Christianity Undermined: How Progressive Christianity Redefines the Bible

The doorway to Progressive Christianity rarely originates in doctrine. The people in that doorway sit in our congregations and at our tables. They gravitate towards it due to a personal wound, a church scandal, or an injustice being justified by chapter and verse. They have seen words and actions from Christians that don’t fit the Jesus they know from Bible memory class and Bible studies. Either being hurt themselves or having walked with people who were, their emotions don’t support the doctrines anymore. They don’t want to leave Jesus. They just want to leave what they feel the church has made of Him. Waiting on the other side of that faith crisis is Progressive Christianity, speaking our Christian language fluently: Jesus, Bible, grace, gospel, sin, salvation and most of all, love.[^1] But the meaning behind these words has quietly changed. This article focuses on learning how to recognize the shift that Progressive Christianity brings to Christianity, so that we can respond with both clarity and love.

What It Says About Itself

Progressive Christianity’s clearest self-description comes from the Center for Progressive Christianity, which publishes eight points defining the movement. The following is a sampling of their content.[^2] They open by stating that Progressive Christians “Believe that following the path of the teacher Jesus can lead to healing and wholeness, a mystical connection to ‘God.’” They add that the teachings of Jesus provide “but one of many ways” to experience the Sacred, and we may “draw from diverse sources of wisdom, including Earth, in our spiritual journey.” There is more value “in questioning with an open mind and open heart, than in absolutes or dogma.”

These statements portray Jesus as merely another teacher to benefit us, not the only way. Not God incarnate. Not a Savior redeeming us from sin. What remains is a focus on behavior modification and social justice. Their points call readers to “know that the way we behave towards one another and Earth is the fullest expression of what we believe” and to “positively change the injustices we experience.” Herein lies a strong appeal to those in our churches who see the injustices and hurtful actions in the world and community around us and struggle with how to respond while holding to historic doctrine.

It is also impossible to ignore the New Age language that emerges from their own material, e.g., “the Oneness and Unity of all life,” Jesus as “one of many ways,” and Earth as a source of spiritual wisdom. In all fairness and a little irony, everything expressed in the eight points about Progressive Christianity is not a definitive statement of faith, because these perspectives are progressing and subject to being modified by personal experience and interpretation. That is sobering in light of God’s warnings about doing what is right in our own eyes.[^3]

A Rebranded Movement

Progressive Christianity is not entirely new. It is the latest rebranding of older movements that tried to align the faith with cultural philosophies of their age.

The movement today evolved from the Emergent Church conversation of the late 1990s and early 2000s. Leaders such as Brian McLaren, Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, and Rob Bell were asking how the church was going to reach the postmodern culture. McLaren’s A New Kind of Christianity (2010) reopened ten settled questions of the faith and answered them in ways the historic church never had. Bell’s Love Wins (2011) openly questioned whether anyone goes to hell.

The theological controversies around core doctrines took their toll on the movement. Many of its leaders stepped down from their positions in the church or even left the church entirely. A few returned to orthodoxy, but others pushed further into what we now know as Progressive Christianity. The label changed, but the trajectory didn’t.

But the roots of Progressive Christianity are deeper than the Emergent Church and reach back 200 years to Theological Liberalism. It begins with Friedrich Schleiermacher, a German Reformed preacher in the early 1800s, who tried to rescue Christianity from the intellectual critique of the Enlightenment by appealing to feeling and experience. He described doctrine as the church’s attempt to describe religious experience rather than being God’s revelation of truth.[^4]

Later, around the turn of the 20th century, church historian Adolf von Harnack used historical criticism in his lectures at the University of Berlin as an early form of what we now call deconstruction: the systematic questioning and dismantling of inherited beliefs.[^5] He presented Jesus as a supreme teacher, but not God incarnate.[^6] During the same era, the American Social Gospel movement was trying to address the horrible industrial labor conditions in America. They were redefining sin as primarily social and systemic, rather than personal rebellion against God.[^7]

What Schleiermacher did in moving authority from Scripture to experience, Harnack did in moving Jesus from Savior to teacher. The Social Gospel then moved salvation from redemption to reform. By 1923, this had already been named for what it was. J. Gresham Machen, in Christianity and Liberalism, argued that liberalism was not a variation of the Christian faith but a different religion that had kept the Christian vocabulary.[^8]

Foundational Issues

There are three key pillars in historic Christianity that Progressive Christianity undermines:

1. The nature of truth. Truth is absolute because God has spoken. The authority and truth of Scripture sources from being God’s revelation, not just stories of people’s experiences to inspire us as Schleiermacher taught.

2. The nature of Jesus. Jesus is God incarnate and is the only way to God. He is the resurrected Savior. He is not just another good teacher as Harnack would have us believe. He wasn’t just another man like us who realized the divinity and “Christ consciousness” within himself.

3. The nature of man. Man is born in sin with a heart of rebellion that needs to be transformed by the blood of Christ. Man’s salvation is not through a reformed social condition as the Social Gospel would have us believe.

