Are You A Modernist?

Have you ever encountered someone in the Church who said it doesn't matter what religion you believe, or that truth is subjective? If so, you have probably encountered a Modernist.

Are You A Modernist?

By its very nature, Modernism—the sythesis of all heresies, according to Pope St. Pius X—is hard to define because it doesn’t have an official creed. For this reason, it is like nailing jelly to a wall. There are some basic components to Modernism, however, some of which are as follows:

1. All religions are equal. For the Modernist, it doesn’t matter if you are a Catholic, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan or snake handler; all that matters is that one is religious in some way, since all religious paths lead to God. Clearly, this is at odds with Jesus Christ, Who said, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the Father, but by me" (John 14:6). It is also at odds with what the Catholic Church teaches in the Catechism: "Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Council teaches that the Church, a pilgrim now on earth, is necessary for salvation: the one Christ is the mediator and the way of salvation; he is present to us in his body which is the Church. He himself explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and Baptism, and thereby affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church which men enter through Baptism as through a door. Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it" (846).
2. Religion is not about dogma but about sentimentality and feelings. For the Modernist, religion is essentially about what makes you feel good; if Christianity, or any other religion, is what makes you feel good and more in touch with the Divine, then it is true for you. In other words, religion does not consist of creeds or objective truth but of feelings.  As we saw in John 14:6, quoted above, truth isn't subjective but is found only in Jesus and His Church.
3. The historical Jesus is not necessarily the Jesus of the Gospels. This means the Scriptures are not necessarily reliable from an historical perspective, according to the Modernist. For example, the Modernist would say that Jesus may not have truly risen from the dead. According to this view, the Resurrection mentioned in Scripture was essentially the way the Apostles chose to communicate the belief that Jesus continues to live in our hearts after His crucifixion. This is completely at odds with St. Paul, who said, "And if Christ be not risen again, your faith is vain, for you are yet in your sins" (1 Corinthians 15:17).
4. Doctrine evolves. The Modernist says that in previous centuries, the dogmas of the Faith, such as the dogmas of the Trinity, were true, but since dogma evolves, it may no longer be true today. For the Modernist, dogma evolves into whatever accommodates the needs of the current culture. This is refuted by the fact that the dogmas of the Faith are revealed by God, and God cannot contradict Himself.
5. Orthodox terminology is maintained, but the definitions of the terms are changed.Words like “God,” “Resurrection,” “Trinity,” and “salvation” are all used by the Modernist, but what they mean by these terms has nothing to do with what these terms have traditionally meant in the history of the Church. For this reason, Modernists may appear to be orthodox, but one eventually discovers their true nature once they dig more deeply into the meaning of the terminology they use. This view of dogma was refuted by the First Vatican Council: "Hence, too, that meaning of the sacred dogmas is ever to be maintained which has once been declared by holy mother church, and there must never be any abandonment of this sense under the pretext or in the name of a more profound understanding" (On Faith and Reason, 14).

http://www.churchmilitant.com/news/article/modernism-the-heresy-of-heresies