Liberal Christianity
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Liberal Christianity, also known as
liberal theology and historically as
Christian Modernism (see
Catholic modernism and
Fundamentalist–Modernist controversy),
[1] is a movement that interprets
Christian teaching by taking into consideration modern knowledge, science and ethics. It emphasizes the importance of reason and experience over doctrinal authority. Liberal Christians view their theology as an alternative to both atheistic
rationalism and theologies based on traditional interpretations of external authority, such as the
Bible or
sacred tradition.
[2][3][4]
Liberal theology grew out of
the Enlightenment's rationalism and the
Romanticism of the 18th and 19th centuries. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was characterized by an acceptance of
Darwinian evolution, use of modern
biblical criticism, and participation in the
Social Gospel movement.
[5] This was also the period when liberal theology was most dominant within the
Protestant churches. Liberal theology's influence declined with the rise of
neo-orthodoxy in the 1930s and with
liberation theology in the 1960s.
[6] Catholic forms of liberal theology emerged in the late 19th century. By the 21st century, liberal Christianity had become an
ecumenical tradition, including both Protestants and Catholics.
[7]
In the context of theology,
liberal does not refer to
political liberalism, and it should also be distinguished from
progressive Christianity.
[1]
Liberal Protestantism
Liberal Protestantism developed in the 19th century out of a perceived need to adapt Christianity to a modern intellectual context. With the acceptance of
Charles Darwin's theory of
natural selection, some traditional Christian beliefs, such as parts of the
Genesis creation narrative, became difficult to defend. Unable to ground faith exclusively in an appeal to
scripture or the person of
Jesus Christ, liberals, according to theologian and intellectual historian
Alister McGrath, "sought to anchor that faith in common human experience, and interpret it in ways that made sense within the modern worldview."
[8] Beginning in Germany, liberal theology was influenced by several strands of thought, including the
Enlightenment's high view of human reason and
Pietism's emphasis on
religious experience and
interdenominational tolerance.
[9]
The sources of religious authority recognized by liberal Protestants differed from conservative Protestants. Traditional Protestants understood the
Bible to be uniquely authoritative (
sola scriptura); all doctrine, teaching and the church itself derive authority from it.
[10] A traditional Protestant could therefore affirm that "what Scripture says, God says."
[11] Liberal Christians rejected the doctrine of
biblical inerrancy or
infallibility,
[12] which they saw as the
idolatry (
fetishism) of the Bible.
[13] Instead, liberals sought to understand the Bible through modern
biblical criticism, such as
historical criticism, that began to be used in the late 1700s to ask if biblical accounts were based on older texts or whether the
Gospels recorded the actual words of Jesus.
[9] The use of these methods of biblical interpretation led liberals to conclude that "none of the
New Testament writings can be said to be
apostolic in the sense in which it has been traditionally held to be so".
[14] This conclusion made
sola scriptura an untenable position. In its place, liberals identified the
historical Jesus as the "real
canon of the Christian church".
[15]
German theologian
William Wrede wrote that "Like every other real science, New Testament Theology has its goal simply in itself, and is totally indifferent to all dogma and Systematic Theology". Theologian
Hermann Gunkel affirmed that "the spirit of historical investigation has now taken the place of a traditional doctrine of inspiration".
[16] Episcopal bishop
John Shelby Spong declared that the literal interpretation of the Bible is
heresy.
[17][18]
The two groups also disagreed on the role of experience in confirming truth claims. Traditional Protestants believed scripture and
revelation always confirmed human experience and reason. For liberal Protestants, there were two ultimate sources of religious authority: the Christian experience of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and universal human experience. In other words, only an appeal to common human reason and experience could confirm the truth claims of Christianity.
[19]
In general, liberal Christians are not concerned with the presence of biblical errors or contradictions.
[12] Liberals abandoned or reinterpreted traditional doctrines in light of recent knowledge. For example, the traditional doctrine of
original sin was rejected for being derived from
Augustine of Hippo, whose views on the New Testament were believed to have been distorted by his involvement with
Manichaeism.
Christology was also reinterpreted. Liberals stressed
Christ's humanity, and his divinity became "an affirmation of Jesus exemplifying qualities which humanity as a whole could hope to emulate".
[8]
Liberal Christians sought to elevate Jesus'
humane teachings as a standard for a world civilization freed from
cultic traditions and traces of
traditionally pagan types of belief in the
supernatural.
[20] As a result, liberal Christians placed less emphasis on miraculous events associated with the life of Jesus than on his teachings.
[21] The debate over whether a belief in miracles was mere
superstition or essential to accepting the
divinity of Christ constituted a crisis within the 19th-century church, for which theological compromises were sought.
[22][
pages needed] Some liberals prefer to read Jesus' miracles as
metaphorical narratives for understanding the power of God.
[23][
better source needed] Not all theologians with liberal inclinations reject the possibility of miracles, but many reject the
polemicism that denial or affirmation entails.
[24]
Nineteenth-century liberalism had an optimism about the future in which humanity would continue to achieve greater progress.
[8] This optimistic view of history was sometimes interpreted as building the
kingdom of God in the world.
[9]
Development
The roots of liberal Christianity go back to the 16th century when Christians such as
Erasmus and the
Deists attempted to remove what they believed were the superstitious elements from Christianity and "leave only its essential teachings (rational love of God and humanity)".
[21]
Reformed theologian
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) is often considered the father of liberal Protestantism.
