The Sean McDowell Show - How Progressive Christians “Help” Evangelicals Shift Beliefs

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

What strategies do Progressive Christianity use to help lead Conservative Christians to have a paradigm shift about sin, hell, the Bible, and various moral issues? In this interview, I talk with Dr. Ashlee Quosigk, co-author of ONE FAITH NO LONGER. WATCH: Are Progressive and Conservative Christianity Different Faiths? Yes!(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoTim3-j7d8) READ: One Faith No Longer by Ashlee Quosigk and George Yancey (https://amzn.to/3mdx9Zd *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

What strategies do progressive Christians use to try to encourage evangelicals to have a paradigm shift on a lot of their theological beliefs about sin, about Jesus, and about the Bible? This is a very important topic today because there's a lot of conversations taking place between evangelicals and progressive Christians. And I have a very unique guest today who's a homeschool mom, who's a researcher, who's a writer, who's a thinker, who's done some remarkable research on this specific question, given it a lot of thought and published it, is going to help us walk this through. Ashley Kwozik, thanks for taking the time to join us. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Sean. Happy to be here. Well,

let's jump in. And of all that you've done some research on Islam, you've done scholarly work on a range of areas, but you've also written and addressed how progressive Christians aim to help conservative Christians have a paradigm theological shift out of their old ways of thinking. As we start, tell us, why did you research that topic? Okay. Yeah. Well, I've always had an interest in how Christians engage Muslims and think about Islam. So my mother's from Pakistan and she grew up there and her family came to United States. They're really happy to be here. But the interactions between Muslims and Christians have always been of interest because of that.

And I wanted to know a little bit more. I felt somewhat ignorant on the subject and I had done a couple of, well, I had done the bachelor's, master's, and then I was looking to content for the PhD. And in that same process, I was also really interested in the topic of Islam. And so my husband and I decided to go to a conference that was put on by evangelical Christians to help Christians look at Islam, to how to think about Muslims and how to engage. And so we went, not knowing very much, and there was a lot of different speakers from all over the world. And what I found was the speakers had a lot of different opinions regarding Islam, and they weren't always congruent with each other. So there was such diversity of opinion that actually both couldn't

be true because they would contradict each other. And so I wanted to know a little bit more about and dive into that. So when I thought about doing doctoral research and what I would like to spend an additional three, four years of my life doing, I said, this would be, this would be great. So this was the topic that I wanted to know about. And so I pursued that and it's been said that research is really research. So I think in that way, this has been personal as well, a personal exploration as well as an academic endeavor. And so that, that really got me interested in the topic of

studying Christian views on Islam. Now, what I didn't expect to find was what I found, particularly regarding the divide within the Christian church on progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity, and how vastly different these two groups are and how vastly different they approach Islam and they think about how to engage with Muslims. And so I think that actually was a surprise finding that got me very interested. And also the theories that I looked at in order to try to get out what's really going on on the ground, or looking at the differences in moral authority, and how do people decide what's right and wrong? How do they come to a position on Muhammad? How do they think about the Quran as whether useful or, you know, a satanic

book or these kinds of things? And they're so vastly different, these opinions. And so I wanted to get at the root of what helps people decide these things and how do they rationalize their positions. So I did a bunch of interviews. And from those interviews, I did analysis on moral authority and how do they reason their positions. And so it got to kind of a deeper level of trying to understand how people decide what is right and what is wrong, what is orthodox, what is unorthodox, what is true, what is not true. And I was shocked at how progressives differentiate themselves from conservative Christians. And so that got me really interested

when I noticed that there was conferences going on and the goal, for example, the name of this is Paradigm Shift. And I think it's so appropriate because that's exactly what they say that they do is they help conservatives undergo a paradigm shift. And that's their wording that's being used there. That is so interesting to me that you started with an interest in how Christians approach Islam, but that drew you deeper to say, wait a minute,

why are Christians approaching more authority, the Quran, how we should interact with Muslims differently. And a lot of that stems from differing views that conservative Christians and progressive Christians have about what it even means to be a Christian. So you didn't set into this to research progressive Christianity, but had this, what you described

as kind of surprising find, and you published this in your book. I had your colleague and your friend George Yancey on not long ago to talk about the book you guys wrote together, One Faith No Longer, in which you essentially argue that progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity, how they see the world, how they understand Jesus, the Bible, authority, ethical issues, indicates that they are separate issues. They are separate religions expressed in how they shape some of these different issues. So that is fascinating research. Now, before we get into some of what you found in your research and how progressive

