On Twitter some time ago, John Piper offered this succinct definition of the impulse behind liberal theology: “Make the Gospel acceptable to the world rather than showing the world it is unintelligible without the Gospel.”
Some might say that many conservatives do the same—that the only difference is what part of the world they’re trying to please. Those people would be absolutely correct; but it doesn’t invalidate Dr. Piper’s point. Rather, what it shows is that many conservatives are, in fact, far more liberal than they think they are. Indeed, it shows just how great the triumph of the liberal Protestant project was, and how many of those who consider themselves to be in opposition to it are actually captive to its assumptions. The so-called “modernist-fundamentalist” controversy of the 1920s was in truth a conflict between modernists; fundamentalism was (and continues to be) a movement that sought to refute liberalism’s conclusions while accepting its presuppositions about knowledge, truth, and the proper basis for belief.