Over at
Theolog, Phil Blackwell wrote a post reminding us that narrow-minded fundamentalists don't speak for all Christians, that Christians can also be on the progressive side of history, etc., etc., etc. You know the drill. Sure, atheists are right to point to some corruptions of Christianity, but Christians can do all sorts of good things too. The idea seemed to me to be that Christianity is legitimate because it encourages individuals to do lots of good things. He already let the atheists determine the playing field; he gave in to their epistemology; he let them set the terms for the debate. For him and for the atheists, Christianity is to be judged on the basis of whether it does more good things or bad things (as if what counted for the 'good' were self-evident to all reasonable people.)
I tried to question what I understood that argument to be. I asked, "is that all Christianity is good for? sending people into the world to do good things? what about ecclesiology?" Well, no one responded to my comment.
But later, someone did thank Phil. Basically
Bill Lenters says, "Phil is right; Christianity is about doing good things, so I don't bother going to church anymore." Of course, Bill Lenters is exactly right in reaching those conclusions if you start out with those assumptions. Liberal Protestantism does indeed provide the theological rational for us to ignore the church and become practical atheists. I think Bill Lenters understands liberal protestantism better than Phil Blackwell.
By the way, I think conservative Protestantism leads to atheism, too. Because conservative Protestantism is just another name for liberal protestantism. For conservative Protestanats, Christianity is legitimate because it encourages individuals to be patriotic, support the family, be good capitalists, etc...
Neither conservatives nor liberals have any use for ecclesiology, and that's why
Marvin is so right about the importance of the creed and a hierarchical authority structure for the church.
Read the complete post at http://theivybush.blogspot.com/2007/11/liberal-protestantism-leads-to-atheism.html