3. Liberalism as False Christianity
The extreme liberal deconstruction of the Bible and its Judaeo-Christian foundation of transcendent truth is the root cause of our confused post-truth culture and its descent into social chaos. The replacement of transcendent truth with truth of reason is driving our loss of objective truth, freedom, and democracy. We have already seen the consequences of this social chaos as people turn to dangerous but strong leaders (like Trump). This pattern was explained by Francis Schaeffer in, How Shall We Then Live?[1] He gives the examples of social and political chaos in France leading to Napoleon, and chaos in Germany leading to Hitler.
Liberal philosophy naturally questions authority and tries to liberate individuals from anything that limits or controls their personal freedom -– particularly political and religious freedom. In Chapter 1, Human Reason as False Truth, we traced the deconstruction of the ancient Judeo-Christian foundation of transcendent truth. We saw how the historic faith of the Hebrews and first Christian Apostles was gradually liberalized and changed. It began as a personal spiritual relationship and experience of God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in a small Holy Spirit-led community. This grew into an intellectualized and politicalized state religion as Christianity grew and expanded beyond the Roman empire.
Christianity was born as the followers of Jesus Christ, who had heard Him and seen divine healings, were rejected by the Jewish leaders, and put out of synagogues. Jesus was crucified for blasphemy -– falsely claiming to be the Messiah. There had been many false Jewish prophets claiming divine authority. Jesus was the only one who had demonstrated supernatural healing power all over Israel. He healed people physically and spiritually and cast out demons. People knew intuitively His teachings were authentic.
The Jewish religious leaders who had not seen or experienced the supernatural themselves, could not believe Jesus was authentic. Sadly, the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law failed to see the consistency between the biblical prophecies about a saviour and teacher like Moses.
The Bible (Old Testament) was probably first written down from the ancient oral tradition during the Babylonian Captivity 586-538 BC. The New Testament books can be traced back to the letters of Paul in the second half of the first Century. The Gospel of John is probably the last written in its present form around 210 AD. Many people notice John is different and more powerful. This is because John and Mary the mother of Jesus both lived in Ephesus. It is an eyewitness account of the life of Jesus.
The historic liberal deconstruction of the Bible and the dismissal of its supernatural worldview as mythical has left us with a new religion of Liberalism, that is the opposite of biblical Christianity. Projected to its most extreme form, this new religion of liberalism has no concept of God being holy. It presents no theology of sin and redemption, no love for or fear of God, nor fear of divine judgement. Neither is there any concept of Satan or demonic influence to tempt and oppress people. There is no Holy Spirit to be the continuing presence of Jesus as guide, healer, and comforter. Projected to its extreme logical conclusion, what is left is a religion of works, where kindness and good works earn merit and reward, and possibly eternal life. Bad behaviour may be automatically forgiven by an unholy god of love. Jesus has been vaguely rebranded as a non-divine, good man and teacher who couldn’t and didn’t die for the imaginary sins of the world, because God just forgives everyone automatically. Yes, it is incoherent when projected to its extreme form. This is why we now have social chaos.
The extreme liberal deconstruction of the Bible and its Judaeo-Christian foundation of transcendent truth is the root cause of our social disorder and descent into totalitarianism. The replacement of divine transcendent truth with truth of human reason is driving our loss of objective truth, freedom, and democracy. We have already seen the consequences of this social chaos as people turn to dangerous but strong leaders (like Trump). This pattern was explained by Francis Schaeffer in, How Shall We Then Live? He gives the examples of social and political chaos in France leading to Napoleon, and chaos in Germany leading to Hitler.
Liberal philosophy naturally questions authority and tries to liberate individuals from anything that limits or controls their personal freedom -– particularly political and religious freedom. In Chapter 1, Human Reason as False Truth, we traced the deconstruction of the ancient Judeo-Christian foundation of transcendent truth. We saw how the historic faith of the Hebrews and first Christian Apostles was gradually liberalized and changed. It began as a personal spiritual relationship and experience of God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in a small Holy Spirit-led community. This grew into an intellectualized and politicalized state religion as Christianity grew and expanded beyond the Roman empire.
Christianity was born as the followers of Jesus Christ, who had heard Him and seen divine healings, were rejected by the Jewish leaders, and put out of synagogues. Jesus was crucified for blasphemy – falsely, in their minds, claiming to be the Messiah. There had been many false Jewish prophets claiming divine authority. Jesus was the only one who had demonstrated supernatural healing power all over Israel. He healed people physically and spiritually and cast out demons. People knew intuitively His teachings were authentic.
