Brian traces progressivism from its Enlightenment roots to its expression in modern politics and the church, exposes it as a demonic counterfeit to the Kingdom of God, and points to the real future — the City of God coming to earth and the New Heavens and New Earth.

Real freedom is downstream from truth. The kingdom is here. And the real Eden is not the one progressivism is building.

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See the full episode transcript below.

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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT: The Eden Lie: Progressivism as Demonic Counterfeit

Real Freedom Is Downstream from Truth

Truth is upstream from freedom. Freedom is a wonderful value — one we all want. The human being is created to be free. Here's what Jesus said in John 8. He said to the people who believed in him: "You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings, and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free." The Amplified has it as continually obeying his teachings and living in accordance with them. Then in verse 36, Jesus says, "So if the Son sets you free, you really will be free." And in John 14:6: "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." According to the Jesus worldview, the Christian worldview, truth is ultimately a person.

So if you can go upstream and say there is no ultimate truth — if you can say there are many truths — then downstream from that you can affect human freedom. This is a core question. When Jesus stood before Pilate at his trial, just overnight before his crucifixion, at that critical moment when the Son of God was being offered as a sacrifice, Pilate asked: "What is truth?" That question echoes throughout human history.

A Quote That Rocked Me

I was sitting on the couch recently doing old school newspaper reading — the kind that makes your fingers gray from the ink. I've been reading the Epoch Times. All I needed was a pipe, a fireplace, and a dog sleeping nearby. I'm reading this article, "Looking Through an Adversary's Eyes: A KGB Agent's Prophecy," and I come across a quote that stopped me cold.

It's from a French liberal politician and journalist who lived from 1830 to 1888 — very influential, very progressive. The article used his quote to illustrate what they called the arrogance of intellectuals taken in by radical ideologies. Here it is: "Beside the divine garden from which I have been expelled, I will erect a new Eden. At its entrance, I will set up Progress, the personification of progress, and I will give a flaming sword into his hand and he will say to God, thou shalt not enter here."

Can you imagine that? The human quest has set up a counterfeit Eden. Instead of being removed from God's Eden because we were grasping at what is right and wrong, God is now removed from our Eden. And the guardian is not an angel of God. It's the personification of Progress — that is progressivism.

What Progressivism Actually Is

This is a primer, and I want to be clear — I'm on a continuum of learning here. Progressivism is rooted in the European Enlightenment. In America, it has been at least a 100-year struggle between progressivism and traditionalism. It began as an intellectual rebellion against the founding political philosophy of America — constitutionalism — rooted in the thought of John Locke and the founders of the republic.

The founders saw the authority of government depending on observed limitations on its powers. Progressivism rejects that. Its vision is a linear path in history toward absolute equality, a utopia. Social justice as equality of outcomes — in everything. And progressives want to liberate individuals from history. They want to release them from religion. They want to redefine gender and marriage. They want to dismantle the family. Progressivism believes that social conditions can change human nature.

If there is anything in you of the Christian worldview, that will run against the grain. You understand that human nature cannot be changed by social conditions alone. It requires spiritual regeneration and development as a Christ follower. And what begins as soft totalitarianism will eventually evolve into total totalitarianism — a form of government that asserts total control over the lives of its citizens through coercion, suppression, and repression.

Progressive Christianity vs. Historic Christianity

Today's modern church is not exempt from this. Jude 3 says to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Progressive Christianity affects Bible interpretation, theology, teaching, and practical living. I'm grateful that emerging voices and young apologists are addressing this. One of those is Alicia Childers. I'm dropping a link on the show notes page to an interview she did with Rod Dreher, who wrote Live Not by Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents. Highly recommended.

Progressivism is a distortion of Christian ideals. The ideal society will not be realized this side of the new heavens and new earth. Peter writes in 2 Peter 3:13: "According to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells."

The Real Future

Jesus spoke of the Ekklesia. I've been using the Greek word more because the word "church" has become misconstrued and loaded for many people. Dallas Willard calls the church the Society of Jesus. And the Society of Jesus is set within the society at large. Jesus said, "You are a city on a hill." A hill is elevated topography — everyone can see what's on top. Jesus means for his society to be a model of what it looks like to follow him, what his kingdom looks like.

And I want to say this: the city on a hill is meant to be a precursor to the City of God coming to the earth in the future. It's meant to be a sampling — partial, and yet carrying the dynamic of the City of God in contrast to the City of Man. To use Augustine's framework: the City of God is meant to be an illustrative precursor to what is coming. Can you see how this immediately contrasts with the vision of progressivism?

