What all of these arguments, promoted by the most prominent voices of progressive Christianity, have in common is that they count on their audience members being too unfamiliar with Scripture to even realize how such arguments totally ignore or misrepresent the most relevant biblical passages. The politically incorrect fact of the matter is that for most folk in “progressive Christian” circles, this appears to be a safe assumption.

The fundamental differences between self-described progressive Christians and more orthodox believers are commonly described as “they read and interpret the Bible very differently.”

The fact that we have so many different Christian denominations within the broad umbrella of orthodoxy who take contrary positions on important but ultimately secondary issues like sacramentology or the Millennium testifies to how some parts of Scripture are indeed open to a degree of interpretation.

But there are quite a number of biblical teachings, from the bodily resurrection of Christ to the inherent sinfulness of homosexual practice, in which we could hardly expect the Bible to be more explicit, clear, or consistent.

So in their more honest moments, progressive Christians will admit that the differences are more than just a matter of interpreting the equally highly regarded biblical text, and own up to the fact that they simply do not believe that all of the Scriptures of our present Old and New Testaments are God-breathed or useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.

This particularly takes place if when theological liberals are in “safer” environments for taking off their filters, like liberal seminaries. Or if people do not feel that too much is at stake for them in showing their true colors, as at last summer’s young United Methodist convocation, where liberal United Methodist youth (some of whom were clearly being coached by adults there) offered such refutations of biblical arguments against homosexuality as countering that “the Bible was written a long time ago.”

Such theological liberal honesty is generally less common within the debates of more authoritative denominational assemblies on particular hot-button issues. For example, when someone argues against a proposal to liberalize church teaching on homosexuality by pointing to Scripture, a typical liberal response is a shallow attempt at emotional blackmail, with an assembly delegate standing up neither to admit his low view of Scripture nor to attempt a biblical case for his position, but rather to put on a show of feigned outrage along the lines of “how DARE you imply that my position is any less biblical than any other??!” Or there is ex-evangelical celebrity pastor Adam Hamilton’s absurd recent claim that his view that biblical passages he personally finds too challenging or counter-cultural must have “never reflected God’s heart and will” somehow does not “reflect a reduced view of biblical authority.”

One does not have to examine such rhetorical ploys for long to realize that they are not serious, intellectually coherent arguments. They rely on emotion at the expense of reason.

But there is perhaps an even more fundamental difference between orthodox and progressive versions of Christianity in their approach to the Bible: whether or not we even read it!

Obviously, any generalizations about large groups of people will have all sorts of individual variations and exceptions.

But theological liberals, by and large, simply do not read or know the Bible as much as theological conservatives.

This is not a baseless slander but a rather a matter of sociological fact for which there is ample evidence. Consider:

1.The Barna Group and the American Bible Society partner to produce annual “State of the Bible” scientific surveys of Americans’ approached to the Bible.  Their data for 2015 (see page 43), 2014 (see page 34), 2013 (see page 16), and 2011 (see page 16) show that there is a direct relationship between the relative theological conservativism of the survey’s different categories of Protestants and how many of people in that category personally engage in personal Bible reading at least a few times a year. (Such data is not available for 2012.) For an explanation of the Barna categories, see Page 61 of the 2014 report.

2.  Among American Protestants, the spiritual discipline of having a daily “quiet time” of personal prayer and Bible study is largely limited to evangelical sub-culture (including evangelical sub-cultures within mainline denominations).

3.  Just listen to the unfiltered arguments theological progressives make, particularly in seeking church blessing of homosexual practice.

One of the most common is “the shellfish argument,” which boils down to saying that since Old Testament laws forbid eating shellfish, pork, and other things, any Christian who does not follow this today is either a hypocrite or else agrees that we are also free to similarly disregard biblical teaching about homosexuality. Such an “argument” is only effective with people who are utterly unfamiliar with the New Testament, which affirms Old Testament sexual morality (except to move in a more restrictive direction, as Jesus did in the Sermon on the Mount) while addressing at great length the reasons for why Christians need not be bound by former dietary restrictions.

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