Answer
One thing is certain about “Christian Rationalism”—there is nothing Christian about it. Christian Rationalism claims to be a science and a philosophy, not a religion, and makes no pretense to be “Christian” at all in the sense of believing in and following Christ, worshiping Him, and obeying His commands. Like all false religions, Christian Rationalism rejects the deity of Christ, the Bible as the Word of God, and salvation by faith in Christ alone.
According to the Christian Rationalism website, thousands of years ago great men driven by ideals of reform tried with their teachings to enlighten humanity. Men such as Jesus, Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed taught similar spiritual principles; however, they were not truly understood and ended up being deified by the illiterate masses. Once the idea of divinization took hold, the respective religions were created, each preaching a different form of speculative worship, and the followers of each flocked together. All of them taught the principles that Christian Rationalism now teaches and thus, despite their name, they have nothing to do with the biblical Jesus Christ.
According to its adherents, Christian Rationalism deals with physical and psychic phenomena, philosophical and psychological issues, reincarnation, “incorporeal life,” space and the universe, the power of thought, evolution, gods and religions, force and matter, the aura, ethics, family and children. Quite a vast array of topics are incorporated into “Christian rationalism,” many of which are clearly occult in nature, in particular psychic phenomena and reincarnation.
The basic beliefs of the Christian Rationalists are contrary to Scripture, beginning with their concept of God as a “universal spiritual force, or a universal intelligence,” not a Person. CR adherents see God as made up of “billions and billions of intelligent spiritual particles,” of which man is part. That means that each one of us is a particle of that universal force which is God. This philosophy is rampant among New Age cults and false religions. The belief that man can be God is very appealing to our fallen nature, originating in the Garden of Eden with the first lie told by Satan: “…you shall be as God” (Genesis 3:5). Jesus, according to the Christian Rationalists, was not God incarnate as Scripture states, but simply a good, moral man who said good things. He is not the one and only Savior of the world, despite His own claims to be the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life and the only access to the Father (John 14:6). To the adherents of CR philosophy, a “Christian” is not one who believes in the biblical Jesus for salvation, following and obeying Him. Rather, a Christian is one whose behavior lines up with Christian morality, but the word non-biblical is added to the statement, causing one to wonder where they find the “morality” they call “Christian,” if not in the Bible.
Christian Rationalism is just another part of Satan’s attempt to deceive people into thinking that they are gods and can find their own identity and meaning through his pseudo world. It is, of course, completely against the teaching of the Bible and the God-man, Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, and coming King of the world, and the One whom true believers will worship and serve for all eternity.