refute the popularized propaganda that masquerades as scholarship that is all too often marshaled against Christianity.

I recommend that Christians take the time to purchase and read F.F. Bruce's classic work on this subject entitled, The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable?
Below is a brief excerpt from this wonderful and short book:

About the middle of the last century it was confidently asserted by a very influential school of thought that some of the most important books of the New Testament, including the Gospels and the Acts, did not exist before the thirties of the second century AD.16 This conclusion was the result not so much of historical evidence as of philosophical presupositions. Even then there was sufficient evidence to show how unfounded these theories were, as Lightfoot, Tischendorf, Tregelles and others demonstrated in their writings; but the amount of such evidence available in our own day is so much greater and more conclusive that a first-century date for most of the New Testament writings cannot reasonably be denied, no matter what our philosophical presuppositions may be.

The evidence for our New Testament writings is ever so much greater than the evidence for many writings of classical authors, the authenticity of which no one dreams of questioning. And if the New Testament were a collection of secular writings, their authenticity would generally be regarded as beyond all doubt. It is a curious fact that historians have often been much readier to trust the New Testament records than have many theologians." Somehow or other, there are people who regard a `sacred book' as ipso facto under suspicion, and demand much more corroborative evidence for such a work than they would for an ordinary secular or pagan writing. From the viewpoint of the historian, the same standards must be applied to both. But we do not quarrel with those who want more evidence for the New Testament than for other writings; firstly, because the universal claims which the New Testament makes upon mankind are so absolute, and the character and works of its chief Figure so unparalleled, that we want to be as sure of its truth as we possibly can; and secondly, because in point of fact there is much more evidence for the New Testament than for other ancient writings of comparable date.

There are in existence over 5,000 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament in whole or in part. The best and most important of these go back to somewhere about AD 350, the two most important being the Codex Vaticanus, the chief treasure of the Vatican Library in Rome, and the well-known Codex Sinaiticus, which the British Government purchased from the Soviet Government for £loo,ooo on Christmas Day, 1933, and which is now the chief treasure of the British Museum. Two other important early mss in this country are the Codex Alexandrinus, also in the British Museum, written in the fifth century, and the Codex Bezae, in Cambridge University Library, written in the fifth or sixth century, and containing the Gospels and Acts in both Greek and Latin.

Perhaps we can appreciate how wealthy the New Testament is in manuscript attestation if we compare the textual material for other ancient historical works. For Caesar's Gallic War (composed between 58 and 50 Bc) there are several extant mss, but only nine or ten are good, and the oldest is some 900 years later than Caesar's day. Of the 142 books of the Roman History of Livy (59 BC-AD 17) only thirty-five survive; these are known to us from not more than twenty mss of any consequence, only one of which, and that containing fragments of Books iii-vi, is as old as the fourth century. Of the fourteen books of the Histories of Tacitus (c. AD 100) only four and a half survive; of the sixteen books of his Annals, ten survive in full and two in part. The text of these extant portions of his two great historical works depends entirely on two mss, one of the ninth century and one of the eleventh. The extant mss of his minor works (Dialogus de Oratoribus, Agricola, Germania) all descend from a codex of the tenth century. The History of Thucydides (c. 460-400 BC) is known to us from eight Mss, the earliest belonging to c. AD 900, and a few papyrus scraps, belonging to about the beginning of the Christian era. The same is true of the History of Herodotus (c. 488-428 BC). Yet no classical scholar would listen to an argument that the authenticity of Herodotus or Thucydides is in doubt because the earliest mss of their works which are of any use to us are over 1,300 years later than the originals.