Christians distinctly try to lead to this paradigm shift, tell me a little bit more about your training that you bring to this. Because I think without realizing it, you had certain training that came out and made your perspective on this very, very unique. Okay. Yeah. Well, so my bachelor's is in history. So I'm really, my foundation in terms of how I look at issues, social problems would be

historical. So I try to go back and look at history. And I like that kind of foundation from which to work from. Then the master's was in history. And then the PhD was in sociology. And that was a new field for me, but I wanted to get to talk to people. And so that became the natural field to go into. And I took some different courses looking at peace building at the Secondary University. And I think that course would look probably a lot like courses people might take on ecumenics, probably a lot like certain seminary courses that people might take,

depending on what type of seminary that they're in. But in those classes, some of the things being taught are theories around how to be an indigenous worker within your previous group and how to take, for example, religious understandings that might be divisive, that might make for having in-group that is not accepting of out-group beliefs, and then how to diminish those differential opinions or beliefs and how to then emphasize beliefs that are more peaceful, that lead to less boundaries between your group and other groups in an effort to be in a more peaceful relationship with people that believe things different than you. So there's a de-emphasis on doctrine and there's an emphasis on relationship and they teach you sort of methods and theories on how to go about doing that. And I think that that opened my eyes as I was doing the research. Of course,

yeah, you make a good point there, Sean, that this is something that I might have been seeing play out in the case study fields that I was involved in. That is so interesting that you have practical and academic research on how groups try to infiltrate, for lack of a better word, groups in some cases they were formerly involved in to try to get them to have a paradigm shift and see the world differently. This doesn't happen by accident. There's very intentional strategies that are put into place to do so. And we see that in a host of areas but also in terms of how progressive christians many progressive christians will approach the conservative christian church so let's talk about that for a little bit but yeah let's let's start with some of the strategies and you kind of hinted

at this a little bit but how do progressive christians intentionally try to change the views of evangelical Christians? Okay, well, I think there's a few different methods that are used, and it's certainly not all encompassing what I would share. It's just some of the things that I noticed during my research. So leadership, leadership takes on a big role. And oftentimes in the progressive leaning congregations that I'm familiar with, the leadership kept themselves kind of insular in terms of diverse opinions within Christianity. So what I mean by that is that outsider opinions, or for example, conservative Christian opinions, were not allowed into the inner circles of leadership at more progressive leaning congregations. And you can juxtapose that with conservative congregations that did allow for more diverse opinions, interesting enough.

And that goes against the stereotype of conservative congregations being very rigid theologically. And I'm speaking specifically in terms of ideas around ministry to Muslims, how to think about Islam and that specific field. And so conservative churches allowed for diverse opinions and progressive opinions in some ways to be allowed into their teachings in their congregations, whereas progressive churches, when I asked progressive leaders, Christian leaders, how they felt about, say, do they share life with, the people they share life with, do they share the same opinions about Islam and Muslims? And they said, absolutely.

It's a small group, but we do. And someone else said, I wouldn't work with anybody that thought differently. And when you ask conservatives a similar question, they said, it's a mixed bag. Oh, it's all over the place. You know, oh, there's such a diverse, you know. And I think there's a kind of a softening to progressive ideas of ministry with Muslims because they see their tactics and their methods as being coming from the right place, just a different way of doing it. They're focusing on different things, whereas progressives kind of understand more that what's going on is something transformational, and the foundations are quite different. And so that's why they wouldn't want to

allow conservative perspectives to be shared in the leadership of the churches. And so what I noticed was, for example, a conference put on by a progressive-leaning congregation. And I have to be careful there because when I say progressive church or progressive-leaning, a lot of the congregants are not progressive. They don't quite know that their leadership are progressive. They think that they're going to a conservative Christian historic church. And so I think we have to be careful there that not everybody involved with these congregations

have a different opinion on health than the cross, atonement, things like that. And they're not aware of the differences in the leadership positions on those doctrinal matters. And go ahead. I was going to say, so the first one is about the leadership control and limitation of ideas within progressive churches. But it also sounds like a second one is controlling the narrative of what's told to the church, because a lot of people in the church are not even aware of the views that the leadership holds. Is that a trend that you saw as well in progressive leaning

churches? Yes, I noticed that for Sunday morning services, a lot of the more controversial beliefs are not forefronted. And so it would come across in a way that feels traditional, that feels like all the right words are being said. But if you go to the training specifically on how to think about Islam and how to think about Muslims, you get into some very deep theological shifts and you don't always necessarily that you know that you're experiencing them when you are. I think part of that has to do with maybe there's an insecurity in the part of the attendee because they don't perhaps know very much about Islam. They don't perhaps know very much about Islam they don't perhaps know very much about Muslims so they're quite vulnerable to accepting different doctrines in these in these spaces and for example at the conference that I

attended and was studying when you walk in you're, you're given a gold-foiled Quran. Wow. It's quite pretty to look at. When you open it up, it says, not for resale, for dawah, which is Islamic proselytization. So it can be assumed that these Qurans were given with the goal of Islamic proselytization, and they're given as a gift to all attendees. And surah surah 1

