The Necessity of Liberal Christianity

I am a liberal Christian.

I do not think it would take very many readings on here to come to the conclusion that I am definitely a religious liberal. However, some may doubt my qualifications concerning the noun that liberal modifies. After much thought this past month about the subject, I have come to the conclusion that not only am I a Christian, but that liberal Christianity is a necessity for the survival of a legitimate faith.

Let me rewind a couple thousand years to the first century, when Jesus of Nazareth lived. That's what Christianity is all about, isn't it? The Jews were breaking apart into sects left and right. There were the Essenes, the Sicarii, the Zealots, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, etc. They weren't as multiple as modern Christian denominations, but they were on a much smaller scale. One of these "denominations" of Judaism that I want to focus on especially are the Pharisees; mostly because they are more emphasized in the Gospels. What do the Gospels say about the Pharisees?

The Bible most often portrays the "Pharisee" as a hypocrite. Matthew 23 depicts Jesus denouncing the pharisees for their hypocrisy. He says that they teach correctly, but do wrongly. They love to be respected and honored, they love people the attention and glorification as if they are righteous, but they are only clean on the outside. They are blind guides who do the little things such as tithe and wash their hands, but they neglect things like loving your neighbor and caring for the oppressed. Their insides are filth. Surely this isn't all pharisees, but the point is that just because are in positions of religious importance does not mean that they are somehow more righteous than anyone else.

Another mention of them is in Luke when a Pharisee invited Jesus over to eat. After his arrival, a sinful woman entered and anointed his feet with oil, wash them with her tears, dry them with her hair, and kiss them. The Pharisee is surprised that Jesus is not offended; after all, she's a sinner! The Pharisee had an incorrect perception of how one is to act towards the sinful.

Luke 11 has Jesus denouncing their hypocrisy again, with several parallel statements found in Matthew 23.

The last noteworthy mention of the Pharisee is Luke 18. Jesus tells the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector. The Pharisee thanks God that he is not like the tax collector. He does all of the right things like tithing and fasting. The tax collector simply says "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"

The picture we have of the Pharisees is first and foremost that of a hypocrite. The obvious answer to what makes one a hypocrite is one who does not follow his own teachings. However, I wish to push the definition a little further and say that it is also one who passes judgment on others when he himself is guilty.

To go outside of the Bible for a moment, what do we know about Pharisees? The Pharisees began to appear after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. With no temple, how would one worship? One worshiped by following the law and reading scripture. The Jewish law was incorporated into daily life as an act of worship. This led many to view Pharisees as being too legalistic. This may not be an accurate portrayal of them, but to be sure, modern Christians tend not to under-emphasize that aspect. In fact, it seems as if Christians would have us believe that 1st century Pharisees were above all hypocritical and legalistic. Hold on to that thought.

Now here comes Jesus. I must first state that Jesus was Jewish. No matter what anyone may try to say, it takes an awfully large quantity of ignorance to argue that Jesus was not Jewish. Within Judaism, what was it that Jesus taught? I am not trying to say that Jesus taught the Jews one thing, and non-Jews something else. Jesus taught one thing, and that one thing was what he was raised in: Judaism.

Let me give you a classic example I'm sure you're all familiar with. Matthew 5, the sermon on the mount; more specifically, his famous "antitheses" (Matthew 5.21-48). Jesus is here going beyond the written law of Judaism and into a personal understanding. Don't murder, but don't even be angry at another. Don't commit adultery, but don't even lust. Love your neighbor, but love your enemy as well.

Now I ask, what right did Jesus have to do this? A stock conservative Christian answer would probably something along the lines of "He's God, he gave the law to them in the first place, so he has the right to change it." I think this is too much of an assumption. I do not believe Jesus was "changing" or "adding to" the law, so to speak. I believe that he was seeing the timeless Truth of the law, and interpreting proper human conduct from it.

Another example: In Mark chapter 2, Jesus is walking through a grainfield on a Sabbath with his disciples, and they begin plucking the heads of grain. The Pharisees claimed they were disobeying the law by working on the Sabbath. By recalling an activity of king David, Jesus concludes that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. This deserves a closer look. Jesus pretty much did break the strict law. If he hadn't, he could have said "No, I didn't, if you looked at verse so and so, you would understand." But there is no avoiding it. Jesus took a liberty with the law, because he understood that it was written in a context. Just like the law of divorce. There are laws on divorce, but that is not because divorce is right. Jesus understood the context.

