American Gospel—“Progressive” Christianity (Part 2 of 3)

The American Gospel, progressive Christianity is our topic today here on the Christian Worldview, where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to share the good news that all people can be reconciled to God through faith in Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host, and our website is thechristianworldview.org. Thanks for joining us today as we discuss the second in a three-part series on these films titled The American Gospel. Now last week we discussed the first film that focuses on some of the false teaching and false teachers infecting the church, such as moralistic preaching, you know, be good, be moral, the works gospel, faith plus your good works makes you right with God, the Attractional Church, your church for non-believers, and of course the health, wealth, and prosperity gospel that God wants to heal you and prosper you financially. But this weekend next, Brandon Kimber, our guest, he's the creator of both American Gospel films, will join us to discuss his second film on progressive Christianity. Now progressive Christianity is found in the mainline Protestant denominations and also the emerging church movement and leaders such as Brian McClaren, Rob Bell, Tony Jones, and others like Jim Wallace and Tony Campolo. I think it could be better described as deconstructionist Christianity where key doctrines like the inerrancy of scripture and penal substitutionary atonement are sort of reimagined.

Progressive Christianity closely aligns with progressive leftist political ideology. Let's get to the first segment of the interview with Brandon Kimber. Brandon, thank you for coming on the Christian Real View as we talk about your second film today, American Gospel, Christ Crucified. And I'm going to start out by playing the trailer from the film to just to give listeners an idea of what it's about.

This is a an overview and then we'll get into some of the specific sound bites and some of the issues that are covered in this film. Here's the trailer for American Gospel, the second film. I'm concerned that people today don't know who God is. And the Lord passed by in front of him and proclaimed, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in loving kindness and truth, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. But he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished.

How does that go together? Why would you want to worship a God if you could imagine a better God? Did God kill Jesus? Yes, I don't think God killed Jesus. That's a sick God and a sick story. In fact, it even says it pleased the father to bruise him.

John MacArthur might be right about that. That's not a guy worthy of my worship. It makes God the author of a terribly unjust system. This is the doctrine of Christianity. This is the doctrine that separates Christianity from every other religion in the world. Did Jesus go to the cross unwillingly?

No. Okay, that's the trailer from American Gospel, the second film. And Brandon Kimber is our guest today, the creator of the film.

And welcome back to the program. Brandon, this film, the second film is about progressive Christianity. Tell us what that is and some of the issues that are being battled over as you present in this film. Well, progressive Christianity is a little hard to pin down as far as coming up with a definition everyone could agree upon. But there are some common things that a lot of progressive Christians believe. And the main issue is with the authority and inerrancy of Scripture. So they would really deny that the Bible is the Word of God. Therefore, their feelings become the authority, not Scripture. Have you ever heard of anything called red letter Christianity?

Yes. Essentially taking Jesus's words and elevating those over the rest of Scripture. But even with that view, they're still picking and choosing Jesus's words. Another aspect is they will deny hell.

And of course, Jesus talked about hell more than anyone in the Bible. The other issue, and this is mainly what this film is about, is the atonement. They really deny what is called the penal substitutionary view of the atonement, that Jesus died in your place to pay the penalty for your sins under the wrath of God. They will call this cosmic child abuse. A lot of the ways that they describe this are really just straw men versions of this doctrine.

It's not really represented accurately. So what I try to do in the film is to show the biblical view of that doctrine and tear down their straw men. You're basically left with a gospel that's no gospel at all. It ends up becoming just love God, love people.

That's actually a summary of the law. That's not the gospel. Brandon Kimber with us today on the Christian worldview, the creator of the American gospel films, part one and part two.

We're discussing the second one today. Isn't calling it, quote, progressive Christianity euphemistic? In other words, isn't it giving in to the way they want to be portrayed as their progressive, their current, their up to date? Shouldn't it be called heterodox or deconstructionist Christianity or something like that?

You're right in a sense. I guess it just depends on how you're defining the word progressive. In historic biblical Christianity, we have something called progressive revelation. And that would mean that over time, we're getting a clear understanding of who God is and what the gospel is as we go from Genesis to revelation.

