Recently in a Christian Education class, I commented on the importance of the doctrine that states, "Divine revelation ceased with the death of the last apostle." Roughly, this means that there can be nothing new to the faith following the death of the last apostle. Faith can be clarified and more precisely defined, as the councils of history have attempted to do. What cannot be allowed to happen is a new revelation.
So here come the Modernists who state that God continues to reveal himself in new ways to his people in each generation. What this means is that there is no stable, unchanging core of faith and that faith is a culturally-determined phenomenon. More to the point, it means that faith is something that is man-defined, something we discover anew for ourselves in each generation.
Nowhere has this dangerous notion been more evident than in the discussions surrounding human sexuality. The Christian Tradition from the Bible to the Fathers to today is that the purpose of sexual activity is primarily the begetting of children and is to be exercised within the state of Holy Matrimony. Modern Christian thought has totally stripped human sexuality from its primarily procreative function and made it, primarily, a form of personal expression. This self-expression can be exercised within any life context and in any consensual circumstance. Granting the Modernist premise, then any attempt to stifle sexual expression or restrict, is a serious violation of a person's right to express themselves. A brief glance at the modern world will show the results of this thinking.
What prompted this discussion was a statement by the Brazilian Episcopal Bishops in which they said that Biblical passages against homosexual behavior are not relevant to the modern discussion. The statement is about as clear an example of the intellectual flaw and spiritual disease of Modernism that I've seen in a while and the link for it is here:
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/modules/news/article.php?storyid=7911
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