This can also be illustrated in Matthew 15. There are many laws in the Old Testament that prohibit what one can and can't eat, because it will make one unclean. However, Jesus recognizes that it is not what we eat (what goes into the mouth) that makes us unclean, but what we say (what comes out of the mouth). Could it be that Jesus did not just take a "liberty" but completely disregarded these certain laws? I wouldn't say that he ignored them, but it is that he saw what mattered. It matters whether you love your neighbor or not. It doesn't really matter if you eat the wrong type of fish.

I could be more exhaustive in my examples, but I believe these few examples are sufficient to express my belief that Jesus was a "liberal." Too many Jews were more concerned with cleaning their hands than their hearts. This is not the point of religion (and it is certainly not the point of Judaism). Jesus put the focus on community, love of one another, and love of God. When asked what the most important commandment was, he said love God, and love each other. At the last supper he gave his disciples a new commandment, and that was to love each other.

Who were his disciples anyway? They were fishermen, tax collectors, and nobodies. I highly doubt that he would have expected them to obey the laws as the hypocritical pharisees did. He pointed to a higher law, the law of love, community, and relationship. The Jews reacted strongly against his liberalism, and he was crucified.

Fast forward a couple thousand years. What has Christianity been through? The assault of the 19th century is still with us. Evolution, old earth, Markan priority, documentary hypothesis, all of which conservatives call "liberal" with disdain. I believe that with this liberalism, Christianity may never be the same, but religion will survive.

Those who say that science is wrong and the Bible is right, really actually say that science is misunderstood, and that it's not wrong, but we must have clearly misunderstood our evidence, because the Bible is clearly the final authority. If this view is to be continued to be held, then it will become farther and farther away from what is accepted until it is completely destroyed. The more evidence we find that the earth is billions of years old, the farther away Creationists will find themselves from legitimacy. As we continue to find more manuscripts of the Bible, the theory of biblical inerrancy will fall away into nothing.

I am not saying that Christianity is destined to die, but as Jesus saw a higher level of religion from Judaism (even if he would have still considered himself a Jew), so we must find a higher level of religion from Christianity, without renouncing the faith. I believe that Jesus would have thought that whether or not we believe that Moses actually parted a sea is irrelevant (though he probably believed that it did in fact happen). I believe that it would have mattered little to Jesus whether or not the earth was created in six days, but much that we love our creator.

I am a liberal, as has been stated. However, I believe that the future of faith is in liberalism, and by liberalism I do not mean the disbelief in conservative doctrines, but the belief in higher ones. Whether I believe in a young earth or the virgin birth is not why I am a liberal. I am a liberal because I believe in the message of Jesus above all else. I am a liberal because I believe in the power of love over the power of doctrine. I am a liberal because I believe I believe that Jesus died for a message that is higher than Christologies or atonement theories. I am a liberal because more than anything else, I believe in loving God, and loving each other, and without liberalism, I believe that Christianity will meet its death. There are too many denominations, too many preachers and congregations that believe that their salvation rests on their beliefs in doctrines of atonement and theories of the Christ. I say no, you are in darkness. I say no, come into the light of God.

Love is greater than faith, don't you see? Love is the gospel, love is God, and love is the way to salvation. If we do not love, then we are condemned already, and we walk in darkness. If this love makes me a liberal, then so be it. If refusing to kick homosexuals out of our churches makes me a liberal, so be it. If loving the Muslim and befriending the drunkard makes me a liberal, then so be it. I love, therefore I am a liberal. If Christianity is not liberal, then I say it does not love. I say that love never fails, and Christianity without love and liberty will fail.

I am a liberal, and I am a Christian; and I believe that without the former, the latter will be destroyed. Just as Jesus saw the higher meaning of his religion, so we must see the higher in ours; and when there are those yelling at us, condemning us as liberals, condemning us as heretics, crucifying us as heathens, then I will know that Christianity is falling. When those who preach Christ crucified on Sunday, and teach nonacceptance the next, I will know that Christianity is falling. When a Christian can say with a clear conscience that the only thing that matters is Christ's atonement for our sins, I will know that Christianity is in darkness. It is my fear that Christianity is already falling.

I am a liberal.

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, because God is love.