I regularly get asked questions by students about liberal/progressive/revisionist Christianity. Sometimes the question is, “Why are they trying to destroy Christianity?” Or, why do they reject key Christian doctrines, such as incarnation and atonement? Whenever those questions get posed, I always point out a few things.
Complementarians mistakenly tend to put egalitarians in the "revisionist" camp, often not seeing how liberal & culturally accommodating complementarianism itself really is. Kevin Giles is great at tracing this history. For the vast majority of Christian history, women's inferiority was assumed and was the lens through which Scripture was read. After feminism hit its stride in the 1970's, those views just weren't going to fly anymore, which is why George Knight III came up with his novel theology of "gender roles," and why complementarians today, in a departure from traditional Christianity, absolutely insist that women are equal to men.
I have a hard time with placing LGBTQ+ "affirming" theology in the "trajectory theology" category (although I think slavery & egalitarian theology fits there).
However, I do think that issues related to LGBTQ+, women & slavery all share the same glaring theological problem: we Christians have such an impoverished view of what it means to be made in the image of God.
For instance, Christians who have a problem with Side B gay Christians simply don't believe that LGBTQ+ people are made in the image of God. As long as you're gay, you're sinning - even if you're celibate! That's ridiculous, and that's also not how sin & sanctification works with any of us humans (are recovering alcoholics miraculously cured of their craving to drink?), so why are we so desperate to put gay people in a separate, far less redeemable category of sinners?
Meanwhile, I would argue that LGBTQ+ "affirming" Christians ALSO don't believe that gay individuals are made in the image of God, because... since when is being in a sexual relationship an essential part of our image-bearing nature? (Related: evangelicals also still tend to have a lousy theology of singleness. I remember cringing at what was said about singleness in one of my theology textbooks in seminary. Lauren Winner is the first person I'd ever come across, who properly connected singleness to eschatological significance, in her 2006 book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity.)
Christian & celibate lesbian Bridget Eileen Rivera traces a some of these harmful views back to the Reformation in her book Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. For instance, Martin Luther insisted that marriage is absolutely essential, that healthy, human adults simply can't live without it. Today's evangelicals (particularly complementarian evangelicals) mistakenly often assume the same. She also traces the ways that contemporary evangelicals have radically shifted their views on birth control and divorce from Christian tradition, often without batting an eyelash - so it sure is a double standard to only appeal to Christian tradition when it comes to LGBTQ+.
Anyway, Rivera's book is a sobering must-read for any "non-affirming" Christian to read.
Those who (like myself) believe the Bible teaches that marriage is man + woman, must also acknowledge that there is often such a hypocritical double standard applied to LGBTQ+ Christians when it comes to the way we think about Christian tradition and sexuality. Just look at all the cheap grace "forgiveness" that we extend to sexual predators in the pulpit. Or the fact that 2/3rds of pastors look at porn. Etc. etc. The statistics about actual sexual practices by those sitting in the pews often don't differ all that much from "the world."
Let's recover - and perhaps explore anew - what it really means (and does not mean) to be made in the image of God. For the sake of ALL of His precious image-bearers.
I've experienced something of the same treatment. I went to seminary a conservative evangelical (not so sure we know what this is anymore). There I discovered Barth and Torrance and was changed forever. I was "accused" of being a liberal and even told by one of my professors to be careful - I could lose my salvation being liberal!
I then attended a bigger university in their Th.D. program and I was considered a total conservative again. My faith in Christ was seen as "cute" and archaic. So interesting the contrast . . .
Mar 24, 2023·edited Mar 24, 2023Liked by Michael F. Bird
The terms here are one of the reasons I wish we would abandon the terms conservative/liberal or even left/right. They are oversimplifications that now have been compounded by further developments so that they are more confusing than useful. Look at how American Republicans call Democrats extreme leftists when in most countries the Democrats would be a Center-Right party.
And this isn't new. A lot of the ritualists and oxford movement Anglicans were what we would think of as Conservative in some ways, but many were socialists and were seen as changing too much for Low Church Anglicans - who were actually conservative by the dictionary definition of resisting change. Even the term postliberal now is old enough to require explanation, or at least an idea of postpostliberalism.
What are your thoughts on the Appellate Tribunal of the Anglican Church of Australia's Wangaratta decision (11/11/2020)? Where do they fit in to these liberal theologies? (The cultural apologists?)
Will we look back and see that decision as one of the major causes that will have led to the split in the Anglican Communion? (by the cultural apologists?)
What about the Anglican Church League's (of Australia- mainly Sydney based?)) response to this decision in their publication "Line in the Sand"? (Trajectory theologians?)
