Don McGee

Higher Criticism and Lower Standards

By Don McGee

In a manner of speaking our world is much the same as it was thousands of years ago, and the reason is humanity has not changed regarding the sin-soaked condition of the human heart. Greed, selfishness, hatred and other sins so instinctive to the mortal spirit have remained entrenched in the human heart since the fall, and no amount of social engineering can change it. In short, there is no pot of gold buried at the end of man's rainbow.

That said, it is also true that the customs managing the way people live and act are changing drastically, and not necessarily in a positive way. The influence of spiritual degradation has so touched mankind that the distinction between those things normal and honorable and those things perverted and sinful have been wiped out. God said it would be this way, and He expressed His great displeasure with it, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20)

When Paul told Timothy that difficult times would come in the last days (2 Timothy 3) he was describing the end-times result of the gutter-level depravity that existed in the Roman Empire in his day (Romans 1). He could see a world coming that would once again adopt the corrupted lifestyle of Genesis 6 in spite of its undeniable exposure to the knowledge of God; a world that would, likewise, pay an appalling price.

For centuries much of civilization has been managed, at least to some degree, by social propriety with efforts to not be odious and abusive to Christian sensibilities. That is no longer the case. To put it plainly, the leash is off and the dog is out. It is quite evident that the goal now is to lampoon godly standards as often as possible; to see just how insulting and provocative one can be without being held accountable. Many people revel in delight when labeled as God-hating rebels as if it were some sort of secular, debauched badge of honor.

Those are things we Americans are familiar with. But, the effort to get rid of God and the Bible is not limited by national borders. Europe was in decline before America, and the rate at which that continent is sinking spiritually and morally is increasing. Nor is it limited to any one means of destruction. The anti-Godists gleefully wallow in the lowest levels of depravity because being there enhances their agenda.

There has always been an effort to remove godly influence from society because it "inhibits man's free expression of self". Simply, that means people in general have always wanted to live the way they want with no undesirable consequences. They want to be self-regulated with lose constraints that can be changed to suit whatever dissipation that might be in vogue at the time. They want a world with no absolutes. With wretched foolishness they impose upon themselves a world of chaos, disorder and ruin.

Why is this happening? For one thing, God is removing His hand from those influences that contribute to the stability of this planet, and He is doing so because humanity has dismissed Him. Four of the great pillars of a robust civilization — Christianity, law, education and free enterprise — have been so debased and contaminated that they are no longer sufficient to support any semblance of order and decency. As darkness is the absence of light, so is debauchery the absence of God. This generation is living in the shadow of Revelation 6, and the decadence of the tribulation is quickly taking shape in these last days of the church dispensation.

Secondly, the foundation for man's way of living is the spiritual condition of his heart. From the world as a whole down to small villages, people's all-encompassing view of God sets the tone for what happens on the street, in the home, at school, in the pulpit, etc. A professor of Criminal Justice once said that local police conduct and attitude reflect a cross-section of the conduct and attitude of the community. The same relationship exists between the collective human heart and what is happening today. So, what is forming mankind's view of God today that is producing such tragic social and religious failure?

Begin with the world as a whole. As Hollywood is the indicator of what is coming to the rest of America, so is Europe the indicator of what is coming to western civilization and, what has already arrived here is not good. When it comes to theology Europe is the home of "higher criticism". In general higher critics do not believe the divine inspiration of the Bible, if such inspiration even exists, guarantees it is the truth. They believe "truth" is something God left for man to find, thus they emphasize the historical and literary background of the Bible to the neglect of its plain teaching. This is deviant theology, and it has its roots in the Tubingen Seminary in Germany which had its hay day in the 19th century. Planted and nourished there was the virile seed of a lethal religious weed.