We can also think of our faith being progressive in the sense that we want to progress in our faith, in our sanctification and growing in holiness. But I think that when they use that word, it actually helps to define their view of scripture. As I kind of mentioned before, they don't see it as the word of God, rather as man's evolving understanding of God over time. So in that sense, it's progressive because they're viewing it as man's view of God has progressed or evolved into a better or a higher and wiser view of God over time. So they'll look at the Old Testament God as wrathful, he's jealous, and see that as archaic and bad. And once we get to the New Testament, we have a better understanding of God.

And they'll even say, even now, we've progressed beyond the time of the apostles that we even have a more evolved and better understanding of God now. Who are they? We're referring to they as these progressives. Is this the people and the leaders in the mainline Protestant denominations?

Some of the big denominations that have gone liberal? In your film, you have others like Bart Campolo, who is the son of, you mentioned the red letter Christian or the liberal Christian Tony Campolo. Bart Campolo, his son, is an avowed secular humanist. We're going to hear soundbites of him today. He's in the film, you interviewed him. You also interviewed Tony Jones. He was one of the well-known leaders of the Emergent Church. Others that you have clips of in the film are Brian McLaren, who was sort of considered one of the founders of the Emergent Church, or Rob Bell, who wrote the book Love Wins. Richard Rohr is another one. We'll get into some of these folks today.

So who are they? And then the follow up to that is, what was it like to actually sit down and interview someone like Bart Campolo and Tony Jones, people who have deconstructed the Orthodox Christian faith? A lot of these progressive leaders are, like you said, in the mainline denominations. Rob Bell was a mega church pastor in Michigan. But after he wrote his book Love Wins, he left the church, moved out to California, and is now kind of just an author, speaker. He's had a show on Oprah. And I mean, I wouldn't really consider him inside of a denomination anymore. He's just kind of this rogue theologian. And I think that might be what a lot of these guys end up becoming. They're writing books, they have podcasts, and that's really where their influence is coming from, rather than maybe like a pulpit.

I mean, they'll get invited to speak, but they're not really pastors of churches anymore. This film is different than the first because I actually got people like Bart and Tony to agree to sit down and be interviewed. Whereas in the first film, it was either a declining or just silence. I was honest with them upfront about my beliefs. We disagreed. I said that my view and perspective is going to come out on top.

It's going to be portrayed as the correct view, but I want to make sure that you get to say what you want to say and that I don't take anything out of context. They were very kind and cooperative. Sometimes during the interviews, it got kind of intense, but they approved and they signed their releases in the end after seeing the finished film, and they signed it without asking for any changes.

So I'm very thankful for their cooperation and I respect them in that sense. Yeah, it is a compelling part of the film. You're not just taking clips of some speaking engagement where they've spoken, but in their cases, I mean, these are false teachers leading people away from the truth of God's word and the gospel.

So that's a compelling part of the film. Our guest today is Brandon Kimber, the producer and creator of the American Gospel Films. We have both of them available for listeners.

We'll tell you how you can get them coming up here on the program. Let's get to some of the audio from the film. You've talked about the emerging church. This particular clip has Phil Johnson from Grace to You, John MacArthur's radio ministry, Tony Jones, one of the founders of the emergent church, Rob Bell, another one you've already talked about some of these, and the issue of certainty.

Let's start out with this soundbite from American Gospel in the second film. The emerging church movement began several years ago as a conversation among evangelical Gen X leaders who were alarmed at church dropout rates among 20s and 30s. About the same time, a pastor from Maryland, Brian McLaren, began writing about what he saw as a growing disillusionment with the way evangelical Christianity was being practiced. The emerging church movement actually was right in a lot of their criticisms of shallow evangelicalism, pragmatic evangelicalism. The entire millennial generation had, for the most part, those that had grown up as evangelicals, had grown up in children's church and then youth group movements where pretty much the emphasis was on fun and games, not teaching. And so it's a generation of people who were not taught scripture, and so they were pretty quick to throw it out. People who are questioning the theology, the doctrine, the core message of the gospel, like what's the gospel really about?

