Category Archives: Liberation Theology

Christian Atheists, Woke Christianity, and the 19th Century as its Antecedent

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Having historical perspective can actually change your life, but only as a subset of having eternal perspective; insofar that genuine human history is Christ’s history for us. As such I like to study church history and historical theology, among other histories, in order to gain this sort of perspective; particularly when it comes to ideas. I have been reading through James Ungureanu’s most excellent book (published PhD dissertation) Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict in order to help me get the sort of historical footing I think is so pivotal towards understanding my place in the stream of ideas and movements thereof. Ungureanu is a historian of science, but with a theological twist. In his book he offers a seismic perspective on how the so-called ‘conflict thesis’ (or warfare thesis) developed between science and religion. What he demonstrates is just how much of this ostensible warfare is really an anachronistic imposition upon the past; i.e. that this so-called conflict, and the people it is typically assigned to, as its progenitors (Draper and White), is fake news. Be that as it may, in order to establish his thesis, James must do the deep-dive archeological work of uncovering the artifacts of history that others have moved quickly past (without making the proper connections etc.).

I want to simply pause and share a morsel of this artifactual work that implicates our current cultural moment, in regard to the socio-politico-religio sitz im laben we inhabit as Christians in the Protestant West. For some reason, most likely because of historical illiteracy among the masses, the Young, Restless, and Progressive seem to think they are engaging in something fresh and new; in regard to the liberal nature of the sort of activist and ‘woke’ Christianity they are attempting to live out in the churches and in the streets of America and across the Western globe. This all has ideational and historical antecedent that I’d propose most are ignorant of. It has already played out before. The young (and the historically ignorant) are simply playing out what has already been played out in the history; and to its adherent’s eternal destruction. Ungureanu writes of what was known as ‘new theology’ (or religion without theology), and its historical landscape this way:

The previous chapters give some indication of the vast changes Christianity experienced during the nineteenth century. Advances in natural and historical sciences, intentional or not, seemed to many a direct assault on traditional Christian belief. Debates about the character of Christian faith raged both inside and outside the church during the century, and out of these debates emerged new ways of thinking about the nature of faith, the historical Jesus, the character and authority of Scripture, the truth of revelation, and the future of religion.

While the nineteenth century was undoubtedly an intensely Christian era, it was also a time of much doubt and disillusionment. As scholar of religion Linda Woodhead has put it, the nineteenth century witnessed the “reinvention” of Christianity. Those who rejected traditional Christian belief, but who claimed to remain theists, often adhered to some form of liberal theology. This new or “reinvented” Christianity was part and parcel of nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism. For the religious liberal, there was an “acute sense of the need for a reformation of Christianity,” an attempt to accommodate Christianity to the modern era. Recognizing that advances in the sciences and historical-critical scholarship had supposedly contradicted established religious ideas, many attempted to ameliorate the emerging malaise by readjusting or reconstructing the meaning of religion. As we have seen, nineteenth-century liberal Protestantism generally responded to higher criticism and scientific naturalism by transforming rather than abandoning the faith. By the last decades of the century, the New Theology or “new religion” movement had found numerous supporters on both sides of the Atlantic.

What this “new” or “freer” religion looked like, however, was deeply contested, as we saw in the previous chapter regarding the “Quadrangular Duel” between Herbert Spencer, Fredric Harrison, James Fitzjames Stephen, and Wilfrid Philip Ward. However the “new religion” was conceived, many men and women in the nineteenth century believed that the reconciliation of science and religion depended on it. One important strategy used by liberal Protestants and religionists at the end of the century was turning “theology” into a pejorative. By contrasting the ideal of a free, progressive scientific inquiry against the authoritative, reactionary methods of theology, religious liberals imagined dogma, not faith, as the true obstacle of modern thought. Conflict occurred, they believed, not between scientific truth and religious truth, but between scientific truth and religious truth, but between contesting theological traditions. If religion would only rid itself of dogmatism and ecclesiastical authority, science and religion would be in harmony. The distinction between, and separation of, religion and theology was thus incredibly important—indeed, everything hinged on it. Many liberal Protestants believed the separation of religion from theology was the best approach to bridging the schism between modern thought and ancient faith, and thus for bringing about reconciliation between science and religion. The separation of religion from theology of course antedates the late nineteenth century. As we discussed earlier, a number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century thinkers used this distinction in their effort to construct a “rational” or “natural” religion. But the distinction was tainted by a strong anticlerical polemic that largely remained in effect into the next century, when mainstream Protestants were beginning to adopt more modernist ideas. By the late nineteenth century, however, this anti-Catholic polemic has transformed into a Protestant self-critique, and subsequently into the “Protestantism minus Christianity” narrative we have seen in the work of Edward L. Youmans and the scientific naturalists.[1]