Fast forward to the 20th century. One of the most liberal movements to have its roots in higher criticism is "The Jesus Seminar". Still active today under the Westar organizational umbrella, this is a group of scholars that gets together twice a year to discuss certain biblical texts to determine if they are genuine. For example, in the past they met to decide if Jesus actually said and did what the gospels say He said and did. They voted on various texts by rating the chance of that text being true using beads of various colors to denote percentage values. They believe Jesus was a traveling Jewish faith healer who was more interested in social justice than salvation; that He was born of two human parents, did no miracles, did not die for the sins of the world and was not resurrected. They claim the post-resurrection sightings of Jesus were actually hallucinations.

As absurd as it sounds, this heresy is having an impact on many formerly fundamental Bible colleges and seminaries. The recruitment of liberal professors often begins with invitations extended to the most popular "freethinking" (often a code word for heretical) lecturers to speak at campus-sponsored forums. A board of trustees that is mostly interested in money sees this as tuition leverage because heretics can be appealing to 18 year olds who have already been brainwashed for 14 years with little to no remedial response from their parents and churches. From a perspective of truth, however, this is nothing less than anathema.

And the results? Many, with each one leaving in its wake shipwrecked faith, corrupted worldviews, squandered lives, wasted influence and lost souls. Is it any wonder that some Christians can watch celebrities blaspheme their Lord and remain unmoved over it? Vulgar and sacrilegious attacks upon God, His word and His people are like pure-grade amphetamine to the spiritually ulcerated and festered brains of God-haters.

This pseudo emotional high is perhaps why people like Bill Mayer and Kathy Griffin pant for opportunities to show off their hatred for God. We might wonder, why is someone they don't even believe in such a threat to them? Regarding Bill Mayer and his blasphemous 2008 video "Religulous", Lou Lemenick of the New York Post said, "One of the funniest and most offensive documentaries ever made". And Kathy Griffin, a self-described militant atheist, reveled in her blasphemous words about Jesus at the 2007 Emmy Awards. Sure, there were some who complained, but they were mostly ignored and their voices soon fell silent.

The fallout from higher-criticism-produced biblical relativism goes even farther. It is far-reaching and deadly because there is no corner of society that is untouched when what God says becomes optional. For example, an attack upon God is an attack upon His creative purpose. To destroy that is to tear at the very foundation of society. As a result human sexuality, clearly one of the most enjoyable and important aspects of that foundation, becomes warped. In every culture the only acceptable form of sexual expression is heterosexual. Since the beginning of man homosexuality has been accurately described as perversion. Even the American Psychiatric Association classified it as deviant behavior. That is, until 1973 when the APA changed course and declared it to be a "normal form of human bonding". That is a lie and it has morphed into another lie that is accepted without serious critical analysis today — that the homosexual agenda is not a threat to the heterosexual family.

Daniel Villarreal, a prominent homosexual blogger recently admitted, "I and a lot of other people want to indoctrinate, recruit, teach and expose children to accept queer sexuality as normal." Some activist teachers in the UK are encouraging boys to wear dresses and dance with pompoms. Kids are taught to question the values of their parents and grandparents, and to act out pro-homosexual books as stage plays. (http://www.cwalac.org/cwblog/?p=402) How, pray tell, can anyone in their right mind classify this agenda as benign?!

And, it does not stop there. Heretical higher criticism has brought another kind of change, and this has to do with a vicious enemy of Christianity. Very few people realize that in debates with Christian apologists Islam's defenders use the arguments and conclusions of the higher critics. In denying the literal meaning of holy scripture, the critics have given credibility to the Islamic argument! Specifically, "A more advanced attack forwarded by Muslims is their great willingness to use liberal Christian views of the Bible including Higher Criticism to discredit the Bible as the Word of God." Joseph Alrasouli in "Muslim View of the Bible". http://(www.givingananswer.org)

For a church or Christian school to give any credence at all to this devious and reprehensible form of scholarship is to ignore the obvious, and thus invite consequences that are both blasphemous in character and eternal in consequence. What makes all of this so dispiriting is the fact that though the last-days church has a 2000 year old warning in inspired, easy-to-understand writing, yet many of her people are deceived anyway. A person would be far better off searching for the end of a rainbow with a shovel in hand than trying to find any degree of assurance and peace in higher criticism.

Send email to Don Mcgee at:

csm01@att.neta