The RenewaNation Review 2020 The Collingsworth Family Special Edition | Page 37

Progressive Christianity is as Much of a
Threat to Your Kids’ Faith as Atheism
By Natasha Crain
IN
OUR BACKYARD, we used to have a beauti-
ful lime tree. One day I noticed a thorny vine
had started growing around it. It looked enough like the
rest of the tree that I figured it was just another stage
of growth. A quick Google search told me thorns often
grow around citrus trees, so I didn’t think much more
about it.
Then, within a couple of months, the thorns took over
the tree, and it began to die. A gardener looked at it and
said these particular thorns weren’t part of the tree at all.
It turns out they were a foreign invader.
Had the foreign invader looked more foreign, I would
have realized the need to uproot it immediately. But
because it shared surface-level similarities with the tree,
I was fooled into thinking it was all the same thing.
I often write about the threat hostile atheists pose to
kids’ faith today. But atheism is not the only threat. In
fact, there’s a particular threat that can be even more
dangerous because it less obviously requires attention.
It’s like the thorny plant that gradually killed my lime
tree because I didn’t even realize it was foreign. That
threat is called progressive Christianity.
WHAT IS PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY?
It can be hard to define progressive Christianity because
it’s an umbrella term for a lot of different beliefs. But I
think my friend and fellow blogger, Alisa Childers (who
was once part of a progressive Christian church), hit the
nail on the head when she summarized it this way in a
recent post:
• A lowered view of the Bible
• Feelings are emphasized over facts
• Essential Christian doctrines are open for reinter-
pretation
• Historical terms are redefined
• The heart of the gospel message shifts from sin and
redemption to social justice
Here’s the danger: To the untrained ear, the progres-
sive Christian message can sound a lot like biblical
Christianity. There’s talk of God, Jesus, the Bible, love,
and compassion. If a child has never learned to think
more deeply about theology and what the Bible actually
teaches, he can easily mistake progressive Christianity
for biblical Christianity. And progressive Christianity
often teaches an incomplete or false gospel.
Exhibit A: There’s a blog called Unfundamentalist
Parenting that promotes parenting according to progres-
sive Christian views. One Easter, the blog featured a
guest post by a children’s pastor at a progressive Chris-
tian church. In her post, The Trouble with Easter: How
To (and not to) Talk to Kids about Easter, the author
expressed how difficult Easter is because she doesn’t
want to teach the kids in her spiritual care that:
• Jesus died for you/your sins (this is “psychologi-
cally damaging”)
• God intended for Jesus to die (this is “confusing
and jarring”)
• Jesus died to save them from God’s judgment (“an
atonement theology of inborn corruption in need of
redemption has no place in a conversation with kids
about Easter”)
The whole article literally made my heart hurt. Views
like these are thorny, foreign invaders in the church.
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