Earlier I may have laid too much emphasis on the young, but millennial and younger seem to have taken a certain reception of the mainstream progressive liberalism Ungureanu refers us to. But as noted, all of the ‘new’ developments have been around for many centuries, in their most modern instance, though, as we find it in the 19th century. If you have had any exposure to mainline Protestantism the ‘feeling’ that Ungureanu narrates for us in its historical iteration is a known quantity; in other words, these things are not foreign to you.

One problem with thinking this way is that progressives and the ‘new religion’ seems to think they can escape dogma and ecclesiastical authority. But as should be apparent this sort of movement away from such realities doesn’t actually remove them it only creates a vacuum wherein new dogma and ‘ecclesiastical authority’ emerges; even if it only masquerades as their negations. The issue of dogma and authority isn’t a matter of if there is going to be such components, but whether or not the dogma and authority are good. When we look at how this new religion has been fleshed out in the broader culture today it is clear that in fact a hyper-dogmatic and hyper-authoritarianism has replaced the old dogma and ecclesiastical authority. Wokeness, which is the new religion of today (that finds correspondence with the feeling of the 19th century iteration), has all sorts of dogmas, and authority figures that intend on keeping people in line with their works-righteous and liberating view of salvation.[2] This is what happens when we do a religion minus Christianity; or more pointedly, minus the orthodox and risen Christ who is homoousios.

[1] James Ungureanu, Science, Religion, and the Protestant Tradition: Retracing the Origins of Conflict (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019), 216-17.

[2] Think, Liberation Theology and its neo-Marxist and Critical Theory nexus.

The SBC, Enemies Within The Church, and the Discernment Ministers: Discerning the Discerners

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Let me offer a brief word on so called ‘discernment bloggers.’ Discernment blogging is still alive and well, it used to be bigger about a decade ago; but it’s still operative in various corners of the ethernet. Discernment bloggers are typically of a fundamentalist caste, often hyper-fundamentalist. Their primary modes is to sniff out “liberalism-creep” wherever it may or may not be. They still operate out of that turn of the 19th and 20th century fundy-fear wherein the belief that dominates is that the evil liberals are attempting to break into the evangelical churches through whatever means they might find access to. So, for the rest of this post I will engage with an example of this that I just ran across.

Phil Johnson, executive director of John MacArthur’s radio ministry Grace To You, and editor of most of JMac’s books has been a spearhead for discernment blogging as far back as 2004 or 05 (when I came across him). He still maintains his team blog called Pyromaniacs; although it is pretty much dormant these days. Nevertheless, Phil is still very active on Twitter; and I follow him. He just shared a link to a podcast done by a guy named Jon Harris; a self-loathing graduate of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Phil commends Harris’s podcast (which can be watched here) as Harris is engaging with what he, Phil, and many others of their ilk take to be liberal drift currently underway in the Southern Baptist Convention; according to their lights. Now, I’m not associated with the SBC in any way; although I am Baptist in orientation (but Conservative Baptist by trade). Nevertheless, I have many contacts on social media and in real life who indeed are Southern Baptist. And so, it is interesting to see the impact this sort of “discernment” is having in this arena, and among these contacts.

Harris’s podcast, and Johnson’s recommendation of it, have to do with what is called Critical Race Theory, Intersectionality, and its current movement into the SBC. They see a seepage of CRTI into the Southern Baptist seminaries; particularly at its flagship where Al Mohler is the president. In the podcast, Jon Harris engages with a video produced by an online group called Enemies Within: The Church. EWTC is in the process of producing a documentary that will be an attempt to shine a light on what they take to be the erosion of the evangelical churches in toto; indeed, they see CRTI as the primary means by which the liberals are penetrating the churches. They write in description of their motive and documentary the following (in full):

Enemies Within: The Church is an educational, historical, and evidence-based movie experience that provokes a passionate return to orthodox Christian faithfulness across the western world. As is necessary for such a wonderful turn toward Christ, the movie heralds a clarion call for Christians to turn away from popular, yet errant beliefs held in contradiction to carefully interpreted Holy Scriptures. But Enemies Within: The Church is much more than a mere movie. It is also an invitation for believers to employ a proven Biblical recipe capable of producing restored strength and blessing for all who answer.

