What is a Liberal Church?

[Reader Nilus]

What is a liberal church? Theological liberals or liberals when it comes to social agendas or what? In some ways Orthodoxy is very liberal, in others very conservative so what is it?
Jeff the Finn

[seebs]

I would suspect that the right line to draw is not one of positions but of response to disagreement. In other words, it's not how people feel about a given issue, but how they feel about people who disagree with them.

[datan]

so what are the hallmarks of a liberal Christian?

[Bushido216]

In my experience, liberal Christians hate words like "plain reading" and "literal".

[seebs]

so what are the hallmarks of a liberal Christian?

I'm not sure there are any easy ones, but... A tendency to be willing to admit that the answers are complicated, or to acknowledge the possibility of their own error.

So, as an example... I believe that public prayer (in the common sense) is clearly prohibited, and sinful. But... I don't necessarily reject people who disagree, or ask that they be "cast out", or anything. This is the behavior which is called "condoning sin" by people who don't do the thing you're talking about, and "Christian charity" by people who do. Perhaps it's both.

[datan]

"public prayer" is sinful?
that's the first time I've heard it.

do you mean like when the pastor gets up in front of the church and prays?

[CaDan]

We are the boy who said the emperor has no clothes.
We are Rachel weeping for her children.
We are Noah setting his feet on dry ground.
We are Preacher Casey and Tom Joad.
We are the ones with AIDS hospices in our rectories and homeless shelters in our basements.
We are the widow with her mite.
We are the woman at the well.

We pray for the dead and work like hell for the living.
We afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
We make the Kingdom of God manifest.

We are your sons and daughters.
We are your fathers and mothers.
We are your sisters and brothers.

We will break bread with Pharisees and lepers.
We will dine with sinners and tax collectors.
We will be a neighbor to all, even to our enemies.

For are we not the Body of Christ? What else can we do?

[seebs]

"public prayer" is sinful?
that's the first time I've heard it.

Yeah. It's widely underplayed.

do you mean like when the pastor gets up in front of the church and prays?

No. That's shared. I mean, say, people ostentatiously gathering in public to show off how they pray. Nowadays, they say things like "reminding people that this is a Christian nation". Christ forbade it, and for good reasons.

[seebs]

CaDan said it excellently. Did you write that just now, or is it from somewhere, or what?

[CaDan]

CaDan said it excellently. Did you write that just now, or is it from somewhere, or what?

Just wrote it up. That's why I make the BIG MONEY! :)

Obviously, parts are well known quotes.

It started with Noah. I don't know why--I just started thinking about how Noah must have felt when he stepped out of the ark onto dry ground again. I don't even know what it means.

And for those of you who want to give me trouble about the Flood, read my profile first!

[CaDan]

What is a liberal church? Theological liberals or liberals when it comes to social agendas or what? In some ways Orthodoxy is very liberal, in others very conservative so what is it?
Jeff the Finn

I can't give you a good answer for what a liberal "church" is; only about individuals.

To my mind, Orthodoxy is "classically" conservative. The Orthodox Church keeps old ways of doing things around for a LONG time unless there is a REALLY GOOD reason the change them. IIRC the last Ecumenical Council was around 1200 years ago. . . .

If I understand it correctly, the Orthodox Church views itself as a koinonia--a community--of churches all bound together not so much by doctrine but by liturgy. In the West, we (Catholics and Protestants) have been trapped in a doctrine-based paradigm for so long that we have forgotten that there is a completely different way of looking at organizing the Body of Christ.

Just my two-bit thoughts. I'm not Orthodox, so I can't really say.

I do have a question, though. There is a Greek Orthodox church two blocks from my home. Would it be offensive for me to simply attend a service there? I don't know how to behave, aside from respectfully, but I could sit in back with the rest of the smokers, hoods, and greasers! :)

[Orthodox Andrew]

I do have a question, though. There is a Greek Orthodox church two blocks from my home. Would it be offensive for me to simply attend a service there? I don't know how to behave, aside from respectfully, but I could sit in back with the rest of the smokers, hoods, and greasers! :)
Drop on by. Go and sit in the front if you like.:)

[CaDan]

Drop on by. Go and sit in the front if you like.:)

Funny story: One of the Resident Assistants for the dormitory I lived in at college was a Greek Cypriot. He went to church ONCE that year. He said all the second and third generation Greeks wanted to talk to him about the politics of the Cyprus situation; he just wanted to go to church!

