What is a liberal?

Amen, Brother Ed Edwards - Preach it! :thumbs:

The change of location has vindicated your 'definition'. This is NOT a question one is to ask on Baptist Only forums especially not the FUNDAMENTALIST forum.

Recall that I know places where those who post on Baptist Board are ALL considered liberals

I'll be back tomorrow or so ...

 

Interesting thread. I was once told I attend a "liberal church" because of our dress and our music -- and we use the NIV instead of KJV.

 

I was once told the BB (Baptist Board) is a Liberal bb (bulletin board) cause one can discuss the NIV , even quote from it, instead of the KJV.

 

A liberal is a person who believes he has a social duty to love his neighbor and recognizes that all his neighbors don't have an equal ability to help themselves and plan ahead.

 

>A liberal spends more time considering social issues now than they do eternal issues.

A liberal might be a person who trusts the Creator of the Universe to do what is right with respect to the next world and works to make this world a better place for his grandkds.

 

One thing that confuses most people is when 'liberal' indicates a direction as well as an absolute place on the religious (or political spectrum). For example, I might be more liberal than another is. Still we might both be ultra-conservatives. The split(s) going on between current and former SBC (Southern Baptist Churches) is about conservative versus even more conservative OR about conservative versus even more liberal conservatives. Even 'moderate' is probably out of question for any of these were-strict-SBC churches/church members.

The second thing that confuses many people is getting the political spectrum and the religious spectrum. For example, my pastor is a four-point Calvinistic (religious-conservative) but thinks it is the duty of the state (generic governmental unit) to help those unable to work or to poor to eat (political-liberal).

 

I think of liberalism not so much in terms of a view of the Bible as a viewpoint that has a low Christology and a weak anthropology -- that is, that for liberals Christ is not seen as the unique way to salvation and that humanity's sin is not seen as pervasive and deep.

 

A 'liberal' is the Scape goat for the Fundamentalist.

All the sins of Fundamentalism, all the wrongs of Fundamentalism are put on the 'liberal' goat. The goat dissappears in the wilderness -- the Fundy is forgiven until next year.

Lev 16:10 (KJV1611 Edition):
But the goat on which the lot fell to be the Scape goate, shalbe presented aliue before the Lord, to make an atonement with him, and to let him goe for a Scape goate into the wildernesse.

Lev 16:10 (KJV1611 Edition):
[FONT=Arial, Geneva, Helvetica]But the goat, on which the lot fell to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and to let him go for a scapegoat into the wilderness.
But I might be guessing

[/FONT]

 

In 1895 conservative Protestant Christian leaders gathered together at Niagara Falls and issued a statement as to what constituted the Fundamentals of our Faith:

1) The verbal inerrancy of Scripture.
2) The divinity of Jesus Christ.
3) The virgin birth.
4) The substitutionary atonement of Christ.
5) The physical resurrection and bodily return of Christ.

From that point in history began the Fundamentalist movement. Those who opposed these fundamental doctrines were called modernists. In time the name Liberal became synonymous with modernist. A Liberal is one who also questions the authority of Scripture or any of the other fundamentals of Scripture.

 

Asking what liberal means is like asking what does it mean to be gay? The meanings of words vary and even their use changes over time.

It is also like asking "are you tall"? or "do you live in the north"? or " are you rich?"
Depends who you are comparing to. I'm 6'5", live in Michigan, and make $30,000 a year. I can tell you that there is a professional basketball player in Canada that thinks I'm a short guy that lives in the South not making much money at the same time there is person sitting on their porch in the hills of Kentucky that thinks just the opposite.

The guy in Canada might like to look at me to feel pretty good about himself while the guy in KY is comparing himself me so he can engage in some self pity.

The same is true with asking what is a liberal. It is easy to find someone to compare yourself with so you will feel like you really spiritual.

Gal. 6:1 "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another."

 

Websters 1828

LIB'ERAL, a. [L. liberalis, from liber, free. See Libe.]

3. Not selfish, narrow on contracted; catholic; enlarged; embracing other interests than one's own; as liberal sentiments or views; a liberal mind; liberal policy.

