What is the point of Liberal Christianity?

Great Debates
1

I was raised as a liberal Christian. Throughout my childhood, and beginning of adolescence I was very involved in my church. The people were kind, and there was a strong emphasis on love for everyone, and respect and tolerance of other’s beliefs. This resonated with me, and I was happy, to the point that I considered the ministry as my calling. So, as I got older I read the Bible, of course, but the older I got the more questions I had. I began to see things in a very different way. Noah’s Ark had always been a cute little children’s story, the kind of thing the wallpaper in the nursery had. But now I thought about all the people that would have perished horribly if such a story was true. But of course, I saw that it wasn’t true, and this bothered me also. All of the Old Testament was this way to me, and I found myself rejecting the entire thing as anything more than tribal stories from the foundations of my own faith. They did not represent the God of love that I worshipped, but I had never been a Bible literalist, so I chucked them.

Then I started to have problems with the New Testament. First of all, Jesus talked about Hell, and how He was the only way to Heaven. I didn’t believe that either. How could God send anyone to Hell? It was just cruel, and wrong. So, I ignored that part too. No Hell, ok. And a lot of what Paul wrote bothered me too. Of course women could speak in church; my minister was a woman, and she was wonderful. Revelations was creepy, too. But, Jesus didn’t say any of that stuff, so I felt perfectly fine about dis-believing it.

So, skipping ahead a bit, I found myself at a point where I had sort of glossed over everything Jesus didn’t say, and even a few things he did. But I still considered myself a Christian (and, it should be noted, I was still very much welcome in my church at this point). But, one day I had a sort of revelation. If Jesus was the Son of God, and all these wonderful things, He pretty much had to be infallible. I couldn’t just discount it. And if he WAS all those things, why didn’t he speak out more on the things that were important to me, in more forceful terms? Why didn’t he say, “Women who love other women, and men who love other men are ok. And women are as capable as men in every spiritual capacity, they are equal. And blacks and whites are equal, and slavery is wrong,” and so on and so on. I mean, he was God! He had to have known this stuff! You can’t say, “Oh, it was the time He lived in,” because he was timeless! Jesus’s message was revolutionary, in it’s time, but a message from God should be pretty much eternal, I thought.

So, I reached a point where I realized I respected Jesus, and found him to be a good person, and a spiritual teacher. But in my studies of other religions, I saw that Jesus was hardly the only one. There are lots of wonderful teachers, some of whom had more complete philosophies than Jesus did! I felt like Jesus could have reached that point in his ministry, but he was killed, which is very sad. And I think we can benefit from reading his teachings; they aren’t the be all end all, but what they say has merit. But I no longer considered myself a Christian, because I did not exclusively follow the teachings of Jesus. So, finally, my question:

For liberal Christians, what is different for you? What philosophy makes Christianity the thing for you? I feel like most liberal Christians have feelings similar to these (at least the ones I’ve known) but stop short of dropping their faith. Can you explain why that is?

2

There’s a lot about Christianity that appeals to me, but the least of it is the “physical theology” – that a man named Jesus even actually existed, did the things that are recounted in the Gospel, and so on.

Holy Communion, central to the faith, is the most emotionally attractive and empowering aspect of Christianity. In my case, I’m more of a “communion as metaphor” kind of guy, although as a chalister and lector I adhere strictly to the canon on how the Host is to be treated, disposed of, etc. Christianity, for me, is an experience of hope and joy in life; from the Christmas story to the Resurrection and Ascension, it is a story of renewal, hope, transcendence and community. It fits neatly with my liberal political beliefs because there is a commonness about it. Jesus never actually speaks about “civil rights” as we know them today, but his actions clearly illustrate his concern for the individual. He preaches a simple yet powerful mantra – if we love each other as we love ourselves, we will all be happier. It’s only when we fail to love each other, or even ourselves, that we get into trouble. His story is the Golden Rule in action (which is why so many people think the GR comes from the Bible.)