in the Quran is recited and it's considered irrefutably true and beautiful and they're trying to allow the conservative Christian attendees to experience a paradigm shift out of thinking about Islam is something negative or something to be feared or something to be fought against in terms of ideological differences but to see oh we we share a lot in common and in this conference as well they de emphasize the important importance of the term Christian and they actually it's a critique of Christianity within the conference. So it's heavy critique of Christianity. And that is alongside a very amplified view of Islam. And so attendees leave sort of shooken up. And I interviewed some people

after the conference that I had met during the conference. And when I would ask them the same questions that I had asked other people in a different congregation or other leaders in the U.S., evangelical leaders that I talked to that deal with Islam, after leaving this conference, the attendees, the interviewees that I talked to felt quite insecure about what they had formally thought. And so they would say their opinion and they say, but you know what, I don't really know. I mean, after going to this conference, I mean, maybe I'm wrong, you know, so they were

quite influenced by the content of the conference. And I could go into even more about some of the paradigm shifts that take place during the conference, if you'd like me to. Well, let's maybe come back to that. What I really want to focus on, I think will help people, is the strategies that are implemented, because I want people to see how what you're talking about and you studied through islam expresses itself in the local church and in other conferences as well so one of the strategies you talked about is the authority of the message in the leadership second is the control of the message that's given out is in a way that avoids covering certain topics that would not turn more conservative Christians

away. So the narrative, so the leadership and the narrative is kind of controlled. Then there's certain practical steps, such as reading the Quran, being given a beautiful Quran to kind of break down somebody's defenses, so to speak, and lead to a paradigm shift. What are some of the other strategies and tactics that are used to lead towards this kind of change? And then let's talk about how we see them in the local church too. Yeah. So for example, terminology definitions, those things are much more flexible. And so you would want to define something as

for progressive as most advantageous for peaceful relations between groups. And so, for example, there's the concept that you can be a Muslim follower of Jesus. And so to be a Muslim follower of Jesus, it has the word Muslim in it, but yet it's a follower of Jesus. And so it's mixing things that aren't considered or historically considered to be something that you could mix. And so there's a slight syncretism to it that is messaged, I mean, sort of packaged as a way to share the gospel with Muslims. But what takes place and what has to be given up in order to get to that place is not highlighted. And so, for example, definitions. What is a Muslim? What is a Christian? What is a follower of Jesus?

These things have to get redefined. A Muslim becomes someone that submits. It's divorced from any type of concept that Allah might be different. The God of Islam could be different than our Trinitarian God, things like that. So some of these really important doctrines that have been passed down are relaxed. There's the idea that Christians and Muslims are on equal footing. And if you're not really interested in Islam, you could do this with any religion. But they're on equal footing in pursuit of the kingdom

of God. So a Christian is not a step ahead of anyone. Having access to the Bible, the concept of salvation doesn't bring you closer to the kingdom of God, but you're on equal footing. And so you're journeying towards the kingdom alongside each other, and you can learn about God from the Muslim, just like you could strengthen the view that a Muslim might have of so do we do we see these strategies at play in the local church what might this look like do we see the same kind of thing of like control of the leadership control of the narrative the terminology certain practices are these same kinds of ideas put into place through local churches that are starting to lean progressive? So I would be sort of overstepping probably the research that I've done in order to answer that question. That's fair.

But it is my sense that this is taking place in other ways. And for example, concepts of hell being de-emphasized or changed, concepts of salvation, of atonement. For example, within progressivism, there is this humanistic element that sees humans as getting better. And I think that that is really pervasive and it invades every aspect of Christian doctrine. And if it's okay with you, I'd love to read something about humanism from the book. Please.

Okay. Please. Yeah. about humanism from the book. Yeah, please. So in One Faith No Longer, we argue that progressives look to a humanistic ethic of social justice. And so on page 142, I said, if our progressive Christian interviewees took exception to being labeled as Christians, it should not be surprising that their core beliefs differ significantly from those of conservative Christians. Progressive Christians in our sample determined their in-group by relying primarily on a flexible

but Jesus-centric, and that's something that I think is important. It is very Jesus-centric, but who Jesus is and what is emphasized is completely different. Theology that emphasizes a humanistic ethic of social justice. So the humanistic element to this is incredibly important. It's a philosophy that stresses human value and agency, and it emphasizes the commonality of human needs. And it seeks to use reason to solve human problems. The belief in the capability of humanity is characteristic of humanism. So consistent with this elevated view of humanity, the traditional evangelical concepts of the fallenness of man and divine judgment for that sinfulness were mostly absent among the progressive Christians that we interviewed. And so I think that that is a very big difference. Whereas you've got conservative Christians,

and that's sort of the crux of everything that's discussed is the fact that people are in need of a savior and the importance of the cross and so i think sin is is looked at um as very personal and um in a progressive understanding personal sin is not emphasized but you've got this idea of more communal sin that then takes on more social justice elements um and that that would be emphasized. So I think, for example, in this conference that I attended, put on to help conservatives go through a paradigm shift on how they think about missions and how they think about proselytization and how the way they've gone about doing that is really inferior to what they could be doing now. I think that a lot of that has to do with some of the humanistic elements and the concept of Christian missions in the past. These past sins of a corporate group are emphasized versus any kind of original sin on a personal level.

