On this episode of five minutes in church history we'll be looking at five responses to modernism

first we need to define modernism. I suppose modernism means many things to many people's

I'm using this to refer to a movement that was started at the

turn of the 20th century, so we need to go back in time here, 120 years or so.

It was a time of great optimism. It was a time of

rethinking a number of things that were part of the sort of mental furniture and

part of the worldview of of culture if you will.

It was in an era of Darwin and an era of alternative ideas in the origin of humanity and

the origin of all things.

It was a time when the Bible was severely being questioned and it was actually at a time

when even religion itself was being questioned. Modernism pushed to its extreme is basically secularism.

The idea that Christianity no longer works in the 20th century in this modern world.

We can build skyscrapers, we can accomplish great things. We can jet across the skies.

We can move at great speeds. Christianity, religion is no longer relevant. Well there were five responses from the church to

modernism. The first was liberalism and liberalism basically was saying hey

hold on don't throw out religion just yet what if we accommodated to your

sensibilities we'll be glad to soften edges here we'll be glad to sort of downplay

these things here that are distasteful for you or we'll just sort of downplay that or soft pedal that.

You can still be modern, you can still be Christian.

We will accommodate Christianity to fit you.

That was by and large liberalism. It did not just exist at the beginning of the 20th

century. It rolls right on to the present day, always wanting to accommodate to where culture

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