How Are You Not A Liberal?
The other day I posted my thoughts about the Boy Scouts reportedly changing their policy on gay scout leaders. In that post, I qualified that I’m not ‘liberal’ and several of you asked how that’s the case. To respond, I thought it might be helpful to flesh out what the term ‘liberal’ means in the theological world because theological liberalism isn’t the same thing as political liberalism. The two can overlap in sensibilities and conclusions, but not all political liberals are theological liberals, for example. In fact, I would argue that evangelicals, most of whom are conservative when it comes to their politics, are liberal in the theological sense when it comes to their biblical interpretation.
So what’s theological liberalism?
Big picture: theological liberalism is how Christianity reacted to the challenge of modernity; specifically, the Enlightenment discoveries regarding the origin of the universe, evolution of creatures etc. Suddenly with Darwin, Newton and the rest, the literal, biblical view of our world was cast into question. A rational, objective account of Christian faith was cast into question.
One branch of the Christian tree reacted by vigorously defending the ‘fundamentals’ of the faith and asserting how they could be rationally demonstrated as true. This was the birth of modern evangelical fundamentalism- see it’s not that old a tradition. It’s younger than the 13th Amendment.
Another branch of the Christian family reacted by instead adapting traditional, orthodox Christianity to the culture of the Enlightenment. This branch redefined Christianity’s “essence” so that it no longer conflicted with the “best” of modern thought. Rather than worrying about demonstrating the rational truth of scripture and doctrine, this branch redefined Christianity as primarily about human experience. That is, doctrines are nothing more than attempts to bring human experiences of God to speech.
This branch distinguished between ‘facts’ (Science) and ‘values’ (Religion), or a better way to put it: Science describes the world as it is and Religion describes it as it should be. Thus, Christianity became less about rationally demonstrable beliefs and more about ethics. Whereas Branch 1 reacted to modernity by trying to rationally prove, say, the Resurrection, this Branch reacted to modernity by interpreting the Resurrection as symbolic of a deeper rational ‘truth.’
No longer are the stories of Jesus literally true, they are moral lessons that are universally accessible through our faculty of reason.
If you want to know why most preaching in mainline churches is moralistic finger-wagging and why mainline Christians seem incapable of actually talking about God or their faith… this is why and whence it comes.
If you know a bit about these things, then you know that’s a huge gloss over a lot nuance.
If you don’t know this stuff and I was at all clear then you’ll notice what both branches above share:
- The assumption there is something called ‘Truth’ that is universal, not contingent upon language or culture, and accessible to all.
- The assumption that Truth is accessed by or through Reason.
- The assumption that because Truth is mediated by universal Reason then scripture must be an objectively, factual text (Branch 1) or objectively, factually incorrect (Branch 2) thus requiring ‘adaptation’ to fit our modern worldview. This leads Branch 1 to give scripture too much authority (inerrancy) and Branch 2 no authority beyond its practicality (the United Methodist Church 🙂 )
In other words, both branches reacted to modernity’s challenges by assuming modernity’s premise was accurate: that Truth is mediated rationally and accessible to all regardless of language, culture or perspective.
That’s why or how most evangelicals (who fall into Branch 1) can be both politically conservative and theologically liberal.
When I say I’m not a liberal, this is primarily what I mean. Now, because theological liberalism names something different from liberal political philosophy, where I come down on certain present day issues sometimes DOES fall on the liberal side of the political spectrum but at other times does NOT fall there.
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Such an important distinction to make. The other thing that’s important to point out is that Biblical “literalism” is about populism not conservatism. It’s about the authority of the interpreter, not the text. It originated with the Anabaptists as a radical screw-the-magisterium stance. As a populist hermeneutic, it makes sense, but as an oxymoronic tradition-less conservatism, it’s grotesque.
If God gives his love and blessings freely with no restrictions on his grace, how can anyone not be a liberal?