Okay, let's talk about some of the theological differences might make clear some of the strategies that you're talking about here. And you cite James Davidson Hunter in your work who suggests that the differences between kind of progressive Christians and evangelicals arise from different moral authorities. That evangelicals tend to look to kind of an external transcendent source, where progressives look to a, quote, this worldly kind of an external transcendent source where progressives look to a quote, this worldly kind of consideration. What is it? Explain that for us. So it's everything you said is almost perfectly right. There's just one thing that I would, I would capture is that he actually said that these divides are taking place

within evangelicalism. So it's not that evangelicals are looking to an orthodox view and progressives are looking to an unorthodox. He says that these divides are taking place within all groups, all denominations. And so, for example, a conservative Presbyterian will have more in common, he said, with a conservative Catholic than they would someone within their own tradition that's a progressive. So these divides are foundational, and they're enormous, according to Hunter. And so, yeah, these divides within the progressive and conservative church are actually

supplanting longstanding differences that used to be within them. And yes, so he argues, it's called the moral authority argument, and it's what I base much of my research on, and that progressives within different traditions look to rationalism, subjectivism, experience, experiences that might have to determine what is right and what is wrong. He talks about how they're, um, um, more flexible that they're, um, more apt to look at the cultural zeitgeist of the times and then to be persuaded. Um, and that, that is how they determine what is morally right and morally wrong. And so they're more flexible in that way. And then he argues that the orthodox, which I call traditionals in my work, look to the transcendent, which would be something like

scripture for Christians. It would be such as the Bible and that they, it's an external verifiable truth that is more powerful than human experience. And these are two completely different sources of being and understanding what it, what our purposes are, all of them like deep, important level stuff. These are completely different foundations of which to work from. And so that's why you have these massive divides within the church on these topics. That's really helpful. So the starting point distinction is where moral authority is found, subjectively within or objectively without to a transcendent external source.

So no wonder progressive Christians and conservative Christians differ over the Bible, the view of Jesus, sexuality, Islam, etc. So let's maybe just kind of briefly highlight these so this point you're making really sinks in. So the idea of truth, let me take a shot at this one and tell you if I get it right. Truth to a conservative Christian would be something outside of you that you discover, conform your life to, and it's revealed to us ultimately by God. We may be able to discover it through our faculties, but God has to reveal it. We find it and we shift our lives to it. To a progressive Christian, if I'm correct, you said it's more rationalistic through my own thinking and my own internal experience.

That's the source of where truth is found. Is that fair and accurate? Yes. Okay. All right. I'll take it. So then apply that to the Bible. How would that shape how progressive Christians and conservatives differently look at the Bible? So progressives are much more flexible when they look at Scripture. They might even say that they believe that the Bible is the Word of God, not necessarily exclusively.

And then I think there is an issue in terms of condition responses. I got into that, um, in my American evangelicals book is that there is an issue of condition responses. So a lot of progressive, uh, Christians grew up in a conservative congregation. And so we've got these knee jerk reactions sometimes that I saw, um, when I was talking to progressives and interviews, you know, what do you think about the Bible? They wouldn't necessarily shy away from saying it's the Word of God, but when you would ask more deep questions about it

and you would kind of peel back some layers, then that necessarily wouldn't hold in the way that a conservative Christian would think about what Word of God actually means. And so they're more flexible. They see the Bible as condoning, scriptures in the Bible as condoning past sins of the Christian church. And so if the Bible can be used in that way, then it sort of weakens the idea of it being true for all times and all ages, right? And so they would see culture as very dominant. And since the Bible was written at a different time for a different culture, and because they view culture as very dominant,

they would think that it's time to sort of make some reinterpretations, repurposing, and to look at the scriptures through a different lens now than we would have 100 or 200 or 300 or 400 years ago. And then conservative Christians look at the scriptures as authoritative. And when they say word of God, they take it quite literally. And so they would see it as the crux from which to work from. And I think you said it really well earlier, that they need to then conform their life to scriptures versus progressives who feel like the scriptures sort of need to be conformed to our lives today,

which are quite different. One of the things I want to point out to our viewers I should have said earlier is you have done extensive research, academic work, published this in your book with George Yancey, One Faith No Longer. And in that book, I couldn't even figure out from reading it where you and George stand in terms of your political or religious leanings. You do a good job as an academic, and I'm sure you obviously have your biases and your perspective. So you're not saying this is right or wrong. You should be progressive. You should be conservative. You're simply studying this as an academic and pointing out that at its core, the difference between progressive Christians and conservative Christians is where that moral authority rests. I think you did that a very fair job in your book. So let's apply that

to Jesus. How does moral authority shape how progressive Christians and conservative Christians would approach the person of Jesus? I think progressive Christians emphasize Jesus as a moral leader, and there's a spectrum in terms of progressives on the person of Jesus. So some progressive Christians would focus on his divine attributes, and they wouldn't have a problem talking very bluntly that Jesus is the way. And yet there's also progressives that would fall on a different end of that spectrum that, for example, I talked to one interviewee who's, was a leader in the more progressive leading congregation who said she has, she's uncomfortable even saying the name Jesus out loud because it comes across as so preachy. Wow.