I wonder where Sophocles ended up? I haven't thought of him for a long time.

[Orthodox Andrew]

Funny story: One of the Resident Assistants for the dormitory I lived in at college was a Greek Cypriot. He went to church ONCE that year. He said all the second and third generation Greeks wanted to talk to him about the politics of the Cyprus situation; he just wanted to go to church!

I wonder where Sophocles ended up? I haven't thought of him for a long time.

Well, the Greeks like to talk.:P

[LADY DI]

We are the boy who said the emperor has no clothes.
We are Rachel weeping for her children.
We are Noah setting his feet on dry ground.
We are Preacher Casey and Tom Joad.
We are the ones with AIDS hospices in our rectories and homeless shelters in our basements.
We are the widow with her mite.
We are the woman at the well.

We pray for the dead and work like hell for the living.
We afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.
We make the Kingdom of God manifest.

We are your sons and daughters.
We are your fathers and mothers.
We are your sisters and brothers.

We will break bread with Pharisees and lepers.
We will dine with sinners and tax collectors.
We will be a neighbor to all, even to our enemies.

For are we not the Body of Christ? What else can we do?
CaDan, I like what you wrote.

[Toney]

CaDan, I like what you wrote.



So do I!

I also like the idea of using "1" in place of age, as Seebs and CaDan have done. Since we Liberal Chrisitians have no faith icon, I decided to walk in those richly symbolic footsteps also.

[CaDan]

So do I!

I also like the idea of using "1" in place of age, as Seebs and CaDan have done. Since we Liberal Chrisitians have no faith icon, I decided to walk in those richly symbolic footsteps also.

New thread started on this . . .

[Bizzlebin Imperatoris]

I hope this isn't too odd of a question: Is it possible to be fundamental in belief, yet liberal in the acceptance of believers?

[seebs]

I hope this isn't too odd of a question: Is it possible to be fundamental in belief, yet liberal in the acceptance of believers?

Certainly. I hold much more conservative positions on some issues than most of our "fundamentalist" brethren, but I'm a liberal because I'm willing to let people disagree peacefully.

[Bizzlebin Imperatoris]

Certainly. I hold much more conservative positions on some issues than most of our "fundamentalist" brethren, but I'm a liberal because I'm willing to let people disagree peacefully.
Thanks a lot. I have very similar ideas :)

[Polycarp1]

Certainly. I hold much more conservative positions on some issues than most of our "fundamentalist" brethren, but I'm a liberal because I'm willing to let people disagree peacefully.Somebody PM this to Plan9, please! :)

[gzt]

To my mind, Orthodoxy is "classically" conservative. The Orthodox Church keeps old ways of doing things around for a LONG time unless there is a REALLY GOOD reason the change them. IIRC the last Ecumenical Council was around 1200 years ago. . . .

If I understand it correctly, the Orthodox Church views itself as a koinonia--a community--of churches all bound together not so much by doctrine but by liturgy. In the West, we (Catholics and Protestants) have been trapped in a doctrine-based paradigm for so long that we have forgotten that there is a completely different way of looking at organizing the Body of Christ.
You're right that it is classically conservative in a certain sense - though I think there ought to exist a term for it without political implications. Innovation [especially doctrinal] is indeed considered "wack".

But we are not bound by the liturgy - the relative liturgical uniformity of the Orthodox Churches is a late development and not essential nor the basis of our unity. Correct doctrine is necessary within the Orthodox Church - is that a fundamentally non-liberal position?

[Treasure the Questions]

Good question. My church proudly displays a certificate to say it is a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain. However, even they would seem liberal to some Americans. They do not insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2, although they would hold that homosexual practices are sinful.

Most people in my church are a fairly tolerant bunch and they put a fair amount of emphasis on working in the community and things like Fair Trade and social justice. They are also very welcoming and show a great deal of care for each other.

A lot of evangelicals in this country are fairly liberal compared to American evangelicals I think.

Karin

[Maccie]

Good question. My church proudly displays a certificate to say it is a member of the Evangelical Alliance of Great Britain. However, even they would seem liberal to some Americans. They do not insist on a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 & 2, although they would hold that homosexual practices are sinful.