The Jewish religious leaders who had not seen or experienced the supernatural healing miracles, could not believe Jesus was authentic. Sadly, the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law failed to see the consistency between Jesus and the biblical prophecies of a saviour like Moses.
The historic liberal deconstruction of the Bible (written 550 B.C. – 200AD) and the dismissal of its supernatural worldview has left us with a new religion of Liberalism that is the opposite of biblical Christianity. Projected to its most extreme form, this new religion of liberalism has no concept of God being holy. It presents no theology of sin and redemption, no love for or fear of God, nor fear of divine judgement. Neither is there any concept of Satan or demonic influence to deceive, tempt and oppress people. There is no Holy Spirit to be the continuing presence of Jesus as guide, healer, and comforter. Projected to its extreme logical form, what is left is a religion of works, where kindness and good works earn merit and reward, and possibly eternal life. Bad behaviour may be automatically forgiven by an unholy god of love. Jesus has been vaguely rebranded as a non-divine, good man and teacher who couldn’t and didn’t die for the imaginary sins of the world, because God just forgives everyone automatically. Yes, it is incoherent when projected to its extreme form. This is why we now have social chaos.
The liberalism I use here is an extreme teaching example of where many churches seem to be headed in our time. Liberalism is technically a mental stronghold. A mental stronghold is a psychological and spiritual delusion that cannot be reasoned with. Alcoholism is the most common example of a mental stronghold. We can build mental strongholds in our mind through a repeated pattern of sin. This gives Satan a ‘supernatural right’ to oppress us. This reinforces the natural psychological process of self-deception, which blocks information that challenges what we believe from reaching our conscious mind. The late John L. Sandford commented that “all the 'isms' are mental strongholds.” These are the spiritual ‘prisons’ Jesus came to free people from.
To understand why Liberalism is a false form of Christianity, we will go through the Apostles’ Creed, the basic statement of Christian Faith. This will show the theological differences between the Judeo-Christian faith of the Bible and where the alternative modern beliefs of woke liberal Christianity are leading. My reference for this comparison is J. Gresham Machen’s Christianity and Liberalism. Machen very helpfully projects liberalism’s attacks on Christian doctrine to their logical theological extreme. Machen was a preacher, as well as a Professor of New Testament Theology at Princeton. He appreciated the teaching value of extreme examples. This will help us understand what modern religious liberalism may not say clearly, but where, what it does say is headed theologically. It is headed to being a very different religion and false Christianity.
3.1 “I believe in God the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.”
The essence of God is His uniqueness, holiness, otherness, and un-knowableness. God is holy -– pure, undivided, and whole. The unique thing about God the Father in the Bible is that He has acted and continues to act in history. God is not a principle, ideal, or just an object of worship. God is a person, a spiritual presence, our Father, who is almighty or all powerful, and has created everything in heaven and earth.
God is our spiritual Father. This is the first, most beautiful and most important thing the Apostles’ Creed tells us about God. God loves us as a father loves each of us as his child. We do not have to be good to earn that love. It is always there no matter what we do.
The holiness of God is what I call God’s dilemma. God the father loves us and desires a personal love relationship with each person. For someone to love God truly, they must be given the freedom to choose to not love and not obey God. The story of Adam and Eve in Creation illustrates exactly how this works. They are in a perfect obedient love relationship with God. They have everything they need -- with only one limitation. They are to obey God’s rule to not eat the apples from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Satan, the snake, deceives them with the half-truth, “you will not certainly die” (Genesis 3:4). They disobey God and eat the forbidden fruit of the tree. They do not die physically, but their holy love relationship with God does die (spiritual death). They are put out of the Garden of Eden (i.e. heaven) for a temporary physical life of hard work and pain. The rest of the Bible is about God reaching out to people through prophets to bring them into a holy and obedient love relationship.
This is the opposite of liberalism which tries to liberate people from authority, rules, and tradition. Liberal Christianity, like all the other woke false truths, sounds good at first but on closer examination is the opposite of Biblical Christianity. Extreme liberalism generally dismisses the whole Old Testament as superstition and myth. This is just self-deception. Some of the stories are wisdom stories. Like Jesus saying ‘There was a man...’ The truth of these stories is deeper and more profound than the facts of history. The evidence of history supports the Old Testament as an accurate historical account. The Flood of Noah’s time is recorded in ancient manuscripts, visible in geographical evidence and the remains of the arc are buried in ice in Turkey. There is physical evidence of the Exodus in Egypt and the conquest of Palestine by Joshua (1250BC).
