Christian Orthodoxy is Always Changing

[00:00:02]If we want to think about stability, you're going to think about the ground beneath your feet. The earth that we stand on is the one thing above all else that you're going to practically think of its stability as bedrock. Jesus himself described a house being built on a rock. That's what's required for that house to stand.

[00:00:28]And so when you think about something like planet earth, the outline of the continents, it would be very natural to think of this as just an eternal or unchanging fixed boundary and that the boundaries of the continents are just what they've always been. And yet of course for a long period of time people have known that for example South America seems to have a certain fit with Africa but it wasn't until the 1960s when this idea of continental drift really began to take off and then the theory of plate tectonics developed. This idea that in fact the earth is a series of shifting plates and they are moving up against one another. uh sometimes one is subducting underneath another one.

[00:01:20]Sometimes they're pulling apart and through this ongoing process the continents that we think are eternal and unchanging are in fact changing shape year by year. Uh so if you go back a quarter billion years you would have a very different look of the earth something more like this and that can be like a revelation right to think that the surface of the earth is always changing and I use this illustration as a metaphor or perhaps an analogy for how to think about Christian doctrine. There are many Christians who just think about doctrines as eternal and unchanging. That Christian doctrine just has always been what it is and will always be what it is. That in the same way that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. So the surface of uh or sorry, the outline of the doctrines that form the faith are just the same yesterday, today, and forever.

[00:02:23]And yet, frankly, nothing could be further from the truth. If you study church history, you quickly see how much enormous theological development there has been over two millennia.

[00:02:37]Just think about the Apostle Peter preaching at Pentecost, talking about this Jesus whom had been crucified, God had made Lord.

[00:02:48]When Peter preached that, do you think that Peter had the doctrine of the incarnation, the atonement, the trinity worked out? I mean, absolutely not.

[00:03:00]Those were doctrines that would develop in the decades and indeed the centuries following that [clears throat] Pentecost preaching. And what that means is that the very gospel proclamation itself and the doctrines on which it rests have been shifting and changing just like the movement of the continents over eons.

[00:03:23]uh in my book uh the wideness of the sea I talk about this uh and I give one example from the last 30 years of evangelical Christianity because if there is one group that is going to be inclined to think of Christian faith as ahistorical and unchanging, it is probably conservative evangelicals.

[00:03:47]And yet conservative evangelicalism is changing as much as any other expression of Christianity. Year by year as the continents shift moving centimeter by centimeter so evangelical identity evolves and changes. And I give multiple examples in the book the wideness of the sea.

[00:04:10]A couple examples that I focus on are first of all uh emerging and evolving views or shifting views about understanding the nature of judgment or judgment in the afterlife.

[00:04:25]So on the one hand there was a time when evangelical Christianity just assumed judgment is going to be eternal conscious torment that God is going to resurrect some subset of the human population who have quote unquote died outside Christ uh and he's going to resurrect them to a judgment that results in eternal conscious torment.

[00:04:51]But beginning in the 1980s, evangelicals began to challenge this doctrine of eternal conscious torment and evangelicals like Edward Fudge and later John Sto and Philip Hughes and Michael Green and others began saying maybe God is going to resurrect people to a punishment that results in the ceation of their existence. They stop existing.

[00:05:15]They are not tormented and tortured forever, but rather they are destroyed, completely annihilated. And this view of annihilation began to become more widespread within the evangelical church in the 1990s. So in the 1980s, there were a few daring prophetic voices like Edward Fudge and John Sto who started arguing for an annihilationist view. And in the 1990s, those views became increasingly loud and more and more mainstream. By the 2000s, they were pretty much part of the orthodoxy of evangelical views of the afterlife. So that now in the 2000s, an evangelical could accept eternal conscious torment, but in many contexts, they could also fully accept annihilationism.

[00:06:07]In fact, in the last 10 to 15 years, similar shift has been occurring among evangelicals on another position known as universalism. According to universalism, there is a judgment in the afterlife, but it is finite and restorative in nature. And all people will ultimately be restored to Christ and reconciled to God in Christ. Some of them in this life and some of them following a period of judgment in the next life.

[00:06:36]This view known as universalism has been increasingly defended by evangelical Christians in the last as I said 10 to 15 years. In fact, a key moment was in 2009 when an evangelical named quotequote Gregory McDonald published a book called the evangelical universalist. Now the name Gregory McDonald was a a pen name. uh it was in fact written by Robin Perry and Robin Perry has since come out as it were and said yeah I wrote that book that's my view and that is an example of how evangelical identity is practically shifting to become more and more inclusive first of all of annihilationist views of judgment and more recently even of universalist views of judgment. Another example where evangelicalism has been changing in the last 30 years is in views of creation. So just as there's been change at the end, so there's been change at the beginning.

[00:07:39]When I was growing up as an evangelical in the 1980s, just as there was really only eternal conscious torment as our view of the afterlife, so there was only young earth creationism as our view of creation. God created in a literal six days 6 to 10,000 years ago. That was like the going standard view among conservative evangelicals.

