Not all who disagree with you are "Progressives" - Open Letter to Alisa Childers - by Joe Beach

December 7, 2020    Denver, CO

Dear Alisa,

Thank you for your service to the body of Christ. I appreciate your passion. Your work is needed. There really are enemies of the gospel out there and there really are wolves in sheep’s clothing from whom we need warning and protection.

My prayer for you is that you become much more careful as you identify those enemies. You often, it seems to me, mislabel brothers and sisters as “progressive” when, in fact, they are nothing of the sort. Again, as best as I can tell, you often label people as progressive simply because they disagree with your pet doctrines and opinions. Not everyone outside of the neo-reformed (young, restless, and reformed) camp is a progressive. Lots of the church’s very best theologians over the centuries, beginning with the apostles, would strongly disagree with your definition of the gospel (i.e. your atonement theory), your hermeneutics (i.e. your modern literalism), your eschatology (again, modern literalism with a touch of dispensationalism and Zionism), your view on the nature and duration of hell (a doctrine not mentioned in the ancient creeds because it was a matter of opinion), and on and on. I could give more examples of your bias and unfair labeling.

Just because someone disagrees with your opinions (some of which are quite debatable), that doesn’t make them a progressive. Let me be clear: there are hundreds, if not thousands, of us ordinary pastors out here who love Christ with all our hearts and have a very high view of Scripture – who nonetheless might disagree with you on many important subjects. That does not make us progressive. We may be right. We may be wrong. And you may be right or wrong. Or we all may be partially right and partially wrong. But it doesn’t automatically make us “progressive” Christians simply because we differ from some of your interpretations or opinions.

Allow me to say it another way: there are thousands of us ordinary pastors out here who fully affirm genuine Christianity. We have, for instance, an orthodox, historical, traditional Christology. We revere and honor all 66 books of the Bible as Holy Sacred Scripture. We affirm with all our hearts, without reservation, the ancient creeds (e.g. I Cor. 15:1-8, Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, etc.), and we affirm them every bit as sincerely and knowledgeably as you do. We affirm them in full awareness of what they say and what they mean. There are thousands of us ordinary pastors who sacrificially serve regular, ordinary churches full of ordinary people trying to serve Christ, follow Christ, worship Christ, honor Christ, etc., etc. But we may disagree with some of the tenets and assumptions of your particular theological camp. Again, that doesn’t make us progressive Christians.

Anyway, I just wanted to plead with you to please make a space for us types. I want to plead with you to not shoot everything that moves outside of your theological fortress. Not everything moving around out there is an enemy. Some of us are fellow disciples, brothers and sisters, who are trying to read the Scriptures in more of an ancient way, maybe more of an Eastern Orthodox way. But we are not liberals or progressives. We are traditional, orthodox, Spirit-filled, Christ-centered believers. You will actually be doing harm to the Kingdom of God and to the gospel to spend your time shooting at us. I hope that makes sense and I hope that helps.  

You often refer to the many people who have “deconverted (or deconstructed) themselves right out of the faith.” I agree with you. I see the same thing and I share your pain. I think it’s both rampant and sad. But, again, not all of us who disagree with your particular camp are on that slippery slope. Some of us remain firmly planted on the Solid Rock of Jesus Christ. And, yes, I do mean the crucified and risen Christ of Holy Scripture.

Sadly, I have sometimes heard you, and especially your guest “experts,” flippantly say that these progressive preachers really don’t worship, serve, and obey the genuine Christ – they are just faking it so as not to lose followers. Your experts also say that these preachers really don’t submit to God’s authority in the Holy Scriptures. They just do their own thing. These are very unfair judgments. These are often clear cases of slander. And, let’s not forget that all slanderers go to hell, according to the Bible (I Cor. 6:9-11; Gal. 5:19-21).

Grace and Peace to you,     

Joe Beach

Comments

[John Weddington]

I really appreciate this. I would love to see a conversation between Zahnd or Jersak with Childers. My church just started a sermon series on progressive Christianity, and while I agree there are excesses, my pastor is using Childer's book as a launching pad, which scares me. It scares me because as Pete Enns points out, you might just create an atheist. I mean to say that if we argue from the wrong frame, or ask the wrong questions we will arrive at the wrong conclusions. In this case, we may not only be excluding our brothers and sisters, but create a false sense of security by bringing attention to the topic. And when our congregation finds themselves in conversation with some like me, they will be surprised to learn that their assumptions are misguided and they too quickly judged us. This could lead to a split, but not over truth, but over error.

[Robert eric Rosemund jr]

thanks for letter i am one of the uncomfortable middlers who do not affirms inerrancy
my evangelical writers are keener witherington olson keller

BUt also reading hayes,witherington,campbell,gaventa,rohr,barclay,gorman who are quite different from childers narrow secterian christianity