3.2 “…Jesus conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.”
Many people believe in Jesus as a historical person – but they may believe in very different things about Jesus. The question is, what is it about Jesus that you believe in? What is it that you trust in? We begin with the most controversial issue in Christianity – the divinity of Jesus. This is one of our seven lost spiritual truths. If Jesus was not divine, then He could not die for the sins of the world, and we have no hope of eternal spiritual life with our holy God.
The Bible is very clear that Jesus proved He was the long-expected Messiah and only biological Son of God via the Holy Spirit. We are sons and daughters by adoption through faith. His work and miracles of healing, “opening the eyes of the blind” and “setting captives free,” was prophesied by Isaiah over 500 years before Christ's birth (Isiah 61:1-3).
Who was the father of Jesus? If you answered Joseph, you need to read (Matthew 1:1-22 and Luke 1:26-38). The correct answer is The Holy Spirit. This misunderstanding is why many Christians have trouble with honouring the Virgin Mary. I have heard many liberal academics foolishly arguing that ‘virgin’ just means young girl. If you read the whole Bible, you get a very clear picture that Joseph being the real father is contrary to the evidence. The most dramatic evidence is the cute little story where Mary rides a donkey 90 km. to Bethlehem. Think about it! Ask anyone who has been nine months pregnant if Mary would risk her life bumping along on a donkey for 90 km. to be with her husband. Joseph could complete a census form without her. Mary was desperate! If she had stayed at home, the relatives probably would have killed her for being pregnant out of wedlock.
Then there is the curious matter of the inn being full. This is a public inn in a part of the world and time when welcoming a stranger is a religious obligation. Unless, of course, the relatives had gotten word out that they were not married. Mary was incredibly brave. She continues to be honoured in Christian churches as the perfect example of an awesome, faithful, humble, and obedient Christian woman. Visitors to Ephesus in Turkey still go to the house where she lived under John’s protection as Bishop. Her eye-witness accounts of Jesus are in John’s Gospel -– which is the glory of Christianity.
Liberalism has disregarded and deconstructed this key supernatural teaching as mythical and superstitious. For many extremely liberal Christians, Jesus has been reduced to a non-divine man, who could not die for the sins of the world but was a wonderful teacher and example of good human moral behaviour. This is the exact opposite of what the Bible and Christianity teach. Liberalism has done great damage to the faith of many Christians and robbed them of the hope and lifegiving freedom of real forgiveness. This is one of the seven spiritual truths that needs to be recovered and taught in churches as the first step in recovering the foundation of spiritual truth our freedom and democracy rests on.
3.3 “He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.”
This statement is a response to ancient debates about whether Jesus was fully human, as well as fully divine. Some argued Jesus was not fully human and only appeared to suffer and die – for the sins of believers. This is a summary of historical fact as recorded in the Bible (Matthew 27:11-66; Mark 1:1-45; Luke 23:1-56; John 19:1-42). The Resurrection proved Jesus’s death was divinely approved as sufficient to pay for the sins of the whole world. This is the essence of the New Covenant of Jesus. If you cannot believe this it may be time to read the Bible, be humble, surrender, invite Holy Spirit into your life and come home.
Extreme liberals have trouble with the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus. They try to deny the resurrection with the delusion that maybe Jesus was just in a coma, didn’t die and only appeared to be resurrected by God. This statement was included to refute the heresy of Docetism – that Jesus never had a fully human body and could not suffer and die physically. Read the eyewitness accounts in the Bible –- and watch the movie The Passion of the Christ ($3.99 on U-tube) if you have the stomach. Nobody could survive crucifixion.
3.4 “On the third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.”
This is the pivotal event in Christianity. The Biblical accounts sound authentic as they reveal the natural human confusion and weakness of the disciples (Matthew 27.62-28.20; Mark 16:1-8; Luke 24:1-53; John 20:1-25). If it was made up, there would be a very different story of angels, light, magnificence, and wise adoring disciples. The consistency of the Bible in describing the appearances of Jesus after the Resurrection is also very human and natural.