My recollection is that Jesus’ message of universal love and it attendant focus on making the individual as important as the community was the basis of the so-called “liberation theology” that got a few South American clerics into trouble a couple of decades ago. I won’t go into that any further (except to say I admired the priests a lot more than I did the Catholic Church in that conflict) but I hope other Dopers with better background on this aspect of Christianity will weigh in. I think it was an important movement that changed a lot of hearts and minds about both Christianity and the official Church in Rome.

The point of Liberal Christianity, I think, is to focus Christianity on serving humankind and protecting the rights of the individual, making each of us a beloved human, rather than on rigid adherence to someone elses interpretation of ancient scriptures.

I could write on this forever, but that’s my thinking/belief in a nutshell; maybe I can clarify a little as we go along.

3

While it doesn’t take quite the same approach as the OP of this thread, there is a relatively recent thread with almost exactly the same title:
What’s the point of “liberal” Christianity?

“Liberal Christianity” covers a lot of ground, and it probably includes people who simply pick and choose what they like from Christianity (and the Bible, and traditional theology) and ignore the rest, as well as those who believe that they are, by considering things like the context in which the Bible was written, taking the truest and most faithful approach to Christianity.

The latter people would have answers to questions like those raised in the OP. (Maybe not pat, completely satisfying ones, but at least thoughtful ones grounded in history, theology, etc.) For example, they would explain how, in the context of the times he was writing, the things Paul said about women make a certain sense, and then go on to explain what if anything we should do with those passages nowadays.

The fact that Jesus did not say some of the things that you wish he would have said is partly because he lived in a different time and place (so, for example, black vs. white wasn’t the big racial issue the way it has been in the U.S.), and partly because Jesus and the early Christians weren’t so much interested in directly changing the social order as changing individuals, and partly because, if we obeyed the things Jesus did say, like “Love your neighbor as yourself” or “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” the rest of your concerns would be largely taken care of.

4

I found the OP rather usual in terms of the steps people go through when they deconvert from their faith. It reminded me a bit of Julia Sweeney.

Hey now, don’t tell God how to run his universe. If he wants to burn people in a lake of fire forever and ever for not worshipping a 2,000 year old Jew so as to cleanse the sin caused by a naked lady eating an apple in a garden with a talking snake, well, that’s his right. If you want things to work differently you should go make your own universe, OK? That’s what ol’e Mr. Hubbard did.

First off, if there was a historical Jesus his sayings and teachings assuredly weren’t recorded very accurately. Thus, what’s in the New Testament probably bears little resemblance to what he actually said. So hey, maybe he did speak out against sexism and slavery but the scribes thought that was a little kooky and changed it.

And what’s so revolutionary about Jesus’s teachings? He had a lot of savior cult rivals back in the day just in his own little corner of the Roman Empire. IIRC things he was saying are recorded in a similar form decades to hundreds of years before his supposed birth.

As for liberal Christians, well…thank Mithras for them. They keep this society together and are the first line of defense from the lunatics. I just wish they would try a little bit harder, or earlier, sometimes.

5

I’m not a Christian myself, but one could argue that Jesus preached as liberal a message as the people of that time and place could accept. If he’d gone too far, and preached a message of full-on, modern liberal equality and acceptance, it would have been ignored and forgotten. So, he was as liberal as he could be and still maintain a following, with the idea that the core of his message would eventually evolve into modern liberalism.

Not being a Christian myself, that’s not something I believe personally, but it is a way to resolve the question you had.

Also, I believe the parable of the good Samaritan is an example of Jesus preaching racial equality, at least as far as the concept of race was understood in the first century. But, again, not a Christian, so I may have entirely missed the point of that story.

