Generic Gospel
I am not saying that the Gospel is generic, when it's the true Gospel. But often times what one might hear among Theological Liberals is what I call a concept of "Generic Gospel". This concept goes basically sincewhat they teach is not in line with scripture, they say they are being faithful to Christ. This view of Christ generally makes him into a big-time humanist. Christ never would make any statements of absolute spiritual truth, (i.e Non-Christians are lost, and need to repent, and their is a Hell), would always be non-judgement (i.e. Abortion and Homosexuality are OK) and would turn the Gospel into some sort of social agenda.
This teaching basically goes since Christ was welcoming of Tax Collectors this is in contrast to what Paul says about Homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27. So since Christ welcomed Tax Collectors, therefore Homosexual behavior is OK.
This view is extremely problematic for several reasons.
1. To hold it one needs to hold to Scripture as non-inspired. People who hold this view would only say parts of scripture are non-inspired, culturally-conditioned or unclear. But to hold this position one needs to hold scripture as a whole as not-being from God, since it contradicts itself. But Scripture is merely reduced to the opinion of various authors. Where as people with Orthodox faith beliefs, need to treat Scripture as a super-natural doctrine. By this I mean that God interacted with the authors of Scripture in such a way that the final product they produced is his word.
2. This isn't consistent with what Jesus said about scripture. Jesus in John 10:35 says Scripture cannot be broken. In Luke 24:27-Jesus explained how all of scripture from Moses to the Prophets pointed to him. This teaching is backed up in John 5:37. These people never mention how Jesus constantly cites the Old Testament as a source of authority as being from God. Christ in fact in Matthew 4:4-10 uses scripture to debunk false teaching. This seems to contradict this teaching with the idea of scripture as being a natural doctrine.
3. The third idea is that people want to be tolerant as Jesus is tolerant. Jesus is forgiving more than tolerant. Let me explain the difference if one is too-take tolerance or non-judgementalism to its fullest capacity, their would be no concept of truth. Say someone drove 80 miles an hour through a Nursing Home, someone wouldn't say I can't judge them. To take this modern defintion of tolerance or non-judgement to its fullest capacity: One wouldn't be able to condemn anything, and there would be no distinction between right and wrong. Jesus was forgiving, he never condemned the Pharisees as being inaccurate in their judgements. Jesus never said what a Tax Collector, or an adulter did was not wrong. What Jesus would say is that they did wrong, but I came to forgive them.
4. To promote this idea of Generic Gospel is to deny that all doctrines serve the Gospel. For every scripture passage is authoriative to the doctrines of which it speaks. You can't just start making up vague principles and putting them against scriptures. For example the Doctrine of Hell is clearly taught in scripture. Jesus refers to Hell about 20 times in the Gospel, yet this doctrine in denied on this vague principle of whatever. At this point you either assert Scriptures as truth, or you assert this philosophical notion as truth.
This gives a pretty good idea to start on this topic, I might post more later on it.
This teaching basically goes since Christ was welcoming of Tax Collectors this is in contrast to what Paul says about Homosexuality in Romans 1:26-27. So since Christ welcomed Tax Collectors, therefore Homosexual behavior is OK.
This view is extremely problematic for several reasons.
1. To hold it one needs to hold to Scripture as non-inspired. People who hold this view would only say parts of scripture are non-inspired, culturally-conditioned or unclear. But to hold this position one needs to hold scripture as a whole as not-being from God, since it contradicts itself. But Scripture is merely reduced to the opinion of various authors. Where as people with Orthodox faith beliefs, need to treat Scripture as a super-natural doctrine. By this I mean that God interacted with the authors of Scripture in such a way that the final product they produced is his word.
2. This isn't consistent with what Jesus said about scripture. Jesus in John 10:35 says Scripture cannot be broken. In Luke 24:27-Jesus explained how all of scripture from Moses to the Prophets pointed to him. This teaching is backed up in John 5:37. These people never mention how Jesus constantly cites the Old Testament as a source of authority as being from God. Christ in fact in Matthew 4:4-10 uses scripture to debunk false teaching. This seems to contradict this teaching with the idea of scripture as being a natural doctrine.
3. The third idea is that people want to be tolerant as Jesus is tolerant. Jesus is forgiving more than tolerant. Let me explain the difference if one is too-take tolerance or non-judgementalism to its fullest capacity, their would be no concept of truth. Say someone drove 80 miles an hour through a Nursing Home, someone wouldn't say I can't judge them. To take this modern defintion of tolerance or non-judgement to its fullest capacity: One wouldn't be able to condemn anything, and there would be no distinction between right and wrong. Jesus was forgiving, he never condemned the Pharisees as being inaccurate in their judgements. Jesus never said what a Tax Collector, or an adulter did was not wrong. What Jesus would say is that they did wrong, but I came to forgive them.
4. To promote this idea of Generic Gospel is to deny that all doctrines serve the Gospel. For every scripture passage is authoriative to the doctrines of which it speaks. You can't just start making up vague principles and putting them against scriptures. For example the Doctrine of Hell is clearly taught in scripture. Jesus refers to Hell about 20 times in the Gospel, yet this doctrine in denied on this vague principle of whatever. At this point you either assert Scriptures as truth, or you assert this philosophical notion as truth.
This gives a pretty good idea to start on this topic, I might post more later on it.
posted by Stew at 1:00 PM
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