Progressivism is a demonic counterfeit to the real future. Following the new birth, how should we be developing and living now in this age in light of the age to come? That is our experience in the Society of Jesus. We get on the continuum of developing as apprentices of his kingdom. We begin to live now in the light of the age which is to come. We in and of ourselves become a sign, a wonder, a precursor to the real future.

God is restoring the Edenic dynamic. Beware of the demonic counterfeit. Go back to that quote: "I will erect a new Eden... and he will say to God, thou shalt not enter." That is counter-programming to the true kingdom of God, which God spoke of at the very outset — at the fall of man in Genesis 3. The Messiah would come and crush the head of the serpent. The proto-evangelium. The first mention of the gospel. And the gospel is the good news of the kingdom.

Pray It In

Here is the prayer priority Jesus gave us in Matthew 6 and Luke 11: "Hallowed be your name. May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." It's about things coming here. The kingdom of God will be completely realized at the coming of Jesus Christ — but it's already here now. Already penetrating and expanding like leaven (Matthew 13).

William Gibson coined the term cyberspace in 1984. He said: "The future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet." I want to say that the real future is here right now. It's just not widely known and not widely distributed yet. Hebrews 6:4–5 says that we can taste the heavenly gift now, partake of the Holy Spirit, taste the good word of God and the powers of the age to come.

There is a difference between normal Christ following and average Christ following. Don't take your reference point from the average of Christian life around you. Let your reference point be the Word of God, the Holy Spirit, your vital connection with the ascended head Jesus Christ, and your connection with other believers who want to run with the normal Christian life.

This is part of the abundant life Jesus promised in John 10:10: "I have come to give life and life more abundantly."

Christ is reigning. This is jesus smart x with brian del turco live the difference.

Truth is upstream from freedom. Freedom is another wonderful value that we all want. The human being is created to be free. Here's what Jesus said in John 8.

He said to the people who believed in him, you are truly my disciples. If you remain faithful to my teachings and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

The Amplified has it as continually obeying my teachings and living in accordance with them, then you are free. Then in verse 36, Jesus says, so if the Son sets you free, you really will be free. He said in John 14:6, that I am the way, the truth and the life.

No one comes to the Father except through me. You see, ultimately, according to the Jesus worldview, the Christian worldview, ultimately, truth is a person.

So if you can go upstream and say that there is no ultimate truth. You see what I mean? If you can say that there are many truths, then downstream from that you can affect human freedom. This is a core question.

Jesus, when he was before Pilate at his trial, just overnight before his crucifixion, at that critical moment when the Son of God was being offered as a sacrifice, Pilate asks this question, what is truth? And that question just echoes throughout human history, throughout world history.

Well, the other evening, here I am, I'm sitting on the couch and what am I doing? I'm not looking at digital. I'm doing old school newspaper reading. You know, the kind of exercise that makes your fingers kind of gray from the ink.

I have to wash my hands after doing a copious amount of newspaper reading. I haven't read newspapers in a long time, but recently I have subscribed to the Epic Times.

I mean, all I need sitting on that couch is a pipe and a fireplace and a dog sleeping. I mean, I was just kind of leaning in that direction. So I'm reading this article, looking through an adversary's eyes, a KGB agents prophecy.

And I read this quote in this article that rocked me now, now, sometimes I have trouble pronouncing English. And so I'm going to take a run at this French name, Jules Antoine Castagny. Okay, I know that's not right. Forgive me.

And the reason they were using this quote in this article was they were trying to show what they say is the arrogance of intellectuals who are fooled by radical ideologies. The hubris of intellectuals fooled and mistaken and taken by radical ideologies. And this is actually a phenomenon that is now being.

It's garnered the attention of some scholarship. Why are intellectuals taken by these radical ideologies? Well, here's his quote again from the 19th century. Are you ready for this? Here it is.

Beside the divine garden from which I have been expelled, I will erect a new Eden. At its entrance, I will set up Progress, the personification of progress.

And I will give a flaming sword into his hand and he will say to God, thou shalt not enter here. Can you imagine that? The Human Quest has set up a counterfeit or alternative Eden.

And instead of being removed from God's Eden because we were trying to say what is right and wrong, God is removed now from our Eden. And the Guardian is not an angel of God. It's this personification of progress that is progressivism. Now, progressivism, and this is a primer.

