A handful of pebbles

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A HANDFUL OF PEBBLES
Theological Liberalism and the Church
By Peter Barnes
Banner of Truth. 88 pages. £5.50
ISBN 978-0-85151-977-7

The root of unbelief is actually moral, not first of all intellectual. The opponents of Christ had plenty of evidence of his deity through his miracles, but still they refused to believe (John 10.25,26).

But with a weak understanding of sin, many in broad evangelicalism do not see this and think that the main obstacle for unbelievers is intellectual. So they search for a form of ‘Christianity’ which non-Christians will find more easy to believe. This is the door which leads to theological liberalism and through which many are beginning to step.

With this in mind, this slim and readable book by Australian Peter Barnes could not be more timely. He says: ‘The liberal mind claims to be anti-dogmatic and humanitarian, and for the most part is not open to the notion of supernatural and infallible divine revelation’. As many professing Christians have become woolly over the inerrancy of Scripture and the penal and substitutionary nature of Christ’s cross is denied, Barnes, who teaches church history at the Presbyterian Theological College in Burwood, puts what is beginning to happen with evangelicalism in context.

He kicks off by reminding us of the urgent warnings of the Bible concerning moving away from the apostolic faith. He follows through with a whistle-stop tour of the history of liberalism. From the second century heretic Marcion (who rejected the OT and any part of the NT that implied acceptance of the OT), he brings us through the rise of German biblical criticism, to Karl Barth, Rudolph Bultmann and right up to Bishop Spong and the so-called ‘Jesus Seminar’. Dealing with such a vast range in brief compass will doubtless lay the book open to charges of superficiality and distortion, but, in fact, Barnes does a first-class job of mapping the main roads along which the errors of liberalism have proceeded. This leads him to identify six key doctrines which are the points at which liberalism usually attacks biblical faith. On these doctrines, faithful evangelicals must take a loving but firm stand. These doctrines are the reliability of Scripture, the nature of God, the Person of Christ, the way of salvation, the resurrection of Christ and the reality of heaven and hell.

Liberalism is not Christianity at all. It has brought spiritual desolation and emptied churches across the Western world. Francis Schaeffer documented his last meeting with an Episcopalian Bishop, Jim Pike, who was well known for his liberal views. In fact the bishop’s son had committed suicide and Pike had tried to communicate with him through a medium. Pike told Schaeffer: ‘When I turned from being an agnostic, I went to Union Theological Seminary eager for and expecting bread; but when I graduated, all that it left me was a handful of pebbles’. Such is theological liberalism. As the children ask for spiritual bread, it gives them a stone.

Theological liberalism and the Church

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John Benton

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