Theology to Make the Teeth Ache

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J. Gresham Machen was once speaking with B.B. Warfield about whether the mainstream Presbyterian church (at the beginning of the twentieth century) was going to split over the issue of liberalism. Warfield said that it was not possible, and his reason for this is that “you can’t split rotten wood.” Machen was to go on to win renown for his great battle with liberalism, and in my view, his greatest contribution on that front was his book Christianity and Liberalism. In that book, Machen argues that liberalism is another faith altogether; it is not a variant form of the Christian faith. It does not involve minor doctrinal adjustments here or there, it is rather the result of global assumptions that affect every doctrine. This is why liberalism has afflicted every kind of denomination — as liberalism has done its work, it has functioned as a universal corrosive. This rot of unbelief cannot be said to be a peculiar unfolding of, say, Reformed presuppositions, or Free Methodist presuppositions, or Roman Catholic presuppositions. Liberalism is a parasite that has been able to function within any number of host bodies. Roman Catholics used to say that liberalism was a “logical consequence” of Protestantism, but now liberalism has shown its ability to flourish within the confines of Rome as well.

Postmodernism is the same kind of thing. It crops up in all sorts of surprising places — among liberals, sacerdotalists, dispensationalists, new perspective guys, anti-new perspective guys, and more. I have been surprised more than once when the mask comes off. This is why we must be careful to distinguish this issue from our particular (old-fashioned) denominational debates. For example, my debates with TRs over federal vision stuff is not a debate over postmodernism. But postmodernism is part of the zeitgeist, and it wants to get into everything.

Postmodernism is a form of unbelief, just like liberalism, with various adjustments made for the epistemic fads and fashions of the last generation. In a recent post, Albert Mohler has ably critiqued Brian McLaren’s new book A Generous Orthodoxy, and has pointed out what should be obvious from a very brief glance at McLaren’s position. You can read that critique here. McLaren’s generous orthodoxy is no orthodoxy at all, and evangelicals today are in much the same position that Machen was in. Mohler quotes McLaren the following way, saying that “McLaren intends to be provocative, explaining that this reflects his ‘belief that clarity is sometimes overrated, and that shock, obscurity, playfulness, and intrigue (carefully articulated) often stimulate more thought than clarity.'”

I want to play around a little with McLaren’s implied invitation here. I see no reason why we cannot take things like provocation, shock and playfulness and combine them with clarity. But let me play at their game for a bit, and try to combine my own sort of obscurity with my own brand of clarity.

Let’s find a different word for this. How does post-Christian sound? Evangelical postmodernism is the doctrinal result of combining good digestion with a hard heart. These guys have their deity on a dimmer switch. They have made a dog’s breakfast out of the faith once delivered. They are swimming a sea of thickened goo. This orthodoxy is nothing but an oak veneer on the press wood of unbelief. With the look of real wood! No, post-Christian still implies a standard and some measure of objectivity. How about post-vertebrate?

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