Important Theological Movements in the 21st Century

Throughout history theology, like all disciplines, has always been growing and changing. Some changes are good. It takes time, study, hard rational thought, and prayer to uncover further the truths of scripture and to systematize those into full fledged doctrines. Even now good debate continues over subjects like God's relation to time. But there is also bad change in theological investigation.

Bad changes are those that occur when theologians and churches move away from scripture or apply a poor hermeneutic to it. The argument that God delights in homosexuality is an obvious example. But there are some theological movements in our time that are making, and have been for some time, great headway into the church. These are dangerous because they are deceptive, and many are falling prey to false doctrine. It becomes significant, then, that the church, and particularly, pastors be aware of them, and know how to fight them. Over the next week I want to offer some helpful resources for various theological movements; here I simply list a few of them:

Environmentalist Spirituality-- Environmentalism as religion with a New Age Spirituality twist.

Emergent Church -- The “Deconstruction” and “Reconstruction” of Western Christianity, including the rejection of modernism and the embrace of postmodern philosophy.

Open Theism -- An “Evangelical” theological movement, which denies portions of classical theism, including: divine impassibility, immutability, and omniscience.

Evangelical Feminism -- Orthodox Christians who affirm the Bible, but who believe that “rightly understood” it supports the abolition of gender roles in the home, church, and society.