[9] In response to
Romanticism's disillusionment with Enlightenment
rationalism, Schleiermacher argued that God could only be experienced through feeling, not reason. In Schleiermacher's theology, religion is a feeling of absolute dependence on God. Humanity is conscious of its own sin and its need of redemption, which can only be accomplished by Jesus Christ. For Schleiermacher, faith is experienced within a faith community, never in isolation. This meant that theology always reflects a particular religious context, which has opened Schleirmacher to charges of
relativism.
[25]
Albrecht Ritschl (1822–1889) disagreed with Schleiermacher's emphasis on feeling. He thought that religious belief should be based on history, specifically the historical events of the New Testament.
[26] When studied as history without regard to miraculous events, Ritschl believed the New Testament affirmed Jesus' divine mission. He rejected doctrines such as the
virgin birth of Jesus and the
Trinity.
[27] The Christian life for Ritschl was devoted to ethical activity and development, so he understood doctrines to be value judgments rather than assertions of facts.
[26] Influenced by the philosophy of
Immanuel Kant, Ritschl viewed "religion as the triumph of the spirit (or moral agent) over humanity's natural origins and environment."
[27] Ritschl's ideas would be taken up by others, and Ritschlianism would remain an important theological school within German Protestantism until World War I. Prominent followers of Ritschl include
Wilhelm Herrmann,
Julius Kaftan and
Adolf von Harnack.
[26]
What is liberal Christian theology?
Answer
In liberal Christian teaching, which is not Christian at all, man’s reason is stressed and is treated as the final authority. Liberal theologians seek to reconcile Christianity with secular science and modern thinking. In doing so, they treat science as all-knowing and the Bible as fable-laden and false. Genesis’ early chapters are reduced to poetry or fantasy, having a message, but not to be taken literally (in spite of Jesus’ having spoken of those early chapters in literal terms). Mankind is not seen as totally depraved, and thus liberal theologians have an optimistic view of the future of mankind. The social gospel is also emphasized, while the inability of fallen man to fulfill it is denied. Whether a person is saved from his sin and its penalty in hell is no longer the issue; the main thing is how man treats his fellow man. “Love” of our fellow man becomes the defining issue. As a result of this “reasoning” by liberal theologians, the following doctrines are taught by liberal quasi-Christian theologians:
1) The Bible is not “God-breathed” and has errors. Because of this belief, man (the liberal theologians) must determine which teachings are correct and which are not. Belief that the Bible is “inspired” (in that word’s original meaning) by God is only held by simpletons. This directly contradicts
2 Timothy 3:16-17: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
2) The virgin birth of Christ is a mythological false teaching. This directly contradicts
Isaiah 7:14 and
Luke 2.
3) Jesus did not rise again from the grave in bodily form. This contradicts the resurrection accounts in all four Gospels and the entire New Testament.
4) Jesus was a good moral teacher, but His followers and their followers have taken liberties with the history of His life (there were no “supernatural” miracles), with the Gospels having been written many years later and merely ascribed to the early disciples in order to give greater weight to their teachings. This contradicts the 2 Timothy passage and the doctrine of the supernatural preservation of the Scriptures by God.
5) Hell is not real. Man is not lost in sin and is not doomed to some future judgment without a relationship with Christ through faith. Man can help himself; no sacrificial death by Christ is necessary since a loving God would not send people to such a place as hell and since man is not born in sin. This contradicts Jesus Himself, who declared Himself to be the Way to God, through His atoning death (
John 14:6).
6) Most of the human authors of the Bible are not who they are traditionally believed to be. For instance, they believe that Moses did not write the first five books of the Bible. The book of Daniel had two authors because there is no way that the detailed “prophecies” of the later chapters could have been known ahead of time; they must have been written after the fact. The same thinking is carried over to the New Testament books. These ideas contradict not only the Scriptures but historical documents which verify the existence of all the people whom the liberals deny.
7) The most important thing for man to do is to “love” his neighbor. What is the loving thing to do in any situation is not what the Bible says is good but what the liberal theologians decide is good. This denies the doctrine of total depravity, which states that man is incapable of doing anything good and loving (
Jeremiah 17:9) until He has been redeemed by Christ and given a new nature (
2 Corinthians 5:17).
There are many pronouncements of Scripture against those who would deny the deity of Christ (
2 Peter 2:1)—which liberal Christianity does. Scripture also denounces those who would preach a different gospel from what was preached by the apostles (
Galatians 1:8)—which is what the liberal theologians do in denying the necessity of Christ’s atoning death and preaching a social gospel in its place. The Bible condemns those who call good evil and evil good (
Isaiah 5:20)—which some liberal churches do by embracing homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle while the Bible repeatedly condemns its practice.
Scripture speaks against those who would cry “peace, peace” when there is no peace (
Jeremiah 6:14)—which liberal theologians do by saying that man can attain peace with God apart from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and that man need not worry about a future judgment before God. The Word of God speaks of a time when men will have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof (
2 Timothy 3:5)—which is what liberal theology does in that it says that there is some inner goodness in man that does not require a rebirth by the Holy Spirit through faith in Christ. And it speaks against those who would serve idols instead of the one true God (
1 Chronicles 16:26)—which liberal Christianity does in that it creates a false god according to its own liking rather than worshiping God as He is described in the whole of the Bible.
THE ABOVE ARTICLE IS FROM "GOT QUESTIONS.ORG " IT CONTAINS MOSTLY TRUTH EXCEPT FOR THEIR BELIEF IN THE TRINITY.
