Presbyterian theologian J. Gresham Machen correctly diagnosed theological liberalism in his insightful book Christianity and Liberalism: "In the sphere of religion ... the great redemptive religion which has always been known as Christianity is battling against a totally diverse type of religious belief, which is only the more destructive of the Christian faith because it makes use of traditional Christian terminology.” As Dr. Burk Parsons well notes, "Machen argued that liberalism is a form of disguised naturalism based on modernistic scientific theories and not on the Word of God." Although liberal clergy employ Biblical terminology, they give Biblical terms diverse meanings divorced from their signification by the Biblical writers. For example, when liberal theologians use the term "resurrection of Christ", they generally do not mean by it the literal bodily resurrection of Christ taught in the Bible, but they mean by it some metaphorical rebirth in spirit. They generally deny Biblically objective sin and its divine condemnation in hell, in favor of subjective, psychological, or sociological interpretations.
This liberal duplicity with language further manifests itself in the ethics and political policies liberal clergy like Jared Cramer and the OCUC in Ottawa County espouse. They pervert the meaning of terms used in Romans 1:26-27 to be able to justify their promotion of the LGBTQ agenda. They re-define the "stranger" referenced in passages like Leviticus 19 from a legal foreign visitor temporarily visiting a nation to include even illegal immigrants who have invaded a nation with the intention of permanently residing in it and thus effectively overthrowing national boundaries.
Christians in Ottawa County should vigilantly expose the liberal clergy for the false teachers they are. Job's words to his false accusers are an apt message to these liberal clergy: "ye are forgers of lies, ye are all physicians of no value. O that ye would altogether hold your peace! and it should be your wisdom." (Job 13) We are to speak the truth and not lies.