What is Progressive Christianity?

It's Not at All What Many People Think it Is...

Also known as the “Emergent Church Movement,” Progressive Christianity is based on the idea that as culture changes, the church should change with it to appeal to as many people as possible. Progressive Christianity is about experience over reason, spirituality over religion, unity over doctrine, symbolism over words, and feelings over truth. In most cases, it rejects the sufficiency of Scripture by adding to it… thereby effectively denying that biblical truth can be absolute.

A System of False Theology

During the 2019-2020 presidential primary election season. Democrat presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg attacked then Vice President Mike Pence for his “old-fashioned” Christian beliefs about marriage, sexuality, and sin. Buttigieg maintained that his personal brand of “Progressive Christianity” allows him to still commit to the faith that Jesus Christ taught in the Gospels while remaining married to his male partner. Buttigieg’s position is far from biblical… it is an overt rejection of absolute truth.

Most Progressive Christians believe that the Bible is NOT the literal word of God. Instead, they typically believe in “universal salvation” over the biblical concept of personal salvation. The Bible is clear that God redeems only those individuals who repent and submit to the Lord Jesus Christ as Lord of their lives. In John 14:6, Jesus said… “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.”

Progressive Christian teachers are more than willing to dilute and twist Scripture to ensure it is “woke” enough to keep the seats filled. Their “social gospel” is designed to deceive Millennials and Gen Z types by promoting seductive notions like critical race theory, environmentalism, social justice, acceptance of homosexuality, mysticism, open borders, gender identity, and religious unity. Progressive Christianity mainly appeals to people’s feelings of narcissistic self-entitlement and their misplaced “love of others”. It’s all about what God can do for them and how others must take the blame for their victimhood. Essentially, they teach the world’s values rather than the absolute truth of Scripture. It is not the Gospel according to Jesus but is a counterfeit version that reeks of socialism.

It’s About Personal Feelings

In Progressive Christian thinking, one’s personal understanding is the final authority, and the Bible is regarded as little more than a collection of out-of-date stories and myths. Most believe that they can draw from vague notions of “spirituality” and that there is more value to be found in an open mind than in the absolute truth of Scripture.

Progressive Christianity has led to an epidemic of “easy believeism”, the false assurance that people are “saved” because they once magically “received” Jesus one Sunday morning without ever submitting to Him as the Lord of their lives. They put their trust in false teachers who leave out the part about the need to turn away from sin and repent of it. In the end, one’s degree of “wokeness” has nothing to do with their salvation…

The “Social Gospel” has nothing in common with the Gospel as clearly defined by Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians…

“15 Now I make known to you, brethren, the Gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4 NASB)

And this…

“18 For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit.” (1 Peter 3:18 NASB)

Who is Involved

Some of the other false teachers who have either fully or partially embraced all or part of Progressive Christianity include Tony Campolo, Rob Bell, Peter Enns, Jen Hatmaker, Bill Hybels, Bill Johnson (Bethel), Brian Houston (Hillsong), Joyce Meyer, Brian McLaren, Beth Moore, Andy Stanley, Rick Warren (Saddleback), Steven Furtick (Elevation), and the Jesus Seminar.

Progressive Christianity is not Christianity at all… it is a dangerous downward path leading to certain spiritual death.