What exactly is a liberal Christian?

[Northern Christian]

Is there anything to being a liberal Christian other than being a theistic evolutionist instead of a YEC?

 

[Northern Christian]

Awaits an answer....

 

[catch22]

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

 

[Northern Christian]

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

Are you speaking in a political sense or a theological sense?

 

[BeanMak]

That is the question~ are you talking political or theological? I consider myself a liberal political, moderate thological christian
What does this mean? (hey, I feel a little like Luther)
It means I believe politically in government social programs, trade unions, increased funding for education, that the tax cut was a stupid idea when you have a war planned that is going to cost in the billions. I believe theologically that there is a trinity, that God intercedes in this world; that he created this world by the power of his voice, but that he took a really long time to do it; why, who knows, it is up to Him. I believe that we are to do the best we can with what we are given, that we should take care of the beam in our own eye before worrying about the speck in our neighbor's. That our neighbor is the homosexual, the choir soloist, the poor, the Muslem, the Baptist, the Catholic, the Buddist.
And I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God came down from heaven to die on a cross for my sins. And while I was (am) still a sinner that he saved me.

 

[Anthony]

Liberal Christians are Burger King Christians; You know have it your way. They pick and chose those parts they like and throw out the rest.

 

[Doctrine1st]

Liberal Christians tend to follow the teachings of Jesus, while conservative Christians tend to follow the teachings of Church doctrines in regards to Jesus.

 

[Northern Christian]

What is an example of "throwing out the rest" other than being an evolutionist instead of a creationist?

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

Liberal Christians are Burger King Christians; You know have it your way. They pick and chose those parts they like and throw out the rest.

Wrong.

I'm a liberal Christian because I take the Bible seriously, but not literally. All of it. I find I can't do both. When I took it literally, there were bits I had to just completely leave on the side. Now I don't have that problem - I can engage with the whole text.

Look at it this way. Christian doctrine has three pillars: Scripture, Tradition and Reason.

Protestants generally, and evangelicals and fundamentalists in particular, emphasise Scripture.

Catholics and Orthodox (and I include Anglo-Catholic and similar "wings" within otherwise Protestant groupings here) emphasise tradition.

Liberals emphasise Reason.

Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages.

The first approach tends towards phariseeism; rules of proscribed behaviour - drinking, dancing, movies, RPGs, rock music...

The second approach tends towards a difficulty in changing to adapt to changes in society and culture.

The third approach tends towards an overcritical attitude towards Scripture and Tradition.

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.

It's really got little to do with origins. In the UK, most evangelicals are theistic evolutionists.

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.

 

[TScott]

What exactly is a liberal Christian?

An Episcopalian?

 

[NeilUnreal]

As a liberal Christian myself, I can pretty much ditto everything Karl said, except that my background is protestant evangelical/fundamentalist.

-Neil

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

Great post, Karl!

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

I would also like to add that liberal Christians tend to see doubts as opportunities to grow in faith rather than signs of weakness.

 

[Anthony]

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

 

[Spaarks]

There is no such thing as a liberal Christian. You can be one or the other but not both. Sorry.

 

[tulc]

is there no way the Church can get away from black and white thinking about our brothers and sisters? We aren't liberal vrs conservative we are Christians vrs Christians and we end up being no different from the world.
tulc(avoid labels, they are just lazy thinking)

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

There is no such thing as a liberal Christian. You can be one or the other but not both. Sorry.

That comes pretty close to breaking the first rule of these boards.

Do you mean one cannot be politically liberal? You might want to actually read the works of some radical Christians (Jim Wallis and Tony Campolo spring to mind straight away) before concluding that.

If you mean one cannot be theologically liberal, I suggest you attempt to explain why.

 

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

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

This is a classic example of why I am not a fundamentalist. This proposition is a classic excluded middle fallacy. It posits that one either takes all the Bible stories literally, or throws them out.

But this is a fallacy. Liberal Christians do not "throw out" those stories they think are not literally true (in my case, Job and Jonah both spring to mind), but rather consider them to be true in what they teach. Job, for example, does not primarily teach that there was once this bloke called Job who all these things happened to; rather it teaches about the inscrutability of God and the uselessness of conventional, pat answers from the religious. It struggles with the question of why the innocent suffer (raised also in the Psalms) and concludes we cannot know. There's a terribly brief commentary - is that "throwing out"?

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

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

They are not thrown out. Liberal Christians look at what the point of the story is and how the original audience would have received it. There is no reason to literalize something the author and original audience knew to be not literal.

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

There is no such thing as a liberal Christian. You can be one or the other but not both. Sorry.

I beg to differ.