Most people in my church are a fairly tolerant bunch and they put a fair amount of emphasis on working in the community and things like Fair Trade and social justice. They are also very welcoming and show a great deal of care for each other.

A lot of evangelicals in this country are fairly liberal compared to American evangelicals I think.

Karin
Yes, my church is a member of the EA too. We don't have a paid Minister, but the 8 Elders do that job between them. But I think there is a pretty fundamental basis for their theology. Don't know about creationism, but homosexuality is a sin, regardless, and there is a very strong conviction that everyone outside our church (or a similar church) is unsaved. They won't join the "churches together" movement in our town, because the leader/motivator/whatever she called herself was a practising lesbian. I suspect some at least of the congregation are more liberal, but they are not very friendly, and I've never discussed things like that! Home Groups were dire, very fundamentalist. I don't go any more!!

So I'm in a bit of a wilderness and no-man's land!

Maccie

[Treasure the Questions]

Our church is an active member in churches together in our town thankfully. I believe it was a while before the Quakers were allowed to join, but they are members now and very valuable memebers, too.

Sounds tough for you Maccie. :hug: I know you don't want to church hop too much, but I hope you will find a church where you can really feel at home in the not too distant future.

Karin

[artybloke]

Well, I go to a Quaker meeting. We're so liberal, we don't even have priests! Or rather, everyone is a priest...

We also have gay, straight, transexual and even Liberal Democrat members. And, on the whole, we're pacifists. Not all of us are mung-bean eating vegetarians, mind you; but we do drink Fairtrade coffee (with Fairtrade sugar to taste) after the meeting.

I also go on my days off to an Affirming Anglicanism Anglican church, which apart from the priests and the liturgy, isn't that much different in spirit. (And the priest [horror of horrors ;) ] is married to a woman priest! )

[Treasure the Questions]

We have a choice of Fairtrade coffee or Fairtrade tea after the service, artybloke:P , and occasionally Fairtrade sugar to put in our drink. I even took Fairtrade biscuits once, when it was my turn to do the after service drinks.

Is your meeting applying for Fair Trade church status, arty, or have they already done so?

I went to a Quaker meeting while in Cardigan and I'm not sure their beverages were Fairtrade. I forgot to ask. There were only 7 in total and they tended to come from the surrounding villages. They seemed a rather isolated little group in Cardigan itself.:(
Karin

[Origen]

So what are the hallmarks of a liberal Christian?

Westminster John Knox Press (the well-respected Presbyterian imprint) is publishing what may be the definitive study of liberal theology: Gary Dorrien's three-volume series The Making of American Liberal Theology. The first two volumes have already been published: The Making of American Liberal Theology: Imagining Progressive Religion, 1805 - 1900 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0664223540/) (2001) and The Making of American Liberal Theology: Idealism, Realism, and Modernity, 1900-1950 (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0664223559/) (2003).

In the Introduction to the first volume, Dorrien reviews prominent definitions of liberal theology over the past two hundred years before offering his own understanding of what characterizes liberal theology. Here is that definition:

The Making of American Liberal Theology[/B] (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0664223559/)"]In accord with my concept of it as a movement that began in the late eighteenth century, I define liberal theology primarily by its original character as a mediating Christian movement. Liberal theology is a tradition that derives from the late-eighteenth and early nineteenth-century Protestant attempt to reconceptualize the meaning of traditional Christian teaching in the light of modern knowledge and modern ethical values. It is not revolutionary but reformist in spirit and substance. Fundamentally it is the idea of a genuine Christianity not based on external authority. Liberal theology seeks to reinterpret the symbols of traditional Christianity in a way that creates a progressive religious alternative to atheistic rationalism and to theologies based on external authority.

Specifically, liberal theology is defined by: its openness to the verdicts of modern intellectual inquiry, especially the natural and social sciences;
its commitment to the authority of individual reason and experience;
its conception of Christianity as an ethical way of life;
its favoring of moral concepts of atonement;
and its commitment to make Christianity credible and socially relevant to modern people.

For those more interested in this topic, here are two reviews of Dorrien's work: one from Christian Century (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_16_119/ai_90534283/print) and another from a sociologist and retired United Methodist minister (http://www.tcpc.org/resources/reviews/imagining_progressive.htm).

