Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically and biblically informed religious movements and ideas within Christianity from the late 18th century and onward. Liberal does not refer to Progressive Christianity or to the American political philosophy, but to the philosophical and religious thought that developed as a consequence of the Enlightenment.
Liberal Christianity, broadly speaking, is a method of biblical hermeneutics, an undogmatic method of understanding God through the use of scripture by applying the same modern hermeneutics used to understand any ancient writings. Liberal Christianity does not claim to be a belief structure, and as such is not dependent upon any Church dogma or creedal statements. Unlike conservative varieties of Christianity, it has no unified set of propositional beliefs. The word liberal in liberal Christianity denotes a characteristic willingness to interpret scripture without any preconceived notion of inerrancy of scripture or the correctness of Church dogma.[1] A liberal Christian, however, may hold certain beliefs in common with traditional, orthodox, or even conservative Christianity.
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The theology of liberal Christianity was prominent in the Biblical criticism of the 19th and 20th centuries. The style of Scriptural hermeneutics (interpretation of the Bible) within liberal theology is often characterized as non-propositional. This means that the Bible is not considered a collection of factual statements, but instead an anthology that documents the human authors' beliefs and feelings about God at the time of its writing—within a historical or cultural context. Thus, liberal Christian theologians do not claim to discover truth propositions but rather create religious models and concepts that reflect the class, gender, social, and political contexts from which they emerge. Liberal Christianity looks upon the Bible as a collection of narratives that explain, epitomize, or symbolize the essence and significance of Christian understanding.[2] Thus, most liberal Christians do not regard the Bible as inerrant, but believe Scripture to be "inspired" in the same way a poem is said to be "inspired" and passed down by humans. However some modern liberal Christians believe in a divinely inspired bible, albeit a predominantly spiritual interpretation of the text and very few, if any, literal interpretations (especially concerning the Old Testament).
In the 1800s, liberal Christianity was still hard to separate from political liberalism. In a decision during the 1870s, an Irish bishop was sent to Quebec by papal authority to sort the two out. Several curès had threatened to withhold the sacrements from parishoners who cast votes for Liberals and others had preached that to vote for Liberal candidates was a mortal sin.[3]
In the 19th century, self-identified liberal Christians sought to elevate Jesus' humane teachings as a standard for a world civilization freed from cultic traditions and traces of "pagan" belief in the supernatural.[4] As a result, liberal Christians placed less emphasis on miraculous events associated with the life of Jesus than on his teachings. The effort to remove "superstitious" elements from Christian faith dates to intellectual reformist Christians such as Erasmus and the Deists in the 15th–17th centuries.[5] The debate over whether a belief in miracles was mere superstition or essential to accepting the divinity of Christ constituted a crisis within the 19th-century church, for which theological compromises were sought.[6]
Attempts to account for miracles through scientific or rational explanation were mocked even at the turn of the 19th–20th century.[7] A belief in the authenticity of miracles was one of five tests established in 1910 by the Presbyterian Church to distinguish true believers from false professors of faith such as "educated, 'liberal' Christians."[8]
Contemporary liberal Christians may prefer to read Jesus' miracles as metaphorical narratives for understanding the power of God.[9] Not all theologians with liberal inclinations reject the possibility of miracles, but may reject the polemicism that denial or affirmation entails.[10]
Liberal theology does not only appear in a context where the divine inspiration of the Bible is questioned. In conservative Christian movements, the Bible is seen as divinely inspired but is sometimes combined with ideologies originating from outside the Bible or Christian teaching. Typical examples of influence from liberal theology in conservative Christianity would be extreme focus on eschatology (the end of times) by giving a divine interpretation to secular events. Also, the "Christian Zionism" movement combines conservative Christianity with a secular ideology given a divine status.
Liberal Christianity was most influential with mainline Protestant churches in the early 20th century, when proponents believed the changes it would bring would be the future of the Christian church. Other subsequent theological movements within the Protestant mainline (in the US) included political liberation theology, philosophical forms of postmodern Christianity such as Christian existentialism, and conservative movements such as neo-evangelicalism and paleo-orthodoxy.
However, the 1990s and 2000s saw a resurgence of non-doctrinal, scholarly work on biblical exegesis and theology, exemplified by figures such as Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, John Shelby Spong, and Scotty McLennan. Their appeal, like that of the earlier modernism, also is primarily found in the mainline denominations.
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