According to a recent article in World, a major American denomination could soon make “affirming” LGBTQ ideology mandatory for clergy. The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America (PCUSA) voted nearly two to one to effectively require candidates for ministry to endorse homosexuality and related practices if they wish to be ordained. Though the motion still must be approved by the various presbyteries around the nation, given the strong showing at the national level and the denomination’s high marks from pro-LGBTQ groups, it will likely be made official. 

As one of the more theologically liberal Reformed groups, the PCUSA has been drifting in this direction for some time. More remarkable is how quickly and thoroughly the official position of the denomination has been reversed. In the 1970s, after an openly gay man sought ordination, the PCUSA launched a two-year task force to study the issue. It concluded, in less than solid fashion, that homosexuals should not be ordained to the ministry. Now, in the name of inclusivity and diversity, the same group will require its ministers to reject clear Christian teaching instead.  

As Mark Twain is often credited with saying, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” In the late 1800s, Dr. Charles Briggs, a Presbyterian professor of theology at Union Seminary in New York, was brought up on heresy charges for teaching “higher criticism” of the Bible and doubting, among other things, the historical account of the resurrection. The denomination put him on trial and kicked him out of the ministry. Just 40 years later, J. Gresham Machen was similarly put on trial, not for false teaching like Briggs, but for insisting on the accuracy of Scripture and the implications of the historical resurrection of Christ. His book Christianity and Liberalism remains a must-read. In fact, he took Scripture so seriously that he built a missions agency to replace his denomination’s missions agency, which had been compromised by liberal theology.  

In the four decades between Brigg’s trial in 1893 and Machen’s trial in 1935, that church body had moved dramatically in its views of the Bible and essential Christian doctrines. Not only is it unsettling how quickly things moved, but also in terms of which beliefs were tolerated. This reveals the fundamentalist streak that’s long been endemic to liberal and progressive theology. 

The words fundamentalist and progressive may seem contradictory. The term “fundamentalism” arose at the turn of the twentieth century to describe those committed to the “fundamentals” of Christianity, especially in contrast to those who wished Christianity to adapt to modernism. Since then, the word has become shorthand for intolerance and rigidity. Yet, this also describes the theological progressivism of a self-described “tolerant” denomination in which one may not hold the beliefs of classical Christianity and be ordained. The same can be said for higher education and other academic environments where conservative ideas are a death blow to professional advancement. 

To paraphrase Archbishop Charles Chaput, progressivism preaches tolerance until it is dominant, then it tries to silence orthodoxy. Lacking fixed standards by which to judge truth, other than an ill-defined sense of relevance and progress, the rootless ideologies of postmodernism inevitably lock in on suppressing dissent. And because there is always another horizon for liberation and another way to be more progressive, dissident voices need not be tolerated. Instead, it becomes a movement of moral purity in which the “righteous” must ostracize any who part from the newly defined inclusive path. 

Progress, however, cannot be its own goal. As C.S. Lewis said,  

If you are on the wrong road, progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.  

True progress, like true tolerance, requires objective truth. Without objective truth, the pursuit of progress becomes aimlessness, and appeals to tolerance only end up justifying intolerance. 

This Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Timothy Padgett. If you’re a fan of Breakpoint, leave a review on your favorite podcast app. For more resources to live like a Christian in this cultural moment, go to breakpoint.org.