The best proof of the Resurrection is the changed lives of the Disciples, who went from being uneducated, confused fishermen, to becoming international evangelists, willing to die for their belief in the Resurrection. In our time there are still accounts in Africa of people being raised from death through Christian prayer ministry.
The descriptions of Jesus' Resurrection body indicate it could be both material and immaterial. He could move through locked doors, but could also eat, drink and be touched. The Ascension is consistent with the reality of the supernatural heavenly realm connecting to the earthly realm. Many people in our time have had visions of heaven with vast multitudes of joyful people praising God and basking in His presence. Others have had near death experiences (see the “Howard Storm” videos on YouTube) and talked to the Risen Jesus. Jesus is seated at the right hand of God and will be our Lord, brother, advocate, and judge when we arrive.
Extreme liberalism struggles with belief in the Resurrection, the Ascension, final judgement, and eternal spiritual life in heaven. These beliefs are all dependent on the authenticity of the supernatural dimension of the Bible that extreme liberalism dismisses as mythical and superstition. Once you start to deconstruct the supernatural in the Bible as mythical, superstitious, and not true; you end up with the false Christianity of liberalism that only appears to be Christianity. Liberal Christians want the comfort of being Christian without the personal limitations. This is a delusion. Anyone who believes you only get what you can see will sadly get what they want.
3.5 “He will come again to judge”
Christians look forward to the second coming of Jesus. In our darkest hours we pray come quickly, Lord Jesus. We are end-time people because we believe the world is going somewhere, and that somewhere is the return of Jesus, and the establishment of His kingdom on earth (Matthew 16:28; Revelation 1:7). There are many ways of interpreting this. The Jews (and Jesus was a Jew) had always looked forward to the last days. Jesus was often asked for the signs of when this will come (Matthew 24:1-51). His answer in Matthew has been the source of a whole end-times publishing industry, as various writers try to establish when this will be. For example, the clue Jesus gives in Matthew is, “So when you see standing in the holy place" (the temple mountain?) "The abomination which causes destruction, spoken of through the prophet Daniel – let the reader understand --- then those who are in Judea flee to the Mountains” (Matthew 24:15-16). Assuming the abomination is the idol Baal, as symbolized by the horns of a cow or crescent moon, this could be the Mosque built on the temple mountain with this symbol on top. Other theories have calculated from the establishment of the State of Israel in 1950 and projected forward the ‘seventy sevens’ or 490 years in the Bible. (Daniel 9.25-27)
As I write, the prophesied Gog and Magog (Iran and Russia) are allies in a war with Ukraine and Iran has sponsored the current war against Israel. (Revelation 20.7-9) Someone has noticed the colours of the flags of the states surrounding Israel are the same colours of the flags the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The bottom line as Jesus says, is that nobody really knows, so we must be constantly ready.
Another way is thinking of this is that Jesus has already come and is still with us as the Holy Spirit. This would square with His words that some of the current generation would see Him (Matthew 24.34). The key point is we will all see Him and face judgement either at the end time or when we die.
Liberalism doesn’t like to hear about divine judgement and harsh punishment. This is a natural human reaction to the sad history of church leaders trying to scare people into the Kingdom. Human rights tribunals in Canada have found a pastor guilty of hate speech for teaching “Anyone whose name was not written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire” (Revelation 20:14). Personally, I would appreciate the warning, time to ‘come to Jesus’ and avoid this fate. I would argue that not warning people is more hateful, or at least a failure to love.
Extreme liberal Christians tend to assume, contrary to Jesus' teaching, that God’s love and mercy always trump sin guilt. This assumption overturns everything the Bible teaches about God’s holiness, righteousness (right relationship) and justice.
Belief in a serious final judgement is our motivation to love God and our neighbour, keep God’s Commandments and avoid sin. This is why believers act differently than non-believers. Believers can generally be trusted with freedom, sustain democratic government and be successful in business. This is why cultures built on these beliefs are the most socially, politically, and economically progressive cultures of the world. The reason we are in social, political, and economic chaos is because liberalism has deceived many people into a false Christianity.
