the cycle continues ...

In dealing with the liberalism of his day (1923), J. Gresham Machen and fellow conservatives declared five fundamental doctrines:

• The inerrancy and infallibility of Scripture (against liberalism’s attempt to reduce the Bible to a work of men)
• The virgin birth and deity of Jesus Christ (against the liberal view that Jesus was only human, and not God)
• Christ’s substitutionary atonement (against the liberal position that Jesus saves by supplying a moral example)
• The literal, physical resurrection of Jesus (against the liberal position that dismisses the supernatural events in Scripture as mere symbols of a spiritual truth)
• The literal, physical return of Jesus (against the liberal position that dismisses it as a reality)

Interestingly liberals today (postmodern innovators) fail at that same points and now, as then, think they are onto something new. And as those that went before them, default to the same worn our strategies to avoid truth, "doctrine divides, love unites."

Worse, now, as then, this angers conservatives who fall into the trap of doctrinal interrogations that actually become divisive and make them appear to pick on "the peace-loving liberals".

There's nothing new under the sun ...

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