And she doesn't want to alienate people when she's having a conversation. And so she prefers to focus on living like Jesus did versus talking about Jesus. So de-emphasizing the Christology part of the whole shebang. And so you've got a spectrum there. And then for conservatives, I think they would emphasize Christ's being the Son of God, probably the miracles of Jesus, and the exclusivity of Jesus in terms of being the way to the Father. I appreciate that even under the umbrella of progressive Christian, that you're recognizing, emphasizing that there's a range of views about Jesus. So I have some friends who describe themselves as progressive, but hold a historic view of the person of Jesus. And then others who don't consider him uniquely the son of God in the way the church has classically understood. And in some ways, they shouldn't even be under the same umbrella of progressive because that's such a radically different view. So I realize in research, there's always give and there's always take.

So tell us very quickly, then we'll come back to sexuality. When you say, I probably should, this probably should have been my first question. But when you say progressive Christian versus evangelical christian you gave four definitions of what you mean that you're going to use to identify an evangelical uh what are those core four things and how do progressive christians differ okay so you're talking about like the the concepts of hell and uh okay i'm sorry i wasn't clear yeah so i think four things yeah yeah you know what that was as an author that was the worst question i hate when people go on page 148 you make three points and i just did that to you so my bad what what i mean by zinevangelicalism it was like crucicentrism like the cross um biblical

quadrilateral is that yes yeah oh okay okay um so what are those and yeah how are they different yup from progressive christians okay um and you know we could we could come across these together. It was a commitment to the cross, the Bible, I think I remember, sharing the faith. And then there was a fourth criteria I'm forgetting that's typically used. I think it might be service. Okay. Service. Okay. If we're talking about the Bevington Quadrilateral, I feel like I talked about that

more in American Evangelicals than One Faith No Longer, but maybe it's a section I'm not. Well, you mentioned it in the book on Islam, you mentioned what you meant by evangelicals. So we don't have to quibble that. I'm just trying to get at the heart of how you separate evangelical Christianity from progressive Christianity. What we mean by these two groups is basically the heart of what I'm getting at. Okay. Yeah, well, for the One Faith No Longer book, I asked a series of questions, and then I decided what group to put people in,

and that was determined by their response to that question. So I asked questions around their view of scripture. And so, you know, how do you view the Bible? What do you think of the idea of looking at the Bible literally? And then I asked some questions regarding Christian particularism. For example, looking at an outgroup, a traditional outgroup, I should say. What do you think about Muhammad? Do you think he was a prophet?

Have you ever read the Quran? What do you think about Muhammad? Do you think he was a prophet? Have you ever read the Quran? What do you think about it? And so when an interviewee omitted traditional descriptors of the Bible or emphasized humanity's role in the construction of the Bible over God's sovereign inspiration, we categorized him or her as theologically progressive in that area okay gotcha and then I in terms of the Christian particularism element I they kind of gave me a glimpse into their perception of Christians as is either exclusive truth or that might allow alternate belief systems including Islam okay Okay. Okay. That's how I ended up categorizing people but it's not perfect and it is a spectrum. Yeah.

And I think it is important to to highlight that as we talk about it. I'm not actually when I got into the field of sociology I was really uncomfortable with dividing people into categories and I really struggled with it because I knew that it wasn't perfect. But at the same time, making definitions and defining things has value. And so although the work is not perfect, it tries its best to help us understand the phenomenon better by making these descriptions and categories. I think that's fair. And you stated in one faith no longer, here's what we mean by conservative Christians.

Here's what we mean by progressive Christians. But qualify it saying this doesn't capture everybody. That's part of the difficulty of this conversation is anytime we define an evangelical a certain way, different than a progressive Christian, you're going to have some progressive Christian saying, wait a minute, I believe Jesus is uniquely the son of God, but hold more progressive views over here. And in some ways you want to look, I look at that and I go, okay, wait a minute. Sure, we can use these categories, but you're holding historic Christian views about the

person of Jesus. That's very different than other people in the progressive camp. So I think it's hard. In some ways, just the term progressive Christian is such a big umbrella that in many ways it's a category of people that are reacting against a conservative faith because that's typically where progressives come out of, but will react in a different fashion. That's what I think makes it hard.

