Christianity and Neo-Liberalism
The Spiritual Crisis in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Beyond
by
Paul M. Elliott
The Trinity Foundation
This is a blockbuster of a book. One can only pray that its impact will, in God’s providence, live up to its potential. Not only is it well written, well researched, and well documented, but the author has a real sense of history, of church history that is. Back in the 1920’s, at the height of the fundamentalist-modernist controversy in the PCUSA, J. Gresham Machen, the leader of the conservatives wrote a book entitled, “Christianity and Liberalism.” In it he set forth and contrasted the theological beliefs of historic Christianity and of the liberals in the PCUSA. He convincingly argued the premise that liberals were not Christians and that modernism was another religion. Paul Elliott has taken that as his model and titled his book accordingly.
The author’s thesis is that the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC) is today exactly where the PCUSA was back then.
Now, if you're telling us Elliot thinks the OPC is standing at a crossroads, I say all churches stand there daily.
If Elliott is cautioning the OPC to remain the ultra-conservative church that it is and not succumb to the liberalism that is rampant in churches today, most especially in the Roman Catholic church whose pope kisses the Koran, then I would agree with Elliott.
The only "liberal" thing I've seen the OPC do is to recently go along with the more modern version of the Westminster Confession of Faith which drops the following line from the 25th chapter of the original WESTMINSTER CONFESSION OF FAITH (1646)...
"Nor can the Pope of Rome, in any sense, be head thereof; but is that Antichrist, that man of sin, and son of perdition, that exalts himself, in the Church, against Christ and all that is called God."
If this is Elliott's complaint, then I heartily agree with Elliott. Appeasing idolaters for the sake of false ecumenicism is never a good idea.
"All Satan's teachers in all ages have presented their poison, even all their errors and fallacies, in a golden cup." -- John Calvin, Jer.I:85