And we were reading people who had been considered off limits by a lot of evangelicals. We were reading like feminist theology and liberation theology and things like that. Postmodernism was always skepticism. The modernist thought we can know for sure what truth is because science will tell us. And postmodernism has given up on that fallacy and now concluded that really nothing can tell us for sure what truth is. We talked a lot about the Bible, how reliable and trustworthy is the Bible, and how reliable and trustworthy are our interpretations and applications of the Bible.

So we can't be absolutely confident that we know anything and therefore postmodernism is really the abandonment of certainty and knowledge. In fact, if there's one sin in the progressive church, it's the sin of certainty. Beware of people who charge in with certainty and Bible verses.

Okay, that last voice was Rob Bell. Beware of certainty in Bible verses. Talking about the American gospel, the second film today, we have it available, both films actually, for the donation of $30 or more, or you can just buy one. Go to thechristianworldview.org.

We'll return after this. Is the Southern Baptist Convention diverging from biblical orthodoxy over issues of women teaching men, homosexuality, and critical race theory? Is this a bellwether of what's coming to your church? By what standard is a 110-minute DVD documentary about the battle taking place in the SBC? You can receive the DVD for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. To order, go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Be sure to take advantage of two free resources that will keep you informed and sharpen your worldview. The first is The Christian Worldview weekly email, which comes to your inbox each Friday. It contains a preview of the upcoming radio program, along with need-to-read articles, featured resources, special events, and audio of the previous program. The second is The Christian Worldview annual print letter, which is delivered to your mailbox in November. It contains a year-end letter from host David Wheaton and a listing of our store items, including DVDs, books, children's materials, and more. You can sign up for the weekly email and annual print letter by visiting thechristianworldview.org or calling 1-888-646-2233.

Your email and mailing address will never be shared, and you can unsubscribe at any time. Call 1-888-646-2233 or visit thechristianworldview.org. And welcome back to The Christian Worldview radio program.

I'm David Wheaton. Our topic today is The American Gospel. That's the name of these films we've been discussing last week, this week, and also next week as well. This week and next week is on the second film on progressive Christianity.

Our guest is Brandon Kimber, who created and produced the films. We have both films available for a donation of $30 or more. They each retail for $17.99, so we're giving a deal on that if you want to get both films and DVD, $30 or more.

Or you can just buy one or the other for the retail price of $17.99. You can also rent the film online if you'd rather not buy it. You can just find out all about this by going to our website, thechristianworldview.org. By the way, these are not like entertaining action films. I mean, these are thought-provoking films that will sharpen your biblical worldview. You're going to have to think your way through this. It's just really compelling from a standpoint of showing what's going on in these false teaching movements and also within progressive Christianity, so I encourage you to watch them. Okay, we were talking about certainty, how that's something rejected by the progressive movement.

Let's get back to the interview with Brandon Kimber. If there's one sin in the progressive church, it's the sin of certainty. Beware of people who charge in with certainty and Bible verses.

So the issue of certainty came up. We can be certain about what we believe because it's in the Bible that was rejected by the emerging church, and that's an underlying worldview of progressive Christianity. Progressive Christianity has been around for a long time, long before the emerging church, but how did the emerging church, which emerged sort of in the early 2000s or around that era, how did that undermine people raised, let's say, in the evangelical church in that realm? Well, as you heard in the clip, there was a response to young people dropping out of church, and when that happens, the first thing that people try to do is to, again, make the church more attractive to the culture. So they're trying to change things in either the methods that you use to do church, whether that be like, are you sitting on pews or chairs, like what kind of music, things like that.

Then they started targeting the message of the church, the gospel itself, rethinking a lot of those difficult doctrines that we talked about, including hell, the atonement, the attributes of God. This was all happening when postmodern thinking was becoming popular, and that, again, is just this idea that we can't know anything for certain, but the problem is if someone says we can't know anything for certain, are you certain about that? That's a statement of made in certainty, so it's self-defeating. They view certainty as prideful, arrogance, and they really value questioning everything. The questions are more important than answers.