Specifically, the movie encourages the Church to cleanse itself from contamination imposed by cultural Marxism and a heretical teaching known as “The Social Justice Gospel.” By hearing the exchanges between the movie’s host and experts interviewed around the world, viewers are provided with a bright light shining upon truths formerly hidden behind the white noise of shallow pop-culture. In the end, the audience is pointed toward a hope-filled and practical action plan that produces solutions found only in and through the royal Law of Christ.

The movie elucidates the fact that every single problem faced by western civilization is, ultimately, a theological problem, and every solution to every problem is a theological absolute. It answers the question: “What happened to living, powerful, transformative, nation-shaking Christianity?”

The documentary reminds its audience that during the twentieth century, the twin evils of communism and fascism were responsible for the slaughter of nearly 200 million people. Both forces attempted (and were often successful) to co-opt Christianity to serve their goals. Filmmakers Judd Saul, Trevor Loudon, Curtis Bowers, and movie host, Pastor Cary Gordon, of Cornerstone World Outreach in Sioux City, Iowa, show that the Marxists are still actively and successfully pursuing this goal in a church near you at this very moment.

In Matthew 10:16, Jesus intentionally warns: “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep amid wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” In John 8:44, Jesus refers to the devil as the “Father of Lies.” Leaning upon empirical, unassailable evidences, this documentary film reveals the subversive ideas, persons, and organizations who are clearly shown as active participants in efforts to undermine the Christian Church and systematically destroy its foundations from within.

The production team of Enemies Within: The Church is faithfully committed to working within the Biblical parameters of such important duties, as commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ in Matthew 18:15-20, echoed by the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians chapter 5, and in Ephesians 5:1-15.[1]

They clearly are taking their work seriously, and have assembled a team of guys with the experience to pull off a professional looking and sounding documentary. They have funders, and are in the process of raising more monies to fund their project.

In the short video produced by them, that Harris engages with, they go after a young new professor at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary named, Walter Strickland. Strickland is a black gentleman, and teaches in the area of theology; while also serving as the Vice President of Diversity at SBTS. In the video they offer select examples from various interviews that Strickland has done, in order to prove their case. In the clips of Strickland, they cross reference what he is saying with clips of the ostensible founder of Black Theology, James Cone. The clips they share of Strickland have him saying that he is a serious student of all of Cone’s works. As he lists many of them, they then cut away to Cone as he explains these same books; then they also post quotes from some of Cone’s work along with another black liberation theologian named: Roberts. By stringing these various clips together, the viewer is led to believe that Strickland is an uncritical and even flaming follower of Cone in every way. Beyond this, they also offer a short vignette on Mohler’s righthand man named, Matt Hall. They offer a clip from him where he seems to be claiming that simply because he is white, that he can’t help but be a racist and white supremacist; that is, under the conditions set forth by CRT. EWTC believes they have presented an air tight case for demonstrating, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Strickland, Hall, Mohler, and the SBTS et al. are all willing proponents of CRTI. Thus, the further implication of this is that SBC (under Mohler’s leadership), and SBTS (and the other seminaries) have given themselves over to a full-fledged theological liberalism; of a heretical hue.

Harris calls Cone, and by implication, Strickland, Hall et al. heretics. Indeed, this is why these discerners are so amped up. They believe that in order to be accepted by the broader culture that these leaders in the SBC have sought the praise of men rather than God. But I see no evidence of this; not even after I watched EWTC’s video, or after listening to Harris’s podcast. At the moment it simply seems to be a witch hunt, and an attempt to find some sort of controversy in order to rile up the base that these discernment men see as their flock.

My post here is an attempt to discern the self-proclaimed discerners. None of these guys seem to actually understand what actual progressive theology entails. They are confusing some in the SBC for progressives, when mutatis mutandis, those in the SBC couldn’t be further from the progressives/liberals. I am quite conservative socially, and most of these guys in the SBC by comparison make me look like a progressive. I only note that, to underscore how off point these discernment ministries/bloggers are. They are constructing a boogeyman where there is only an attempt on some of these SBCr’s part to attempt to engage critically with the broader culture.

Maybe SBC is awry. I am not a fan, per se, of Critical Race Theory or Intersectionality, and see them as unnecessary ‘tools’ in order to engage with the culture. I recognize that these discernment folks have the same sort of concern. But what is driving them is ill-founded precisely because they don’t seem to have the ability to more critically discern what in fact is afoot in the SBC in actuality. I just don’t see the SBC sliding into liberalism because they are okay with using CRTI as an analytical tool; which is what they have recently said at their convention. Do I think there are better ways to engage with the culture, more theologically rich ways that elide the intellectual problems that I think come with CRTI? Yes.

