This definition of "liberal Christian" is consistent with my biased presentation of it.
The definition is non-judgmental. Your presentation alleges this viewpoint is inconsistent with Christian belief. But what in it is contrary to Christian belief? Nothing that I can see.
Take for example the re-interpretation of traditional doctrine. Is tradition so sacrosanct that it may never be critiqued? Jesus certainly did not think so, for he constantly criticized and condemned some of the traditional interpretations of the Torah current in his day.
The doctrine of the Trinity as presented in the Nicene creed is rooted in a Greek philosophy in which terms like "substance" and "accident" had technical meanings that are no longer current in either common or academic parlance. Why try to ossify the theological truth of the Trinity in linguistic concepts that make it read like gobbledygook to a modern mind? Why not attempt to translate from the categories of ancient Greek thought to the catgories of today's philosophical paradigms? Why interpret the attempts to explain the Trinity in a logic more natural to the modern reader as a rejection of the Trinity itself?
These variation on views can very easily allow a "liberal Christian" to have views similar to Mormons or Jehovah's Witnesses, groups most of us readily classify as heretical.
Oh, not at all. Neither of those groups are liberal in any sense of the term. I will consider any further attempt to link them to liberal/post-liberal theology as poisoning the well.
but it is what I firmly believe is the motive behind what I am calling "liberal Christianity."
Well, clearly, having been educated within that school of thought, I am more familiar with it than you are. I can honestly say I have never met a liberal/post-liberal teacher whose motivations are what you claim. Nor have I found a smidgeon of such motivation in the writings of well-known liberal/post-liberal theologians. Hence I reject your perception of "the motive behind...liberal Christianity" as baseless in fact and untrue to my experience.
Many theologians exist who challenge the authority and authenticity of the Scriptures; this is what I would call "not believing the Scriptures."
Here is the typical "liberal theology" I was raised with. How does it challenge the authority and authenticity of the Scriptures?
Not only is the Bible an authentic reliable record of God's encounters with men in the past, but God uses it to speak to men in the present. .... The Bible has, at least, the authority of an authentic record, maybe not infallible in all its details, but certainly authentic. When the early church chose [these] out of the many books that were circulating...it was testifying that these books are reliable. Not that the church was giving them their authority; it was giving official recognition to the fact that these books have authority in themselves.
When the minister reads the scriptures in church and says "Hear the word of God" ... he says this because he has confidence that as God has borne witness to himself in the past, so he will bear witness to himself in the present. It happens! The Bible does come alive.
Emphasis in the original. The Word and the Way, Rev. Peter Gordon White, 1960. (This book was the primary adult study book in the United Church of Canada in 1960 and for some years thereafter.)
Whoa, slow down there. When did I start talking about "non-conservative Christians?"
Sorry, I had just said that the only sense in which I accept the label "liberal" as applied to myself was as a general synonym for "non-conservative" and it was in that context I used the term.
We mustn't be so cautiously logical that we attempt to explain away the mysteries of the gospel and of our Lord.
I spoke of paradox, not relativism. And what is more open to mystery than paradox? What has more power to open us to the reality of mystery than paradox?
What Paul argues for, he argues for logically and reasonably.
Indeed, but it is rabbinic logic not Aristotelian logic. It is expressed in the language of myth and metaphor which the rabbis typically used. This language is no more difficult to understand than any other. Myth is a form of explanatory language, not occult mumbo-jumbo and hidden esoteric meanings.
The goal of Scripture interpretation is to discern the author's original intent to his original audience.
Agree, absolutely. That is why a historical-contextual approach to scripture is so helpful in understanding it better. We need to understand the mind-set and world-view of both author and audience to get at what the text meant to them.
Because of this, they held some awkward beliefs for a while, and perhaps still do. These beliefs included the ability to cast out demons by blowing a trumpet, objects being possessed with evil spirits, if they are not convicted of sin then it is not a sin (whatever they do), etc.
Well, if you understood liberal/post-liberal theologies better, you would know that this is a far cry from liberalism. Liberalism would reject this as superstitious nonsense.
Actually, as an English teacher, you are probably trained to understand a form of English as "correct" and a form of English as "incorrect."
Oh, I am a more modern teacher than that. I understand the classism of formal grammar and acceptable vocabulary.
I tend to favor the use of words for their colloquial meaning...
That is simply a way to keep people in ignorance and support their fear of linking the words "bible" and "myth". Naturally, as long as one operates with the understanging that "myth=false", it is incumbent to reject the association implied in "biblical myth".
However, this is what we all do. We have to make a determination which sections of Scripture are historical and which are allegory.
Only if you see them as mutually exclusive categories. If one accepts that a narrative can be both historical and allegorical this determination becomes unnecessary.
If you are an unbeliever, or you are a "liberal Christian" who denies that miracles can or do happen,
The assumption that liberal/post-liberal Christianity requires a denial of miracles is incorrect. You might like to check out
The Language of God by Francis Colliins on this point.
It may be that some events described in the bible as miraculous did not actually involve a breach of natural law, but that is not a denial that the event occurred, nor that God was revealed in the event. When people have a limited view of how nature can work, some natural events will seem to require super-natural intervention, and will be recorded as such, even though a direct intervention in nature was not actually needed. Was manna really sent down from heaven or was it a natural product of the desert? Does it matter? For the people of Israel it was a sign of God's care for them. That is the important message.