The journey is more important than the destination type of thing. Yeah, I've heard them say that many, many times. Brandon Kimber, again, with us today on The Christian Real View, talking about his second film in a series on the American gospel, this one on progressive Christianity. We have them linked and the ability for you to get them at our website, thechristianrealview.org. Let's go next to a sound bite in the film by Alyssa Childers, I think that's how you pronounce her name, where she talks about how her faith was almost deconstructed, grew up in a Christian environment, was part of a Christian musical group.

Let's let her tell part of her story, then I'll follow up with a question. Often when a Christian goes through a process of deconstruction, what they reconstruct to is something that doesn't look anything like historic Christianity. In my case, I went through that process of deconstructing. I didn't go quite to atheism.

I always did believe that God was there, but it sent me into a crisis of faith, a really dark time of doubt where I would rock my baby in the rocking chair and just sing hymns into the darkness, just not even really sure that they were true. It was as if I had been thrown into the middle of the ocean with just these high crazy waves with nothing, nothing to grab onto. And I said, God, send me a lifeboat.

If Christianity is true, send me a lifeboat. That's Alyssa Childers. She figures very prominently in this film. And she had this crisis of faith that she talked about there, Brandon, but eventually came back.

And now she has a website and a blog and a podcast and she's a speaker and so forth. She's one of the characters in the film that is presented as someone who is sound in the faith. So when she talked about deconstruction, what does that actually mean? A deconstruction of one's worldview or faith. You also present these two guys in the film, they're called the Deconstructionist Podcast.

So that word comes up over and over again. And how to avoid this kind of deconstruction that almost happened to Alyssa, but then has happened to several others that you feature in the film. Deconstruction is really taking all the parts of your faith and questioning and rethinking everything. So once you do that, people will often reconstruct, if they don't end up in atheism, they'll reconstruct into a version of Christianity that doesn't look like historic Christianity, as Alyssa said. But other times they might reconstruct into a more historic biblical version of Christianity.

That's actually what happened to Alyssa. I think that's pretty rare. I think the problem happens when you grow up in the church and you're just basically handed down a faith from your parents, and it hasn't really become your own. You haven't really thought through the reasons why you believe what you believe.

And I think that's important. And I would say that this process kind of happened for me as well. Some people might grow up in a church that isn't really preaching the true gospel. There might be some distortions or confusion in there. They may be rejecting a version of the faith that wasn't really Christianity and then reacting against that. So maybe they're rejecting a legalistic version of Christianity, ending up in progressive Christianity.

I've seen a few examples of that with some progressive leaders, that when they talk about what they thought was the gospel or what they were taught was the gospel, it sounds like they didn't really understand the gospel that they rejected, which is sad. Brandon Kimber with us today in the Christian Real View radio program, the creator of the American Gospel films. There's a part one and there's a part two. Today we're talking about part two.

Both these films are making available. You can go to our website at thechristianrealview.org to find out more. The next soundbite is on the issue of homosexuality, how homosexuality is actually a litmus test for the division between biblical Christianity and progressive Christianity.

In this soundbite, you have Bart Campolo, President Barack Obama, Tony Jones, Bart Campolo's father, Tony Campolo. And so you're going to hear from them and also from Russell Berger, who was a biblical Christian fired from CrossFit over his views on homosexuality. Here is from American Gospel, the second film. It took me a long time to be open about that. But like very early on, I realized like, look, the Bible's wrong about this one.

It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married. And when I look at the evolution of how not only our nation, but how professing Christians view this issue, you can definitely see how this particular sin has become somewhat of a line in the sand. And what I was faced with was the decision, am I going to trust what God says about this sin? Or am I going to just go with what the world and my feelings say about this?

There's a time when you have to look in the mirror and say, I have to go where my heart's leading me. I just knew too many wonderful Christian people who are in gay relationships. My dad has since come out in support of gay marriage, but for many years was not and was like, you've gone too far. Because I'm marrying gay couples, you know? To say that homosexuality is a sin is practically social suicide. Yesterday, CrossFit HQ fired Russell Berger for basically saying homosexuality is a sin.

Okay, Brandon. So this issue in our society today is everywhere. You take an issue in politics or in culture or whatever. And it's always the issue of homosexuality somehow related to it, whether in marriage or transgenderism or some movement or some baker or photographer, it's always this issue. One of your guests in the film said this is the dividing line issue. Why is homosexuality and all this put in parentheses and abortion actually?

