Are there any actual liberals here?

[FireDragon76]

When I attended a UCC Church several years ago (with communion that particular Sunday) they had a different creed at the beginning of the service. I don't remember what it was called, though.

My Pentecostal (Assemblies of God) classmate thought the UCC service was very structured, from her POV.

Yes, it is very structured. Our older hymnal, which we still use from time to time, has an order of worship that's very similar to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church. However, most of our clergy do not wear any vestments except a stole.

 

[RDKirk]

It claims Jesus was born of a virgin. It also claims he rose from the dead, and that he will return again. Many people do interpret those claims in terms of biology or cosmology.

If you have another explanation, it would be welcome.

Those are miracles...explicitly exceptions to the laws of biology of cosmology, so they actually say nothing about biology or cosmology at all.

 

[FireDragon76]

Those are miracles...explicitly exceptions to the laws of biology of cosmology, so they actually say nothing about biology or cosmology at all.

On the contrary, the fact some view them as exceptions potentially has everything to do with biology and cosmology.

 

[RDKirk]

On the contrary, the fact some view them as exceptions potentially has everything to do with biology and cosmology.

"The exception proves the rule," but first there must be the rule. What we can learn of biology and astronomy by creation's own revelation (Psalm 19) is the rule. Jesus was the exception, but we know Him as an exception only because of the rule.

If this were the universe as envisioned in the Graeco-Roman pantheon, there would be no rule...things happened according to the whimsy of the gods. It was necessary for the ancient Greek physicists and astronomers to be atheists in effect. Or tat least heretics worshipping an Unknown God of order and consistency.

That the universe of the God of Abraham operates primarily according to the rules He established, and that miracles are exceptions to the rule and not a matter of the universe operating willy-nilly according to a whimsical God, is the reason we can have sciences.

 

[RileyG]

Yes, it is very structured. Our older hymnal, which we still use from time to time, has an order of worship that's very similar to the 1928 Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church. However, most of our clergy do not wear any vestments except a stole.

I remember seeing her (the pastor) wear a green 1970s style stole.

 

[hedrick]

An personal observation based on exposure to history.

World War 2 really changed culture around the world in a way that did not allow people to go back to the way things were.

I agree only in part. In college in the 60s I got the impression that liberal theology was dead. But it's not so clear that this was true. Karl Barth was highly influential. He condemned liberal theology, because he thought German liberals gave into Naziism. This has a major effect. But there were pronlems with this diagnosis:

• That may have been true in Germany, but in the US the liberal tradition has been much more inclined to find and oppose government abuse.
• By most criteria, Barth himself was engaged in the same enterprise as Schleiermacher.

I found that in the latter 20th Cent there was an increasing appreciation of the continuity between modern theology and the liberal tradition.

I believe the current culture wars have changed things more than World War 2. Almost all theology now, on both sides, seems to be focused on cultural wars. At least in the 1st World. There's still fine theology going on, but it's not visible here (nor would the rules allow it), nor in many churches.

 

[FireDragon76]

I agree only in part. In college in the 60s I got the impression that liberal theology was dead. But it's not so clear that this was true. Karl Barth was highly influential. He condemned liberal theology, because he thought German liberals gave into Naziism. This has a major effect. But there were pronlems with this diagnosis:

• That may have been true in Germany, but in the US the liberal tradition has been much more inclined to find and oppose government abuse.
• By most criteria, Barth himself was engaged in the same enterprise as Schleiermacher.

Bonhoeffer, in some of his later works, does critique Barth, but on very different grounds. He thought Barth notion of revelation was misguided. From what I understand of Barth, his ideas about revelation would not be an alternative to Fundamentalism, but in some ways grounding the sentiments of Fundamentalist Biblicism in existentialism (which for Bonhoeffer is just another way of refusing to grow up intellectually and spiritually).