A. Missional Context
To spark interest in the recently published book, Christianity Reimagined, the following provocative questions were posed: What if you could rediscover the heart of Christianity’s spirituality – profound meaning, genuine connection, and a sense of the transcendent – without forcing yourself to accept a single belief that you just can’t? What if Christianity was never meant to be about rigid doctrines or blind belief, but about deep, transformative experiences – the kind you’ve had, the kind that truly shapes a life? These questions are designed to invite readers into the journey of reimagining Christianity for themselves.
The call to reimagine Church and Christian faith is frequently raised by activists from a spectrum of movements that includes liberation theology, postmodern and deconstructive theology, feminist and postcolonial theology, intercultural-religious dialogue and LGBT-Queer theology. These movements seek to reinterpret and modernize Christianity in order to make it relevant to perceived modern spiritual interests and sensibilities. Therefore, attention is directed toward revising traditional doctrines and church practices that are seen as obstacles to personal authenticity and social inclusivity.
The call to reimagine the Church and Christian faith is grounded in the belief that truth claims are inherently relative and must be deconstructed and reconstructed to align with emerging communities and evolving cultural contexts. The aim of this reimagination is to cultivate a faith that resonates with the “lived experience” of spiritual seekers, and to foster a church environment that serves as a “safe space” – a concept that originated within LGBT culture in the United States during the 1970s—for individuals who feel alienated or disillusioned by traditional church structures.
Should the Church embrace the trend of reimagining Church and Christian faith to stay aligned with contemporary culture? While the impulse may seem appropriate, there are compelling reasons for caution. The call to reimagine Church and Christian faith raises serious theological concerns for biblical Christianity, not necessarily because conservative biblical faith and theology is complete or flawless, but because the term “reimagine” often signals a shift in authority, interpretive method, or doctrinal foundations. Such shifts risk undermining the Bible’s role as the final authority in matters of faith and conduct.
B. An Evangelical Response
“Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. By the Holy Spirit who dwells within us, guard the good deposit entrusted to you” (2 Timothy 1:14).
“Thus says the Lord: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it and find rest for your souls” (Jeremiah 6:16).
1. Authority of Scripture
Evangelicals hold to Sola Scriptura – the belief that Scripture alone is the final authority for faith and practice.
• Concern: “Reimagining” theology may suggest moving beyond or reinterpreting Scripture based on cultural trends, subjective experience, or dominant social ideologies. For example, for LGBT and woke activists all truth claims, including core Christian doctrines are subsidiary to the final authority of the “Lived experience” of “oppressed people” based on intersectionality identity.
• Implication: This risks subordinating divine revelation to human subjectivity and reasoning, undermining the clarity, sufficiency and final authority of Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16–17).
2. Doctrinal Stability and Theological Identity
Evangelical theology emphasizes continuity with historic Christian orthodoxy – especially core doctrines like infallibility, and sufficiency of scripture, objective atonement, and justification by faith.
• Concern: Reimagining theology can imply revising or relativizing these doctrines to fit modern sensibilities informed by the demands of “expressive individualism” of the European Enlightenment philosophies.
• Implication: This may lead to theological compromises, where fundamental truths are undermined or replaced with ever changing social-experiential ideals (Jude 3).
3. Guarding Against Syncretism
Evangelicals must reject any blending biblical truth with non-Christian ideologies – whether postmodern relativism, “progressive” moral frameworks and pragmatism.
• Concern: Calls to reimagine theology often arise from attempts to reconcile Christianity with contemporary cultural movements, many of which are based on moral relativism and post-modernism, all in the name of theological authenticity and missional responsiveness.
• Implication: This can result in syncretism, where the gospel loses its distinctiveness. The church loses its moral authority and prophetic witness (Romans 12:2).
4. Human Reason vs. Divine Revelation
While evangelicals value reason and tradition, they prioritize biblical revelation as the ultimate source of theological truth.1Comment on Colossians 2: 6-8. verses 6-7: For the Colossians’ original reception of Christ, Paul uses a verb that connotes the reception of a tradition that’s being passed on – here, the Christ, Jesus the Lord, as an item of tradition contrasting with an upcoming tradition of human beings (Colossians 2:8–10)…To keep from being duped, Christians need to be built up constantly. Likewise in regard to “being established,” which means to be constantly confirmed as to faith in and conformity with original teaching as opposed to newfangled doctrines. So Paul has returned to orthodoxy (right doctrine) as the basis of orthopraxy (right behavior) [emphasis added]. Verse 8: The threat of a false teacher, whom Paul compares to a captor (somebody who takes you as a prisoner of war with his false teaching), requires constant vigilance. Paul calls the false teaching “philosophy” because this term means “love of wisdom” and he has recently said by contrast that in Christ are hidden “all the treasure of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossians 2:3). True philosophy should love the wisdom that’s in Christ, then. But the philosophy of the teachers Paul warns against carries “deceit,” not wisdom. This deceit is “empty” of the wisdom that’s in Christ, because the would-be captor is peddling “the tradition of human beings” rather than “the Christ, Jesus the Lord,” whom you received as an item of divinely originated tradition (Colossians 2:6–7) Robert Gundry, Commentary on the New Testament (Hendrickson, 2010), p. 803.
• Concern: Reimagining Christian faith and practice elevate human imagination, emotion, or social critique above divine revelation. Indeed, calls for contemporary “reimagine Christian faith and practice can easily mutate into radical theology or liberal theology on steroids, e.g. LGBT theologies and eco-feminist theologies.
• Implication: Without grounding in divine revelation and guard-rails provided by the historical Confessions, church leaders and theologians end up taking cues from the world. Church policies and evangelistic strategies become merely matters of pragmatic expediency.
5. The Role of Tradition and Community
Evangelicals recognize and affirm the ongoing relevance of the time-tested wisdom of the historic church in guiding the preaching of the gospel and pastoral practice (Jeremiah 6:16). The Church must maintain its unity and identity by bearing the marks of preaching, sacraments and discipline as it witnesses to the world by proclamation of the gospel and good works.
• Concern: Reimagining Christian faith and practice can imply a break from the wisdom of the church accumulated through the centuries.
• Implication: This could lead to the fragmentation of the universal church which is the body of Christ and the creedal consensus that guards against error (Hebrews 13:7–9).
6. Call for Nuanced Evangelical Response
We must be prepared to apply timeless biblical truth to new social-cultural contexts. Let’s retrieve and renew the deposit of faith entrusted onto us by applying relevant biblical doctrines and correct distortion of Christian truth and ethics – ever mindful that our response must be grounded on the final authority of scripture, the doctrinal Confessions of faith and Christ-centred pastoral practice.
7. A Concluding Unimaginative Postscript
“Ancient Paths Christianity” refers to a commitment to the enduring, foundational teachings of Scripture, resisting the temptation to conform to cultural trends or chase after novel theological fashions. As Jeremiah 6:16 reminds us, God’s ways have already been revealed – the “ancient paths” embody His unchanging commands and wisdom, leading us into a life of faithful discipleship, consecrated obedience, and righteousness before God and His people. In a world marked by constant flux and uncertainty, these paths offer peace, stability, and strength. Walking in them enables us to remain steadfast in guarding the deposit of faith entrusted to us (2 Timothy 1:14), and equips us for every good work to which God calls us.
*A concise version of this post is published in Berita NECF 3/2025.
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Reimagining Christianity: A Kierkegaardian Critique
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