Add to that, culturally, when people talk about evangelicals, I don't think most people in the culture even know what an evangelical is. I'm not sure even a lot of evangelicals understand the nature of the term. So I just pause with you here for a minute for our viewers to realize these terms are helpful insofar as they go. But there's a lot of people in both categories that hold very different views on a range of issues. So let's go back to the key distinction that you are drawing out, at least in your academic

research, about where moral authority rests so if conservatives would say it's an external truth revealed by God progressives would tend to say it's something internal based on one's experience how would that shape the way conservatives and progressives approach issues of sexuality so it's a good question. So it comes up actually, even though I'm studying views on Islam, homosexuality, different transgenderism, things like that actually did come up in the interviews. And so I was able to speak to that a bit. And in the historical work, I was able to look at the modernist fundamentalist divide from about 100 years ago, and look at how that was approached then and how it's approached now.

And I argue that the divide has actually gotten a lot bigger since the modernist fundamentalist divide from a century ago. And so one area that you can look to to see is that a hundred years ago, um, uh, modernist and fundamentalist Christians would have argued that, um, the LGBTQ revolution was not, um, heterodox. Um, so that, that it would, and it was not Orthodox that it was unorthodox, I should say. And, um, now the divide has taken on that aspect of life as well. And're the people that train the pastors within the progressive church how to think about Islam and how to go about interacting with Muslims. Some of them have had personal experiences with family members that consider themselves homosexual. to their softening of their views regarding homosexuality as acceptable and as they've chosen to affirm homosexuality. And I think that they would say that due to their experience and due to their lens that they look at scripture, that they are actually coming to a orthodox position. And again, culture changes. Our eyes are opened as time progresses. And so I think that that had some influence. David Gushy

out of Mercer University, he's a professor of ethics. He wrote a book called Changing Our Minds. And the book is to proselytize the idea that we should change our minds as a Christian church on the topic of LGBTQ plus. And part of what he does is he weakens certain scriptures in order to do that. And he tweaks the lens. He uses scripture. And so he would say that I do use scripture, but it's the way that he approaches scripture that makes it progressive. Yeah. And it's also experiential. He talks about his sister and their family experience, And that that was also influential and that helped steer him towards a new understanding and what he would consider a more tolerant

and more accepting and more loving understanding of the issue of sexuality. That's really interesting. I heard him speak at a conference that was affirming towards LGBTQ relationships. And as far as I remember remember every single speaker on stage would start off by saying my sister came out as gay my son came out as gay everybody had a story and experience now to me there's a big difference between saying wow i've had an experience and it that's what makes me rethink That's what softens me and having an experience and shifting the paradigm to now scripture

must be interpreted through this experience. Those are very, very different things. And I think that's what you're highlighting is that there's a shift in moral authority in terms of how people approach issues. Now, did we leave any out? You mentioned kind of sin earlier and hell. Are there any other key doctrinal issues that'd be helpful to talk about to make the distinction in terms of your research between progressive Christians and conservatives?

Yeah, yeah. I think I just like to think sin is involved with this, but I'd like to hammer this a little bit more. And so there's a quote by Brian Zahn that opens up chapter six in One Faith No Longer. He says, you have nothing to fear from God. God's not mad at you. God has never been mad at you. God's never going to be mad at you. Today, my handmade copy of Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God that he's referencing the Edwards sermon that's become so popularized from the 18th century.

He says that's now stored away safely. The monster God of historic evangelical Christianity, which is where this, you know, Jonathan Edwards, he's sort of the bulwark of early American evangelicalism and the Great Awakening movement in our history. He says that that monster God has faded away, and today I preach the beauty of God revealed in the face of Christ. But that doesn't mean there are no monsters. The monsters of war, violence, greed, exploitation, oppression, racism, genocide, and every other form of anti-human abuse continue to inflict our species with unimaginable suffering. So viewing the cross as a payment to God for our personal debt of sin ignores the deep problem of systematic sin.

When we turn the cross into a payment for our personal sin debt to an offended God, we leave unchallenged the massive structures of sin that so grotesquely distort humanity. And that's incredibly different from Edwards from 1741 when he gave his sermon, The Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, who says that, you know, he says, how diest the wise man as a fool? So he's completely the opposite of humanism. And so he's giving people the opportunity to cry loud. And he's saying that, you know, you can be in a happy state and your heart can be filled with love for him that has loved you and washed you from your sins in his own blood and rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. As he says, he urges everyone, therefore let everyone that is out of Christ now awake

and fly from the wrath to come. And so these are completely different understandings of purpose and Christ. so the heart of your concern with progressive christianity is that it shifts sin to an x from an external source to something personal and internal explain me the heart of your concern and how sin is viewed differently it's just so i understand it well i i just would say that, you know, for example, in the Zand quote, you see that the idea that God could see you as sinful is not there. He says that God's never been upset. And so the concept of the wrath of God is absent, which gets back to that in Christ alone controversy with the lyrics trying to remove the wrath of God from this theologically very heavy, rich song.

