As gospel Christianity established itself in much of Europe and America, its greatest threat was no longer the Catholic Church, but the onset of liberalism. It began as German churches focused on piety to the exclusion of doctrinal accountability and love for the Bible. Before long, German scholars had developed new methods of biblical interpretation. Theology became largely a matter of emotion or tradition, and the dominant ideas were (as described by J. Gresham Mächen) the universal fatherhood of God and the universal brotherhood of mankind. These liberals were not out to destroy the church, but to save its relevance for society by redefining Christianity. Nevertheless, their unbelief spread worldwide and had a profound impact on what are today called the "mainline" denominations.
Kierkegaard and Barth have a good deal to say about humility and reverence before God, and their insights into theology are helpful for those who can filter out their errors. P.T. Forsyth can be useful as well. The discerning reader may also find benefit from Reinhold Niebuhr's discussions of Christianity and culture, though one may (and should) differ with his conclusions.
John Baillie (1886-1960) - liberal Presbyterian theology professor at Edinburgh and in the US. Baillie held the leading position in the World Council of Churches in 1954. He continued the direction of the WCC from an evangelical missions enterprise to a search for the "lowest common denominator" among all churches that call themselves Christian. Titles: A Diary of Private Prayer; The Idea of Revelation in Recent Thought; The Interpretation of Religion; The Life Everlasting; Our Knowledge of God; A Reasoned Faith; The Root of Religion; The Sense of the Presence of God; What Is Christian Civilization?.
Karl Barth (1886-1968) - the greatest of the neo-orthodox theologians. Barth was a German scholar who denounced liberalism for its overly optimistic view of human nature and its reliance on natural theology. Barth insisted that God was "wholly other" and could be known only through Scripture. His major work is the 14-volume Church Dogmatics. Other titles: Evangelical Theology: An Introduction; Natural Theology (w/ Emil Brunner); and commentaries on Romans and Philippians. The name Barth rhymes with heart, not hearth.
F. C. Baur (1792-1860) - founder of the Tübingen school of German liberal theology. Baur applied the philosophy of Hegel to a reconstruction of New Testament history, claiming that Acts was written in the second century to resolve a partisan conflict between discples of Peter and Paul. He rejected the authenticity of most New Testament books using philosophical and literary criteria. In his view, Jesus' most important teaching is that everyone has the ability to obey God's commands and attain righteousness by their own power. Not to be confused with socialist Bible scholar Bruno Bauer or Greek expert Walter Bauer.
Emil Brunner (1889-1966) - neo-orthodox theologian, Swiss Reformed by affiliation, who shared many of Barth's views but believed God could be known through natural theology. The focus of Brunner's Christianity was social ethics. Titles: The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption; The Christian Doctrine of God; Christianity and Civilization; The Divine-Human Encounter; The Divine Imperative; Eternal Hope; Man in Revolt: A Christian Anthropology; Natural Theology (w/ Karl Barth); The Philosophy of Religion from the Standpoint of Protestant Theology; Revelation and Reason; The Scandal of Christianity; and a commentary on Romans.
Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) - existentialist Tübingen New Testament scholar who claimed that little could be known about Jesus historically. He sought to "demythologize" the New Testament and sought a theology that did not rest on history. He was the founder of form criticism and was influential in the development of neo-orthodox. Titles: Faith and Understanding; A History of the Synoptic Tradition; The Idea of Revelation in the New Testament; Jesus and the Word; Jesus Christ and Mythology; The New Testament and Mythology; Primitive Christianity in Its Contemporary Setting; The Theology of the New Testament; What Is Theology:; and a commentary on John.
G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) - liberal critic of inerrancy who became a Catholic in 1922. Titles: The Everlasting Man; Greybeards at Play; The innocence of Fahter Brown; Lepanto; The Man Who Was Thursday; Orthodoxy; What's Wrong with the World; The Wild Knight; and biographies of Charles Dickens, Francis of Assisi, Thomas Aquinas, and Robert Louis Stevenson. Not to be confused with Reformed-turned-neo-orthodox scholar G. C. Berkower.
Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) - French Catholic Cardinal and theologian who sought to correct the church's view of piety as individualistic and promote a view of the gospel as a social message. He also worked to break down the wall between sacred and secular, since Christianity addresses every aspect of life. De Lubac came under fire for showing how certain Catholic doctrines developed and changed over time and for working toward ecumenism. However, he resisted the more radical trends of secular biblical scholarship and was in line with Von Balthasar and Pope John PaulII in advocating renewal rather than radical change at the Second Vatican Council. Titles: Augustinianism and Modern Theology; Catholicism: Christ and the Common Destiny of Man; The Church: Paradox and Mystery; The Discovery of God; The Drama of Atheist Humanism; Medieval Exegesis; The Motherhood of the Church; The Mystery of the Supernatural; Paradoxes of Faith; Scripture in the Tradition.
Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) - Pelagian revivalist who, according to his autobiography, devoted his ministry to denouncing the teachings of the Presbyterian church that ordained him. Partly due to his lack of formal training, he opposed doctrines such as original sin, substitutionary atonement, justification by faith, and imputed righteousness because he believed no person could be rewarded or punished for what another has done. Finney thus taught that believers stood before God on the basis of their own works, and that conversion was not a miracle but simply the natural result of the right methods. He also served as president of Oberlin College and condemned the Masonic Lodge as a cult. Titles: God's Love for a Sinning World; How to Experience Revival; Power from On High; So Great Salvation; Systematic Theology.
P. T. Forsyth (1848-1921) - Scottish Congregationalist converted out of liberalism. While he retained a liberal view of Scripture and saw the Incarnation as an emptying of Christ's deity, he defended the necessity of Christ's death and its nature as an atoning sacrifice. He was also passionate about missions and was influential in the thinking of Martyn Lloyd-Jones. Titles: The Cruciality of the Cross; Marriage: Its Ethic and Religion; Positive Preaching and Modern Mind; Religion in Recent Art; The Soul of Prayer; The Work of Christ.
Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878-1969) - pastor and teacher at Union Theological Seminary who helped popularize liberalism among Baptist scholars. One of the most popular preachers of his day, he was a key opponent of fundamentalism, rejected original sin, and presented evolution as a key to understanding the Bible: as humans evolved, their primitive religion grew from the barbarian Hebrew view of God to a more refined view that eventually spawned Christianity. Titles: As I See Religion; A Guide to Understanding the Bible; The Living of These Days; The Manhood of the Master; Martin Luther; The Meaning of Prayer; The Modern Use of the Bible; On Being a Real Person; The Secret of Victorious Living; The Successful Life; Twelve Tests of Character. He also wrote the hymn "God of Grace and God of Glory."
Ole Hallesby (1879-1961) - Lutheran neo-orthodox pietist who taught at the Free Faculty of Theology from 1909 to 1952 in Norway. He was an outspoken opponent of the Nazi occupation. Hallesby wrote 67 books, mostly on theology and ethics, but is known for devotional writings. Titles: God's Word for Today: A Daily Devotional; Prayer; Temperament and the Christian Faith; Under His Wings; Why I Am a Christian.
F. J. A. Hort (1828-1892) - sacramental Anglican scholar who defended the church in England from the encroachment of liberal scholarship. He nevertheless interpreted Scripture more allegorically than literally. Hort's focus was on discovering the original text and sense of Scripture. He and B.F. Westcott's Greek New Testament followed the established trend by giving highest regard to the oldest manuscripts rather than the most numerous. Titles: Introduction to the New Testament in the Original Greek (w/ B. F. Westcott); Six Lectures on the Ante-Nicene Fathers; Two Dissertations in Scripture and Tradition; and a commentary on James.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) - Danish founder of Christian existentialism. Tired of a Christianity that lacked passion, Kierkegaard strove for a life lived in the truth (truth being defined subjectively as being true to one's self) and fully aligned with faith (which he held as being opposed to reason). His system tended to deny abstract doctrines and absolutes in favor of individual freedom and choice. His works are heavy reading but thought-provoking. Titles: The Concept of Anxiety; Practice in Christianity; The Sickness Unto Death; Works of Love; and an Upbuilding Discourses series.
John Henry Newman (1801-1890) - Anglican scholar before converting to Catholicism; later appointed a cardinal. He held to papal infallibility but opposed its codification at the First Vatican Council (1869-1870). A traditional Catholic, Newman's doctrine stands in stark contrast to the liberalized teaching that dominates his church today. Titles: Apologia Pro Vita Sua; Conscience, Consensus, and the Development of Doctrine; The Dream of Gerontus; An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine; The Grammar of Assent; The Idea of a University Defined; Parochial and Plain Sermons; Roman Catholic Writings on Doctrinal Development.H. Richard Niebuhr (1894-1962) - neo-orthodox scholar in the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Niebuhr criticized liberalism for being soft on sin and attacked the major denominations for failing to challenge American societal trends–this at a time when conservative Christians lived largely in social isolation. He is famous for his five ways the church confronts culture. Titles: Christ and Culture; The Kingdom of God in America; The Meaning of Revelation; The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry; The Responsible Self; The Social Sources of Denominationalism. Not to be confused with his brother, Reinhold Niebuhr.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971) - the most prominent neo-orthodox pastor in North America, and professor theology at Union Theological Seminary. He saw Christian theology more as a doctrine of man than a doctrine of God, argued that biblical stories were mythical rather than historical, and taught that Jesus had a sinful nature. Niebuhr helped found the Fellowship of Socialist Christians and sought to synthesize Marxism with Christianity–an attempt abandoned after World War II. Titles: Christianity and Power Politics; An Interpretation of Christian Ethics; The Irony of American History; Moral Man and Immoral Society.
