Because the creep of liberal thought within the churches is a process of declension from orthodoxy, we expect those trending into heresy and apostasy to scatter in all directions, but it usually doesn’t happen quite that way. No, there is an identifiable umbrella of thought to with they tend to congregate – an ersatz orthodoxy dictated by zeitgeist.
Even their dress consecrates them by an array of unconsciously gathered symbols which belie their humanism. Oh, you’ve seen them: they are practically a factory mold now, what with their blazer coat over jeans, the erstwhile uniform of silver ponytailed hippy college professors everywhere. And it isn’t unusual to see these sorts preaching in Hawaiian shirts or Bermuda shorts. They display trinkets and totems like bracelets, necklaces, or sandals of the various heathen peoples amongst whom they spent a weekend mission trip. They have scarred their bodies with tattoos of Greek or Hebrew script or an ichthus.
The Jesus Freak argument for allowance of casual dress in church and its permutation in the “Come Just As You Are” Calvary Chapel culture has more or less affected a new mandatory dress code in Evangelical circles. This tacit revolution of symbols is being led by the pulpiteers. Where casual dress was once merely tolerated, it has now been installed as the ideal. As one old churchman lamented, we no longer bring “My Utmost for His Highest,” but whatever’s in the hamper.
It cannot ultimately be mistaken for accident. Indeed, it has been imposed as a calculated choice to alter the decorum of the Church. And we have confirmation of its intentionality in that the same menaceters who have made a point of de-formalizing the Church contrariwise spare no extravagance of time or money to whiten their teeth, style their hair, salon-tan, keep up with the latest fashion of eyewear, or exhibit the gym-bod. Because all these little badges are social signals to identify with the pop-culture. They say, “Hey, forget what you’ve heard about Christians, I’m really one of you.”
Clearly, the theology underlying all these strange reverse-cargo-cult fetishes is far worse than the outward signaling. As a rule, if they bear the aforementioned liberal plumage, their homilies, be they topical or expository, have become a mishmash of sentimental anecdotes, sports analogies, disparaging jokes about White men, praises of unbridled womyn, denouncements of “racism” and “sexism,” adulation for the civil rights* movement, admonitions to effect more aggressive miscegenation, pledges of fealty to the satanic state of Israel and calls to sacrifice more of our children for the Greater Israel Project, and overall pietistic morbidity undermining the infallibility of Scripture and the bodily resurrection of Christ: folderol, hokum, heresy, Alienism.
They may not study the Word or the canons of orthodoxy on their own grounds, but they certainly do study the latest rhetorical criticisms thereof to deconstruct and undermine the Christian worldview. And this activity – really, the application of the Critical Theory of cultural Marxism – they consider “deep theology.” But their profound ruminations typically amount to little more than zen koans – convoluted aphorisms which impart nothing but confusion. This sort of theology may best be summed up in the words of that first liberal theologian, “Hath God truly said?”
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