And I'm learning, okay? I am on a continuum. This global issue, national, global. And in the church, there is something now called Christian progressivism.

This issue of progressivism is being highlighted and I encourage everyone to get on this continuum and learn something about it. The more understanding you and I can have about this, the better. This is a primer, though, and we need to talk more about this.

We need to have more of this conversation on this podcast.

It's rooted in the European Enlightenment and it certainly has a European expression, Progressivism in America, it's been at least a 100 year quest, really, a struggle between progressivism and traditionalism in the United States.

Progressivism began as an intellectual rebellion against the founding political philosophy of America, Constitutionalism, which came from John Locke, the British philosopher, and the founders of the American republic. This is not about America. I'm just using the American context to illustrate and try to define what progressivism is from a political context.

The founders of the American republic saw the authority of the government depending on observing limitations on its powers. But that's not what progressivism does. Here's the myth of progressivism, here's the vision.

It's a linear path in history toward a state of absolute equality, a utopia, if you will. And social justice as equality of outcomes is what it's all about in everything. Does that sound familiar to you?

And progressives want to liberate individuals from history. They want to release them from religion. They want to destroy gender and marriage as being defined as one woman and one man.

They want to destroy the family. Progressivism believes that social conditions can change human nature.

Now, if there's anything in you of the Christian worldview, the biblical worldview that will run against that grain. In your own understanding, you understand that human nature cannot be changed only by social conditions.

It's something more deep seated that requires, we believe, a spiritual regeneration and a development as a Christ follower. But in progressivism, what starts out as a soft totalitarianism will eventually evolve into total totalitarianism. Sort of a double thing there.

Because totalitarianism is a form of government that tries to assert total control. That's why the word total is in that word, total control over the lives of its citizens.

It's characterized by strong government, strong central rule, attempts to control and direct all aspects of individual life by coercion, by suppression, by repression. It does not permit individual freedom. It's seen as a continuum.

You can start out with a soft totalitarianism and it can evolve and grow until it's too late and you're now in a total totalitarianism. Today's modern church, this is the contrast of progressive Christianity versus historic Christianity.

You know, Jude3 says to contend for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. Right. Progressive Christianity affects Bible, Bible interpretation, theology, how we do theology.

It affects Christian teaching and it certainly affects then practical living. How we express what we feel is Christianity. And much more can be said about that.

I'm grateful that there are emerging voices, emerging young apologists. One of those is Alicia Childers. I'm going to drop a link on the show notes page.

JesusSmart.com RealFuture Episode 167 I'm going to drop a link to a video where she's interviewing Rod Draher. D R E H E R Again my pronunciation right. Who wrote a book called Live not by Lies, a manual for Christian Dissidents.

He's an Eastern Orthodox Christian. Highly recommend that interview recently. Solid.

And I think that that interview is really much of the impetus for this particular episode, this primer on progressivism. While progressivism, my friend, is a distortion of Christian ideals, I believe that's how we can see it.

The ideal society will not be realized this side of the new heavens and new earth from a biblical point of view. Second Peter, chapter three.

In verse 13, Peter writes, According to his promise, we are looking for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. Now, Jesus spoke of the Ecclesia. He said, I will build my Ecclesia.

We know it as the word church, but I'm just using the Greek word a lot these days because I think the word church has become misconstrued. There are so many ways of conceiving what that word means a lot of people have become burnt by that word and hung up on it.

I don't know what to do about that. Call it the way like the early Christians did in the Book of Acts.

But in terms of gatherings of believers, I'm referring to it as Ekklesia Dallas Willard calls the church or the Ecclesia, the Society of Jesus. And the Society of Jesus is set within the society at large. See, Jesus again said, you are a city on a hill. What is a hill?

Well, it's elevated topography. Everybody can see what's on top of the hill.

And Jesus means for his society to be a model, an example of what it means to follow Jesus, what his kingdom looks like. And I'm saying it's meant to be a precursor. Hear me now.

If we can ever get our spirits, our minds, our understanding around this framework of understanding, I believe it will revolutionize our experience together as Christ followers and even our individual expression as a Christ follower. The city on a hill is meant to be a precursor to the City of God coming to the earth in the future and the new heavens and the new earth.

It's meant to be a sampling, albeit partial. And yet the dynamic of the City of God is in such contrast to the City of Man.

To use Augustine's contrast, the City of God is meant to be a precursor, an illustrative precursor to the City of God coming to the earth in the future and the new heavens and the new earth. Can you begin to see how immediately this now is contrasting with the vision of progressivism?