6

Sorry, we didn’t realize we were supposed to be doing the heavy lifting in that department. :smiley:

This has become pretty much a fundamental tenet of biblical scholarship any more. The History Channel regularly devotes whole programs to talking heads telling how political conflicts have shaped the Bible and how interpretations of the old scriptures have changed with new discoveries of original texts and supporting documents. Literal application of the Bible as a single, infallible text seems to be a fairly recent (19th century) and almost wholly American phenomenon.

There’s little doubt that the Gospels borrow heavily from previous texts and traditions, primarily those of Attis, Adonis, and Osiris. Again, I’ve watched many hours of talking heads trying to explain how Christianity emerged from the theological “primordal soup” of the Roman-occupied Middle East and the only thing they have in common is that the Jesus story seems to combine the best elements of the previous traditions.

7

Miller Christ taught a sort of universalism. Modern day liberal values are almost entirely derived from biblical teachings. IMO. However, he did practice tribal exceptionalism. There is a passage where he tells someone to go home to their own tribe and be a good person there when they want to follow him. I can’t provide the cite, but maybe someone else knows the passage I am talking about.

The problem with referring to Christ as liberal sort of misses the point. Liberalism is a worldly ideology. Christ preached being kind and compassionate to everyone, even Satan. He didn’t preach favoring one political ideology over another. Trying to align one’s political ideology with Christianity doesn’t really work. For a Christian the only real allegiance they can have is to Christ as God’s representative.

For functional purposes Christ could be referred to as a Theocratic Anarchist, IE the only authority in the entire universe is God. He preached rendering unto Caesar, but that wasn’t a nod of support, only an acknowledgement of worldly power over people’s lives.

Essentially, one cannot have civilization without idolatry. We elevate politicians to some sort of exceptional status. We worship flags and political institutions. Christ wasn’t so much liberal as much as liberalism is an attempt to secularize his teachings.

8

Maybe he did say something about it and it just never got written down.

9

But if he was divine, couldn’t he have ensured that it remained? And if he wasn’t divine, then what is the point?

10

I don’t know how I missed that. Thank you.

11

Not to be confused with a tenet of fundamentalist biblical scholarship! :slight_smile:

12

I suppose so, assuming that God took a specific interest in the validity of the Bible or some other holy tome.

13

Nicely done, nicely done! :wink:

14

I would have thought that just as God gave Adam & Eve the free will to get cast out of Eden, interfering with what fallible human scribes of the day did or did not include in their text might be an intervention too far. As a human incarnation of God I would suppose that Jesus couldn’t be an all-powerful editor, especially as he was already dead when it was written (the New Testament).

15

Cite please!

and

Which may or may not be true, but Christ ideology is to overcome the world, it is the opposite of a worldly ideology.

To miss elizabeth in the OP, it appears to me that you are trying to reconcile worldly values into Christ’s message, which doesn’t work as His values are not of the world. You pointed that you have to discount much of what Jesus said to make it fit the world and for that mater fit to world at this moment of time - this should let you know something is wrong.

I think your answered your own question, it’s not about you, it’s about furthering the glory of God.

16

Maybe to you it is, but for a great many Christians this is not so. Or, at least, not in the sense I think you mean.

Well, I disagree. If an ancient, unsubstantiated book does not jibe with the world as I demonstrably experience it today, then the book is what I’m going to discount. Not my conscience, or my love for my fellow man.

17

Right. You should test everything and hold on to that which is good.

18

For me, (and I’m offering this as an opinion, I don’t really see the debate here) the point of liberal Christianity is that a number of different life experiences - some profound, some mundane, lead me to believe that there’s significant truth in it, whereas some aspects of the more extreme or fundamentalist views cannot seem to be reconciled with my conscience or in some cases, the observable facts, so I’m not in a position that permits me to in all honesty either embrace an extremist religious position, nor completely abandon faith altogether.

19

There really isn’t meant to be much of a debate; I just wanted to hear people’s experiences, opinions, etc. I mainly put it in here because it was about religion.

20

Fair enough. Well, there it is.