Norman Vincent Peale (1898-1993) - liberal minister and founder of the Foundation for Christian Living. The widely-quoted Peale focused on an optimistic view of humanity and its potential to overcome sin. A pioneer of the liberal approach to Christian psychology, he taught that positive thinking could perform greater miracles than faith in the supernatural. Peale's theology had a great influence on Robert Schuller and some leaders in the Word of Faith movement. Titles: The Art of Living; A Guide to Confident Living; Life Beyond Death; Positive Imaging; The Positive Power of Jesus Christ; Positive Thinking for a Time Like This; The Power of the Plus Factor; The Power of Positive Thinking; This Incredible Century; Thought Conditioners; The Tough-Minded Optimist; You Can If You Think You Can.
Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) - German liberal theologian and student of Baur who reacted against rationalism by insisting that religion was based on emotion rather than revelation, miracles, or historical events. He believed God could be known only through personal experience rather than through reason, or natural theology, and doctrines were merely expressions of value judgments. Ritschl's focus was on communitarian ethics, which he taught was the central message of Jesus' life and work. Ritschl's major work is titled (somewhat ironically) The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation.Adolf Schlatter (1852-1938) - Tübingen professor who sought to recover the study of theology in the Bible. A conservative by German standards, he defended the historical reliability of the Gospels and understood the Semitic background of the New Testament writers. He is remembered for his philosophical rigor and emphasis on the Jewish background of Christianity. Titles: The History of Earliest Christianity; The History of the Christ; New Testament Theology; Romans: The Righteousnesss of God; The Theology of the Apostles; and a 3500-page lay-level commentary on the entire New Testament.
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) - recognized founder of liberal Protestant theology. He taught that religion is the feeling of absolute dependence and sought to remove Christianity from any historical or doctrinal grounding. Far from being a rationalist, Schleiermacher was more of a mystic who believed redemption consisted in Christ's imparting of His God-consciousness into the believer, whose own consciousness of God is obscured by sin.
Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965) - liberal surgeon, humanitarian, and theologian who taught that Jesus was a misguided Jewish visionary who believed the end of the world was coming. The universal principle of Schweitzer's religion was reverence for all life. He thus opposed nuclear development and was the trailblazer for environmental and animal rights movements. Titles: The Mystery of the Kingdom of God; The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle; Out of My Life and Thought; The Philosophy of Civilization; The Primeval Forest; The Quest of the Historical Jesus.
Charles M. Sheldon (1857-1946) - classical liberal pastor of Central Congregationalist Church in Topeka. A pacifist, he believed the church's task was to combat social and economic "polarization." He decried fundamentalists' focus on individual salvation and substitutionary atonement, and urged the church to accept evolution. Titles: His Brother's Keeper; In His Steps (also marketed under the title What Would Jesus Do); Jesus Is Here.
Paul Tillich (1886-1965) - the most widely admired liberal theologian, praised as a model preacher by mainline churches. Tillich sought to reformulate theology for the scientific age by denying the existence of a personal God. He was the progenitor of the "death of God" school of theology, which holds that God exists not in the heavens, interacting with the world, but is a metaphor for the human self. Titles: The Courage to Be; Dynamics of Faith; Eternal Now; A History of Christian Thought; The New Being; On the Boundary; The Protestant Era; The Religious Situation; Shaking of the Foundations; The Socialist Decision; Systematic Theology; Theology of Culture.
Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) - spiritual director and retreat leader, Catholic by conviction, but affiliated with the Anglican church. Underhill was a mystic who placed a strong emphasis on meditation and divine transcendence. Many of her views have strong parallels with Eastern religious thought. Titles: Abba; Concerning the Inner Life; The Essentials of Mysticism; Mysticism; The Mystics of the Church; Practical Mysticism; Radiance; The Spiritual Life; Worship.
Adolf von Harnack (1851-1930) - liberal church historian and leading authority on the early church. Harnack claimed the development of Christian theology was strictly historical and did not involve supernatural revelation. He was influenced by Ritschl and presented the gospel as essentially an ethical message. Harnack sought to free Christianity from its doctrines to ensure its relevance for all ages. Titles: A History of Dogma; The History of Ancient Christian Literature; Liberal Theology at Its Height; Marcion; Modern Theology; What Is Christianity?.
William Wrede (1859-1906) - German liberal who insisted on interpreting the New Testament purely as a historical enterprise. He resisted any attempt to derive theology from the Bible, and held that Paul strayed from Jesus' teachings and redefined Christianity. Wrede held that nothing could be certain about Jesus except that he did not present himself as the Messiah. Titles: The Messianic Secret; Paul. The name Wrede rhymes roughly with zeta, and the W is pronounced like a V.
For a statement of my beliefs, see my Declaration of Faith.
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