But how different is the situation of the New Testament in this respect! In addition to the two excellent mss of the fourth century mentioned above, which are the earliest of some thousands known to us, considerable fragments remain of papyrus copies of books of the New Testament dated from ioo to 200 years earlier still. The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri, the existence of which was made public in 1931, consist of portions of eleven papyrus codices, three of which contained most of the New Testament writings. One of these, containing the four Gospels with Acts, belongs to the first half of the third century; another, containing Paul's letters to churches and the Epistle to the Hebrews, was copied at the beginning of the third century; the third, containing Revelation, belongs to the second half of the same century. A more recent discovery consists of some papyrus fragments dated by papyrological experts not later than AD 150, published in Fragments of an Unknown Gospel and other Early Christian Papyri, by H. I. Bell and T. C. Skeat (1935). These fragments contain what has been thought by some to be portions of a fifth Gospel having strong affinities with the canonical four; but much more probable is the view expressed in The Times Literary Supplement for 25 April 1935, `that these fragments were written by someone who had the four Gospels before him and knew them well; that they did not profess to be an independent Gospel; but were paraphrases of the stories and other matter in the Gospels designed for explanation and instruction, a manual to teach people the Gospel stories'.

Earlier still is a fragment of a papyrus codex containing John 18:31-33, 37-38, now in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, dated on palaeographical grounds around AD 130, showing that the latest of the four Gospels, which was written, according to tradition, at Ephesus between AD 9o and loo, was circulating in Egypt within about forty years of its composition (if, as is most likely, this papyrus originated in Egypt, where it was acquired in 1917). It must be regarded as being, by half a century, the earliest extant fragment of the New Testament.

A more recently discovered papyrus manuscript of the same Gospel, while not so early as the Rylands papyrus, is incomparably better preserved; this is the Papyrus Bodmer II, whose discovery was announced by the Bodmer Library of Geneva in 1956; it was written about AD 200, and contains the first fourteen chapters of the Gospel of John with but one lacuna (of twenty-two verses), and considerable portions of the last seven chapters.19 Attestation of another kind is provided by allusions to and quotations from the New Testament books in other early writings. The authors known as the Apostolic Fathers wrote chiefly between AD 9o and 16o, and in their works we find evidence for their acquaintance with most of the books of the New Testament. In three works whose date is probably round about AD 100 - the `Epistle of Barnabas, written perhaps in Alexandria; the Didache, or `Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, produced somewhere in Syria or Palestine; and the letter sent to the Corinthian church by Clement, bishop of Rome, about AD 96 - we find fairly certain quotations from the common tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, from Acts, Romans, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians, Titus, Hebrews,l Peter, and possible quotations from other books of the New Testament. In the letters written by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, as he journeyed to his martyrdom in Rome in AD 115, there are reasonably identifiable quotations from Matthew, John, Romans, 1 and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus, and possible allusions to mark, Luke, Acts, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians, Philemon, Hebrews, and 1 Peter. His younger contemporary, Polycarp, in a letter to the Philippians (c. 120) quotes from the common tradition of the Synoptic Gospels, from Acts, Romans, i and 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, 2 Thessalonians, 1 and 2 Timothy, Hebrews, i Peter, and i John. And so we might go on through the writers of the second century, amassing increasing evidence of their familiarity with and recognition of the authority of the New Testament writings. So far as the Apostolic Fathers are concerned, the evidence is collected and weighed in a work called The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers, recording the findings of a committee of the Oxford Society of Historical Theology in 1905.

Nor is it only in orthodox Christian writers that we find evidence of this sort. It is evident from the recently discovered writings of the Gnostic school of Valentinus that before the middle of the second century most of the New Testament books were as well known and as fully venerated in that heretical circle as they were in the Catholic Church.20 The study of the kind of attestation found in mss and quotations in later writers is connected with the approach known as Textual Criticism.21 This is a most important and fascinating branch of study, its object being to determine as exactly as possible from the available evidence the original words of the documents in question. It is easily proved by experiment that it is difficult to copy out a passage of any considerable length without making one or two slips at least. When we have documents like our New Testament writings copied and recopied thousands of times, the scope for copyists' errors is so enormously increased that it is surprising there are no more than there actually are. Fortunately, if the great number of MSS increases the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small. The variant readings about which any doubt remains among textual critics of the New Testament affect no material question of historic fact or of Christian faith and practice.