However, for a ... Christian who knows that God is all powerful and works miracles in history, I will say that it is unreasonable to interpret Genesis as allegory.
Interpreting Genesis as mythic narrative has nothing to do with the power of God to work miracles. It is neither a denial of God's power nor a denial that miracles occur. It has everything to do with identifying the type of narrative it is and the purpose of the author in presenting his narrative in this format.
This evidence is not contained in Scripture, but in the realm of what we call "science." I believe the theory of Macro Evolution, more than anything else, has encouraged the allegorical interpretation of Genesis.
The narrative itself is the evidence, and it was recognized as not literal long before there was any scientific evidence to call it into question, by (among others) Augustine of Hippo in the 5th century. Science may have made the need to understand the non-literal character of Genesis more intense, but it would be non-literal whether or not the apparent conflict with science existed.
I would also say that the science of geology is a more formidable opponent of a literal interpretation of Genesis than evolution. It is the science of geology that makes a literal recent creation untenable and did so decades before the evolution controversy arose.
You see, Paul can make the simile that marriage is like Christ and the church because marriage exists, and so does Christ, and so does the church. If marriage were itself a non-existent story that was created as allegory to teach a principle, using it as part of the simile would seem ridiculous.
You have it backwards about. Marriage comes first, then the myth about marriage. It is because we have marriage we also have a mythic explanation of what marriage is. And that mythic explanation is also a true explanation. The purpose of myth (rather like the purpose of a scientific theory) is to explain reality. It just uses a metaphysical rather than a mechanistic or sociological way of explaining it.
Myth deals more directly with the meaning of marriage. And insofar as that meaning is true, Paul can use it as the basis of his allegorical marriage of Christ and the church.
If hands and feet didn't exist, but were an allegorical concept, it would seem silly to use such hyperbole.
Exactly. It is not the hands and feet that are figurative. It is the hyperbole. Metaphor is the necessary language of spiritual discourse. Our language is grounded in the objective realities perceived by our senses. We speak of spiritual things through analogies to physical things. So discussing spiritual realities always requires metaphorical language.
I simply and strongly insist that Genesis is not allegory. I have provided numerous reasons. I don't think my audience here has read them and considered them unreasonable.
My apologies if you do not think I have read your arguments. I have and that is one of the reasons I have taken time to reply. Also, all of us have heard and read similar arguments. Many of us once believed such arguments ourselves. So we have considered them seriously in our own personal spiritual history. And we have come to the conclusion that they are not sound. Yet none of us has abandoned Christian faith as a consequence. In fact, for many of us, our faith has been significantly strengthened, the bible is more alive and comprehensible to us, and Christ is more real than ever.
We must remember that the whole concept of the scientific model may itself have a flaw that we are unable yet to realize.
Maybe, but for now it is our best guide to the truth about nature that we have. It is not unreasonable to treat it as such until such a flaw reveals itself.
Although they did indeed develop some advanced concepts of math and science, they never abandoned their insistence on religion as a means of understanding the natural world.
But even in ancient times they did not learn about the natural world through religion. They observed nature and learned from observation, though their observations were unsystematic. And even in modern times our understanding of the natural world (as opposed to information about it) rests on our religion or paradigmatic world-view.
Why, today, do we suddenly believe that religion is best for spiritual concerns, but "science" (in its broadest sense) is best for the natural "real" world? This dichotomy is unbiblical, that we should pit the natural against the supernatural, not realizing that it is ALL in a sense supernatural. Who created this universe?
You are quite right in saying we should not pit the natural against the supernatural. That is what atheists do. It is also what YE-creationists do. The attachment of "real" to "natural" is a false assertion that spiritual concerns are not real. By the same token, we do not need to assure the reality of spiritual concerns by denying the reality of nature, and this is what the rejection of science essentially is.
Just because [God] does it through means that we can observe does not make it any less the work of our God's hands.
Hear! Hear! I have been arguing for years that "natural" does not mean "absence of God". But why not apply the same reasoning to geology, astronomy, physics and evolution? Just because we now understand how light travels, how geological features are formed and how species diversify is no reason to exclude God from these processes. They don't argue against God or scripture. They only argue against one fallible human technique of interpreting scripture. To me, it is rather arrogant to say that when my interpretation of scripture conflicts with reality, it is reality that must give way to my interpretation of scripture.
Where they literal days or figurative?
Neither. They are literary. That is, within the framework of the narrative they are literal, but they cannot be removed from the framework of the narrative to take a place in history.
You must also believe that he created the plants and animals in the order it says. Is it essentially important?
Not possible when there are two different orders. In the first creation account, the author has constructed a logical framework for the ordering of creation. In the second account a different logic creates a different order.
But in science data trumps logic. And neither logical framework, elegant and logical though they are, is consistent with the physical data of creation.
You must also believe that humans were the crowning final creation, and that one man was created from the dust of the ground.
I believe all life is created from the "dust of the ground". No problem here.
However, if you take it as a "myth" that means that God just sort of generally created everything, but that life started with a primordial ooze ... well, that is just unreasonable a fit to this "myth" of Genesis 1-3.
Of course it is unreasonable to try and fit science into a mythical narrative. Why people think TEs even contemplate this is beyond me. That is not what the myth of Genesis means at all. See my post on Assyrian's thread on what Genesis 1-3 mean if not taken literally. You can't force science into the myth or make the myth "represent" science. But what the myth does mean is in no way inconsistent with science and does not require the rejection of science.
