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Posts tagged Christless Christianity

B. B. Warfield -- On Christless Christianity

One of B. B. Warfield’s most insightful essays is “Christless Christianity,” written for The Harvard Review in 1912. It is available in its entirety here: Christless Christianity. It is not an easy essay, but well worth the effort.

Warfield takes aim at those who would divorce Christianity from history thereby eliminating Christ’s cross as the ground of our salvation. He points out that,

There is a moral paradox in the forgiveness of sins which cannot be solved apart from the exhibition of an actual expiation [a payment for sin]. No appeal to general metaphysical or moral truths concerning God can serve here; or to the essential kinship of human nature to God; or, for the matter of that, to any example of an attitude of trust in the divine goodness upon the part of a religious genius, however great, or to promises of forgiveness made by such a one, or even—may we say it with reverence—made by God himself, unsupported by the exhibition of an actual expiation.

No payment for sin, no Christianity.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerJanuary 19, 2024Christless ChristianityComment

Gems from Warfield's Essay, "Christless Christianity"

Warfield’s essay, “Christless Christianity” was originally written for the Harvard Theological Review in 1912. It is a decimating critique of that cycle of liberal theology which sought to respond to Arthur Drew’s 1909 book, “The Christ Myth.” Drew’s book was widely identified as anti-Christian propaganda, even by liberals. But liberal theologians who sought to respond to Drew, particularly German liberals, conjured up a form of Christianity which was no longer dependent upon a historical Jesus. Warfield will have none of it. In many ways Warfield’s essay argues the same points Machen does in his Christianity and Liberalism, written in 1923. Warfield argues that whatever it was that German liberals were exporting into American seminaries and churches it was not Christianity, but an altogether different religion with a completely different Jesus. The liberal’s collective response to Drew’s attack was a not a defense of Christianity but a capitulation to unbelief.

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B. B. WarfieldKim RiddlebargerMay 23, 2022Christless Christianity, Protestant LiberalismComment