But my whole point in this post is to discern a problem I see with the discernment people out there. If it wasn’t this issue, they would have some other reason for finding liberalism in the evangelical churches; other than their own local churches (where they are the leaders). They have made an idol out of finding their identity in sniffing out liberalism even if it isn’t present. They look to their origin story in the formation of Fundamentalism in the early 20th century, and attempt to keep that spirit alive. They are of the mind that liberalism is always waiting to pounce, and they are the ones to find it and crush it. And it is true, progressivism would like nothing else but to take over the world. But the SBC isn’t even close to that world. I don’t see it in Strickland, or any of these others. But the discerners traffic in sensationalism, and that’s what they’re in the process of constructing currently.

[1] Enemies Within: The Church, Synopsis, accessed 08-14-2019.

The Theology of the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ Movement

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*Editor’s note: I am replacing the former comic strip (satire) picture I had with a more evocative one that reflects the actual people in the OWS movement.

The so called Occupy Wall Street (OWS) continues on now; it has been over two months. This movement is a patchwork of folk, mostly college age, demographically, who are protesting the Capitalist Free Market System that has made the American world, in particular, and the Western world, in general, turn. The outcry is against corporate greed perpetrated by the military might of our country as we have engaged in nation building, and then lived off of the backs of the poor and down trodden in the developing and third world nations which we have conquered; either militaristically, or through “diplomatic” moves that impose our will upon the world-wide populace. Much of the OWS has taken shape, intentionally, through Marxist ideology and its theological corollary, Liberation Theology.

I am continuing to read Christian Kettler’s excellent book, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation. In the first section of the book he surveys various modern theologians and their respective approaches to a theological method and how that impacts their understanding of humanity and Christology, in particular. One of the theologians Kettler has focused on is Leonardo Boff, a Roman Catholic Latin theologian who is best known for his articulation of so called Liberation Theology. I thought Kettler provided a timely word for us in his critique of Boff’s Liberation Theology; and so I wanted to share it with my reading audience. Kettler shares the pronouncement made by, then Cardinal Ratzinger against Boff’s Liberation Theology; Ratzinger highlights the problems associated with the kind of revolutionary activity that liberation theology advocates and fosters. We will start with the Ratzinger quote, then we will here a little commentary from Kettler, and then we will here two more quotes from Michael Novak with the problems that he also sees with Liberation Theology and Marxist theory. Here we go:

[M]illions of our contemporaries legitimately learn to recover their basic freedoms, of which they were deprived by totalitarian and atheistic regimes which came to power by violent and revolutionary means, precisely in the name of the liberation of the people. This shame of our time cannot be ignored: while claiming to bring them freedom, these regimes keep whole nations in conditions of servitude which are unworthy of mankind. [Ratzinger]

These sad consequences, which we are all too familiar with in the twentieth century, reveal the intellectual shallowness of utopian ideals through their refusal to consider the alternatives to the status quo or the consequences of their alternatives, if they have any. As Michael Novak puts it incisively, the practical question must be asked:

[W]hich sorts of economic institutions, in fact, do lift up the poor? . . . What institutions will it [liberation theology] put in place, after the revolution to protect human rights? Through which institutions, will it open its economy to the initiative, intelligence and creativity of the poorest of its citizens? [Novak]

The utopian element in liberation theology should be at odds with the concern for praxis, for concrete political and social experience. But this is not so, ironically. As Novak comments,

[O]ne of the most disappointing features of liberation theology is its abstractness and generality. Far from being descriptive, concrete and practical, it is intricately speculative, ideological and academic. [Novak] (Christian D. Kettler, The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation, 113)

I think this is a very apt observation for the day in which we live. Revolution sounds noble to many the young ear, but what, in our case, does the ‘Occupy’ movement hope to replace the current ‘Global system’ with? I despise the greed and money-mongering of the Capitalist elite as much asthe next activist (to be honest); but I also despise the alternative that seems to be fueling most of the activists continued drive to thwart the powers that be. In other words, I repudiate Marxist, Liberation Theology and its ideals (metaphysically and ethically); I repudiate the Social Democratism that perpetuates much of the labor movement element that helps to spawn the ‘Occupy’ movement in its global effort. I think both and all systems are equally malevolent and deleterious to the soul of humanity. The history of Marxism, whether in its socialist/communist or fascist forms, illustrates the repressive and oppressive policies that they would foist upon humanity. There is no utopia without Christ!