3.6 “I believe in the Holy Spirit,”
The challenge is not just believing in the Holy Spirit but believing in what the Bible says about the Holy Spirit. As a cradle Anglican, I cannot remember ever hearing a teaching on the Holy Spirit. I came to believe in the Holy Spirit during the Charismatic revival that swept Western Canada in the late 70s. My faith went from confusion to real belief through my experiences of hearing singing in tongues, being slain in the Spirit, spiritual healing, and a real baptism in the Holy Spirit. I had read the whole Bible more than once and was angry that nobody had ever told me about the Holy Spirit in Church. I graduated with a rather pompous Master of Divinity degree and was ordained with almost no teaching on Holy Spirit. I have been learning and teaching about the Holy Spirit for the last 30 years as a priest at: (www.spirituallifeteaching.info).
Jesus promised the disciples He would send the Holy Spirit to help them after His death, Resurrection and Ascension. The Holy Spirit is the continuing presence of Jesus on earth. The word "holy" should be a clue. Holy Spirit will come and live in our personal Spirit, as Jesus in us. The dative case in Greek means physically inside. But first we must create a holy, sin-free space in our personal spirit. We also must invite Holy Spirit. Remember, God has given us free will.
Holy Spirit is our guide, teacher, conscience, comforter, and healer. When our spiritual eyes are opened by the Holy Spirit of Jesus, we see the pain, suffering, evil, deception and woundedness all around us.
Extreme liberalism generally dismisses the whole supernatural worldview of the Bible as superstition, mythical or exaggerated legend. Healing and deliverance ministry has been lost in most churches. I am challenging clergy and pastors who lack experience in healing and deliverance ministry to up their game by reading Sandfords’ book Healing and Deliverance or my Going Spiritual, attending a workshop and getting involved in this core Christian ministry. Holy Spirit is at the heart of the supernatural dimension of the Bible that extreme liberalism has dismissed as mythical. Holy Spirit as the presence of Jesus is one of the seven lost spiritual truths of the Foundation churches must teach if we are to recover truth freedom, and democracy.
3.7 “…the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints,”
The holy catholic (small c) church includes all the believers who are in the New Covenant of Jesus as defined by the Apostles’ Creed. The Roman Catholic Church claims exclusive authority because the Bible says Jesus appointed Peter the leader of His Church (Matthew. 16:19). While this is literally true, and the Pope is generally respected as the senior leader of the Christian Church, other churches are in various degrees of accepting his authority. The reason is the Roman Catholic Church, and specifically its historical leadership; became politicized, intellectualized, corrupted, and at least temporarily lost their spiritual authority.
The Roman Catholic Church grew and spread out all over the known world with equal patriarchs in Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. The Orthodox Church of Constantinople split off from Rome and then became divided into Patriarchs and national churches in Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, and Russia. The Protestant Reformation further divided the Church into national churches, and then further divisions, as different protestant churches split off. The holy catholic church is now a spiritual (not political) communion of believers who are under the authority of Jesus and led by the Holy Spirit of Jesus.
Holiness is an ancient word that is rarely talked about or understood by modern Christians. The Biblical story of Moses at Mt. Sinai includes a divine warning that the (unholy) people must not even touch the base of the mountain or “He will break out against them” (Exodus 19.24). The point is that God’s love and holiness is like a divine fire that would consume anything unholy that came into His holy presence. A practical example would be to think of our soul as a container, and our sins as drops of gasoline in the container. If our soul came into the holy fire of God’s presence, it would be like an open can of gasoline being brought too close to a raging campfire –- not pretty.
The Church is to be holy. Holy means whole, undivided, other, unpolluted, and pure. St. John gives us a definition of heaven as excluding “…the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars…” (Revelation 21:8). Their destiny is a second spiritual death and anguish of being eternally excluded from being in God’s presence.
Many churches have been liberalized, politicalized, divided, intellectualized, and fail to meet these ideals. This is why they are divided, considered irrelevant by seekers and serious believers and declining.
Extreme liberalism does not accept the authority of biblical teachings on holiness and sexual immorality. This has placed Christian pastors and priests and church leaders in a very difficult position for the last 30 years. They want to love and affirm all men and women as equally beloved children (by adoption) of God and proclaim (not just affirm) the good news of forgiveness in Jesus. The challenge is that forgiveness is dependent on repentance and belief in Jesus -– i.e., what the Bible says. Extreme liberalism sees no need to repent what the Bible describes as unholy sexual immorality because it does not accept the spiritual truths of the Bible.