How about Richard Condie's article in Journal of Anglican Studies, 2022, 20, 139-149?
Complementarians mistakenly tend to put egalitarians in the "revisionist" camp, often not seeing how liberal & culturally accommodating complementarianism itself really is. Kevin Giles is great at tracing this history. For the vast majority of Christian history, women's inferiority was assumed and was the lens through which Scripture was read. After feminism hit its stride in the 1970's, those views just weren't going to fly anymore, which is why George Knight III came up with his novel theology of "gender roles," and why complementarians today, in a departure from traditional Christianity, absolutely insist that women are equal to men.
I have a hard time with placing LGBTQ+ "affirming" theology in the "trajectory theology" category (although I think slavery & egalitarian theology fits there).
However, I do think that issues related to LGBTQ+, women & slavery all share the same glaring theological problem: we Christians have such an impoverished view of what it means to be made in the image of God.
For instance, Christians who have a problem with Side B gay Christians simply don't believe that LGBTQ+ people are made in the image of God. As long as you're gay, you're sinning - even if you're celibate! That's ridiculous, and that's also not how sin & sanctification works with any of us humans (are recovering alcoholics miraculously cured of their craving to drink?), so why are we so desperate to put gay people in a separate, far less redeemable category of sinners?
Meanwhile, I would argue that LGBTQ+ "affirming" Christians ALSO don't believe that gay individuals are made in the image of God, because... since when is being in a sexual relationship an essential part of our image-bearing nature? (Related: evangelicals also still tend to have a lousy theology of singleness. I remember cringing at what was said about singleness in one of my theology textbooks in seminary. Lauren Winner is the first person I'd ever come across, who properly connected singleness to eschatological significance, in her 2006 book Real Sex: The Naked Truth About Chastity.)
Christian & celibate lesbian Bridget Eileen Rivera traces a some of these harmful views back to the Reformation in her book Heavy Burdens: Seven Ways LGBTQ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. For instance, Martin Luther insisted that marriage is absolutely essential, that healthy, human adults simply can't live without it. Today's evangelicals (particularly complementarian evangelicals) mistakenly often assume the same. She also traces the ways that contemporary evangelicals have radically shifted their views on birth control and divorce from Christian tradition, often without batting an eyelash - so it sure is a double standard to only appeal to Christian tradition when it comes to LGBTQ+.
Anyway, Rivera's book is a sobering must-read for any "non-affirming" Christian to read.
Those who (like myself) believe the Bible teaches that marriage is man + woman, must also acknowledge that there is often such a hypocritical double standard applied to LGBTQ+ Christians when it comes to the way we think about Christian tradition and sexuality. Just look at all the cheap grace "forgiveness" that we extend to sexual predators in the pulpit. Or the fact that 2/3rds of pastors look at porn. Etc. etc. The statistics about actual sexual practices by those sitting in the pews often don't differ all that much from "the world."
Let's recover - and perhaps explore anew - what it really means (and does not mean) to be made in the image of God. For the sake of ALL of His precious image-bearers.
This article is very helpful - thank you!
I've experienced something of the same treatment. I went to seminary a conservative evangelical (not so sure we know what this is anymore). There I discovered Barth and Torrance and was changed forever. I was "accused" of being a liberal and even told by one of my professors to be careful - I could lose my salvation being liberal!
I then attended a bigger university in their Th.D. program and I was considered a total conservative again. My faith in Christ was seen as "cute" and archaic. So interesting the contrast . . .
That's really good stuff.
The terms here are one of the reasons I wish we would abandon the terms conservative/liberal or even left/right. They are oversimplifications that now have been compounded by further developments so that they are more confusing than useful. Look at how American Republicans call Democrats extreme leftists when in most countries the Democrats would be a Center-Right party.
And this isn't new. A lot of the ritualists and oxford movement Anglicans were what we would think of as Conservative in some ways, but many were socialists and were seen as changing too much for Low Church Anglicans - who were actually conservative by the dictionary definition of resisting change. Even the term postliberal now is old enough to require explanation, or at least an idea of postpostliberalism.
Lots of food for thought here.
I have some questions:
What are your thoughts on the Appellate Tribunal of the Anglican Church of Australia's Wangaratta decision (11/11/2020)? Where do they fit in to these liberal theologies? (The cultural apologists?)
Will we look back and see that decision as one of the major causes that will have led to the split in the Anglican Communion? (by the cultural apologists?)
What about the Anglican Church League's (of Australia- mainly Sydney based?)) response to this decision in their publication "Line in the Sand"? (Trajectory theologians?)
How about Richard Condie's article in Journal of Anglican Studies, 2022, 20, 139-149?