Book Review: Another Gospel? - Highly Recommend

One thing I'm recognizing in our world today is the biblical concept of the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats. In Christ's parable in Matthew 13, the tares/weeds looked like the real thing. Tares often claim to be wheat. I believe an abundance of people who claim to be Christians will not find themselves in Christ's fold at the final judgment. What I so appreciated about this book, Another Gospel?, was the articulation of an undercurrent of hesitation I can feel but cannot express. Alisa Childers speaks truth to my unsettled responses to the developments going on around me. Her subtitle encapsulates her theme: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity.

I will need to purchase this book. At my library, held books come with an identification sticker to aid in curbside pickup. But I tore small pieces from three such stickers to mark passages to revisit or recall when I review the book. This book had numerous small tabs of paper jutting from the sides.

In some places, I recognized the theories/arguments others have presented that I have rejected. Friends and family, once considered true believers, have morphed into people who reject biblical authority and want to rewrite the Scriptures. In other places, I noticed seeds of error that slipped past my defenses. For example, how did I not realize that Richard Rohr, of the Enneagram fame, is a progressive? I still agree that we respond according to our personality types. Yet I cannot agree with his quotations cited in this book. Plus, years ago, I wrote a favorable review for The Shack, not recognizing some egregious errors in that author's presentation of God, sin, and atonement. This is a clear indication that we read and interact with a book from that specific point in our journey and might respond differently when further along. I'm glad God continues to open my eyes to His truth as I seek that in the supreme source, His Word.

Can progressive Christianity even be called Christianity? Childers describes her experience with a church sponsored class intended to push the progressive deconstruction of Christianity. These individuals struggle with the beliefs laid out in the Bible. They question everything and consider themselves above conservative or historical Christians, painting us as babies who blindly accept everything spoon-fed while they hold their doubt and skepticism as superior. (Hmm. Amazing how questions, doubt, and skepticism seem laudable in some scenarios, yet in other aspects of society, they are disallowed, censored, and criticized vehemently!) Their spiritual doubt often causes them to chuck everything and reframe their beliefs according to their own whims. This author points out that progressives are tolerant of everything but conservatives and inclusive of everyone but those who disagree with their interpretation of Scripture. How true!

As Childers outlines so well: 1) They deny the authority and inspiration of the Bible. 2) They emphasize God's love and repudiate His wrath. 3) They contest the reality of hell and eternal punishment. 4) They make a mockery of the cross, viewing it as divine child abuse instead of atonement for sin. 5) They tout ideas of universal salvation. (I can still hear my husband's grandmother saying, "Oh, there are many ways to God." Yet, Scripture says Christ is the only way.) 

I've long struggled with supposed Christians who want to present Christianity simply as "God is love. God loves you just the way you are. God has no desire to change you or make you more like Him. His primary concern is for your happiness and fulfillment." These individuals pick what parts of the Bible they are comfortable with and denounce whole sections on the argument that Paul was just a man responding to the cultural dictates of his time.

The sad thing is that a time is coming, not far off, when God's patience will come to an end. He will judge man. Will you be a tare, ever insisting you are actually wheat? His judgment will reveal the true believers. God will accept those who rely on his substitutionary atonement on the Cross, who recognize their sin and need of a Savior, who accept His ways and means. He will separate them from those who reject Christ's act and put forth their own path to salvation.

I stand with this author: 

"We can choose to follow the whims of a godless culture or we can choose to follow Jesus. I choose Jesus." 

"We don't get to completely redefine who God is and how he works in the world and call it Christian. We don't get to make the rules and do what is right in our own eyes and yet claim to be followers of Jesus." 

"A robust theology of the Cross is what will withstand the storms, sufferings, persecutions, and hardships that Jesus promised would confront those who are his true followers." 

That day is coming. Persecution is nigh. I plan to cling to the Cross and my Christ, not a figment made in my own image, to my own dictates, but according to the inerrant and wholly reliable Word of God. I'm so thankful to this author for articulating what I believe so firmly to be true. There is a way, a narrow way, and some who believe they are walking in it, while tearing down the walls they find too restrictive, will get the result of their imitation Christianity, a life eternally separated from God and all that is holy.