To sum up, we may quote the verdict of the late Sir Frederic Kenyon, a scholar whose authority to make pronouncements on ancient mss was second to none:

`The interval then between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the Scriptures have come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established."'(1)

This book and a few others should be in every Christian's library (not to collect dust but to actually be read and understood). Here is a short list of books on this subject. Some of them are for beginners and others are more advanced.
1. The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? by F.F. Bruce
2. The Canon of Scripture by F.F. Bruce
3. History and Christianity by John Warwick Montgomery
4. New Testament Introduction by Donald Guthrie
χάρις ἔλεος εἰρήνη σοι,

Reformed Baptist Fellowship on Paul

Paul, the greatest expounder of Christianity?

 

The Apostle Paul is, by common consent, the theologian of the writers of the New Testament. Geerhardus Vos claimed that Paul’s was “the greatest constructive mind ever at work on the data of Christianity.”^[1] Thomas D. Bernard calls Paul “the great doctor of the Church.”^[2]  Bernard sees this distinction between the writings of the other apostles and Paul’s:

If the others were the Apostles of the manifestation of Christ, [Paul] was the Apostle of its results; and, in the fact of passing under his teaching, we have sufficient warning that we are advancing from the lessons which the life, and the character, and the words of Jesus gave, into the distinct exposition of the redemption, the reconciliation, the salvation which result from his appearing. In this way it was provided that the two correlative kinds of teaching, which the Church received at the first, should be left to the Church forever in the distinctness of their respective developments; for this distinctness of development in the second kind of teaching is both announced and secured by its being confided to St. Paul.^[3]

Paul’s writings bring Christian doctrine to its fullness and maturity. He was given the ability, like no other human author of Scripture, to apply the redemptive-historical accomplishments of Christ to the conditions and circumstances of first century Christianity. Paul’s epistles have a unique vocabulary. It is the vocabulary of the application of accomplished redemption. It is “in Christ” theology brought to the contingencies Paul’s converts faced. What Edward M. Blaiklock says of the entire corpus of the New Testament epistles applies in a unique way to Paul’s:

The letters of the NT form the corpus of Christianity’s theology, its Christology, its evangel, the nature of the church, the state of man, the plan of salvation, the integration of the Testaments, and Christian eschatology.^[4]

The Gospels contain the facts of redemption accomplished–the life, death, and resurrection of Christ (i.e., his sufferings and glory); the Epistles, and especially Paul’s, contain the implications, consequences, and applications of redemption accomplished. Paul is the greatest expounder of the Christian gospel of justification by faith alone and of the wonderfully glorious Christ-centered, resurrection-dependent eschatological hope. This hope is dependent upon Christ’s resurrection as the first fruits of a great resurrection-harvest to come. The Holy Spirit is the pledge and down-payment that assures believers that what God did to the Messiah in his resurrection, he will do to all those in Jesus when he comes in glory. What God began to do in the life-history of every believer, he will complete when Jesus comes. It is in Paul’s epistles that these glorious redemptive realities are expounded and Christianity comes to revelational-theological maturity.

Richard Barcellos

Grace Reformed Baptist Church

Palmdale, CA

---

[1] Geerhardus Vos, The Pauline Eschatology (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 1930, Reprinted 1991), 149.

[2] Thomas Dehany Bernard, The Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament (New York: American Tract Society, n.d.), 155.

[3] Bernard, Progress of Doctrine, 155.

[4] Edward M. Blaiklock, “The Epistolary Literature” in Frank E. Gaebelein, Editor, The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Volume I (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1979), 552.