Why are they litmus test issues today? I think they really reveal your view on the authority and inerrancy of scripture. I think if you open up your Bible that it's pretty clear what the Bible says about that. And I think there are a lot of atheists that believe the same thing that the Bible does say homosexuality is a sin. But then you have people who would call themselves progressive Christians who will just do some type of, I guess you could call it gymnastics, to get around that.

In Bart Campolo's case, he had gay roommates in college, and he concluded the Bible was wrong and that realized that it was just a human book, according to him. Your feelings, you yourself become the authority of what truth is. And so it really shows whether you are trying to follow the culture, become more like the world, or if you're trying to follow scripture and separate yourself from the world. Okay, you're listening to an interview today with Brandon Kimber, the creator of the American Gospel films. We have both of them available at our website, thechristianrealview.org.

Really encourage you to get one or both or watch this film. We'll be back. We have much more coming up with him today. So stay tuned.

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Monthly partners can choose to receive resources throughout the year. Call 1-888-646-22 33 or go to thechristianworldview.org. Thank you for your support. Welcome back to The Christian Worldview radio program. Our website is thechristianworldview.org where we are making these films available that we've been talking about last week, this week, and also next week as well. This week is part two on the second film, American Gospel, and it deals with progressive Christianity. And our guest is Brandon Kimber, the creator of the film. Let's get back to this final segment for the day of this interview. We'll have some summary comments in the final segment today.

And here our guest is Brandon Kimber. The next issue we're going to pull out from the film is the issue of the gospel, the most important message of scripture. And you often hear with progressive Christians that there's sort of this wooden interpretation of scripture, in this case the gospel, that well, how could Jesus preach the gospel before he had actually died on the cross? One of the first things he said was repent and believe in the gospel.

Well, if the gospel is about Christ's death, he hadn't died then. So how could he be preaching the gospel? Here's from American Gospel, a second film. And you're going to have in this this soundbite, Tony Jones, again, one of the founders of the Emergent Church. You're going to have that podcast between these two young men from the Deconstructionist podcast and also here from the biblical teacher Alistair Begg.

It's a bad question that is not answerable. You cannot answer what is the gospel. Jesus died on the cross for my sin. That's not the gospel. Jesus was preaching the gospel before he died on the cross for sin. So like Mark chapter one, Jesus starts preaching the gospel. What was he preaching? He hadn't died yet.

Nobody had unpacked any of it. So it must be more than his death on the cross or we wouldn't even have the gospels. We would just have Jesus died.

Here's some Paul. So if he went out and started preaching the gospel, I know that no matter what, whatever he was preaching is different than what I've been told the gospel is. Yeah.

Yeah. As a boy growing up, it was explained to me that the Bible is a book about Jesus. Jesus is himself the gospel, the good news. He is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, as John the Baptist points to it. So in the Old Testament, he is predicted. In the gospels, he's revealed. In the Acts, he's preached. In the epistles, he's explained.

And in the book of Revelation, he's expected. The center of the message of both Jesus and Paul was Christ himself, Christ his work, and the response that says, I will submit, I will follow after Christ. Okay, Brandon, so answer that question for the progressive who says, Jesus couldn't be preaching the gospel because if the gospel is about him dying, he was preaching it before he actually died.

How would you answer that issue? And why is this typical of how progressive Christians twist things? The gospel is primarily a person, like, as Alistair Begg said, Jesus is himself the gospel. So it's his person and work. So included in that is who he is and what he has done to reconcile sinners to God. When Jesus is living out the gospel, and he's doing his earthly ministry in the present, he'll say, follow me. When Paul is talking about Jesus and what he has done in the past, he's basically saying, follow Christ. We preach Christ crucified, repent and believe the gospel.

So it's the same thing. In one sense, you have the gospel in flesh, telling people to follow him. He hasn't worked out everything he was going to do yet, as far as dying, but he's still at the same time, will say things like, I'm the good shepherd who lays down his life for a sheep.

