Liberalism in the Church

Liberalism in the Church Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortionists will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Unfortunately we live in an age of relativism. There is no such thing as absolute truth we are told – paradoxically absolutely! This irony seems lost on the disciples of fundamentalist relativism however! Of course most ordinary people in whom common sense has not entirely been eradicated, regard this as intellectual nonsense, and they are (absolutely) right. Unfortunately ordinary people are for the most part, not in charge of our educational, governmental and media institutions. It is the left wing liberal elite with their left wing liberal university education who are in charge, and who consequently set the tone of the discourse when it comes to matters moral and philosophical. The defining characteristics of the left wing liberal elite, are of course left wing, that is an essentially Marxist political and social world view; liberal, that is an anything goes attitude to morality; and elite, that is an attitude of superiority and entitlement by virtue of the aforementioned and a university education. It should come as no surprise then that people holding this world view are for the most part atheists. (recently the term “New Atheists” has been coined, to describe true believers like Richard Dawkins, Brian Cox and Christopher Hitchins). The new atheists are not content with a straightforward rejection of the idea of a Divine Creator, and an embracing of naturalism, but are now evangelical in their zeal to promote their ideas as irrefutable scientific facts right across the media and education. As the media and the universities are also dominated by left wing liberals, they have no trouble in being granted a sympathetic airing. On the rare occasions a Christian is invited to share the platform with them, ostensibly in the interests of fairness, it has less to do with fairness, and more to do with portraying the Christian as an ignorant backward bigot, an objective in which the media personalities and organisations involved share wholeheartedly with the atheist participants! The three areas of focus for the educational establishment, government, and media are naturalism, sexual ethics and sanctity of life. Naturalism removes the supernatural from the equation, and replaces it with a naturalistic explanation for everything, no matter how illogical, implausible, or incredible. Something from nothing, all on its own – illogical; biological self replicating life from random intermixing chemicals – incredible; incredibly complex DNA with billions of instructions from simple proteins – implausible. Once this lie is bought into, and it has been remorselessly preached for over a century now; the foundation is laid for the next area to be targeted, sexual ethics. For many in the “swinging” sixties, when the sexual revolution began, atheism was just an excuse to justify self gratification without guilt. If there is no God, there is no one to answer to for immoral behaviour! The inevitable consequence of this was an increase in unwanted teenage pregnancies. Logically then, a legal way of ending these pregnancies was needed, and the Abortion Act of 1967 was passed, tabled unsurprisingly, by a Liberal atheist politician.

Abortion is likely to cause even more guilt than promiscuity, so it was relatively easy, seeing as life was a chemical phenomenon, with no Divine cause, to designate the unborn as something not yet human, and so not deserving of the protection of the law; in fact such is the perversity of this neo rationalism, that the law actually disenfranchised the unborn, allowing them to be murdered, as it was to turn out, on a whim. This Doctrine of Death has resulted in the killing of over 8 million babies since 1967, in the UK alone! As the unborn have no utility, and can be disposed of with impunity, it logically follows that those at the other end of life, the elderly, upon outliving their usefulness, can also be terminated. At present in the UK, they still have the protection of the law, but that protection has already been removed in Holland, Belgium, Canada and certain US states, and it is only a matter of time before the law is changed here as well. It seems inevitable therefore that the Doctrine of Death will eventually square the circle, and enable the insane and severely disabled, having no obvious utility, to be terminated as well. Europe has been here before. The other consequence of the new morality was the normalising of homosexual relationships, (Legalisation as well, but it should have never been sanctioned by the law, only restrained in its expression by the laws on public indecency, as were heterosexual relationships) and as a consequence of that, normalisation of bisexual, transvestite and other aberrations of sexuality. This in turn has led to the current situation where children are being sexualised by perverse sexual and adverse gender propaganda and pornography, resulting in an increase in teenage suicide rates, depression and self harm. In a previous age this would have constituted child abuse; now however, child abuse is teaching children the Bible! The above is of course a simple overview of the history of the moral decline of the west, and of itself would form the basis for a book/s in its own right, and indeed has. Authors such as Douglas Murray and Melanie Phillips from the non Christian viewpoint, and Peter Hitchins and Joe Boot from the Christian side, amongst others have already covered this phenomenon and its unfortunate consequences in detail. The reason for this overview is that this spiritual virus (for that is what I believe it to be) has infected the Church. I also believe that the carrier for this spiritual virus was feminism.1 Before the sexual revolution, before the Abortion Act in 1967, before the normalisation of perverse sexualities, before the “new atheists,” even before Christianity had been marginalized from the public sphere, there was feminism. Feminism arose in the late 19th Century as a legitimate movement to enfranchise women. Having achieved that after the Great War, they moved on to other causes. Some were laudable, such as equal pay, educational and employment opportunities, some were noble, such as spotlighting sexual harassment; and some were a solution looking for a problem, such as post natal paternity rights, and gender equality, (the latter being an oxymoron, as different genders cannot possibly be equal, [in abilities] any more than a truck and a van are equal, even though they share the same essential design.) In the end, having achieved all their objectives, the feminist movement was in danger of becoming obsolete, and so cast around for a cause they could adopt, and a last dragon of male privilege they could slay. They found it in the Church. 1 Feminism and the Church. Gervase E Duffield