Pulpit Priority - Reformed Baptist Fellowship

Pulpit Priority

 

Calvin believed that biblical preaching must occupy the chief place in the worship service. What God has to say to man is infinitely more important than what man has to say to God. If the congregation is to worship properly, if believers are to be edified, if the lost are to be converted, God’s Word must be exposited. Nothing must crowd the Scriptures out of the chief place in the public gathering.
The primacy of biblical preaching in Calvin’s thought was undeniable: “Wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists.”²² On the other hand, “An assembly in which the preaching of heavenly doctrine is not heard does not deserve to be reckoned a church.”²³ In short, Calvin held that Bible exposition should occupy the primary place in the worship service, meaning that preaching is the primary role of the minister.^[1]

---

²² Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. II, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Press, 1960), 1,023.

²³ Calvin, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, Vol. 3, trans. William Pringle (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979 reprint), 213.

^[1] Steven J. Lawson, The Expository Genius of John Calvin (Lake Mary, FL: Reformation Trust Publishing, 2007), 30.

Danger: Shepards of Satan! Pastors from Hell!

Pastor says: Jesus Was Wrong About Marriage

"If Jesus were alive today, he would be more inclined to say, 'you know, I didn't know it all...'" - Rev. Oliver White, Sean Hannity Show, March 27, 2013

In general, most news outlets have provided awful coverage of the Supreme Court proceedings on same-sex marriage.  Covering the proceedings like they cover a political campaign or a sporting event, most of the analysis and commentary has been about political "wins" for one side or the other and the ramifications of the pending decision on homosexuals in our society, rather than the wide-ranging ramifications for society itself.
Filling the void of thoughtful analysis has been talk radio.  Unlike the vapid and two-dimensional conversations repeated every ten minutes on cable, talk radio has been able to explore larger questions entwined in the same-sex marriage debate and have been able to challenge the politically correct orthodoxy presented in other media outlets where it comes to the religious side of the issue.
Enter Sean Hannity whose Wednesday show featured a fascinating exchange with Terry Jeffrey, a news editor from CNS News Service, and Rev. Oliver White, a pro-same sex marriage pastor.   Because Hannity is not constrained by the limitations of a TV news schedule and the need to change subjects every 5 minutes, as is so often the case on cable news, he was able to allow the on-air debate over the scriptural basis for marriage to naturally unfold to the point where the lack of scriptural foundation for same-sex marriage was laughingly evident.
This exchange in particular was the most glaringly infuriating as White, a proponent of same-sex marriage who angered his own congregation recently because of his adamant belief that Christianity supports such a practice, went so far as to agree that Jesus Christ was wrong about His position on marriage being defined as one man and one woman, and if Jesus were alive today he would, in fact, support gay marriage. 

LINK here for audio!

In this segment, the good minister is quizzed further on his unique and ever-morphing interpretation of scripture by Hannity and it's revealed for the audience that his understanding of sin and morality is quite pliable and able to bend to meet any modern need:

LINK here for audio!

Finally, Rev. White is able to admit that he does draw moral lines with regard to sexuality, but those lines are rooted less in God's law but in the current popular practices of the times we live in: 

LINK here for audio!

This is the kind of exchange, full of thoughtful and challenging questions that force the guests and the listener to re-examine what they believe and what they espouse can only happen in a medium like talk radio and new media where hosts are able to take positions and not pretend to be objective. We know there is no real objectivity when Don Lemon or Anderson Cooper are conducting an interview on this topic. Cooper would probably never have Rev. White on in the first place, because he would make the pro-same sex marriage side look bad.  And, if he did have a minister on to discuss the biblical basis for same-sex unions, there is no chance that Don Lemon would be able to pose questions for their guest in the way that Hannity and Jeffry did.  
In general cable and network news have not served the public interest in exploring these complicated and important issues because, in many cases, the hosts and anchors assigned to the topic are just not equipped or are completely unwilling to have both sides of the issue get a fair and through hearing.  
Congratulations to Sean Hannity for taking advantage of his medium and shedding light on an angle of this story that's been neglected by his TV counterparts.

The Neo-Liberal Stealth Offensive

The Neo-Liberal Stealth Offensive

By Phil Johnson

The gospel's most dangerous earthly adversaries are not raving atheists who stand outside the door shouting threats and insults. They are church leaders who cultivate a gentle, friendly, pious demeanor but hack away at the foundations of faith under the guise of keeping in step with a changing world.

