What do liberal Christians believe...

Define liberal, Sheila.

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Anything they want. Especially if it's not found in Scripture.

 

Such as the Trinity, then?

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Well I am an amillennialist who believes in the verbal plenary inspiration of an inerrant Scripture yet many dispensationalists [Darbyites] would swear that I am liberal in my theology.

 

I think the definition is up to the OPer - that's why I asked Sheila to give her take on the term

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Typically a liberal has a low view of the authority of scripture.

Even if they won't acknowledge what they are, it manifests itself in behavior. Someone who is prone to explaining scripture away or takes a naturalistic view of scripture can generally be categorized as liberal.

 

But the one true God known to us as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is found in Scripture!

 

Only by inference, as any JW or Christadelphian will be pleased to point out to you. The term 'Trinity' is nowhere used, nor is the relationship therein laid out in Nicene-Constantinopolitan terms - yet all Christians adhere to it

Yours in Christ

Matt

 

Well I am a dispensationalist who
believes in the verbal plenary inspiration
of an inerrant Scripture yet many
amillennialist (Origenites) would swear
that I am liberal in my theology.

What many people (especially ardent
black & whitists) overlook is that
liberal is a position AND is a direction.
Liberal is both a direction and an absolute
on a political left-right continum from
left = liberal to right = conservative.
Liberal is both a direction and an absolute
on a religious continum from liberal
to moderate to fundamentalist.
My current pastor is a fundamentalist
religiously and a liberal politically.
But i love him, he is the best pastor i have
now.

The moderate Baptists over at the big
Baptist church in my town have women deacons.
They are more religious liberal than my church which
made me promise i'd never lay hands
upon (to ordain) a woman. They are less
religious liberals than 90% of the churches
in the USofA.

From Logic 101:
INTRODUCTION TO LOGIC, 5th Edition
(Macmillan, 1978) page 116:

Composition:
The term "fallacy of composition" is applied
to both of two closely related types of
invalid argument. The first may
be described as reasoning fallaciously from
the attibutes of the parts of a whole
to the attributes of the whole itself.

So i have wrong logic when i say that
the person who is an a-millinnialist
(no literal Millinnial reign of Chrsit
on earth) and has ONE liberal doctrine
that he is totally a liberal and has
every atribute of every liberal.
Using this illogic limites the freedom
of others who have the right to pick
and choose how they believe on each
and every doctrine.

 

Now THAT'S a liberal "Christian"

 

Nope, it would be something more like, "If hell actually existed, I do not think I would go there."

 

I wonder what a liberal is...labels are libels...

if you're talking about someone who believes the Bible is authoritative and sort of inerrant but believes women can hold the office of pastor and deacon and that the first twelve chapters of Genesis are fictional and that homosexuality isn't a sin and that the church should at its base be a tool for social gospel I have another friend like this who has a vibrant faith sharing Christ with many

if you're talking about a person who believes the Bible authoritative and inerrant, that Christ is the only way to salvation, that homosexuality is a sin, that the Bible is to be read only literally, that the first twelve chapters of Genesis are fact plain and simple, that Christians are to be conservative in all matters, that roles in the church are restricted and so forth but doesn't share their faith and actually does things that invalidate their witness...are they worse than a supposed liberal?

just because someone disagrees over an issue or two (or many) with us doesn't mean we can suppose the stance of their Christianity.

this really isn't directed at anyone around here but its a general comment. and please excuse the horrible grammar of this here post...

 

Defining what a liberal christian is and what they believe is about like trying to nail jello to a wall....

good luck.

 

Nope, it would be something more like, "If hell actually existed, I do not think I would go there." </font>[/QUOTE]This is pretty much it.

There would be two ways you could go about this:

1. Read any book by John Shelby Spong and that is pretty much Liberal theology in a nutshell.

or

2. Read the Bible and then state the exact opposite of everything in it and you have liberal theology.

Liberal theology is not even Christian and is more dangerous to the Church than Satanism.

Joseph Botwinick

 

I waited... no one else took this up so here I go...

If someone has so low an opinion of scripture and is so intent on denying clear teachings of that scripture then the immediate question is whether they have faith in the Christ of the Bible or a "christ" derived from their imagination to allow them to believe whatever they wanted.

As far as "sharing" goes- you can share anything you like. However, a person cannot be truly saved without repentance and repentance requires that someone view their sin as God does. Further it requires that one be fully submitted to follow Him in spite of any preconceived biases that may need to be dispensed with.

God declares that all sexual relations outside of marriage are sinful. He established that marriage is the union between a man and a woman There are no examples of God approved homosexuality in 4000+ years of history covered by the Bible. Undeniably, the scripture makes it sin.

If someone is telling someone that they should not repent of sin then they are blocking rather than facilitating faith in Christ.

Technically speaking the first one is liberal. The second one is carnal. One can be moral and liberal. One can be conservative and fail morally.

You have attempted to set two things up as opposites- that aren't opposite.

If one denies the standards provided by scripture and perhaps even questions the validity of scripture itself then we should question whether they actually believe in the Christ of the Bible who didn't come to overturn the law but to fulfill it.

 

Never mind, Ed, nobody is home.

 

Good post Scott. When the SBC had its clash between conservatives and liberals it was based on the fact that the teachers in our colleges were teaching Genesis as an allegory and not true at all. The conservatives thought it was time to get rid of these teachers, if the convention was to continue financing them.

So, that is the way they were defined in this sitution.

Oh, some were teaching in theological seminary that Jesus was not born of a virgin and he was just a good man. Now THIS is liberal and for a professor teaching new Baptist preachers such blasphemy should be eliminated and moved to the secular schools. Needless to say, they threw a FIT; claiming the conservatives are a bunch of legalists.