Modernism in Theology

Bushnell put forward a progressive orthodoxy as a middle way between conservatism and liberalism (Olson 2013). However, the fact that he is typically classified as a liberal Protestant theologian suggests the degree to which he deviated from traditional orthodoxy. Bushnell attempted to reconstruct certain doctrines, such as the Person Christ and atonement, by updating them to appeal to modern consciousnesses. At the same time, he upheld supernaturalism and biblical mystery. This middle ground did not really appease liberals who wanted a total reform with respect to theology or conservatives who wanted to maintain traditional orthodoxy. That is why the middle ground between the two and the theologians who tried to reach it tends to be viewed with such scorn.
Dorner was a Lutheran—“more Lutheran than Reformed”—and so not very similar to Bushnell, who ministered to the Congregational churches of Connecticut (Olson 2013, 246). Bushnell emphasized religious feeling. Dorner believed the Protestant Reformation had not yet been accomplished. Dorner believed the orthodoxy of Protestant was still too rooted in the classical traditions. Dorner sought to describe a God who is more relational than immutable while at the same time avoiding the Hegelian panentheistic conception of God, which posits that “all is in God,” meaning that God is related to the world as the soul is to the body (Cooper 2006, 3).
Dorner thus sought to show that the world had to develop a relationship with God anew, had to move past the old world traditions that prevented the human soul from reaching out and touching the light. Bushnell also shared this sentiment in his own way. He wanted to explore God from the perspective of the modern mind without tearing out the basic fundamental beliefs of God that still rang true. For Hegel, whom Dorner disliked because the former insisted that God was as dependent upon the world as the world was upon God, the idea of God was more a projection of humanity upon the heavens. Neither Dorner nor Bushnell believed this to be the case, which is why they never went so far as to embrace liberal theology. They simply believed that there was room in which the work of the Reformation still had to grow. This room could be filled out by personal or relational understanding of God, but it ought not to be abandoned for the idea that God was a human construct. Such an argument was contrary to Christian faith, as far as they were concerned. This is how they sought to establish a middle ground between tradition and modernism. In so doing, they walked a tightrope of understanding that did not much appeal to scholars who felt one should be on one side of the divide or the other. Those who sought to walk the middle were like the lukewarm who would be vomited from the mouth of God.
References
Cooper, J. W. (2006). Panentheism--the other god of the philosophers: From Plato to the present. Baker Academic.
Olson, Roger E. The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013.