No Christian should imagine that heresy is always conspicuous or that every purveyor of theological mischief will lay out his agenda in plain and honest terms. The enemy prefers to sow tares secretly, for obvious reasons. Thus Scripture expressly warns us to be on guard against false teachers who creep into the church unnoticed (Jude 4), wolves who sneak into the flock wearing sheep's clothing (Matt 7:15), and servants of Satan who disguise themselves as angels of light (2 Cor. 11:13-15).

Theological liberalism is particularly dependent on the stealth offensive. A spiritually healthy church is generally not susceptible to the arrogant skepticism that underlies a liberal's rejection of biblical authority. Liberalism must therefore take root covertly and gain strength and influence gradually. The success or failure of the whole liberal agenda hinges on a patient public-relations cam­paign.

That is precisely how neo-liberals have managed to get a foothold in the contemporary evangelical movement. Consider how evangelicalism has changed in just a few short decades.

CLASSIC EVANGELICALISM

Historic evangelicalism has two clear distinctives. One is a commitment to the inspiration and authority of Scripture. The other is a conviction that the gospel message is clear and non-negotiable.

Specifically, evangelicals understand the gospel as an announcement of what Christ has done to save sinners, redeem Adam's fallen race, and usher believers into his eternal kingdom. The gospel is not a mandate for sinners to save themselves, redeem humanity, recover human dignity, safeguard cultural diversity, preserve the environment, eliminate poverty, establish a kingdom for themselves, or champion whatever social concept of "salvation" might be popular at the moment. In fact, the gospel expressly teaches that sinners can be justified only through faith in Christ alone, and exclusively by his gracious work—not because of any merit they earn for themselves.

The Protestant Reformation clarified and illuminated those same two principles—sola Scriptura and sola fide. Indeed, they are sometimes known as the formal and material principles of the Reformation. But they weren't novel ideas someone dreamed up out of thin air in the sixteenth century. They are and always have been essential principles of biblical Christianity. In the long course of church history, those truths have frequently been clouded and confused, or mingled with (and sometimes overwhelmed by) bad teaching. Yet since the time of Christ and the apostles those truths have never been totally silenced. They are in fact the very backbone of New Testament doctrine.

Historic evangelicalism made much of that fact. From the dawn of the Reformation through the mid-twentieth century, few evangelicals ever thought of questioning Scripture or modifying the gospel.

CONTEMPORARY EVANGELICALISM

With the advent of the seeker-sensitive movement, however, evangelicals began to be influenced by a new species of entrepreneurial leaders who marginalized those core doctrines by neglect. Most of them didn't overtly deny essential biblical truths; but neither did they vigorously stress or defend anything other than their own methodology.

The results were predictable: Churches are now filled with formerly unchurched people who are still untaught and perhaps even unconverted. Multitudes of children raised on a treacly diet of seeker-sensitive religion have grown up to associate the label evangelical with superficiality. Most of them cannot tell you what the term originally meant, and they reject whatever vestigial evangelical boundaries or doctrinal distinctives their parents may have held onto. But they still call themselves evangelicals when it's convenient, and many have remained at the fringes of the visible movement, decrying how out of step the church is with their generation. That, after all, is exactly what they learned from their parents.

This is fertile soil for liberalism to burst into full flower, and that is precisely what is already happening. Evangelicals are blithely following a number of trends that advance the neo-liberal agenda. Unless a faithful remnant begins to recognize and resist the neo-liberal strategy, evangelical churches and institutions will eventually succumb to rank liberalism, just as most of the mainstream denominations did a century ago.

FOUR LIBERAL TRENDS EVANGELICALS MUST RESIST

To help you withstand the drift, here are four major trends today's crop of neo-liberal leaders are fostering and taking advantage of:

1. They recklessly follow the zeitgeist.

Theological liberals have always been diligent students of the spirit of the age. A century ago, they were known as "modernists" because post-enlightenment values were the pretext they used to advance the liberal agenda. They insisted that if the church refused to change with the times, Christianity itself would become irrelevant.