And so when you remove that, you've got to do some really heavy revisionism with the scriptures because, you know, wrath is not a small concept in the scriptures. Okay, gotcha. In a minute, I'm going to ask you, if you were a progressive Christian, how you would try to change the mind of conservative Christians in light of your research. I want to get your thoughts on that. But first, kind of another historical issue you hinted at is a lot of people have asked me, they've said, is there anything really new about progressive Christianity? Wasn't there this debate with the liberal church that J. Gresham Malkin wrote on years ago? So what was that kind of fundamentalist modernist divide? And how does

that tie into liberal Christianity, liberalism? And is there really anything new that you're seeing with progressive Christianity today? Okay, that's a good question. So Gresham Machen, I came across his work when I was trying to see if anybody has made this argument before that George and I are making in One Faith No Longer. So I was, you know, again, history background. So I'm trying to see, has anybody made this argument that these are foundationally different? I know Hunter was working on that, but is there something that's come previously to that? And I came across his work. And so I ordered it. I started to read it and I said, this is definitely a similar argument. And I should have already heard about this and known about this. So I started to devour his book, Christianity and Liberalism. It was published in 1923.

I'm trying to figure out where's the camera. Yeah, that's fine. 1923. He was a Presbyterian minister. And so the modernist fundamentalist divide, he would have been considered part of the fundamentalist camp. And fundamentalism probably meant something different then than it does now. Probably it was more closely aligned with the fundamentals as documents, which were laying out Christian doctrines in the early 1900s. And he argued that liberal forms of Christianity were directly opposed to, in his view, the true gospel,

and that liberalism, which I call progressivism now, holds to a view of God and man that is completely opposite to biblical Christianity or conservative Christianity. So Mahan also held that liberalism and biblical Christianity hold opposite views of sin. According to the Bible, man is a sinner under the condemnation of God. And according to modern liberalism, Mahan says that there's no really such thing as sin as such. He also goes on to say that while liberalism employs a similar Christian vocabulary or traditional phraseology, which is really interesting. So he calls it traditional phraseology. And he's arguing that the traditional language is being used by

progressives in leadership roles at conservative churches, and it's being strained to become the expressions of totally alien ideas. So he was a conservative Christian, and his emphasis was on a traditional view of the Bible, and that was consistent with his more rigid stance. It's much more stereotypical. And he talks about, actually, a hundred years ago, he talked about progressive infiltration to the church. Wow. Yeah. So I can read you a little bit about what he said. But he said that liberal Christians, this is from the One Faith No Longer book, often seek out leadership roles in churches much more theologically conservative than themselves, and that they purposely make use of traditional phraseology, such as biblical references and theological lingo, in order to appear orthodox. And according to Machen, they repurpose the traditional phrases and teach new interpretations, which Machen said means a complete reversal of the meaning.

So this results in core theological changes in the existing conservative churches. But these changes are implemented in a way that is not blatantly oppositional. And he argues that the root of both of these belief systems are completely different and foreign to each other. Wow. That's pretty amazing. I've actually read parts of that book, never all of it, but that feels like he could have written it yesterday. These are different faiths. We have distinct strategies to change from within how people think about these core doctrines in a very subtle, intentional fashion. That is fascinating. So in some ways, some of the nuances culturally are different, but it sounds like as a whole, it's really nothing new under the sun that's taking place in this generation. Would you agree with that as a whole? I would agree. Yeah.

And I think that's one of the beautiful things about looking at moral authority and trying to understand how we come at and approach different positions is that we kind of go back down to the foundations and those would have been the same 200 years ago as they are today. That's fascinating. or desire or calling to change how conservatives viewed these issues, what would you do to try to be effective and lead to a paradigm shift? Well, I would definitely use Scripture because conservatives value Scripture and they hold it in high esteem. And so using Scripture is something that's talked about in some of the courses that I was discussing earlier,

making sure to use things that people value in order to sort of redefine things and emphasize certain things while de-emphasizing other things. So I think using scripture is very valuable and coming across as well-versed in scripture and having a holistic understanding of scriptures is useful. I think it's also useful, for example, when we talk about vulnerabilities. Machen argued that there's a biblical illiteracy, and he argued this about 100 years ago. And so he said that it's a shame, but there's just not a lot of biblical literacy and it seems to be growing as a problem and so if you can discuss topics that people don't feel really sound doctrinally on or don't feel like they're very stable in

terms of a foundation they're much more apt to be vulnerable to new ideas and new opinions. And so I think that's why the topic of Islam is so, it's an easy ground to kind of penetrate into because a lot of people feel insecure in their understanding about how to approach Muslims and how to think about the Quran and Muhammad. This is so interesting to me. And your book, One Faith No Longer Again with George Yancey, and I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with him as well. You pointed out how many progressive Christians see their market or their audience, so to

