Where feminism questions the place of the maleness of Jesus in the bigger story of the Christian gospel, transgender ideology undermines the very reality of his maleness altogether. Whether or not Jesus was a man, a woman, or some non-binary “other” becomes an open-ended question in the worldview of contemporary gender theorists.[6]. What is one to do in the face of such destructive ideological trends that undermine the truth about Jesus?

From its very beginning, true Christianity has been threatened by false teachers that disguise themselves with the terminology of the Christian faith but define the terms in radically different ways. These are the wolves in sheep’s clothing that Jesus and the apostles warned us about (see Matt. 7:15 and Acts 20:29). In Machen’s day, the most threatening wolf among the sheep was classic liberalism in the mold of Schleiermacher, Strauss, Von Harnack, and Rauschenbusch. Such thinkers and their disciples had feasted on the fare of enlightenment modernism and were feeding it in large supply to the unsuspecting masses. In our day, the modernist presuppositions of that age have given way to postmodernism with a plethora of ideologies that are hostile to the faith once for all delivered to the saints. Many of these ideas find happy expression under the banner of “progressive Christianity” where they are comfortably peddled with historic, Christian labels. But make no mistake, the labels are not defined in historic, Christian ways. As with the liberalism of Machen’s day, the progressive ideas of our own day are not really a version of Christianity but a different religion altogether.

Major Ideological Challenges to Orthodox Christology

Many are the challenges facing true Christianity generally, and Christology specifically, under the present-day banner of progressive Christianity. In Part One, I summarized the major critiques Machen leveled against liberal Christology. In this second part of the essay I will briefly survey just three of these destructive ideas and how they impact Christology in particular. I will follow this with a summary of three historic, orthodox Christological convictions evident in Machen’s chapter on the person of Christ because no matter the specific form of the doctrine of wolves, the doctrine of the true sheep is consistent from age to age. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). His sheep hear his voice; he knows them, and they follow him (John 10:27). Just as Christ himself does not change, neither does his trusted and true voice to his beloved sheep.

1. Religious Pluralism

One of the banner truths of progressive Christianity today is religious pluralism. According to the ideology of pluralism, all religious truth claims have validity as pathways to ultimate fulfillment. The real test for the legitimacy of religious truth is not the distinctive claims of a particular religion but the common ground they all share. For example, a Muslim may regard Muhammed as the greatest and only infallible prophet, a Buddhist may seek nirvana through transcendental meditation, and an orthodox Christian may seek heaven through faith in Jesus and forgiveness of sins. These evident differences, however, are not the heart of true religion according to pluralism. The heart is to be found in certain moral principles they all share, rooted in love for one’s fellow man. By prioritizing the common principles of love and basic morality (what true Christianity understands in terms of general revelation, common grace, and natural law) over the particularizing doctrinal claims of each tradition, pluralism seeks to eliminate any claim of uniqueness on the part of Christianity or any other religion.

It is not difficult to see how pluralism directly affects the historic doctrine of the person of Christ. Orthodox Christians in every age have believed and confessed that the Lord Jesus Christ, who became truly human, is also truly God from all eternity. Christians affirm the doctrine of the Trinity, that the one true and living God exists eternally as three distinct persons—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. One of these divine persons, the Son, “took on flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14) as Jesus of Nazareth. The eternally begotten Son of God became the temporally born Son of Mary—two distinct categories of sonship, one and the same Son. If pluralism is true, however, then the historic Christian doctrines of Trinity and incarnation cannot be true. If the eternally divine Son became a man and opened the way for his sheep to have eternal life, that particular way is unique among all other claims. That is, if the New Testament claims about the deity of Christ are true, then its claims of exclusivity are necessarily true as well. If, as pluralism would have it, the New Testament claims of exclusivity are not true, then the deity of Christ is necessarily untrue also, and the historic Christian doctrine of the incarnation becomes mere myth or metaphor.[1]

2. Feminism

Another dominant ideological force of progressive Christianity is feminism. The general narrative that women have been subjugated by men throughout history—and that the chief moral aim of mankind ought to be liberation of women from this oppression—has made its way into the discourse of Christian theology at the hands of feminist theologians. Noting the prevalence of masculine names, imagery, and language for God in the Bible—God as warrior, God as “Father,” male pronouns for God, etc.—feminist theologians have sought to “liberate” Scripture from the “androcentric patriarchy” of the cultural ethos in which it was written. This inevitably resulted in a feminization of God-talk that took many forms—appealing to the language of “goddess,” searching for biblical and theological warrant to call God “Mother,” and the explicit use of feminine pronouns for God.

Direct re-thinking of Christology was not far behind the broader trends of feminist theology. Feminist theologians were quick to raise the question of whether a male savior could savingly represent females and whether female priests and pastors (a non-negotiable commitment of feminist theology) could adequately represent a male Christ to their flocks. Thus, the maleness of the incarnate Lord is presented by feminist theologians as a serious problem to be solved rather than a positive aspect of the good news. Some find the maleness of Jesus to be irreconcilable with feminist principles and thus abandon any semblance of Christianity altogether.[2] Others see the problem in the patriarchal worldview of Christian interpretations of Jesus’ maleness, so that the entire theological and philosophical foundation of traditional Christianity must be upended and re-written before a male savior can have any significance, much less saving benefit for women.[3] This upending of the foundations must reach, not only to the interpretations of holy Scripture, but into the very presuppositions, intentions, and claims of the Scriptural authors themselves.

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