An Interesting Encounter with the Games Liberal Theologians Play
Last Saturday I was having a thoroughly enjoyable conversation with Rev. Dr. James Voelz, Dean of Faculty at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. He was telling anecdotes from his fascinating and varied academic experiences. He said what really impressed him was when he was a young man studying in Cambridge, the famous liberal theologian, JAT Robinson, came in to lecture. Somebody asked him about something in Romans, a key passage, and without blinking an eye, Dr. Robertson simply said, “Oh, yes, of course Paul said that, but Paul was wrong.” Dr. Voelz pointed out what a completely honest response that was.
But what so often happens among liberals, particularly those in mainline protestant churches, is that they do not have the personal integrity to say simply, “Paul was wrong” or “Christ was wrong” but they play all sorts of games trying to explain how, well, that was what Christ said, or what Paul wrote, but the words don’t mean what they say, or appear to mean, or they did not really say what we think they said. In other words, they indulge in fundamentally deceptive ways of getting around the plain meaning of the text.
We see this all over the place in the recent ELCA decisions regarding homosexuality and we saw it all over the place in the days of Seminex in our own Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. I shared with Dr. Voelz one of my favorite stories about the Seminex days in our Synod, told me by an eye/ear witness. One of the Seminex professors, when asked if he personally believed that the account of Christ walking on water was true and if Christ did in fact walk on water paused for a long time and said, “Well, I certainly would not want to say Christ could not have walked on water.”Dr. Voelz, who was a student at the time during the years of the Seminex crisis confirmed that this kind of duplicitous way of approaching the issues was standard operating procedure among the pro-Seminex theologians on the campus of Concordia Seminary.
Most recently, on this blog site, when I posted something about why it is so important to maintain that there was a real Adam and a real Eve, a liberal theologian popped on and asked me where Christ ever said there was a real Adam and Eve. He is indulging in the kind of passive-aggresive, dishonest game playing that characterizes so much of American liberalism in many of the mainline protestant denominations. Liberal theologians know that, in varying degrees, the rank and file members of their congregations still believe the “old myths” they were taught as children, and so they dance around and play with the text of Scripture, trying to cover over their own utter disbelief in what the Bible clearly asserts.
Years ago when I was a young pastor, a neighboring pastor friend of mine who visited a newly installed ELCA Lutheran pastor told me about his conversation with her. When he asked her what she personally believed about the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s own bodily resurrection, asking her this question as they stood in the grave yard of her church, she said, “Oh, of course, I don’t believe in all that anymore.” And when he asked her, “Well, what do you preach about then?” She quickly said, “Oh, I preach what I know my people want to hear about these things.”
This is the kind of game-playing that goes on constantly; tragically, through these kinds of games, many are deceived. But God is not mocked. (Galatians 6:7)
And the games “conservatives” play are just as destructive. A common one is pulling an “exception to the rule” and offering it as normative.
Pastor McCain,
Thank you, thank you and thank you for bringing this to light!!! I discovered this the hard way in my old ALC/ELCA congregation. I really thought that my pastor was on my side. We spoke the same language, he would nod his head and acknowledge my views on creation, women’s ordination and closed communion, as if he agreed. I then read a book called: “What’s going on among Lutherans?”, by NPH. After reading two thirds of the book, I began to question what my pastor actually believes. He would never give me a straight answer. I came to the conclusion, they mask their liberal believes in traditional language, very deceptive. To this day, I still can’t finish that book, my blood pressure goes thru the roof!
This is a good lesson for us in the LCMS, we really need to be Bereans and question and examine everthing against Holy Scripture. There is really no more excuses, we have more than enough resourses, TLSB, Concordia the Readers Addition, and now Walther’s Law & Gospel. My advice to LCMS laymen, GET CRACKEN!!!!!!!!
Example?
@Michael Mapus
But why does a pastor mask his beliefs? Answer: keeping his position. If your pastor had come clean, he would have ticked off a good chunk of the congregation. As an ELCA colleague blurted out to me as I told him I have been making it clear as to the ELCAs non-Scriptural positions to my now former congregation: “Don’t you want to have a job?!” In another conversation this same colleague also stated that in his congregation he has people on both sides of the homosexual issue and so he avoids discussing it. Why?, I asked. “Well, so they can actually hear the Gospel.” I wish I had had the wit to state I do not think they are hearing the Gospel then because they are not hearing the Law at all.
PS: The courage that is lacking is indicated in this Scripture verse: “But we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.”–1 Corinthians 4: 2 And 2 Corinthians 2: 17 “For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God’s word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God, in the sight of God we speak in Christ.”
Thank you for this. I remember when my wife and I first discovered the sacraments were more than “just pretty pictures.” When looking for the place where we planned to hang our hats, we had two starting points: 1) They believe in “Real Presence” and 1) they believe in verbal plenary inspiration in the original manuscripts (as put forth in the ICBI back in the 80′s). Toss those aside, and soon all else follows.
Gee whiz, haven’t heard of Robinson since he was the only one with an English not a German name studied in my Historical Jesus and Christ of Faith class about 1969!
Yes, the liberal does mask his disbelief in traditional language. The same crowd pushing this stuff in the classroom, where it would only be heard by idiots like me taking the class, were bury putting tp-gether a whole new lectionary to break with the preaching tradition of centuries and also emphasise less miracle stories they didn’t believe anyway.
As I learned, “He is risen”, that we have heard so much in recent weeks, can equally be acclaimed by him for whom it literally means he is risen, and him for whom it is a culturally determined metaphorical expression stating the overwhelming continuing importance of Jesus as best they could within their culture.
And hey, Robinson was a bishop too! Isn’t that, uh, hysterical!
I have a slightly different take on this.
It’s true that many liberal theologians still use traditional language even when it is clear they do not believe a word of what they are saying. But I think that it is because at one time many of them did believe – and no longer do. Like the ruins of a collapsed building some of the tradition is still visible.
If you want to know what ignites the passion of liberal theologians just talk secular politics. I have known ELCA pastors and bishops whose eyes glaze over when you mention the Resurrection or the Kingdom of heaven. But bring up the Iraq War or illegal immigration or marginal tax rates or campaign finance reform and they come alive. Their idea of a revival is a political protest meeting denouncing (fill in the blank), and eternal salvation is to be found in voting the straight Democratic Party ticket.
There is also another reason why I believe that liberal theologians mask their unbelief. The church is a nice tax-exempt platform to make political pronouncements from. Also, at any time they can step back and claim to be outside the political process, which is useful when many of their policies lead to unintended consequences. All of the power of being politicians, and none of the responsibility and accountability. Quite a setup!
The reason I believe they lost their faith is that they feel Christianity is not muscular enough. (Love your enemies? How totally bourgeois!) They are no longer content to proclaim God’s kingdom – they want to usher it in by force if necessary. And while creating heaven on Earth in the form of secular politics they are willing to clean up a few areas where they believe God obviously screwed up (gay/lesbian marriage).
It’s an old story: you cannot serve two masters. So they have chosen the jealous god of political activism.
@Christopher Martin
See Paul’s post. Example there. See below. Plenty of examples there.