So he is talking about what he's going to do. You'll hear a lot of progressives talk about the gospel of the kingdom. It might be hard for them to express what that is, but a lot of times it ends up being something about social justice, like Jesus came to help the poor and the outcast. But when we talk about the kingdom of God, we first have to remember that Jesus himself was that king, and he claimed to be the long-awaited Messiah. And when he preached the kingdom, it was the forgiveness of sins.

He had the authority to forgive, and the Pharisees heard him do that and said that was blasphemy, because he was basically claiming to be God. So Jesus's gospel of the kingdom, you have Jesus forgiving sins based on the sacrifice that he was heading toward. And in the gospel that Paul preaches, it's the same thing. Believe in this king, Jesus, our Messiah, for the forgiveness of sins. There's really no difference.

It's just kind of a matter of perspective. Brandon Kimber with us today on the Christian worldview, again talking about his second film, titled The American Gospel, Christ Crucified. Let's do one follow-up on the issue of the gospel, that often the gospel is presented and starts with just about our sin. You're a sinner and you need to be saved. But this particular soundbite in the film, I believe Paul Washer is in it, a really good sound preacher, and a couple others talk about that really isn't the best starting point to explain the gospel.

There's an attribute of God, the sum of the attributes of God, which he'll explain in this soundbite, is the best place to start. One of the problems, I think, with the American gospel today is that we start in the very wrong place. We start with the cross of Jesus Christ. We're asking them to accept a savior that they don't even know they need. So to me, this is why we have so many false conversions today. We've only given them half the message.

We've only given them half the message. What we have to understand is the gospel primarily has to do with the attributes of God, not just the sin of man. You see, the sin of man wouldn't be a problem if God was like us, but God is not like us. And all his attributes fit perfectly together into one glorious whole, and you can sum them all up by saying God is holy. And of course, the signature text for that is Isaiah chapter 6. When the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet Isaiah went into the temple, and he encounters God in a vision that is just extraordinary as he sees God high and lifted up. And then he hears the angels crying out, holy, holy, holy. When something is repeated three times, it takes it to the superlative degree. What the angels are crying out is holy, holier, holiest.

Okay, that was several different people you interviewed in the film from. I can't remember who the first one was, but it went to Paul Washer, to Phil Johnson of Grace to Youth, and the pastor Steve Lawson talking about holiness being the starting point of the gospel. So, Brandon, why is that starting point so important, and perhaps starting at the wrong point of the gospel, this time people you're a sinner need to be saved, how did that potentially lead, you'll say the younger generation, for their faith to be deconstructed, to not really understand where they really needed to be saved from? If you don't understand who the God of the Bible is, and his attributes correctly, then the gospel isn't really making much sense, because we are being saved from the wrath and justice of God. Primarily our sin problem, it only makes sense because God isn't like us. He's holy, meaning he's separate from sin, he's other, he's transcendent, we're set apart.

And so, once we understand that, that's part of understanding the bad news, which actually makes the good news make sense. When talking about the attributes of God, one of the other important passages that I get into in the film is in Exodus 34, verse 6 through 7. Moses is on the mountain, and the Lord reveals who he is, his glory to him, and he says, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps steadfast love for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin, but he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished. So you have a God who is willing to forgive all types and kinds of sin, yet at the same time, he's saying all sin and all sinners will be punished. No sin will be left unpunished. So this seems like a contradiction, but it's resolved perfectly in the cross, because you have God forgiving sin in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ. He's revealing his love and his grace by willingly taking our punishment for sin, but we also see that God remains just because we have God the Father punishing sin in Jesus on the cross. So no sin is left unpunished, but he is still able to forgive in that act.

Yeah, it goes back to that verse in Romans. I don't have it in front of me right now that God is both just and he's the justifier. He's just in that every sin will be punished. We can either choose to pay the punishment ourselves, or God graciously offers to have his Son pay the punishment for us. And then when we believe and trust in him and his work on the cross, then he can be our justifier.

He can declare us righteous because all our sins have been paid for by Christ. It's just so profound. It certainly is profound. You're listening to an interview with Brandon Kimber today here on the Christian Royal View.