[00:08:02]But then in the 1980s and 1990s, older creationism became increasingly popular among evangelicals.

[00:08:10]And into the 2000s and 2010s, theistic evolution or evolutionary creation has been increasingly popular among evangelicals with leading evangelicals writing an area like Dennis Lamru and John Walton exploring theistic evolutionary models of creation.

[00:08:31]uh the organization Bologos has been very important here in popularizing, defending and explaining to evangelicals an evolutionary creationist understanding of creation. So just as evangelicalism has been changing and shifting on the topic of uh judgment, so it has been changing and evolving on the topic of creation.

[00:08:59]Oh, there's one other area that I can give. There's actually many other areas I can give as examples of changing of changes within evangelicalism just in the last 30 years. The last one I'm going to get is the changing conversation on sexual ethics and specifically homosexuality and the question of whether one can be a consistent follower of Jesus and be same-sex attracted and in a monogous same-sex relationship.

[00:09:27]Uh the historic view on that has been no you cannot it is incompatible with evangelical identity to be affirming as it were including affirming anyone who would believe they are same-sex attractive or want to be in a monogous same-sex relationship. That is just incompatible with evangelical Christian identity. But just as evangelicalism has been shifting just like the continents on these other areas of creation and esquetology or final judgment. So it has been changing and shifting and evolving on the issue of sexual ethics. A key moment came just about 10 years ago now when series counterpoints published a book with evangelicals debating gay marriage.

[00:10:16]And as Preston Sprinkle, the editor of the book, noted at the time, the very publication of the book was an indication that the ground was shifting and evangelicalism was beginning to move toward inclusion of same-sex relationships just as it had moved toward inclusion of evolutionary creationist views and of annihilationist or universalist views.

[00:10:41]Judgment.

[00:10:43]Now, of course, there are going to be people who in all these cases refuse to accept that change has occurred. But the fact that there are people who refuse to accept the fact that change has occurred does not mean that change has not occurred because change is not determined by um whether every voice agrees that change has occurred. It is identified through the shifts of perspectives among populations.

[00:11:09]And statistics show that right now among evangelicals, at least 40% of evangelicals are affirming of same-sex relationships. That's extraordinary.

[00:11:21]Like at least four out of 10 evangelicals are affirming of same-sex relationships according to surveys. That just practically shows that the ground is shifting. Evangelical identity on orthodoxy in terms of sexual ethics is shifting on this area just as it is shifting in all these other areas. I also would point out this that evangelicals have all shifted on this whether they recognize it or not. You know how I can point that out?

[00:11:52]Because for centuries it was the common view among Christians that people who engage in same-sex acts should have the penalty of capital punishment just as in accord with the teaching of the Torah in Leviticus 18 and 20. Just as the Torah called for men who have sex with men to be stoned to death with rocks, so Christians taught people who engage in what was called quote unquote sodomy should be pelted to death with rocks or otherwise experience some sort of capital punishment.

[00:12:25]And then that shifted and more recently in the last couple centuries, Christians shifted to viewing civil penalties as more appropriate for same-sex activity, such as fines.

[00:12:39]And then in the last 40 years, there has been a shift, including among evangelicals, away from decriminalizing um or toward decriminalizing same-sex acts. In other words, saying, "Okay, we don't think you should kill people who are gay and engage in same-sex acts. We also don't think they should be fined.

[00:12:58]Uh, we think that the acts should be decriminalized. They may still think they're immoral, but they don't think that people should be fined for engaging in same-sex acts."

[00:13:09]And the very fact that evangelicals have changed in those ways shows that orthodoxy is changing on this issue. The evidence for change in terms of views of sexual ethics is undeniable just as it is undeniable in the other areas and examples I gave creation and final judgment or esquetology.

[00:13:30]No um Christian identity or evangelical identity or Christian orthodoxy or evangelical orthodoxy or right belief is not unchanging.

[00:13:41]The things that we look at now and identify as Christian identity have been changing. Uh and you go back to an earlier time and it was very different and it just as it is changing in the past so it will continue to change into the future. What does all of this mean for us? Well, the first thing I think it just means is we have to develop a historical perspective of our own faith to understand that Christian faith is shifting. Don't shoot the messenger.

[00:14:12]Don't shoot me simply because I point out that when Christians today proclaim the Christian gospel, they are to some degree proclaiming something different than what Paul proclaimed in the first century or what Peter preached at Pentecost.

[00:14:25]Yes, there is something very similar.

[00:14:27]There's something unchanging through it all. Jesus Christ died, resurrected, coming again. That is a core gospel proclamation. That is a good or important news that has not changed. But the meaning of what that is has changed over time in many ways. And the surrounding set of doctrines in which that proclamation is embedded have also been changing and continue to change even in our own day. And as we develop more nuanced and critical understandings of the emergence and evolution of Christian doctrine, I think we will be well served to understand how complicated some of these matters really are. And if you want to read more about that, I would recommend my book, The Wideness of the Sea.