The challenge of liberalism Personal background Organisational interest

The challenge of liberalism

Personal background

Organisational interest o Apprenticeships for fresh graduates • Faithful Bible Teaching • Servant Leadership o Training for pastors and church workers

Liberalism in Kenya • A confused term

Liberalism in Kenya • A confused term • Latent liberalism

Latent: adj. 1. concealed, dormant. 2. existing but not developed or manifest [Latin latere – ‘be hidden’] (Concise Oxford English Dictionary)

Liberalism in Kenya • A confused term • Latent liberalism • Plenty of exceptions

What is liberalism? A brief history Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768 -1834)

What is liberalism? A brief history • Attempt to make Christianity acceptable to modern man • Personal religious experience not history • Bible as the word of men not the Word of God • Hard empiricism / agnosticism / search for the historical Jesus / moralism • Expiation but not propitiation • Social gospel • Church replaces Christ

Echoes & trends: • Do we see these things in our churches or latent or threatening?

Echoes & trends: Influences: • ATR • optimism • cultural shifts & postmodernism • internet access • theologians, theological colleges & money • spiritual warfare

"These narratives [of liberation] have been for me the bearer of good news. Therefore inspite of entrenched patriarchal and ethnocentric prepositions [sic] of the Bible, it is a book I cannot dispense with and indeed may not since I remain in the Christian community and that community means more to me than my personal hurts. ” “The Bible is an extremely dangerous book. We have to be careful with its blanket usage. We are re-reading, not re-writing the Bible. We are also reading supplementary texts. Revelation has not ended. We believe God is in control and working in both men and women. “ (Prof. Mercy Oduyoye, Ghana)

“Suspicion [as a model of Bible reading alongside cultural hermeneutics and neo-orthodox hermeneutics] is based on the fact of writing history, and the idea that history is written from the perspective of victors” Rev. (Dr. ) Lydia Mwaniki, lecturer in gender and theology at St. Paul’s University Limuru

Echoes & trends: 1. Experience is everything

Echoes & trends: 1. Experience is everything 2. The Bible beside or below but not above me “The bible is never really on the driving seat of most of our evangelicals. It is a tool to be used from time to time-a slave, not a master to our teaching and preaching. ” (Harrison Mungai describing the contemporary scene)

Echoes & trends: 1. Experience is everything 2. The Bible beside or below but not above me 3. Reading history as parable

Echoes & trends: 1. 2. 3. 4. Experience is everything The Bible beside or below but not above me Reading history as parable Discussion but not declaration

Echoes & trends: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Experience is everything The Bible beside or below but not above me Reading history as parable Discussion but not declaration Inclusive gospel and cheap grace

Echoes & trends: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Experience is everything The Bible beside or below but not above me Reading history as parable Discussion but not declaration Inclusive gospel and cheap grace Culture following / hermeneutic of comfortableness-with “The bible’s truths are embraced to the extent they don’t rub us the wrong way. When they do, we take the same western path – ‘It was Paul’s culture. ’ Then we begin to pick and mix what we can use and what to dump – pragmatism” (Harrison Mungai describing the contemporary

Echoes & trends: 1. Experience is everything 2. The Bible beside or below but not above me 3. Reading history as parable 4. Discussion but not declaration 5. Inclusive gospel and cheap grace 6. Culture following / hermeneutic of comfortableness-with 7. High sacramentalism / crypto-Catholicism 8. Ecumenism; Inter-faith worship/prayer 9. Social gospel 10. Language bending

How do we respond? • Exposure • Practice • Inoculation • Explicit teaching of doctrine of Scripture, from the Scriptures • • • Luke 17: 28 -31 Luke 24: 25 -27, 46 -47 Acts 9: 15 Acts 26: 22 -23 Acts 28: 23