We all have our own views of the Bible. Some people are not going to budge in their thinking. They are considered narrow minded by the people that are willing to change their views and are thought to be a sound bible believer by those that agree with them.

Websters 1828
7. Free; not literal or strict; as a liberal construction of law.

There are many places in scripture where a literal understanding of the words is used by some people while others view it in a larger context of cultural understanding. For example "Greet one another with a holy kiss". Is it liberal to not practice this "command" in scripture. Was I a liberal when I changed my view of this verse? Some say yes some say no.

 

The dictionary does not give you the theological definition of a "liberal." It is not the same as "soul liberty," which you seemed to describe in your example. Whether to take "Greet one another with a holy kiss," as literal today, or as a custom of that day and equivalent to a handshake today, is a matter of your own interpretation. It is your soul liberty to believe as you see fit according to your own study. Just don't kiss my wife.

A liberal, in the historic and theological sense of the term is one who denies the fundamentals of the faith, as I pointed out in my previous post. Let me give you a good example. Have you heard of the "Jesus Seminar," that took place between 1985 and 1993. Supposed experts in NT studies were to determine which words were the acutal words of Jesus, and which were not. They concluded that only 18% of what was attributed to Christ in the NT where actually spoken by Christ.
Some other of their beliefs:
The did not believe that Jesus actually walked on water (a disbelief in the miraculous).
According to these scholars Jesus was a mere man filled with delusions and caught up in some political intrigue.

These are just some of the things that they believed. Obviously they were not "Fundamentalists." They weren't even believers. They were liberals or modernists. They rejected the cardinal truths of the Bible. That is what a liberal is.

 

Well said, DHK.

And I refer Trustitl back to post 10 where I quote SBC theologian Millard Erickson (hardly a fundamentalist).

Not meaning to offend anyone, but I've seldom seen such lack of knowledge of what theological liberalsim really is as I've seen on this thread.

 

John, you are going to confuse them with the facts. :laugh:
But you are right. Some of the statements as .... well out of this world ... way beyond left field.

 

I'm not offended when I don't look at things the way a Fundamentalist does. I am fully aware of the theological arguments that have occured over the last 100 or more years. However, to use the term "liberal" in only this way is probably only occuring among staunch ivory tower fundamentalists. To us average Joes out here we are fully aware of the way this term is being used today.

So, the individual convinced in their own mind that the holy kiss is to be practiced because "it says to do it in the bible" will call the non-practicing party a liberal because they don't do what the Bible says. Or, so it would go on issues like the Sabbath, modest clothing, women staying home, women pastors...

These are all arguments over how the scriptures are to be interpreted and applied to life and typically the liberal and conservative labels are thrown around.

The arguments over what you call "soul liberty" are more commonly dividing the body of Christ using the terms liberal and conservative out here on the streets and away from these impersonal computers and the theology books in seminaries. I have never heard someone called a "modernist" or "to progressive" on a job site. Us guys just don't talk that way.

 

When the word is used as a noun it refers to a specific positon. A liberal is a person who denies the fundamentals of the faith. He is an unbeliever. That is the definition of the word. If someone misuses the word he needs to be corrected.

However, if the word is used as an adjective it may take on another meaning. Generally speaking IFB churches are more conservative in their theology than the American Baptist Convention who have become quite liberal in their thinking, even to the extent of accepting female pastors. However since the gospel is still preached, and they still hold to the Baptist position, it is wrong to label them as "liberals." They do not deny the fundamentals of the faith.

 

Thank you very much for this post.

 

A conservative never refers to the Bible as a whole a "Words in a book" and then claim that faith comes by any other means.

 

United Methodist clergyman Dr. James Heldinger gives a summary of the tenets of liberalism:

http://galatiansc4v16.wordpress.com/2006/05/31/liberal-versus-conservative-theology/

 

"The liberal is continually angry, as only a self-important man can be, with his civilization, his culture, his country and his folks back home. His is an infantile world view. At the core of a liberal is the spoiled child -- miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats." P.J. O'Rourke

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