Idolatry is in essence a false representation of God. God can't be compared to anything. He asks people “to whom will you compare me to...?” (Isa 40:25). What image can we have that will truly represent Him? To represent the incorporeal Being in any form in metal, wood, clay, stone etc., is to reduce Him into an object of our making. But then idolatry extends beyond the obvious physical objects that people make. Respected Theologian J. I. Packer in his book Knowing God, reminds us that an idol can either be “molten or mental.” That is, it can either be a physical object or a mental construct in our minds, both forms equally misrepresent God. It is my contention that Liberal Theology is guilty of disseminating idolatry.

How do we know anything at all about the unseen God? The answer is “from God's own self revelation in the Bible.” When we edit parts of the revelation, we are misrepresenting God and in effect creationg a false representation of God, an idol. How is this connected with liberal theology? The Oxford Dictionary defines Liberal Theology like this: “Regarding many traditional beliefs as dispensable, invalidated by modern thought, or liable to change.” Francis Schaeffer notes that the beliefs that are jettisoned by liberal theologians are “The denial of the supernatural; belief in the all-sufficiency of human reason; the rejection of the Fall; denial of the deity of Christ and his resurrection; belief in the perfectibility of man; and the destruction of the Bible.” (Francis Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster, 1934-1984, Crossway Books, 36,37).

It is in vogue for these academics to say “I do not believe in the deity of Christ,” “ I do not believe in the Trinity,”  “I do not believe in heaven,” “I do not believe in hell,” “I do not believe in the inerrancy of Scripture” etc. They worm their way into seminaries and destroy the faith of hundreds there. It has been said that drink has killed more sailors than the sea. It can also be said that 'liberal theology' has shipwrecked the faith of more Christians than the work of atheists. At their hands, the God of Christianity had been reduced to “A God without wrath (who) brought men without sin into a Kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.” (H. Richard Niebuhr, The Kingdom of God in America). Aspects such as God's wrath against sin, the inherent sinfulness of man, were cut out and a skewed nature of the saving work of Christ was promoted (like Karl Rahner's Anonymous Christian etc.). This parody of the Christian God would also colour the understanding of Christianity as a whole. This was foreseen by the late William Booth (1829-1912), the founder of the Salvation Army, who said “I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.”

The liberal theologian's method is suspect for the following reason. You cannot discredit parts of the Bible and construct a 'theology' using the same Bible. When they attack parts of the Bible they are in effect cutting the branch they are sitting on. How can you use as a witness for your thesis, a witness whose authenticity you are undermining? You cannot take parts of the Bible and leave out parts and claim authenticity for your end result. St. Augustine, hit it on the head when he was disputing the source of authority used by the Manichaean heretics in his times. He wrote “Where do you get the evidence in support of your informant, or rather misinformant? (my note: from which witness/source do you get the facts for your theory?) You reply that you find the proof in the Gospel. In what Gospel? You do not accept all the Gospel, and you say that it has been tampered with. Will you first accuse your witness of corruption, and then call for his evidence? To believe him when you wish it, and then disbelieve him when you wish it, is to believe nobody but yourself.” (Augustine, Reply to Faustus the Manichaen, Book XXXII, para 16). It is also important to note Augustine's statement that when someone does this kind of selective proof texting it “... is to believe nobody but yourself.” That is, when the 'liberal theologian' takes a part of the Bible and leaves out other parts, they are using it as a vehicle to push their own theories. The infused theories can range from Syncretism to the current SJW talking points. This is eisegesis at its worst.

Liberal theologians, on the other hand, level the charge that Bible believing conservatives are the ones guilty of idolatry. They say that when Bible believing Christians affirm the inerrancy of the Bible, we are guilty of venerating and worshipping the Bible. Is this a legitimate charge? When we say that God inspired the Word of God, we are affirming the inerrancy and authority of the Word of God for doctrine, life and practice. The Authority (God) who inspired it, knows what He is saying and so we accept it and act on it. Now, there are similar situations from real life. Take the case of the Income Tax law book. We believe that the authorities who compiled it knew what they were doing and the laws mean just what they say. As a result, I obey the laws and pay tax. I do not worship the income tax law book. Similarly on a far greater level, we affirm the authority of the Word of God. We affirm that the greatest Authority, God Himself, inspired the Bible and so we believe it and obey. An affirmation of inerrancy is not an affirmation that the Bible is a God. I do not worship the Bible. Where is the idolatry in this? That is a false charge by the liberal theologian. An affirmation of authority is not equal to idolatry whereas a altered representation of God, is the creation of an idol. The charge of idolatry applies to liberal theology and not us.

Liberal Theology is in the embarrassing place where it has to change with real scientific discoveries. When the theory of evolution was proposed, liberal scholars jumped on to the bandwagon and discredited the Biblical account of creation and proposed “theistic evolution” as the original account of creation. However DNA research in our times has shown the impossibility of life coming out of non-life and the impossibility of macro evolution. For a comprehensive Scientific, Philosophical and Theological treatment of this subject one can refer Theistic Evolution: A Scientific, Philosophical, and Theological Critique by Distinguished Professor of Philosophy J. P. Moreland (Editor) Stephen C Meyer (Editor) Et Al. The Bible account, still is the most reasonable option (Intelligent Design). Academics and Philosophers who look at the direction experimental science is pointing are slowly recanting their earlier views. Antony Flew, a internationally known spokesperson for atheism for many decades recanted his atheism when he saw the complexity of the DNA. More recently, polymath David Gelernter, professor of computer science at Yale University, publicly abandoned his Darwinian beliefs.

In closing I want to reaffirm that anyone who edits the Biblical teaching about God is in effect creating an idol, a mere object of his conjecture. The foremost iconographers assaulting the Christian teaching of God are the liberal theologians. The mutilation of scripture that provides the underpinning for the liberal theological system is also blameworthy. Either God is or He isn't. Either the Bible is the Word of God or it isn't. One either accepts Christianity or rejects it. You cannot straddle unbelief and belief and create a hybrid that is neither fish nor fowl and call it Christianity.