How we would say from a biblical worldview, from a theological framework, sound theology, sound biblical interpretation. Maybe I should qualify. Progressivism is a demonic counterfeit to the real future you see following the new birth.

How should we be developing and living now in this age in light of the age to come? Well, that is our experience in the Society of Jesus.

And we get on that continuum of developing as a Christ apprentice, as an apprentice of his kingdom. We begin to live now in the light of the age which is to come.

We in and of ourselves become a something of a sign, something of a wonder, a precursor to the future, the real future. God is restoring the Edenic dynamic, so beware of a demonic counterfeit. Here's his quote again.

Beside the divine garden from which I have been expelled, I will erect a new Eden. At its entrance, I will set up progress, the personification of progress. Notice this is not the one true God.

This is a false God, I might add, which ultimately finds its expression in the state as God. And his quote continues, I will give a flaming sword into his hand, and he will say to God, thou shalt not enter.

Here we're saying that's a demonic counterfeit counter programming to the true kingdom of God, which God began to speak of right at the outset, at the fall of man in Genesis chapter 3, that the Messiah would come and he would crush the head of the serpent. The proto evangelium, it's known as the first mention of the gospel. And the gospel is the good news of the kingdom.

Here's the prayer priority that Jesus gave us in Matthew 6 and Luke 11. He gave us this prayer architecture which we can really build out and use it as a template. A prayer architecture. Hallowed be your name.

It begins, may your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. You see, it's about things coming here. It's not about us going up there.

Those who have gone on before us in the Lord, yes, they're up there, and yet they're coming back here. Everything is coming back here. The city is coming here. There will be a renewed heavens and a renewed earth.

But hallowed be your name, May your kingdom come. May your will be done on earth as in heaven. The will of the Father. The kingdom of God will be completely realized at the coming of Jesus Christ.

But it's already here now.

It's already penetrating and expanding like leaven Matthew 13, Jesus said the kingdom of God develops from a tiny seed into a tree of refuge for many. Also in Matthew 13, you see, in the New Testament, the Scriptures speak of this age and the age to come.

He wasn't talking about the kingdom of God in this quote, but I think it perfectly depicts what I'm saying here. He said, the future is here. It's just not widely distributed yet. I want to say that the real future is here right now.

It's just not widely known and widely distributed yet. Hebrews 6, 4, 5 says that we can taste that heavenly gift now. We can partake. I'm reading the phrase from Hebrews 6:4, 5. Partake of the Holy Spirit.

Taste the good word of God and the powers of the age to come. Now, few believers may experience this, but let me say this, my friend.

There's a difference between normal Christ following and average Christ following. This is available to us, it's meant to be what's normative, not average.

Please, please don't take your reference point off of the average mean of Christian life that you see around you. Let your reference point be the word of God.

We need to read outside of our time.

We need to read sermons and read books from 100 years ago, 200 years ago, 500 years ago, and not be stuck in our popular culture, our popular churchianity, popular thinking.

This is what I mean about not succumbing to the average mean, but elevating yourself, pressing towards the goal, the mark, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, which from Jesus point of view is meant to be normative.

All right, well, listen, we need to have an ongoing conversation about these themes from time to time on this podcast, I'm thinking I talk with other podcasters and there's a lot of talk about actually doing some things in series, creating content in series, and maybe that's what we need to do with this topic of progressive Christianity versus historic Christianity, and then even how that plays out in terms of the body politic, in terms of society at large, what it means to live together well, what it means to live together well, from our perspective as salt and light and kingdom leaven in the society at large, how we can influence it for good, how we can show forth a new model again, the precursor of the City of God, the precursor of the new heavens and new earth to come.

I tell you, if we really study this and really pray into it and really talk with others about it who are on these frequencies, I think that it will excite our inner man.

It will animate and refresh our Christian walk with the Lord and probably bring into view new horizons for us, new seasons and new horizons and new things to work on and new ways to express our identity in Christ. I get pretty amped up about it when I start elevating my frequencies, if you know what I mean. It's not just the world, okay?

It's not just new age that talks about elevated frequencies. There are authentic elevated frequencies in the mind of Christ Jesus, in the Holy Spirit. Hey, would you share this with one or two of your friends?

This is the best way. Would you just share this with them if you think they would resonate with this topic today. I really appreciate it.

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Christ is reigning. Go live. Like it. This has been Jesus Smart X with Brian Del Turco. Until next time,.