[Origen]

Some folks draw a distinction between liberal and progressive Christianity but I'm not sure how helpful that is ... at some point it starts to resemble counting angels on the head of a pin.

Anyway, The Center for Progressive Christianity (http://tcpc.org) suggests these eight points as descriptive of liberal/progressive Christianity:



By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who…

1. Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus;

2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us;

3. Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples;

4. Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):

believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;

5. Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe;

6. Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes;

7. Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers; and

8. Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.

[Yahweh Nissi]

Well, I go to a Quaker meeting. We're so liberal, we don't even have priests! Or rather, everyone is a priest...

We also have gay, straight, transexual and even Liberal Democrat members. And, on the whole, we're pacifists. Not all of us are mung-bean eating vegetarians, mind you; but we do drink Fairtrade coffee (with Fairtrade sugar to taste) after the meeting.
LOL :D

Hey, I am a Lib Dem activist, and I certainly do not think of/refer to myself as a liberal Christian - rather evangelical. I guess this shows the problem that thas already been discussed a lot of defining liberal. I have been 'accused' of being a liberal because I am a thiestic evolutionist, and 'accused' of being a fundamentalist because I believe homosexual practice is sinful. As far as the definitions Origen posted, I disagree vehemently with point 2 of progressive and point 4 of liberal, but agree heartily with others, especially points 7 and 8 of progressive.

Anyhow, greetings to all my liberal brothers and sisters here, whatever you mean by that! :wave:

[Karl - Liberal Backslider]

YN - I can understand why you might object to the progressive point you mentioend, but I'm interested to know your objection to "moral models of atonement"

[wonder111]

hmm, the church I attend makes love the rule and frowns on legalism. I also agree with CaDans OP

[Jennifer615]

I'm not sure if you would call me a liberal Christian.

I have accepted Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour. I truly believe He is the son of God.

I do however believe that, although the Bible is the word of God, it is open for interpretation. For example, pro-tithers always use scripture to back up their beliefs, and people who don't tithe also use scripture. Some people interpret scripture to reveal a warm fuzzy loving God, and others, like the patriarchs, seem to view a very harsh, legalistic God who has rules for everything and always back everything up with scripture.

In my heart I believe homosexuals are born this way and can't help themselves, so why condemn them! Accept them and give them the same standards as hetrosexuals! Of course, I am open to believe that I may be wrong.

I believe abortion is WRONG! except if it is to save the woman's life. My belief comes from extensive study and when arguing my views, I never bring religion into it. I just state the facts and explain the humanity of the unborn. I am pro-contraception, as I believe it does not take a life and may stop an abortion. If one chooses to sleep around, for goodness sake, use contraception!!

I've been divorced and have remarried. I have received so much condemnation from Christians regarding my situation. Some said I had "no biblical reasons" to divorce my husband, despite the fact that he mentally, emotionally and spiritually abused me for our entire marriage! I believe he broke the marriage covernment by abusing me. I would like to believe that God understood my situation and will bless my marriage and family!

I suppose I don't believe that God is some brainless bureaucrat who has hard fast rules and doesn't see each person's unique situation. Some things are black and white, but there are alot of gray areas in most situations.

So, would you call me a liberal Christian?

[seebs]

I would call you a good Christian, and leave the question of "liberal" between you, God, and perhaps the forum staff... But they seem to have gotten the hang of this group. If you aren't willfully trolling, we're glad to have you. The more the merrier!

[fragmentsofdreams]

What is a liberal church? Theological liberals or liberals when it comes to social agendas or what? In some ways Orthodoxy is very liberal, in others very conservative so what is it?
Jeff the Finn
I think that the defining quality of a liberal church would be one that puts a very high emphasis on Jesus' command to love one another. Its morality would use this as its primary axiom.

This will have some visible effects. Services will probably start with everyone greeting each other and introducing themselves. Visitors will be welcomed. Most importantly, people will actually care. For example, at the church I am attending for the summer, a woman who had sat next to me wanted to make sure she remembered my name right before we left the church. Since I will be going back to my regular church at the end of the summer, I may never interact with her again, but it was still important for her to remember my name just in case.

There will also be some sort of social action. The call to love one's neighbor is a call to help them.

There should also be acceptance of those who disagree. We should not hold grudges against those who think differently. Disagreement should not prevent fellowship.