Like I said, these films will make you think. And as I was listening to his answer, very specific about the gospel, I realized that this is what the problem was, or is, in evangelical churches today, the seeker movement and so forth. Fun and games for the kids, when you know what they needed to be hearing?

They needed to be hearing this. They needed to be very grounded in sound doctrine, which when these people who come on and inject doubt and say, well, Jesus couldn't be preaching the gospel before he actually died, they would have answers and understand these key doctrines of the faith. You can get both films from us for donation of any amount to the, sorry, $30 or more to the Christian Royal View, one for $17.99, or you can rent it. Go to our website, thechristianrealview.org. There's an abundance of resources available in Christian bookstores and online, but the sad reality is that many of them, even some of the most popular, do not lead to a sound and strong faith. A key aim of the Christian world view is to identify and offer resources that are biblically faithful and deepen your walk with God. In our online store, we have a wide range of resources for all ages, adult and children's books and DVDs, Bibles and devotionals, unique gifts, and more. So browse our store at thechristianworldview.org and find enriching resources for yourself, family, friends, small group, or church. You can also order by calling our office toll free at 1-888-646-2233.

That's 1-888-646-2233. Or visit thechristianworldview.org. The critical race, theory, and intersectionality are simply analytical tools. They're meant to be used as tools, not as a worldview, not a transcended worldview above the authority of scripture.

And we stand by the strength of this resolution. Is the Southern Baptist Convention diverging from biblical orthodoxy over issues of women teaching men, homosexuality, and critical race theory? Is this a bellwether of what's coming to your church?

By what standard is a 110-minute DVD documentary about the battle taking place in the SBC? You can receive the DVD for a donation of any amount to The Christian Worldview. To order, go to thechristianworldview.org or call 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Final segment of the day here on the Christian Worldview radio program.

I'm David Wheaton, the host. Our website is thechristianworldview.org. We're talking today, if you just joined us, we're in the second part of a three-part series on these American gospel films.

There's two films. Last week, we talked about the first film, which deals with false teaching, health, wealth, and prosperity movement, that sort of thing. This week and next, we're going to be talking about another element of the American gospel, which is progressive Christianity. This is found largely in the mainline Protestant denominations. They're full of these denominations like the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Churches, United Church of Christ. Those are the mainline denominations and a couple more, and those are marked completely by this progressive Christianity. And then today in the program, you've been hearing how this emergent movement, this emergent church movement, which came out of, started in the early 2000s and so forth, with people like Brian McLaren and Rob Bell and Tony Jones and others, people like Jim Wallace and Tony Campolo, all part of this. They're different flavors, but they're all in the same ballpark on their doctrinal beliefs. And how the really shallow teaching in evangelical church caused so many of those who grew up in the church to be easily swayed away because they weren't grounded in sound doctrine.

They just weren't. And on the issue of the gospel, like that issue we were talking about before this last break, how could Jesus be preaching the gospel before he actually died if the gospel is about Jesus' death, or things like homosexuality. If you're not grounded in the spiritual and the word is your authority for knowing right from wrong, then when homosexuality becomes popularized and normalized in society, you're a professing Christian, you grew up in the church, but I just can't believe that anymore because you are not convicted. Your convictions are not deep enough to withstand a different message that culture is telling you. So progressive Christianity just undermines, or even just guts is the word, the core issues, the core fundamentals of the faith and corrupts it so badly that it turns into a non-saving gospel and really a false religion. That's what progressive Christianity is.

It's a false religion. So whether it's an attack on the authority and inerrancy of scripture that scripture isn't the final word, we kind of pick and choose or man's interpretation of scripture is above it. Like what I think Bart Campolo said, the Bible's wrong on this one. So he's the authority over scripture, or the issue of the character and nature of God. God's a loving God, but he's certainly not a wrathful one.

The way he committed, so to speak, quote unquote, genocide against the people in the promised land, he told Jacob to destroy every man, woman, and children as you go into a village and so forth. Well, this is not a God I want to worship. Or with Christ, there's always an attack on the person and work of Christ, of course, in any false way. That he's certainly not the only way, like he says he was in John 14.6, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. Or they attack the heart of the gospel, the penal substitution that God sent his son to die.

