Against Liberal Theology: Putting the Brakes on Progressive Christianity

A Book Review by George Bullard

(Find this book on Amazon HERE.)

I decided to buy, read, and review this book not because I am against or for liberal theology. But because I believe it is important to look at issues from various perspectives to increase our learning and to deepen our perspective. Learning outside our comfort zone is essential to continual growth and maturity. I have read various writings of Roger Olson and respect his approach and viewpoint.

Olson expresses some hesitancy on the first page of the Preface for the use of the word “against”. He shares that he “can’t be for everything that goes under the label Christian. And some things people call Christian just can’t be if the Bible and Christian history are our guides.” (ix)

He states his aim “is to inform people what liberal Christianity is and why they ought to think critically about it.” He does not say he is against progressive theology except as he sees it shifting toward “true liberal Christianity and its theology.” (2)

Because Olson’s focus is on the writings of people he declares to be liberal Christian theologians and authors, his analysis is of theology stated rather than theology lived and practiced.

He acknowledges that some liberal Christian theologians struggle with the application of their theological position to local congregations. One example is the Swiss theologian Karl Barth who “famously found out during his first pastorate, liberal theology just doesn’t preach.” (164)

Olson does not argue that liberal Christians are not Christian, but that their theology is not authentically Christian. He goes on to say that “liberal theology is not authentically Christian because it departs so radically from biblical and traditional Christian orthodoxy.” (4-5) I agree with him on this premise.

An oversimplified way to state how Olson sees liberal Christianity is that it is “a Christianity without miracles” (7); where Jesus Christ is reduced to a mere man (11).

Here is Olson’s main argument: “Liberal Christianity cuts the cord of continuity between itself and biblical, historical, classical, orthodox Christianity so thoroughly that it ought to call itself something other than Christian.” (14)

Olson refers in the book to people he labels as liberal theologians like Fredrich Schleiermacher, Douglas Ottati, Albrecht Ritschl, Immanuel Kant, Adolf Harnack, Washington Gladden, Walter Rauschenbusch, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Henry Churchill King, Paul Tillich, Alfred North Whitehead, L. Harold DeWolf, Peter C. Hodgson, Delwin Brown, Donald E. Miller, John Shelby Spong, and Marcus Borg. In my opinion, however, the same brush cannot paint all these men.

Olson states that Harry Emerson Fosdick was the “most influential popularizer of liberal theology in America during the first half of the twentieth century.” (27)

When I read on page 167 -- “Today, progressive Christianity is often just a halfway house from which people emerge into full-blown liberal theology in one of its varieties” – it reminded me of the church with whom I consulted 35 years ago where Fosdick was pastor in the early 1900s. This was the First Baptist Church of Montclair, NJ.

The congregants of this congregation -- by one typology -- were made up of four types of people. First, were people more than 50 years old who had practiced Christianity throughout their adult life, were core church participants and leaders, and held moderate to progressive theological views. Second, were people who experienced some disappointment in Christianity, and this congregation was a final effort to rediscover why they were Christians before they probably stopped practicing Christianity.

Third, were people who are left Christianity all together for a season of their life and were now experimenting with a re-entry into active Christian faith. Fourth, were people seeking spiritual fulfillment, thought Christianity might be it, and saw this congregation as a place to inquire.

Only the first group were solid and sustainable as leaders of this congregation. Even the pastor – who was on sabbatical studying Buddhism and other eastern religions and their positive impact on Christian theology – found himself in the second and later the third group above.

The reality is that the liberal theological tradition of this church allowed them to serve as a way station along the journey of spiritual seekers in the Christian tradition. The fragility of its theology, however, meant that all except the core group stayed three years or less with the congregation. They either moved on out of Christianity or moved deeper into Christianity. They did not stay at the way station.

Olson also refers to the book by sociologist of religion, Dean Kelly – Why Conservative Churches Are Growing -- that was first published in 1972. He accepts the surface thesis and conclusion of the book that “conservative churches of many kinds were offering a version of Christianity that was robust and vital . . . (and) was an indictment of liberal Christianity by one of its own.” (170)

I was part of a research group who read and dialogued about the book. We found that high expectations by some congregations that congregants engage in a life of intentional Christian discipleship was often a stronger indicator of devout Christian practice than was the theology learned in their congregation.

This is not to imply theology does not matter. It does. It is only to say that even amid liberal theological environments can be found congregations and congregants who practice a more orthodox Christian faith.

In conclusion, this is a good book. People seeking to understand progressive to liberal Christian theology, its history, and its future would do well to read it.