Progressive Christianity is not the first to attack these core beliefs. The redefinitions were inherited from past movements and are being adapted for the postmodern culture today. This trail of deception leads all the way back to the garden of Eden and the question that was used by the serpent to deceive Eve. “Did God really say…” (Gen 3:1). This is the same question used today to kick off someone’s deconstruction. Now, in fairness, I believe it is good to examine your faith. We are to always be ready to give a defense for the hope that is in us (1 Pet 3:15). But we must evaluate why we are asking the questions since we naturally prefer the answers that confirm what we already believe.

The foundation of these pillars comes down to the historic Christian claim that Scripture is God-breathed. Either we see it as truly God’s revelation of Himself, or not. If not, the pillars crumble. Our Anabaptist forebears believed that Scripture was to be obeyed as God’s Word and many died for these convictions.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Tim. 3:16-17, NKJV)

Progressive Christianity regards the Bible as a sacred library: the inspired record of people wrestling with God across centuries, growing in their understanding, sometimes getting it wrong.[^9] If Scripture is demoted to only a source of inspiration, then something else will take that seat of authority, because it will not sit empty. This is where lived experience or the moral consensus of the moment will reign. The Bible may be welcomed to the conversation. But it is not an authority if it is overruled when it offends our sensibilities.

A Different Gospel

Is Progressive Christianity still Christianity? A key trait of this movement is that the words they use stay the same while the meanings change. This is why Progressive Christianity can sound convincing.

Sin becomes woundedness, or a lack of understanding of our authentic self. Repentance becomes self-acceptance. The gospel becomes radical inclusion. Salvation becomes a journey toward authenticity. Grace becomes affirmation without repentance. And love, most of all, becomes agreement. The words are familiar but the definitions are new.

The cross becomes a key stumbling block for many because penal substitutionary atonement is widely rejected as “cosmic child abuse.”[^10] However, the Father and the Son are not enemies. God himself entered the world and absorbed our punishment, willingly. No one took His life. He laid it down willingly (Isa 53:4-6; Gal 3:13; 1 John 2:2).

“Therefore My Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again. No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This command I have received from My Father.” (John 10:17-18)

Paul encountered a similar pattern and named it as such: “a different gospel, which is not another” (Gal. 1:6-7). Machen reached the same verdict a century ago. Progressive Christianity is not a more lenient version of the Christian faith. It is a different faith.

Why We Are Not Immune

It would be comfortable to treat this as someone else’s problem, but it’s not. Liberal Anabaptism is already compatible with Progressive Christianity. Our theology critiques war and nationalism while promoting care for the marginalized, which makes it fit naturally. The biggest theological difference is ecclesiology. Conservative Anabaptist churches form a distinct community that shapes daily life, not as activism but as separation from the world in obedience to Christ.

Here is the sobering symmetry: the legalist and the progressive commit the same root error. One lets tradition take the authority seat over Scripture; the other lets experience take it. Both nullify the Word while keeping the vocabulary. Not everyone who leaves a conservative church is becoming progressive, and not every standard that’s questioned points to legalism. But these are doors people exit through.

Wounded reactions. Biblical principles on dress, entertainment, and social contact enforced without the teaching behind them leave the next generation with rules but not reasons. Sincere questions met with demands for silent allegiance wound deeper still. Some of the wounded then swing to the opposite error and let “my relationship with Jesus” override biblical application altogether.

Egalitarianism. Questions about headship in marriage and women’s roles in the church move away from the historic understanding toward interchangeable roles. Underneath sits the same deeper question: does Scripture have the final say?

Peace and social justice focus. Keeping the Anabaptist peace witness but wanting stronger public engagement on war, poverty, race, and inclusion.

Discipleship without doctrine. We rightly emphasize following Jesus in daily life. But detached from what Jesus taught about Scripture, sin, and Himself, a person can keep “following his example” while trading away the faith underneath it. Progressive Christianity also claims to follow the way of Jesus.

We can look to our Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ, for grace and wisdom to walk with those who seek answers.

How To Identify and Respond

How do we respond properly when Progressive Christianity shows up in podcasts, songs, or conversations at our table? One of the clearest early warning signs is not that someone asks hard questions, but that the questions are celebrated more than the answers.[^11] Another is when emotional stories take precedence over biblical truth. A short self-diagnostic test: Which is more important, what God has said, or what feels loving, authentic, and acceptable to us?

A few guidelines for responding:

Take the wound seriously. You cannot argue someone out of pain. Before answering the theology, hear the story that made it attractive. These stories deserve to be heard. “I’m sorry that happened. That was wrong. But the abuse of a doctrine does not disprove the doctrine itself.” Compassion is not compromise.

Be curious and ask what the words mean. What do you mean by love? Who is Jesus to you? What is the gospel? How did you come to that conclusion? Keep the conversation calm while testing whether the claim has been thought through.

Keep to the foundation of the issue. Do not chase every downstream argument about hell, sexuality, or justice. Every one of those trails leads back to the same question: has God spoken, and does His Word get the last word? Settle the authority question and the rest can be worked through.

Walk with those who are questioning their faith. They need someone with steady conviction and patient love, ready to give a reason for hope “with meekness and fear” (1 Pet 3:15). Honest questions have led many to a deeper and tested faith.

The question in the garden has not changed, and neither has the answer. God has really “said.” Our task is to stand on that Word with clarity, and to walk beside the questioner with love.