We often talk about various Christians in broad
categories like “conservative,”
“liberal,” “evangelical,” “progressive,” and “moderate.” In this post, I want
to explore the term “liberal,” because I think of these terms it is the most
difficult to define.
Part of the reason for the difficulty is that "liberal" has at least two meanings that are really quite different from one
another. On the one hand, “liberal” could mean a commitment to intellectual
virtue. In this sense, a liberal is someone who wishes to get all the ideas out
on the table and argue them out using the tools of reason and logic. Opposing ideas are given fair consideration and are accurately
represented. Conceivably, one’s mind could be changed on even very deeply held
convictions. This is the idea behind a “liberal” education. Students are taught
to think, not simply what to think. Yes, there are certain facts and ideas that
one should simply have in hand, but all ideas, at least in theory, are subject
to critical examination. Theology, then, is as Anselm put it, faith seeking
understanding. While it is entirely permissible, even expected, that one will
hold certain faith claims, all ideas are subject to intellectual, reasonable,
and critical examination.
On the other hand, Christian liberalism represents a set of
theological positions. Because this is a blog post, I’m going to have to paint
in broad strokes, so please bear with me. Most often, Friedrich Schleiermacher is
identified as the father of liberal theology. For Schleiermacher and others
like him, individual experience authorized theological claims. This idea would
come to bear in powerful ways on subsequent liberal Christian theology. Scholars
such as David Friedrich Strauss and Albert Schweitzer would advance theological
claims based upon their own modernist formation and experience of the world. In the 20th
century, existentialist theologians such as Bultmann and Tillich, owing much to
the philosophical writings of Kierkegaard and Heidegger, would become leading
voices in Christian theological discourse. These scholars, and Bultmann in
particular, would have a tremendous influence upon biblical scholars. Bultmann’s
project of “demythologizing” the Bible came to bear in extraordinary ways up on
the methodological presuppositions of many who came after him. Ostensibly intellectually
responsible scholarship would have to proceed from a modernist perspective in
which God’s direct intervention into the cause and effect of history was
methodologically eliminated from consideration.
Later, particularly in mainline Protestant traditions,
process theology would come to dominate the theological landscape. While not
incompatible with existentialist theology, process theology does involve a set
of metaphysical claims that differentiate it from other forms of liberal
theology. Scholars such as Charles Hartshorne, Schubert Ogden, John Cobb, and
Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki are among the leading figures in this area. Like
existentialist theologians, process theologians do not see God’s direct
intervention in the cause and effect of history as reasonable. The resurrection
of Jesus, for example, must be understood as a story or symbol, but not as an
accurate representation of a historical event. In this sense, both
existentialist and process theologies involved significant revisions, and even
abandonments, of many of the claims of historic Christian orthodoxy, even while
employing much of the same language. The popular Christian writer Marcus Borg
is heavily indebted to process thought, as is made apparent in his book The God We Never Knew. It is difficult to overstate, moreover, the
effect that these traditions had upon theological education in the so-called
“mainline” traditions.
At some point, things changed again. In particular, during
the 1970’s, 80’s, and 90’s, theological positions emerged that were grounded
explicitly first and foremost in the life-situations of particular communities.
One’s lived experience authorized particular religious claims. In a way, we’re
back to Schleiermacher now, except that lived experience is now defined
communally, rather than individually. Essentially, the argument goes that
belonging to a particular community of interpretation gives one a unique
perspective that authorizes faith claims that people outside of this community
are ill-positioned to see. Liberation theology often proceeds in this way. Clearly
there is a great deal to say for this position. Our communities and life
settings do in fact come to bear in remarkable ways upon how we see the world.
People who write from the perspective of disability studies, for example, have
things to say that able-bodied and able-minded people may not see at all.
One liability of this type of argument, however, is that
some people see the claims made from inside a community as immune from critique
from outside a community. If you criticize the position of a community not your
own, you are only demonstrating your own prejudice against that community and
therefore validating its claims to marginalization. This is an intellectually
unhealthy perspective. A second liability is the danger of emphasizing communal
experience to the neglect of divine revelation. Yes, our lived experiences
shape the ways in which we think about God, but that is not to say that they
should be wholly determinative of our faith claims. Christians have long held
that God has taught us things about God’s own nature, being, and relationship
to humankind. We sometimes talk about this as “special divine revelation,”
meaning that these ideas are not ones that we could discover on our own.
This type of identity-based theology is not necessarily
revisionist in the senses that existentialist and process theologies are. In
other words, you need not significantly revise traditional understandings of
the Trinity, Incarnation, Resurrection, salvation, and other historic doctrines
in order to speak out of the experience of a particular community of interpretation.
If, however, one gives epistemological precedence to communal experience over
divine revelation, then it is likely that the historic doctrines of the faith
will do little heavy lifting.
At some point, liberal Christians stopped using the term
“liberal” and started using the term “progressive.” I’ve really never
understood this move, except that the term “progressive” expresses a positive
value judgment that “liberal” does not (at least, in our current context).
Progressive Christianity now includes a very broad range of positions
influenced by existentialist, process, and identity-based theology. It is
still the dominant form of thinking in mainline Protestant traditions and
theological education. It is difficult to identify what characterizes
progressive Christianity today, but I’ll go out on a limb (and I’m putting on
my Kevlar jacket right now). Its emphasis is on social justice, variously
conceived, rather than on the Trinitarian economy of salvation. This is not to
say that progressives necessarily reject the Trinitarian economy of salvation
(though some do), but it is not the main emphasis of their proclamation. Some
progressive Christians, however, would identify salvation as almost entirely
defined by social justice.
Now, I don’t know any Christians who would say that they are
against social justice. We may conceive of it differently from one another,
but, generally speaking, we all believe that God offers to us a righteous,
life-giving way of ordering our relationships. What sometimes gets lost in talk
about social justice, however, is that, as Christians, we cannot know what
social justice is apart from God’s self disclosure through Jesus Christ and the
Holy Spirit. In other words, special divine revelation is necessary for us to know
what social justice is. Additionally, the Christian life is not simply about
emulating Jesus or abiding by his teachings (though these are important), but
the transformative power of Jesus’ cross and resurrection mediated to us by the
work of the Holy Spirit. In other words, a well-articulated understanding of
the Trinitarian faith of the Church, and an experience of the Trinitarian
economy of salvation, are necessary in order for us to reach a point at which
we can talk about social justice as Christians.
This is why I stopped identifying with progressive
Christianity years ago. It’s not that progressives don’t have important things
to say. Clearly they do. It’s that, for
me, Christian proclamation must lead with a clear articulation of the nature and
identity of the God we serve. This God is revealed to us as Father, Son, and
Holy Spirit. This God shows up in history. This God really did become human,
really did die, and really did rise from the dead. And this God does not leave
us alone, but is at work powerfully, all over the world, leading people into
more righteous lives that will continue into eternity. An emphasis on social justice that does not first reckon
with these beliefs is not enough, at least not for me. I’m a liberal in the
first sense discussed in this post: I believe in getting the ideas out on the
table and having open, honest, intellectually virtuous discussion. The emphases
of the liberal/progressive Christian movement today, however, are not such that
I feel comfortable identifying with it.
I’ve tried to represent liberal/progressive Christianity as
fairly as I can here. I’m sure I’ve left things out, and perhaps gotten a few
things wrong. I think this is the longest post I’ve ever written (and congratulations
if you made it to the end) because it deals with a very complex topic. I
welcome your comments, but I’d appreciate your adopting a liberal perspective
(in the first sense).