What is liberal Christian theology?

Speaking only of recent happenings, within the memory of living Christians, what do we find? Higher Criticism doing its deadly work of undermining the faith of multitudes in the inspiration of Scripture. Modernism the fruit of Higher Criticism refusing to believe in the plenary and full inspiration of God’s Word, weakening, and often denying it altogether, refusing the deity of the Lord Jesus, rejecting the Virgin Birth, and the true manhood of Christ, in some cases denying even the very resurrection of our Lord—in short, keeping the outward form of Christianity, but robbing it of all that is vital and fundamental.

And what, beloved reader, exists today as the counterpart of this description? Nay, what is it that will finally form Laodicea? It is, in one word, rationalism — that rationalism which is current under the name of Broad church theology, and which, daily on the increase, occupies a large place in the Anglican establishment, and has almost completely flooded whole fields of Dissent. For the teachers of this school bend all their efforts to eradicate the distinctive truths of Christianity; to rehabilitate the first man, notwithstanding he has for ever been judicially set aside in the cross of Christ; and they are never weary of proclaiming that the light of reason, of their own minds, is all-sufficient to guide them, both in deciding what is the word of God, and also in their journey through the mazes of this world. It is their perpetual boast that they are enriched with all the accumulated treasures of the science, philosophy, and civilization of the nineteenth century. Yea, truly, according to their own estimate, they have need of nothing!

Thus it has been from the beginning and thus it is now. “There is nothing new under the sun.” It has ever been the grand object of the enemy to quench the lamp of inspiration and plunge the soul into the thick darkness of infidelity and atheism. We believe there is an amount of rationalism in the professing Church appalling to contemplate. Divine revelation is being gradually lowered from its lofty position, and human reason exalted, and this is the very germ of infidelity. True, it clothes itself in very attractive robes. It adopts very high-sounding and imposing language. It talks of “freedom of thought” and “liberty of opinion,” of “breadth of mind,” “progress,” “cultivated taste” and “dispassionate investigation.” It adopts a most withering style and assumes an attitude of sovereign contempt when speaking of “old prejudices,” “old school notions,” “narrow-mindedness,” “men of one idea,” and such like.

On the other hand, religious infidelity, under the name of “Higher Criticism,” has taken possession of many a pulpit. Once infidelity was outside the churches; now, alas! it is inside as well. Scarcely one fundamental doctrine of Christianity but is assailed. The inspiration of Scripture is denied, the atonement flouted, the person of Christ attacked, the supernatural refused, and creation, miracles, and even the resurrection, all explained as natural phenomena!

But what of the professedly orthodox sects? Alas! we find in nearly all these, that "Higher Criticism" has undermined implicit faith in the Bible as the Word of God; gross materialism refuses all that is miraculous — the virgin birth of Christ, the miracles of Christ, and the resurrection of Christ; Unitarianism (no longer confined to Unitarians) denies the Deity of Christ; a barren morality, expressing itself in good works to men, displaces the atoning work of Christ; human organization sets aside the Spirit of God: humanitarianism denies eternal punishment, and a gross worldliness excludes all belief in the coming of Christ. Men of the religious world are treading "under foot the Son of God," counting "the blood of the covenant an unholy thing," and doing "despite to the spirit of grace."

Our quotations have not been many in number, but they are sufficient to show forth the deadly infidelity of Modernism, even in such a moderate form as it is found in Peake’s Commentary. Other Modernists go so far as to disown the deity of Christ, refuse the Virgin Birth, deny the atoning character of His death, and even the reality of His resurrection.

Higher Critics, or Modernists deny the inspiration of the Scriptures; the virgin birth, weaken the atoning character of the death of our Lord upon the cross of Calvary, and even in some cases deny the bodily resurrection of our adorable Lord.

Rationalism, that working of the fleshly mind in the sacred things of God, in other words, Higher Criticism and Modernism, have evacuated the Scriptures of their true meaning. Instead of the Word of God being living and powerful in the minds of those affected by twentieth century rationalism, they feel themselves competent to criticize the inspired word of God, with fatal results to themselves.

A well-known writer on Jewish subjects—Mr. S. H. Wilkinson—than whom none is more qualified to express an opinion—says: “Bulwark after bulwark of faith has been jettisoned, and now at last the evil germ is coming into full development. … The new attitude to the Lord Jesus, acknowledges, it is true, His incomparable position in ethics; but it is as radical in its denial of His divine claims as the most prejudiced orthodox fanatic. It is part of a group of rationalistic beliefs which include the treatment of the Old Testament Scripture as a non-divine literary product, the historical value of which is doubtful, and which sees in every human being an advance towards the highest and best. It is this rationalistic school which is willing to acknowledge the moral excellence—even supremacy—of the Lord Jesus, but they will never be found by any slip of the tongue to drop into the error [to them] of calling Him the Lord Jesus.”

Mantineau wrote, “No seeming inspiration can establish anything contrary to reason; that the last appeal, in all researches into religious truth, must be to the judgments of the human mind; that against these judgments Scripture cannot have any authority, for upon its authority they themselves decide” (Freedom and Truth, p. 7).