That's sick. That's cosmic child abuse, he would say. We're going to get into that one more next week. Or the issue of hell, more next week on that one as well, too. If it even exists, that's disproportionate punishment. I mean, why would God punish someone for eternity in the lake of fire for a few sins against him? And if there is some punishment after death, it's certainly not eternal.

You'd probably get annihilated or something. Or on the issue of morality, they completely capitulate to the cultural morality of the day. So homosexuality is okay, living together before marriage, all this kind of thing.

Just redefine that. It's basically religious humanism. Okay, so it's man-based thought with a religious twang to it. Okay, they talk about God, they'll talk about religious themes.

But it's really based on the word of man rather than the word of God. So it's religious humanism. And it merges with political leftism. And so you see this from someone like Pete Buttigieg, the gay man who's quote unquote, married right now, I think he's running second in the Democratic side for the nomination for president. He's the mayor of South Bend, Indiana. He speaks frequently about his quote unquote, Christian beliefs. But he's a progressive Christian. He reinterprets and reimagines everything. Same with President Barack Obama was the exact same way. I was looking for a soundbite this morning.

I'd played it many years ago in the program when he was president, couldn't find it. But basically saying that his understanding of salvation is that a collective salvation, when you work to save the community, that's what leads to your individual salvation. That's a typical progressive idea that salvation is not about individual saving of your soul, but it's about working towards social justice and things in society.

When you save the community, you save yourself. And this is seductive for young people who have grown up in evangelical homes and churches, like I said, and haven't been grounded in the word. And as with every lie, there are things that sound right within progressive Christianity. I mean, how could a good God, how could he tell Jacob or Joshua to kill all those people as they enter the land?

Or how could he actually send his son to die for sins he didn't commit? But they're all just distortions of God's word or man putting himself above God's word. And I think the passage in Jude, Jude is only one chapter, but it describes exactly what progressive Christianity is about.

He says in Jude, beloved, he writes, while I was making every effort to write to you about our common salvation, I felt the necessity to write to you appealing that you contend earnestly for the faith, which was once for all handed down to the saints. And there's something to battle over here. This isn't something to hear from progressive Christianity and say, oh, well, you know, everyone's in their own lane and that's okay. No, people's souls are at stake. Young people or older people, they get deconstructed by this stuff, by these false ways. So no, it needs to be brought to the light.

It needs to be said what it is. The leaders need to be pointed out. No, that's a false teacher. He will or she will lead you the wrong way, away from true saving faith. It says in verse four, for certain persons have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only master and Lord Jesus Christ. There's the core of what they do.

They are licentious. There's always immorality involved. They either are involved in immorality themselves or they promote it. There's no holiness in their lives.

If you knew what their lives were like behind the scenes, you would not see a pursuit of sanctification or holiness. And they twist, they twist the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it goes on to talk about in this passage that that God is going to judge the world. And that's something they reject, this judgment of God, that there's hell exists.

Read more in Jude 3. That they're their own authority, these people, these progressive Christians. They don't look to God and his word as their authority. They're ungodly. They inject doubt into people's minds.

That's what they do. They take things and think, oh, I've never really thought of the faith that way. And then it concludes the chapter by saying, go back to the word, get grounded in the word and get grounded in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's the answer to this kind of thing. So there's not an undermining subversive influence of progressive Christianity. We have another week next week coming up and I hope you'll tune in for that. I also hope you'll get the DVDs from this American Gospel Films. They're available for a donation of $30 or more to the Christian Real View. Just go to our website, thechristianrealview.org.

You can also purchase just one or the other or you can rent it. So I highly encourage you to do that because we do live in a changing and challenging world. But there is one thing we can always trust and count on. Jesus Christ and His word are the same yesterday, today and forever. The Christian Worldview is a weekly one hour radio program that is furnished by the Overcomer Foundation and is supported by listeners and sponsors. Request one of our current resources with your donation of any amount. Go to thechristianworldview.org or call us toll free at 1-888-646-2233 or write to us at Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. Thanks for listening to The Christian Worldview. Until next time, think biblically and live accordingly.