Alisa Childers Other Gospel

Ranal Rauser is a Canadian philosopher who is also a Christian apologist. He takes fundmetalist preacher Lady Alisa Childers to task for her hard line. I will use Rauser's own words to tell the story.[1]

Randl Rauser's statement:

I just finished reading Alisa Childers’ book Another Gospel?. It is a hugely popular book that came out a year ago and has almost two thousand Amazon.com reviews. As I will note briefly below, it does have some diamonds embedded in the coal. But there is a lot of coal. Indeed, this is one of the most harmful books I have read in a long time. Although it is praised by Christian apologists like Lee Strobel, Sean McDowell, and Frank Turek, yet page after page it exhibits poor argumentation, utterly unchristian caricatures of opposing views, and attacks of a woolly target that Childers has described as “progressive Christianity.”

According to Childers, progressive Christianity is a new movement whose leaders include people like the late Rachel Held Evans, Richard Rohr, Peter Enns, and Brian Zahnd.  But it is not a new movement: in her view, it is another religion altogether. And as Childers says at the end of the book, those who fail to assent to the set of doctrines she deems essential, including (by implication) all these false teachers of another religion, are going to hell.

The idea that progressive Christianity is a whole new religion and everyone in it is going to hell is  reactionary hog wash.It ignores Phil 3:15 "All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you."NIV.In other words he doesn't say 'O you are in another religion so You are going to hell he says if you disagree that's cool God will show you (It's ok to differ).

Now there is a pssage where Paul says if we or an angle from heaven preach anotherJesus and another gosple let us be damned! So yes there ae some things that are beyond disagree, but fundamentalists who seek to create their own litmus test for the Gospel are actually seeking to make a new gospel.

Rauser does a second blog piece on Childer's 8 points of conversion.[2]

“Today we have God’s final revelation, and Geisler concluded that, according to the New Testament, the essentials one must believe (at least implicitly) in order to be saved are"

1.human depravity (I am a sinner);
2.God’s unity (There is one God);
3.the necessity of grace (I am saved by grace);
4.Christ’s deity (Christ is God);
5.Christ’s humanity (Christ is man);
6.Christ’s atoning death (Christ died for my sins);
7.Christ’s bodily resurrection (Christ rose from the dead); and
8.the necessity of faith (I must believe).” (232)

I believe these eight points are true I believe they reflect the truth of the Gospel.But when we set them up in an eight point plan they seem to intimidate agreement we create another Gospel. Romans tells us we only need two points to be saved: "If you declare with your mouth, 'Jesus is Lord,' and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Take it literally, they always do.Rauser makes his attack:

Infants do not believe these doctrines, not even “implicitly”. So it follows that according to Childers’ view, infants who die in infancy go to hell. So does a twelve-year-old Jewish girl who dies in Auschwitz. So does every person who rejects proposition 8 in favor of a Christian inclusivism (or even hopeful inclusivism). No doubt, by this metric, Childers also believes that adherents to that non-Christian religion she calls Progressive Christianity, people like Peter Enns, Richard Rohr, and Brian Zahnd, are also going to hell where they will suffer eternal punishment, being tortured day and night forever.[3]

Those points reflect the truth of the gospel they are never presented as an eight point plan that must be accepted in all eight points.The idea that a progressive otloois a diferetfaith servigof hell is arroant and mean spirited.Thefdieswhothin thisway havecreated teirowdifferent gospel. They offersalatio y agreeet with their views.



[1]Randal Rauser, "According to Alisa Childers, People Like Me Are Going to Hell: A Review of Another Gospel?" Randal Raues blog, (July 11, 2021 ) https://randalrauser.com/2021/07/according-to-alisa-childers-people-like-me-are-going-to-hell-a-review-of-another-gospel/

[2]Randal Rauser"An Open Letter to Lee Strobel and Sean McDowell," Randal Raues blog, (July 12, 2021) https://randalrauser.com/2021/07/an-open-letter-to-lee-strobel-and-sean-mcdowell/

[3] Ibid