... for liberal theology, which is one form of what Niebuhr calls "culture Christianity": transparently, Niebuhr is not talking about what C. S. Lewis would call "mere Christians," some of whom happen to hold some more-or-less liberal positions on this detail or that economic policy. "Sociologically, Niebuhr says of them, "they may be interpreted as nonrevolutionaries who find no need for positing 'cracks in time' - fall and incarnation and judgment and resurrection." Indeed, they reject "the whole conception of a once-and-for-all act of redemption." This is pretty fundamental stuff. If that is what liberal Christianity is, then Machen, though he wrote three-quarters of a century ago, was surely right: liberalism is not another denomination or any other kind of legitimate option within Christianity. Rather, it is another religion. (pages 33-34)
For too long I and others in Scotland, and in the Church of Scotland, have tried to make common ground with those who deny that God is creator, that there was a fall into sin which has affected all of humanity, that the eternal Son of God became human, that there will be a final judgment by God upon all humanity, that the cross and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ are God's once for all act of salvation - there is no other salvation apart from that achieved by God in the cross of Christ.
It is time to say clearly, denying these high points of biblical revelation moves one outside of biblical, orthodox Christianity. Any liberty of opinion granted to ministers and elders of the Church of Scotland in relation to the Westminster Confession of Faith, does not and cannot extend to liberty of opinion on these fundamentals of the faith.
Liberal Christianity, so called, is neither liberal nor Christian. As Carson quotes Machen, 'it is another religion', and one which I don't want anything to do with.
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