A little history lesson

Thanks to Calvinist Cartoons

You may have never heard of Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834).  I had no idea who he was until last week-end.  You also may think, "Why on earth would I care about some dead German theologian whose name  I can't even pronounce".  But you might be more familiar with him than you think:

[C]reed and character have no necessary connection - that it matters not what we believe so long as our hearts are right.  (page 9)

Religion stands in no need of doctrine and rigid precepts, or of revelation from another world - that certain pious and devout sentiments towards God and Christ are all that is necessary for salvation. (page 9)

If these sound familiar, we can thank Schleiermacher's influence because these ideas are now part and parcel of today's Christianity.  There are many who think sound doctrine is a nicety but subordinate to what we feel.  However, if you take this idea to it's logical conclusion, it becomes a very slippery slope. Thus you can be opposed to the biblical truths that define what it means to be a Christian (as he was) and still profess to be one provided your heart is sincere.

Devotion to Christ, he taught, is the essence of true religion, and in order to come to feel devotion all that is needed is faith.  Yet faith, as he understood it does not arise from truth and knowledge received from without; it springs rather from man's own intuition, from his own consciousness.  To have faith therefore, requires no revealed truths, no authoritative Bible.  But how can men discover such truths as Christ's virgin birth, his atoning death and resurrection, unless they receive them from an objective revelation outside of themselves?  To this Schleiermacher would reply that, whether these statements are truths or not, they are not necessary to evangelical devotion.  In other words, he remainder committed to the starting point of his first book: the supposition that true religion belongs essentially to the realm of experience - religion is a matter of a well-disposed heart and devout feelings. (pages 6-7)

In his separation of the intellectual content of Christianity (the objective biblical revelation) from Christian 'feeling', Schleiermacher seemed to provide a means whereby the essence of Christianity could remain unaffected, no matter how much of the Bible was rejected.  Hostile criticism of Scripture need not therefore be seen as a threat to the 'faith',  and so a sense of security was bred in many who might otherwise have awakened to the danger. Christianity, it was concluded, could be successful irrespective of whether Scripture were preserved as the Word of God, and this thought was more appealing as the theological scholarship of the nineteen century, became increasingly destructive. (page 11)

One may have buckets full of devotion to "Christ", but which one?  Is it Jesus Christ our Lord as found in the Word of God or a "Jesus" of our own making? It might behoove us to learn from church history and make sure our belief in God is firmly grounded in His Word and not on our self-definition of Him, however warm and fuzzy it may make us feel.  If we think we can understand God from within apart from His Word, we had better think again.

(All quotes from Evangelicalism Divided by Iain H. Murray, Banner of Truth, 2000.  Emphasis mine.)