Hedrick :
In answer to your question of why I call myself liberal:
Unfortunately the term "liberal" is used to cover quite a variety of people. Pretty much anyone who doesn't accept conservative Christianity is typically described as liberal. I don't accept conservative Christianity, because I think it is based at least as much on conservative theological tradition as Scripture. I'm a sola scriptura liberal, meaning that I do my best to base my faith on what Christ actually taught. I place priority on Jesus over Paul, though Paul is at times useful. I don't think, as some do, that they're opposed to each other, but I do think we should start with Jesus, not Paul, to define salvation.
The current writer who is closest to me is probably N T Wright, at least with respect to Jesus' teachings and the nature of the Gospel. I'm not so sure about his views on Paul.
How does this differ from a conservative viewpoint?
* The good news is that God sent Jesus to establish the Kingdom of God, and to be its Lord. The conservative viewpoint tends to limit the Gospel to certain aspects of personal salvation. Wright has a good book about this, "How God became King."
* I think the conservative Protestant concept of the atonement, penal substitution, is based more on medieval thought that Scripture. Somewhat surprisingly, while Calvin is often credited with penal substitution, his primary model of the atonement is closer to Rom 6.
* I think inerrancy misunderstands what the Bible is, making it what we want to be rather than what it actually is.
* I think conservatives use of the concept moral purity is a mistake. Jesus teachings cast doubt on whether the concept of "pure" can be applied to humans at all. He uses obedience, but not purity. And his teachings on judgement base it on whether we've done anything that matters to others, not whether we're morally pure.
* I admit that ethics is to some extent relative to culture. Not because core ethics changes, but because the significant of actions that sound like they are the same may actually be different in a different context. Conservatives use that approach for issues that used to be controversial (slavery, taking interest on loans), but reject it for issues that are currently controversial. I try to be consistent. I try to use the approach of Matthew 5, which looks at how things actually affect people and their relationships, not at the letter of the law.