The Church presented them with a many headed dragon however, as it comprised many denominations. However they were all male dominated, and as such were all legitimate targets. As the Church of England was linked to the state, that was obviously the best place to start, as it would not do for a State institution to be seen as discriminatory! And so the campaign began for women to be ordained. When that was achieved, women had to be Bishops as well – right? Of course, and so it was. Not content to rest on this achievement, the mantra of “equal rights” focussed on other inequalities, and pushed for the ordination of homosexual and lesbian clergy. In fact a homosexual 5th column had already penetrated the clergy, and presented the Church with a fait accompli. This is the thick end of the wedge which is resulting in the splitting of the Anglican Communion into conservative evangelical and liberal “progressive” fellowships. In spite of the warning against church division in the NT, it would seem that the liberal left in the church, spearheaded by their feminist shock troops place a higher priority on equality than they do on unity! And of course they have no intention of stopping with the CofE! Now the purpose of this article is not to argue the merits or otherwise of women clergy, but to point out the way the Church has been infected by worldly liberal thinking. The penetration of the clergy by women owes more to this phenomenon than to any scriptural imperative, and indeed it is worth noting the following verse in this context….. “This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behaviour, hospitable, able to teach;” 1 Timothy 3;1-2 Now I want to get to the real issue here, which is the adoption of worldly thinking by the liberals in the Church, particularly in relation to the quote at the start of this article. Liberals call themselves “progressives,” and for the most part seem to dislike inflexibility, narrow mindedness and static structures or dogmas. For the most part – I guess they like the educational establishment to be narrow minded enough to prohibit Creationist teaching alongside evolution2, and for health and safety to be inflexible over the enforcement of regulations, and for bridges to be static especially when they are crossing them! So inflexibility, narrow mindedness and static structures can be a good thing in certain situations! Belief of and obedience to applicable3 Scripture is such a situation, or at least should be. The moral prohibitions in the passage from Corinthians above are repeated from similar commandments given 1500 years earlier4, so not time specific then! If they could stand being repeated to the Corinthian Church 1500 years later, then it should go without saying that they still apply to us 2000 years after that. Liberalism however would single out the prohibition on homosexuality as bigoted, homophobic, discriminatory, antiquated and totally inappropriate for the 21st century. Unfortunately some liberals in the Church have been infected by this thinking. Of course this has the potential to be divisive, which is a conundrum for liberals, as the Bible clearly warns against being divisive5. (Liberals usually 2 By and large, Liberals adopt the naturalist narrative on origins, and alter Genesis from its plain meaning into a convoluted mythology in a futile attempt to fit the Scripture to the naturalist so – called scientific account. This causes all sorts of problems, not least by undermining the foundations of the Gospel. (Romans 5) 3 By applicable I mean those that are not time limited, or people or culture or circumstance specific, such as certain dietary laws and circumcision, and specific directions in time of war. 4 Leviticus 20 5 Ephesians 4:1-5

reckon they are loving and considerate, and divisiveness is un-loving) This spiritual virus wants the Church to reflect the world, when the Holy Spirit wants the world to be influenced by the Church and the Word of God. Would those who push for the sanction on homosexuality to be dropped also be happy to condone adultery for example, or theft? Ah, they say, those are unlawful, whereas homosexuality is not. True, but by mans law, not Gods. Homosexuality is still unlawful in some countries, so by what authority is it either lawful or not? This is the crux of the issue. Who is our authority, God or man? Your life hangs on the answer you give, because God says that people who practise these things will not enter the Kingdom! So at least by condoning such behaviour you may be complicit in someone going to hell! By contrast, God has something better, as it says… And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God God is not excluding sinners from the Kingdom, just unrepentant sinners. We were all disobedient, and according to Paul there were some saved ex-homosexuals in the Corinthian Church! By the reasoning of liberalism, are those with a propensity to sleep with another’s wife, or steal their property to be accepted simply because they can’t help themselves?6 God is in the business of accepting people (including homosexuals) as they are, but not leaving them as they are7. Change is on the menu for everyone8, and so it must be, or none of us has any hope! Why should homosexuals be granted an exception? To be consistent, liberals must arrange an exemption for all the sinful behaviours listed in this passage, an obviously ludicrous suggestion – unless by their reasoning society exempts them first? \"For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5: 18-19 6 Kleptomania is a medically diagnosed condition where the “sufferer” cannot stop themselves taking the property of others. Perhaps adulterers include wives in the list of booty! 7 John 8:3-11 8 Romans 6:1-4 & 12:2