{"id":57954,"date":"1996-09-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"1996-09-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/converted-liberalism\/"},"modified":"1996-09-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T18:39:32","slug":"converted-liberalism","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/converted-liberalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Converted Liberalism"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have come to the reluctant conclusion that what we liberals believe, and the way we believe it, is incompatible with the Gospel. Contra most liberal preaching that I do and hear, being a Christian is not synonymous with being a good human being. Jesus comes preaching a new way which is counter to innate human expectations, a narrow path of life which does not come naturally. This Jew from Nazareth comes, not to express the highest of human aspirations, but to transform human aspirations, to refashion human thinking and action in such a way that necessitates conversion from our innate liberalism to a countercultural way of living called discipleship.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[409],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3557,3573,3726,3793,4365],"tax_ctp_topics":[378],"class_list":["post-57954","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-change","tax_ctp_tags-christ","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-discipleship","tax_ctp_tags-liberalism"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"\nConverted Liberalism - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/converted-liberalism\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Converted Liberalism - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have come to the reluctant conclusion that what we liberals believe, and the way we believe it, is incompatible with the Gospel. 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