One could push back at me with; ’Well, isn’t, at least, Marxist communist ideology situated upon better ideals and premises? The principle of alleviating the oppression of the poor and down trodden; the strangle hold that the rich elite in the world have on the 99%?’ And my reply to this is that there is, in principle, no gradation of right and wrong before a Holy God. There is either right, or there is wrong; there is no political or social theory that is more or less proximate to God’s ways in Christ. We cannot collapse God’s system into the political ideology of humanity. That is not to say that God has not broken into our systems and humanity through Christ. But instead it is to recognize that at a systemic level, humanity continues to follow the broad way that leads to destruction; they do this because they love the darkness rather than the light. So even if their ’intentions’ appear to be good; we know (Deus absconditus) that appearances aren’t always what they seem, one way or the other. We know that humanity is still homo incurvatus in se (turned in on their selves), and that movements without Christ as their shepherd only lead to destruction in the end.

So I cannot endorse the ’Occupy’ movement as some of my Christian friends seem to. The quotes above from Kettler help explain why, and then my comments just above also provide some rationale for why I reject both Capitalist and Socially Democratic (so called) political theories as well. And no, I’m not a Christian anarchist either; I am a prophet from what some have called ’the far country’.

The Feminist Doctrine of Vicariousness in Liberation Theology

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Christian Kettler in his ‘The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation’ has this to say about how ‘Vicariousness’ works in the Liberation Theology of Latin American theologian Leonardo Boff:

Christ is the absolute mediator, being both God and human (I Tim. 2:5) yet this absolute meditation does not rule out “the mediations of his sisters and brothers. Rather it grants them, penetrates them, confers upon them their raison d’ être.” The most immediate mediation in the light of Christ is that of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She answers the question “How does the feminine reveal God? And from the opposite direction, How is God revealed in the feminine?” As the “Mediator of All Graces” the mediation of Mary has, of course, been prominent in traditional Catholic theology. But because modernity has chosen to define itself as “logocentric”, i.e. “to assign primacy of the spirit to rationality and the power of ideas,” a profoundly masculinizing tendency, the feminine has become “marginalized” along with the distinctive traits of the feminine: “purity, self-sacrifice, and the protection of the weak and the oppressed.” Thus, the mediation of Mary becomes even more important today. Boff declares, “As we see it, each new generation finds itself in Mary, projecting its dreams, its social-cultural ideals upon her.” Today’s society finds Mary its “deliverance from the captivity of a political and economic system that exploits human work.” So Mary is the avenger of the weak and oppressed, although this must not be held in tension with the historical Mary, and particularly her humility. [Christian D. Kettler, “The Vicarious Humanity of Christ and the Reality of Salvation,” (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2011), 34]

Aside from the obvious riff on the co-mediatrix of Mary; this makes for an interesting application of the doctrine of ‘Vicariousness’. In this scenario we have “social” categories predicating what humanity entails, and is characterized by. In other words, we have a doctrine of vicariousness that takes shape from ‘below’; so that what it means to be human (and female) is determined by the apparent attributes of what that looks like through the extension of that through female interaction with the world. While there are features of the female sex that are generally identifiable—like maternal, sensitive, compassionate, emotional, etc—these are not hard and fast characteristics. Ultimately, one of the problems with Boff’s proposal; is that its mode of operation moves from below. Humanity is actually given its raison d’ être through the humanity of Jesus Christ (who is the imago Dei cf. Col. 1.15). There is no deficit in the reach of Christ’s humanity that needs to be augmented by a ‘feminine side’, like that puported by the analogy of Mary; NO! Mary’s humanity, like the rest of humanity, needs to be augmented by the humanity of Christ imago Christi.

This scenario helps, though, to illustrate the tension between trying to work out what being ‘human’ actually means in the first place; tension, between the Divine penetration of that in the hypostatic union of the eternal Logos with humanity (enhypostatic). In what way can we understand the Chalcedonian mantra of ‘distinct, but inseparably related’ (as to the natures of the person of Christ)? What does a theological (or christological) anthropology look like? And how would that implicate the vicarious humanity of Christ ‘for us’? The ‘for us’ is where I see the tension. How is the ‘us’ not swallowed up by ‘His’ humanity; and at the same  time, how does ‘His’ humanity make ‘us’ who we are? Mary needed a recreated humanity as much as the rest of us (cf. I Tim. 2.5-6). There is just ‘One Mediator between God and humanity’; humanity remains my question.