The Issachar Report<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
1 Chronicles 12:32
Dennis A. Wright, DMin
 
Liberalism is a Threat to a Christian Worldview
 
When one first steps out upon the slippery slope of liberalism he may or may not realize that he is taking a step than could ultimately end in losing his faith.  I recall the sad case of Crawford H. Toy who was a prestigious theologian at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in the 19th century.  For a time he courted Miss Lottie Moon who later became a famed Southern Baptist missionary in China.  She broke off their relationship because of his liberal theological wanderings, which later became so unorthodox that he was dismissed from the Seminary.  Toy later went to New England where he became a Unitarian and eventually died as an agnostic.  Shocking
 
Move to the current era and we read Al Mohler's [President of the same seminary where Toy once taught] description of just how insidious liberalism can become to one's faith and to a Christian worldview:
 
It Takes One to Know One--Liberalism as Atheism
 
"It takes one to know one," quipped historian Eugene Genovese, then an atheist and Marxist.  He was referring to liberal Protestant theologians, whom he believed to be closet atheists.  As Genovese observed, "When I read much Protestant theology and religious history today, I have the warm feeling that I am in the company of fellow nonbelievers."
 
Genovese's comment rang prophetic when Gerd Ludemann, a prominent German theologian, declared a few years ago, "I no longer describe myself as a Christian." A professor of New Testament and director of the Institute of Early Christian Studies at Gottingen University in Germany, Ludemann has provoked the faithful and denied essential Christian doctrines for many years.
 
With amazing directness, Ludemann has denied the resurrection of Jesus, the virgin birth, and eventually the totality of the Gospel.  Claiming to practice theology as a "scientific discipline," Ludemann (who taught for several years at the Vanderbilt Divinity School) has sought to debunk or discredit the Bible as an authoritative source for Christian theology.
 
In his influential book Heretics (1995), Ludemann sought to demonstrate that the heretics were right all along, and that the Christian church had conjured a supernatural Jesus to further its own cause.  In What Really Happened to Jesus (1995) he argued, "We can no longer take the statements about the resurrection of Jesus literally." Lest anyone miss his point, Ludemann continued, "So let us say quite specifically: the tomb of Jesus was not empty but full, and his body did not disappear, but rotted away."
 
Nevertheless, Ludemann argued that Christianity could be rescued from its naive supernaturalism by focusing on the moral teachings of Jesus.  Later, Ludemann gave an interview to the German magazine Evangelische Kommentare in which he stated that the Bible's portrayal of Jesus is a "fairy-tale world which we cannot enter."
 
In that same interview he denied the sinlessness of Jesus, explaining that, if Jesus was truly human, "we must grant that he was neither sinless or without error." The church, he argued, must give up its faith in the "risen Lord" and settle for Jesus as a mere human being, but one from whom much can be learned.
 
In later writings, Ludemann argued that Jesus was conceived as the product of a rape, and stated clearly that he could no longer "take my stand on the Apostles' Creed" or any other historic confession of faith.  He continued, however, to teach as an official member of the theology faculty--a post which requires the certification of the Lutheran church in Germany.
 
Gerd Ludemann's theological search-and-destroy mission eventually ran him down a blind alley.  As he told the Swiss Protestant news agency Reformierter Pressedienst, he has come to a new realization.  "A Christian is someone who prays to Christ and believes in what is promised by Christian doctrine.  So I asked myself: 'Do I pray to Jesus?  Do I pray to the God of the Bible?'  And I don't do that.  Quite the reverse."
 
Having come face to face with his unbelief, Ludemann has now turned his guns on church bureaucrats and liberal theologians.  Many church officials, Ludemann claims, no longer believe in the creeds, but simply "interpret" the words into meaninglessness.  Liberal theologians, he asserts, try to reformulate Christian doctrine into something they can believe, and still claim to be Christians.  He now describes liberal theology as "contemptible."
 
Looking back on the whole project of liberal theology, Professor Ludemann offered an amazing reflection: "I don't think Christians know what they mean when they proclaim Jesus as Lord of the world.  That is a massive claim.  If you took that seriously, you would probably have to be a fundamentalist.  If you can't be a fundamentalist, then you should give up Christianity for the sake of honesty."
 
Professor Gerd Ludemann reveals much about the true state of modern liberal theology.  One core doctrine after another has fallen by liberal denial--all in the name of salvaging the faith in the modern age.  The game is now reaching its end stage.  Having denied virtually every essential doctrine, the liberals are holding an empty bag.  As Ludemann suggests, they should give up their claim on Christianity for the sake of honesty.
 
Professor Ludemann is now a formidable foe of liberal theology, but he is also one of its victims.  He said that he plans to pick up his teaching career from a "post-Christian" perspective, now that he knows "what I am and what I am not." Should his liberal colleagues attempt to remove him from the theology faculty as a "post-Christian," Ludemann may respond with Genovese's quip: "It takes one to know one."
 
(This article was originally published on November 23, 2004 at www.AlbertMohler.com.  Used by permission.)
 
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While Christians are rightly concerned about the growing threat of Eastern religions amongst us as well as the rumblings of Islamic jihad against our Judeo-Christian heritage, perhaps we ought to pause and examine just how orthodox are the pronouncements that are coming from our pulpits Sunday after Sunday.
 
 
Dennis A. Wright, DMin, is Founder and President of Understanding The Times Ministries.  An accomplished writer and educator, Wright has spoken in churches and conferences all over America on spiritual counterfeits and Christian Worldview topics.  He can be emailed at [email protected] and his new website can be found at www.UnderstandingTheTimes.org.