What exactly is a liberal Christian?

[Rayosun]

Conservative Christians do exactly the same thing (i.e pick and choose what they follow and don't follow in the scriptures), except they claim they don't.

And because they CLAIM to believe EVERYTHING in the scriptures, it is HYPOCRISY for them when they ignore parts of the scripture, but perfectly compatible for the beliefs of Liberals, when they openly STATE they don't follow something that they don't profess to believe. See the contrast between Liberals & Conservatives at

 

[middo]

Whats worse is when you fall in the middle holding to some of both camps...

 

[tcampen]

And because they CLAIM to believe EVERYTHING in the scriptures, it is HYPOCRISY for them when they ignore parts of the scripture, but perfectly compatible for the beliefs of Liberals, when they openly STATE they don't follow something that they don't profess to believe. See the contrast between Liberals & Conservatives at

Liberals acknowledge doing some picking and choosing of their own when it comes of scriptural evaluation and interpretation. Conservatives do it just as much, but delude themselves into thinking they are following God's interpretation rather than their own. I find the latter to be far more dangerous.


(if you don't see how conservative christians are doing this, just look at the diversity of theology among this group. This can best be explained by individual picking and choosing - whether intentionally or not.)

 

[La Bonita Zorilla]

Liberals acknowledge doing some picking and choosing of their own when it comes of scriptural evaluation and interpretation. Conservatives do it just as much, but delude themselves into thinking they are following God's interpretation rather than their own. I find the latter to be far more dangerous.


(if you don't see how conservative christians are doing this, just look at the diversity of theology among this group. This can best be explained by individual picking and choosing - whether intentionally or not.)

Very clever and accurate analysis.

 

[James Sez]

Conservatives do it just as much, but delude themselves into thinking they are following God's interpretation rather than their own. I find the latter to be far more dangerous.

You can argue this point until your blue in the face and you still get that popular conservative response. "Your wrong, I believe ALL of God's word." They need to add ..."as interpreted by... (Calvin, Luther, St. James de Sez , etc.).

 

[La Bonita Zorilla]

You can argue this point until your blue in the face and you still get that popular conservative response. "Your wrong, I believe ALL of God's word." They need to add ..."as interpreted by... (Calvin, Luther, St. James de Sez , etc.).

Falwell, Dobson, D. James Kennedy, LaHaye & Jenkins....

 

[tcampen]

You can argue this point until your blue in the face and you still get that popular conservative response. "Your wrong, I believe ALL of God's word." They need to add ..."as interpreted by... (Calvin, Luther, St. James de Sez , etc.).

...Harold Camping, Benny Hinn, Hank Hanagraph, Bob Larson, Cal Thomas...the list just goes on and on and on and on.

 

[Crazy Liz]

The person who invited me here (Thanks, Zorilla!) suggested I post in teh Liberal Theology area, especially in this thread. It's quite long & I haven't read it all yet, so please excuse me if this is repetitive.

I consider myself an Evangelical, more than a Liberal. I certainly don't consider myself a fundamentalist, but I love the Bible, and especially the Gospel. Perhaps I don't know enough liberal Christians who share this love, so I find myself more comfortable with Evangelicals, although I often chafe at their conservatism.

How does this fit in your classification system?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Hence, whilst being essentially liberal, I have more than a nod towards both evangelicalism (where lie my roots) and catholicism (whence comes my preferred worship style and my context for understanding the nature of Scripture), and I wouldn't be without them.

...

Interesting point though - if you ask for a Bible verse about a given topic, the evangelical will usually find something in the Epistles; the liberal from the Gospels.

Hey, I'm finding a lot to sympathize with here!

I think I need to start blessing some of you because what I'm reading here is really blessing me. How, exactly, does that work?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Liberal Christians for a starters, take many of the Bible Stories as myths and fables. This is the part they throw out.

That's what I always thought. It made me feel I didn't have much in common with liberal Christians. Now I'm not so sure. I wonder to what degree this is a fundamentalist caricature of liberal Christianity.

I guess my question is whether by definition all liberal Christians first seek to "demythologize" scripture and throw out certain parts, or if they simply tend to interpret certain parts of scripture less empirically and absolutely and more metaphorically and/or relative to their time.

I love scripture and wouldn't throw out any of it. There are some parts I consider more mythological, but no less true. Does the concept of "true myth" make sense to any of you?

