04/11/2026
Back to the Pulpit: Recovering Vertical Teaching
When preachers capitulate to the culture’s definitions of love, justice, and identity, the congregation will inevitably follow.
When they tremble at the text and exalt Christ above all earthly powers, believers gain a compass strong enough to withstand the cultural storm.
We should seek to recover at least four practices:
Expository courage: Preach through books of the Bible, refusing to skip the hard texts. Let God set the agenda.
Doctrinal clarity: Name the historic Christian consensus on contested issues with charity and confidence, showing how it flows from the whole counsel of God.
Pastoral tenderness: Apply vertical truth with horizontal compassion. The point is not to win arguments but to shepherd souls who are confused, wounded, and discipled more by screens than by Scripture.
Public faithfulness: Teach believers how to engage politics and culture without making them their savior. Help them recognize both Talarico‑style revisions and Christless conservatism as counterfeit gospels.
A progressive/liberal theology is not merely a set of controversial positions; it is a catechism in a different god—one who always agrees with us, never disciplines us, and cannot finally save us.
Vertical teaching calls us back to the real Christ: the One who speaks with authority, judges with righteousness, forgives with blood‑bought mercy, and reigns with unshakeable glory.
In an age eager to rewrite the Bible, the most countercultural thing the church can do is simple: open the text, preach what it says, and bow.
Entire Article:
The Smoke and Mirrors Theology of James Talarico