speak, to sell books, to speak amongst conservative Christians. And that's what they target, so to speak amongst conservative Christians. And that's what they target, so to speak. Now, originally when we talked, we talked about using the word infiltrating the church. But I pulled that word out because it sounds devious and it sounds evil. And I don't want to attribute anything to my progressive Christian friends. I know you'd agree with me on this. If you and I were progressive and held those certain views about hell and the Bible and Jesus, I would probably also feel the need to try to change people to hold those views. So I don't fault progressive Christians for doing that. I just think they're wrong about what the gospel is, the biblical authority, the person of Jesus, etc. And so I also feel a sense of protection for the church to help bring clarity to how people

are intentionally trying to get many evangelicals to change their views on issues that matter. And I know you share that concern as well. So one thing I've seen is when younger people become progressive, it can lead to division and broken relationships. What advice would you give to parents to navigate if their kids start leaning that way or become progressive? What thoughts do you have how to just approach that relationally and practically? Okay. Well, I would probably begin with asking God to reveal truth to them. I work towards debunking the postmodern approach to truth, that truth is impossible to grasp. I think a lot of our understanding in the different disciplines now, probably not just in college, but also

in K-12 education, is a social constructionist or social constructivist understanding that truth as a category is socially constructed, that there is no objective truth available. And so you look at social issues in a way that there is no understanding of God as involved in these things that we experience. And I think that that probably has an effect. So if you can look at even the concept of truth, I think, and try to articulate well in that area,

then I think that that would lead to better conversations. I think you probably have to be really careful to define terms when you're talking to your child so that you're on the same page and you can try to understand what they mean when they say a term and they can understand what you mean when you say the term. And I think that could lead to a better discussion. I would ask a lot of questions because I think that that will help, um, the child learn a little bit more about what it is that they really believe. And as you try to articulate it, maybe things become less fuzzy or things that are fuzzy.

Um, you, you kind of recognize that they're fuzzy. Um, and I would take their questions really seriously and that's when the parents would have to do some work. So I wouldn't trust, um trust the pastor to help them. I wouldn't trust a youth worker to help them or a youth minister because they might be dealing with the same questions as we've just talked about. Leadership has a lot of pressure, cultural pressures on them to perform in certain ways. And that has an effect on some leaders as well. And so I would take it upon yourself as the parent to quest, be on a quest, how can I answer these questions for my child? And I think through that,

you'll learn and they'll learn too. And they'll realize how much I think there's a love there when you sacrifice your time and you go after answering those questions. And then, of course, if they're still in formidable years, if they're in K through 12, I would try to give them the space and time to think about these things. Sometimes if they're in an environment where theological questions are not given space to be discussed, and they're in that environment for a majority of the day or a lot of the day, then I would try to position them to be in a place where they can be on that quest, even if it means changing their school situation or homeschooling or doing something else where they're given space to do research and to go on that journey of finding answers.

And that they recognize that you find that valuable, that they get to the point where they can find answers to those questions, which oftentimes in our culture today, there's not space and time given to answer those questions. And so the questions become an end in themselves. And that's kind of sloppy, sloppy work in terms of understanding purpose and meaning and of life. And so then I would also say don't rush college, depending on what's going on and where, you know, never rush college, never rush college.

And then I would also value your child's spiritual well-being over any academic accolades or any type of accolades. So just having that as paramount. And then there's some really great resources out there. We were just talking before about Lisa Childers and her podcast. She really focuses on the differences between progressive Christianity and conservative Christianity. There's some really great resources there. I would also check out the film, the second film in the American gospel, Christ Crucified. If you haven't checked that out, that also offers a really kind of easy to digest differences between progressive and conservative Christianity.

It might even answer some of their questions. And then I would also, as a plug, also recommend One Faith No Longer, which I think, even though it's an academic book, and like you said, we're not saying this way is right or this way is wrong. I think it also lays out some basics that could be helpful as you move forward in your discussions. And hopefully, truth prevails. Ashley, there's a lot of wisdom in what you said.

I appreciate the difference between a kid who's 12 versus 16 versus 25. I also appreciate that you said, let's have a longer term view here. You also distinctly said, let's build love and relationships with our kids. But you also said recognize some of the underlying issues at play

so this isn't just about the person of Jesus or about the Bible this is an underlying different epistemology about what is truth how do we find truth where does moral Authority rest so exploring So exploring those deeper under-the-water iceberg issues, so to speak, through asking questions in a loving way, I think is the best approach. Your book, One Faith No Longer with George Yancey is fantastic. If people want a sense of that, we really cover that book in some depth in my interview with George. So I hope you'll check that out. We have the link below. But also go and pick up the book. I read it twice and it's an example of a book that I would consider a game changer. It was

very, very helpful and fair. I love the content you're bringing. I think the academic integrity and at least goal for fairness, but also the spirit in which you approach it. Thanks for doing great work and really appreciate you joining me on the show. Thank you, Sean.