There are other parts (particularly in the epistles) that I think have been misinterpreted to a great degree, but I wouldn't throw them out. The task is to interpret them correctly. We can't completely disregard the interpretations of all the people of faith that went before us, but I don't want to treat tese saints or their interpretations as infallible, either. There's a balance to be struck here.

OK, that's my second statement about liberal Christianity. Am I a liberal Christian or not?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Why do people today think these are "teaching stories"? Convenience?

Were Adam and Eve real people? Jesus and Apostle knew them to be real people. Do they refer to Job as a fake person or someone real? God's word is the truth it is not worded to decieve.

...

Was Jesus a liar in this passage in which he refers to Noah and the Flood?

When I refer to the scriptural narratives in my teaching, I refer to them in exactly the way Jesus and James did in the passages you cited. I do this because I believe the stories to be true, although not necessarily in an empirical sense. I do not need to qualify their empirical accuracy in order to use them for teaching.

All scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that everyone who belongs to God may be proficient, equipped for every good work. - 2 Timothy 3:16-17

God is not a liar, but God is a poet!

 

[Crazy Liz]

"Evangelical- a designation for Christians who hold to basic conservative interpretations of the Bible, including the belief in the literal supernatural conception (virgin birth) of Jesus, his resurrection from the dead, and the proclamation of the "evangel" or "good news" of salvation through Christ. This term arises out of the Greek word euangelion, meaning "good news." Evangelical is also a generic term that includes Christians from a wide variety of Protestant denominations, Eastern Orthodoxy and even evangelical Roman Catholics. It's not exclusively a Protestant term. Although Evangelicalism is conservative in a traditional view of the Bible as the Word of God, they tend not to be separatist (avoiding other Christian churches who disagree with their theology-see Fundamentalism). "Evangelical" is also an umbrella term that covers Christians who hold to such beliefs."

Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Phyllis Schlafly, Cal Thomas, etc. will be shocked to find evangelicals are "liberal."

I see you put this definition in quotation marks, but you did not cite your source.

Where did you find this definition?

 

[Fideist]

I guess my question is whether by definition all liberal Christians first seek to "demythologize" scripture and throw out certain parts, or if they simply tend to interpret certain parts of scripture less empirically and absolutely and more metaphorically and/or relative to their time.

It depends. Liberal (American) Christian does not exactly describe a monolithic group. Liberals are sort of the philosophical grandchildren of the former progressive wings of the main line churches. The demythologizing was done mostly by Bultmann, and is not necessarily an exegetical task, but rather a method for discovering "The Historical Jesus". This was, at the time, called "Higher Criticism". The liberals, though mainly disturbed, did not reject this strategy, because most were aware of what the Deists had done. And that was far more damaging to the claim that the gospels were history. The demythologizing of Bultmann and others was an attempt to repair some of the damage rather than just deny any had been done.



Some people did not accept these pursuits as legitimate. They saw them as blasphemy. And therein, lies the basic split.



But back to your question. Texts such as the tale of Jephthah’s Daughter in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) are not considered to be entirely literal, but based on some other ancient story, and meant to be a theological statement by the original writer. The same thing goes for the idea in Luke that you must hate your parents in order to be a follower. In other words, as a rule, Liberals do not think the Bible is a completely literal handbook on how to live your life in this day and age. That does not equate to "throwing parts out"; it is more along the lines of emphasizing Jesus' command to love God and your neighbor. Conservatives tend to stress the cross, and eternal life. This as a vast oversimplification, but that’s the best I can do on short notice.

 

[Crazy Liz]

But back to your question. Texts such as the tale of Jephthah’s Daughter in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) are not considered to be entirely literal, but based on some other ancient story, and meant to be a theological statement by the original writer. The same thing goes for the idea in Luke that you must hate your parents in order to be a follower. In other words, as a rule, Liberals do not think the Bible is a completely literal handbook on how to live your life in this day and age. That does not equate to "throwing parts out"; it is more along the lines of emphasizing Jesus' command to love God and your neighbor. Conservatives tend to stress the cross, and eternal life. This as a vast oversimplification, but that’s the best I can do on short notice.

Thanks.

Most of what you said was already pretty familiar to me. However, having grown up in a tradition that was throroughly evangelical and leaned too many times toward fundamentalism, I noted that some people here seemed to be talking about "throwing out" parts of the Bible, while others were merely talking about a less empirical interpretation, along the lines of your description of the story of Jephtha's daughter.