Naturally, "changing with the times" meant abridging the gospel message. Sophisticated modern minds would not accept the miracles and other supernatural elements of Scripture. That was okay, the modernists insisted, because the real heart of the Bible's message is the moral and ethical content anyway. Besides, they said, practical virtue is what the church ought to focus on. They considered it sheer folly for preachers to stress difficult doctrinal features that sounded primitive and offensive to modern ears, such as the wrath of God, blood atonement, and especially the doctrine of eternal punishment. Future generations would be lost to churches that held onto such beliefs and refused to accommodate modern thought, they solemnly warned. The situation was urgent.

(Of course they were dead wrong. Churches and denominations that embraced modernist ideas declined severely, and some died. Churches that stayed faithful to their evangelical convictions thrived.)

Nowadays, neo-liberals argue that the church needs a thorough overhaul based on the challenge of postmodernism. The world has changed its point of view once more, and the liberals still complain that the church lags behind, out of step, and increasingly irrelevant. Notice, however: although the neo-liberals' pretext departs from the modernism favored by their nineteenth-century counterparts, both the line of argument they use and their theological agenda remain exactly the same. The doctrines postmodern liberals relentlessly challenge are the same ones the modernists rejected, especially God's hatred of sin, penal, substitutionary atonement, and the doctrine of hell.

It's no secret that the world has always despised certain aspects of biblical truth. If it were a legitimate goal for the church to keep in step with the world, it might make sense to review and revise the message from time to time. But the church is forbidden to court the spirit of the age, and one of the main reasons the gospel is such a stumbling block is that it cannot be adapted to suit cultural preferences or alternative worldviews. Instead, it confronts them all.

Beware of church leaders who are more worried about being contemporary than they are about being doctrinally sound, more concerned with their methodology than they are with their message, and more captivated by political correctness than they are by the truth. The church is not called to ape the world or make Christianity seem cool and likable, but to proclaim the gospel faithfully—including the parts the world usually scoffs at: sin, righteousness, and judgment (cf. Jn. 16:8). Jesus expressly taught that if we are faithful in that task, the Holy Spirit will convict hearts and draw believers to Christ.

The desire to be hip and fashionable leads to another trend currently advancing the neo-liberal agenda:

2. They want the world's admiration at all costs.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with being winsome. As recipients of divine grace and the Spirit's fruit, we should by definition have personal charisma (cf. Gal. 5:19-23). We also ought to maintain a good testimony before the world. In fact, to qualify as an elder, a man "must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace" (1 Tim. 3:7).

That of course speaks of a person's character: graciousness, compassion, and a reputation for integrity. It is not a prescription for appeasing worldly tastes or endorsing every earthly fashion. When we need to shave corners off the truth or compromise righteousness in order to gain the world's friendship, bearing the reproach of Christ is an infinitely better option. No true friend of God deliberately seeks the world's camaraderie (Jas. 4:4).

But one of the common characteristics of liberalism is an obsession with gaining the world's approval and admiration no matter the cost.

We witnessed the germination of this attitude in the evangelical movement at least four decades ago, especially among contemporary church leaders who let neighborhood surveys and opinion polls determine the style and agenda of the church.

When churches give in to that craving for worldly approval, they inevitably subjugate the gospel to a more popular message. At first, they won't necessarily deny (or even challenge) core gospel truths such as the historical facts outlined in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4. But they will abbreviate, modify, or add to the message. The embellishments usually echo whatever happens to be politically correct at the moment—climate change, world hunger, the AIDS crisis, or whatever. Those things will be stressed and talked about repeatedly while the historic facts of Christ's death and resurrection, the great themes of gospel doctrine, and the actual text of Scripture itself will be largely ignored or treated as something to be taken for granted.