Sexual immorality is why extreme liberal LGBTQ woke activists had to deconstruct the biblical foundation of spiritual truths in the Bible that limited their personal freedom on sexual morality. This is the selfish coward's way out. It is deconstructing the faith of the many so the few can do whatever they like. They have liberated the minority and imprisoned the majority in a false, powerless Christianity. Extreme liberalism has upended what the church teaches, so those who do not want to live holy lives, do not have to face the fact that they have chosen to put themselves out of a right-relationship with God and possibly eternal spiritual life.
The communion of saints is all the believers on earth or in heaven who are included in the Covenant of Jesus. The Holy Communion service in traditional churches is a celebration of our redemption and inclusion. It intentionally includes Bible teaching, the Creed, and a time for confession of sins and absolution from an ordained priest or minister. This is preparation for participation in receiving the consecrated bread and wine to nourish and strengthen our spiritual life. Holy Communion is a visible gathering of the saints on earth celebrating their union with Jesus and the saints in heaven. It is also an opportunity for those who have fallen away to come home and re-connect with the Covenant community.
3.8 “…the forgiveness of sins,”
The forgiveness of sins is the Good News of the Covenant of Jesus mentioned above. Sin is any failure to love God and our neighbour. The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) summarize how we can test our love. We do not love God exclusively if we love other gods (i.e. money, power, hockey, sex), if we use God’s name frivolously, worship idols, fail to set aside a sabbath day to honour God, or if we dishonour our parents (God’s teachers). We obviously fail to love our neighbour if we murder, commit adultery, steal, lie (false witness), or covet (wrongfully want) anything that belongs to our neighbour.
The Church has traditionally taught the Seven Deadly Sins as: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. This includes the invisible failures to love, like murder in the heart (hate and gossip). Sin pollutes our personal spirit, makes us unholy and can exclude us from the Covenant of Jesus. Jesus gave the Church the authority to forgive sins.
“Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed,” (James 5:16).
The Anglican, Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches have traditionally claimed this authority exclusively for ordained priests under the seal of The Confession. It has been the most powerful and joyful part of my healing ministry for 30 years.
The essence and fatal flaw of extreme liberalism is that it does not believe in the supernatural dimension of the Bible. This includes Satan, spiritual evil, and the seriousness of sin. This works for Satan but not so well for the rest of us.
Many liberals in the Church reject sin and judgement as limiting human freedom. It does. But a healthy fear of judgement is what creates the trust, co-operation and order all free countries and progressive democracies depend on.
Liberalism sees God as love. Contrary to the central message of the Bible, extreme liberals think of God’s love and mercy as somehow overriding the need for personal repentance and confession and forgiveness. This is an example of how our human mind can deceive us. Liberals tend to see God more as ‘in the forgiveness business’ than being holy. They assume (that word again) God just forgives people. This is a self-serving error of logic.
At the other end of the religious spectrum, many evangelicals tend to think (very non-biblically), that all they must do is make a single decision and accept Jesus as their Saviour to achieve automatic lifelong immunity from sins. They stare at me blankly if I suggest this is a non-biblical denominational teaching. They are just as vulnerable to temptation and sin as extreme liberals. I know this because I have seen demons being spiritually cast out of good, ‘Bible believing’ Christian evangelicals.
The differences between Liberalism, and what the Bible teaches about the holiness of God and the sacrificial death of Jesus as full payment of the sins of the world, shows liberalism to be a false Christianity.
3.9 “…resurrection of the body, and … life everlasting.”
The Resurrection of Jesus (explained above) gives believing Christians the hope that there is an eternal spiritual life after death. The biblical accounts teach us that the Risen Jesus had a body that seemed to be both material and immaterial. Jesus could pass through locked doors (John 20:19, 27), eat food (Acts 1:3) and be touched (John 20:27). Our resurrection body is changed, made incorruptible and raised spiritually. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).
To understand our own resurrection and life everlasting, we need to understand the body-soul-spirit relationship. These words are used to mean different things by different authors. The most helpful author is Watchman Nee, whose teachings have been assembled and published by his students in The Spiritual Man.
My insight came from the second creation story in Genesis, where God forms the man out of clay and then breaths the breath of life into the man (Genesis 2:7). This is illustrated on the cover of, Going Spiritual, by a blue circle, God’s breath or Spirit overlapping a red circle (body). The purple overlap in the middle represents the soul.
Our personal spirit is our intuitive mind which senses truth, lies, guilt, love, joy, and peace. This is where the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus and of transcendent truth can come and live in us if we invite Him. We experience this as our conscience. Women are generally more intuitive than men and ‘just know’ if you really love them. Men struggle to figure it out in their rational minds –- in the soul.