My question is whether those who think of themselves as liberal Christians think of either of these as part of the definition of "liberal Christian." I have heard lots of fundamentalists say liberals "throw out" parts of the Bible. I think I've heard a few admit to such - a la Bultmann - or simply dismiss certain of the NT epistles for one reason or another. I'm trying to get a "feel" of how those who describe themselves as liberal Christians define the term, as opposed to the way their opponents define it. This thread makes a good start.

 

[Sunbeam]

liberal and christian don't belong together in a sentence if you ask me. Conservative and christian on the other hand....yes.
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ooooo I agree.

:::runs screaming, with hands in the air, whether clothed or not, whether on a building top, mountain top, or valley:::

when I hear the word - liberal.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

:::then I come back,(sometimes after the casts have been taken off though sometimes before) offer peace offering of PEPSI and chocolates, and repeat the Serenity prayer::::

 

[Arikereba]

Thanks.

My question is whether those who think of themselves as liberal Christians think of either of these as part of the definition of "liberal Christian." I have heard lots of fundamentalists say liberals "throw out" parts of the Bible. I think I've heard a few admit to such - a la Bultmann - or simply dismiss certain of the NT epistles for one reason or another. I'm trying to get a "feel" of how those who describe themselves as liberal Christians define the term, as opposed to the way their opponents define it. This thread makes a good start.

I define myself as a liberal Christian; I agree with almost all the basics of the Christian faith. However, I do not think that the entire Bible should be taken as the authoritive guide for how to live my life now--but instead through the lens of "why did people write this down as the word of God," with one option being that any given part really is the word of God, others that it is myth, parable, mostly historical but with some not-very-relevant details being wrong...

In particular, I'm inclined to take the gospels as being as close to inerrant as I would ask. The later historical parts of the Old Testament are probably reasonably accurate to what happened. The beginning of Genesis is suspect because I really can't believe that God would create a bunch of fossil evidence for evolution in order to deceive people (among other reasons). Job reads like a myth to me; its truth or lack thereof isn't really relevant to me. I believe that parts of Paul's epistles are at worst extremely good theology, and at best divinely inspired, but also that parts were so influenced by the culture in which he lived that they no longer apply to our culture. I'm inclined to be twice as skeptical of my own motives, and more conservative, where I have some selfish reason to want scripture not to apply to me.

If Christianity required me to be conservative, I could not be a Christian.

The scientific evidence tells me that I cannot believe that Adam was created from scratch.

My heart tells me that I cannot worship a God who thinks it's fine to live in opulence but terrible to be gay, a God who would want me to stop fighting for my rights as a woman, a God who thinks it's better to bemoan the terrible moral state of the world than to go out there and get your hands dirty to help someone out.

So? Why can't I be a Christian and a liberal? Someone want to help me out here?

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

liberal and christian don't belong together in a sentence if you ask me. Conservative and christian on the other hand....yes.
===========

ooooo I agree.

:::runs screaming, with hands in the air, whether clothed or not, whether on a building top, mountain top, or valley:::

when I hear the word - liberal.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

:::then I come back,(sometimes after the casts have been taken off though sometimes before) offer peace offering of PEPSI and chocolates, and repeat the Serenity prayer::::

Funny thing - it took me years to accept the possibility that conservatism was compatible with Christianity - the Magnificat is hardly a conservative manifesto, for example. But, again, are we talking about political or theological conservatism? I for many years was theologically conservative but politically liberal.

 

[Fideist]

Thanks.

I'm trying to get a "feel" of how those who describe themselves as liberal Christians define the term, as opposed to the way their opponents define it. This thread makes a good start.

Oh! I think I see now! I think Will Rogers may have said it best:

I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!
-- Will Rogers

Maybe the same can be said for Liberal Christians. It is a very diverse group.

I can speak for myself, though. I'm about as liberal as you're ever going to come across. I do not throw out parts of the Bible or dismiss them. I do try to understand who (as in what tradition) wrote a particular section and why. I then group some as being more relevent or simply more important than others. I tend to avoid proof texting as much as possible, and try to read/understand in context and in combination with various commentaries. I doubt I have any opinions that can't be changed or altered. Does that help any?

 

[Crazy Liz]

Good personal statement, Fideist. Thanks.

 

[draper]

Of course not all Bible stories are real. Did Abraham's son, or whoever it was, live for 600 years? Of course not! Anyone with a few brain cells can figure that out. A pastor told me that, too.

Anyways I don't think its fair Christians jdge the salvation of other Christian. "You're not a Christian because you don't believe every single word of the Bible is true" or "You're not a Christian because you have a liberal lifestyle..."...

You see where you could come across as Nazis? Veru un appealing to the general public.