How Liberal Seminaries Are Ruining Churches

Today, there are more liberal seminaries in America than there are sound ones so how are these liberal seminaries training pastors for disaster behind the pulpit?

Liberal Seminaries

Today, there are more liberal seminaries in America than there are sound ones, so how are these liberal seminaries training pastors for disaster behind the pulpit? As I did some research on seminaries in the United States, I found that there are more liberal seminaries than there are sound ones. That is, most seminaries today do not hold a high view on God, or the Bible and even on Jesus Christ. It is appalling to me that seminary professors with doctorates who have studied the Bible do not fully believe in the Bible. That seems amazing to me! They teach what they themselves don’t even believe. As for seminaries, you can tell how liberal a seminary is by seeing how liberal their professors are. What is their view of the Word of God? What is their view on the inerrancy and sufficiency of Scripture or Jesus’ sinless-ness and divinity?

Moody Theological Seminary is among the best seminaries in America & the world.

Apostate Pastors

Clearly, liberal seminaries that teach that the Word of God has errors or mistakes in it and these seminaries are producing apostate pastors who do not even fully believe in the Bible. My question would be, if you’re a trained pastor from a seminary but don’t believe the Bible is without error, why preach it? Let me suggest a good job for you somewhere else, but not behind the pulpit! I suggest you work somewhere that you believe in what you’re doing. You don’t belong behind the pulpit. If we think the Bible has errors in it, it is we who are mistaken, not the Bible!

Satan’s Churches

Tragically, books like “The Church Must Change or Die” promote methods over theology and what works as opposed to what is true. Churches are now told to offer services that act as a draw card to families and other demographic age groups. They care less about whether something is true or not. They’re only interested in, “does it work.” Since we know that Satan has his own ministers who appear as “angels of light” (2 Cor 11:14), he must have his own churches…and certainly Satan has his own denominations now. Biblically sound denominations are falling like dominoes around the world, and much of this is due to the liberal seminaries.

A Toothless Gospel

… even the Devil can appear to be a preacher of righteousness …

The messages behind pulpits today are directed towards having your best life now. Many messages are mere pep talks or try to build your self-worth up. Few of them preach verse by verse anymore as sermons are more topological today and address people’s physical needs rather than their spiritual needs. In a sense, God’s sheep are starving to death for lack of good pasture…good, expository, verse by verse, book by book preaching. They preach about how to make more bread in this life instead of how to be content and feed on the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ. They dwell on the here and now and not on the coming Kingdom. If this is people’s “best life now,” they’re going to the wrong place! We need the whole Word and the whole gospel preached to the whole world. Anything less than the gospel of Jesus Christ, including repentance and faith (Mark 1:15), is no gospel at all. At best, it is a toothless, inept gospel that cannot change lives. It might fill the church parking lot…but it will not fill the Book of Life (Rev 20:15). Stop trying to reinvent the gospel. It is all we need to be saved.

Sound Churches

Biblically sound churches teach that God’s Word is God Himself speaking to us and is sufficient to save, admonish, correct, grow, and convict the believer (2 Tim 3:16-17). The whole gospel is preached at sound churches, which must include the sinless life, the suffering, the death, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:1-5). Miss any of those, and you don’t have a sermon on the gospel. What you have is a sermon from Satan! Author Gary Dorrien (The Making of American Liberal Theology) sees the liberal church as laying “between the authority-based orthodoxies of traditional Christianity and the spiritless materialism of modern atheism or deism” (Dorrien, 1:xiii). These churches are spiritless alright; unless you realize it may be another spirit…an unclean one to be precise.

The whole gospel must include the sinless life, suffering, death & resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Cor 15:1-5).

Contending for the Faith

Liberal churches, pastors, and seminaries what to deny the perfection of the Bible and the gospel to fit the times, but it is the times (the present world) that must conform to the Word of God. We dare not try to fix what is not broken. I remind the young men that I am mentoring that they will be taking my place someday, so I tell them as I tell myself to “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim 4:16). We must contend for the faith, once and for all, originally delivered (Heb 1:1-2; Jude 1:3). We are told to contend for the original gospel, and that means we must speak up and speak out against doctrinal heresies. The Apostle Paul said to mark them that cause division (Rom 16:17-22), or call them out…by name, if necessary. If a little bit of error is allowed into the church, then a little compromise with the truth will follow…and if that happens, little doctrinal errors will grow into greater heresies. If these churches are wrong in some areas (and they are!), then where else are they going to be wrong in preaching/teaching the Bible?

Conclusion

If there’s a mist behind the pulpit, there’ll be a fog in the pews. The Gospel is simple enough for a child to understand, and yet theologians with PhD’s don’t often get it! And now they’re teaching seminary…teaching future pastors. Beware to the Christian. Listen carefully to what your church teaches. Look at their statement of beliefs (if they even have one!). Do your homework in finding a biblically sound church. Otherwise, you might end up listening to a sinister minister because Satan has his own demons behind the pulpits and now his own denominations. And they’re probably not very far from where you live.

Here is some related reading for you: A Spiritual Pandemic Far Worse Than the Covid-19 Pandemic

Resource – Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version^® (ESV^®), Crossway Bibles. (2007). ESV: Study Bible: English standard version. Wheaton, Ill: Crossway Bibles. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Tagged as: Apostate Churches, false gospel, Seminary