Feed any church a steady diet of that for a few years and they will have no means of defense when someone attacks the faith more directly. That's precisely what is happening today with various attacks on substitutionary atonement, the exclusivity of Christ, the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, and other essential Christian truths. All of those things were first downplayed in order to make the church's message sound more "positive." Now they are being subjected to a full-scale assault.

Such problems are exacerbated and the liberal craving for worldly esteem reaches a white-hot intensity in the academic realm. That brings up yet another feature of the neo-liberal agenda to watch out for:

3. Their "faith" comes with an air of intellectual superiority.

Liberals treat faith itself as an academic matter. Their whole system is essentially a wholesale rejection of simple, childlike belief. Their worldview foments an air of academic arrogance, setting human reason in the place of highest authority, treating the Bible with haughty condescension, and showing utter contempt for the kind of faith Christ blessed.

Consequently, liberals are and always have been obsessed with academic respectability. They want the world's esteem as scholars and intellectuals—no matter what they have to compromise to get it. They sometimes defend that motive by arguing that the secular academy's acceptance is essential to the Christian testimony.

Of course that is a quixotic quest. It is also a denial of the Bible's plain teaching. Believers cannot be faithful to Scripture and win general accolades from the wise men, scribes, and debaters of this age. The world hated Jesus, and he made it clear that his faithful disciples mustn't expect—or seek—the world's honor (Jn. 15:18; Luke 6:22; cf. Jas. 4:4). Paul, himself a true scholar in every sense, wrote this world's wisdom off as sheer foolishness: "Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God" (1 Cor. 3:18-19).

True Christian scholarship is about integrity, not accolades. Liberalism covets the latter, and that explains why liberals are always drawn to ideas that are stylish and politically correct, yet they are resistant to virtually all the hard truths of Christianity, starting with the authority Scripture claims for itself.

Be on guard against that tendency. Here's one more:

4. They despise doctrinal and biblical precision.

This may sound like an oxymoron, but while treating faith as an academic matter, liberals prefer an almost anti-intellectual, agnostic approach to dealing with the specific truth-claims of Scripture. They like their doctrine hazy and indistinct.

One maneuver neo-liberals have perfected in these postmodern times is an artful dodge when they dislike a particular doctrine but cannot afford to make a plain and open denial. Instead, they will claim, "Scripture is simply too unclear on that point. We can't really be sure. The point is disputed by top scholars, and who are we to speak with too much certainty?"

Thus without denying (or affirming) anything in particular, and without even technically dismissing the matter under discussion as an unimportant point, the ruse effectively sets the truth aside. The skeptic's goal is thus accomplished without incurring any of the odium of skepticism.

Heavy doses of that flavor of postmodern, neo-liberal evasion have conditioned multitudes of church members to regard carefulness and precision in handling doctrine as both unimportant and potentially divisive. These days the person who shows evidence of doctrinal scruples is much more likely to be held in suspicion or disdain among evangelicals than the neo-liberals who have deliberately made the study of biblical doctrine seem so cloudy, confusing, and contentious.

In reality—and this is a lesson the church should have learned from both Scripture and church history—unity and harmony cannot exist in the church at all if there is not a common commitment to sound doctrine.

CONCLUSION

As long as these four trends and others like them continue to thrive within the evangelical movement, the threat posed by neo-liberalism looms large. Conservative evangelicals should not grow apathetic or take too much comfort in the apparent meltdown of Emergent Village and the liberal wing of postmodernized Christianity. Even if the Emergent ghetto does finally and completely give up the ghost, many of the leading figures and popular ideas from that movement will simply blend into mainstream evangelicalism, which is growing less mainstream and less evangelical all the time.

We must pay attention to the lessons of history and stand firm on the truth of Scripture—and we desperately need to be more aggressive than we have been so far in opposing these neo-liberal influences.

Phil Johnson is Executive Director of Grace to You and he teaches regularly as a lay pastor at Grace Community Church, Sun Valley, CA.