The soul is the meat in the sandwich. This is where the sensing desires of our spirit compete for sovereignty with the physical and ego desires of our body. Our will is in our soul and serves as the arbitrator between giving priority to our bodily ego desires, or to our spiritual desires. When we ignore the desire of our spirit to be in right-relationship with God and our neighbour; we sin and pollute our spirit. The pollution of sin weakens our spirit. A life of sin can lead to spiritual bondage and even spiritual death. Our polluted spirit may not be able to carry our soul to heaven when we die physically. It remains buried in the ground with our body. There may be no resurrection and no eternal spiritual life. This is why being a Christian believer and included in the Covenant of Jesus with the possibility of forgiveness of sins, is so important.
Extreme liberalism is very squishy on what happens when we die. This is awkward for more orthodox clergy and pastors at funerals, where everyone is in grief because poor old sinner, George has died. Telling the truth -– that George is just dead and missed out on an eternal life of joy because he was not a believer – is seen as very unkind. We tend to become more liberal ourselves and talk vaguely about George being such a good and kind person, that a God of love would surely welcome him into heaven. Fudging the truth gets us through a difficult time at funerals, but any misleading teaching will be very hard to explain to Jesus when we die.
One of the best teachings on what happens at death is the interviews with Howard Storm on YouTube at:
Howard Storm was an American atheist art professor married to an atheist. While in Paris, he had severe food poisoning. He experienced death, his soul leaving his body, and being carried off by demons to hell and tortured. While in constant excruciating pain and being savagely bitten by the demons, he remembered fragments of the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalm 23 that his grandmother had taught him. While deliriously mumbling these, he saw a light coming toward him. Jesus carried him up to heaven and talked to him for a half hour before his body was resuscitated by doctors. His atheist wife left him, and he became a Christian pastor in California.
Many people in our time have had visions of heaven and shared them on YouTube and in books. This is the Good News of the resurrection of the body and life everlasting.
3.10 Recovering the Foundation of Truth
We urgently need to recover the Judeo-Christian foundation of spiritual truth -– the absolute truths on which western freedom, democracy, and economic prosperity are based. I explain them in the context of Chapters 3 This does not mean everyone has to become a believer. We must respect God’s gift of personal freedom to love and obey God - or not. It does mean that there needs to be a majority or consensus in the culture who know and respect these truths as having divine authority and serious personal consequences.
Compare the thriving democracies in U.K., U.S., Canada, Australia, France, Germany, and Israel, with the totalitarianism of China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Myanmar, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. The painful legacy of long, costly, and destructive wars in Vietnam and Afghanistan should have taught us that you cannot help or force people that do not have this cultural foundation of Judeo-Christian spiritual truth to develop into a socially progressive, free, and democratic country.
Recovering this foundation of spiritual truths in our Western culture will not be easy. I have summarized how this can be done in Chapter 9 by:
1. Challenging church leaders to teach and affirm the seven lost spiritual truths of the Foundation.
2. Challenging public schools, universities and colleges and colleges to affirm the Judeo-Christian spiritual truths and teach objective truth.
Challenging churches to teach the foundation of supernatural truths of the foundation is the first, most important and most difficult task. This is a call for deeper theological thinking in many churches. Church leaders need to be challenged by members to consider the seven lost spiritual truths, identify which ones they are not teaching, overcome their denominationalism and intellectualism, and begin teaching these lost spiritual truths.
As motivation I humbly point out that God’s order of creation works on survival of the fittest. Jordan Peterson’s Rule # 4 in Beyond Order is “Observe that opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abandoned.” Peterson regularly attracts about 2,000 people in a large city to hear a message that is highly relevant to modern life and biblical. Church leaders with dwindling congregations need to reflect on this.
The Good News is that God always preserves a remnant –- a few faithful believers. Others are observing the order and joy in their lives, joining them, and that church is growing. This is happening in our time as many new leaders are raised up, and many new, thriving churches are emerging. Traditional churches that are teaching these seven lost spiritual truths are also growing rapidly. The success of Jordan Peterson’s book, 12 Rules for Life (5 million copies), should wake church leaders up to the spiritual destruction of woke liberalism, the huge demand for orthodox spiritual teaching, and the way forward for modern churches and serious Christians
