Francis Schaeffer on Liberal Theology

by Staff March 30, 2015

"What is the liberal theology like? It can only be paralleled with what God says in Proverbs 30:20 about the adulterous woman: 'Such is the way of an adulterous woman; she eateth, and wipeth her mouth, and saith, I have done no wickedness.' What a picture! Not everyone whose theology has been somewhat infiltrated by liberal theology should be likened to this, but the real liberal theologian (whether the old liberal-type theologian or the newer existential theologian) stands in this place. They say they have done no evil by their spiritual adultery, while not only the church but the whole post-Christian culture shows the results of their unfaithfulness.

"There is no adulterous woman who has ever been so soiled as the liberal theology, which has had all the gifts of God and has turned away to a worship of something that is more destructive than Molech was to the babies whose parents were led astray from the living God to worship this idol. This is not a thing to take lightly. We must show love to the man with whom we discuss. Yes, and we fight for this at L'Abri. We must fight for the fact that he is not to be treated as less than a man. Nothing is more ugly than the orthodox man treating another man as less than a man and failing to show that he takes seriously Christ's teaching that all men are our neighbors. We do not discuss with the liberal only to win, but to help others, and to try to help him as well. But to treat lightly what liberal theology has done—not for a moment."

—Francis A. Schaeffer, The Church at the End of the 20th Century (Downer's Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity, 1970), 126-127.