{"id":1250,"date":"2010-05-26T11:45:00","date_gmt":"2010-05-26T11:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/be-thou-not-liberal\/"},"modified":"2010-05-26T11:45:00","modified_gmt":"2010-05-26T11:45:00","slug":"be-thou-not-liberal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/be-thou-not-liberal.html","title":{"rendered":"Be Thou Not Liberal?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>Having had some conservative Christians label me as \u201cliberal\u201d in recent weeks,\u00a0with the apparent assumption that doing so is all that is necessary in order to show that I\u2019m <em>wrong<\/em>, I began thinking about this question:<\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Where do conservative Christians find in the Bible the idea that liberalism is wrong?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Given the propensity of conservatives to believe that the Bible addresses modern issues directly, surely it is striking that there is no commandment \u201cDo not be liberal!\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Obviously liberalism means different things in different contexts. For some, it is about the critical study of the Bible. For others it is a particular theological outlook. For many Christians, the only thing worse than being a theological liberal is being a political or economic liberal. And of course, \u201cliberal\u201d and \u201cconservative\u201d work better as terms of comparison, and do not denote\u00a0uniform, clearly-defined\u00a0positions.<\/p>\n<p>But I still think this question is worth asking. The Bible\u2019s outlook certainly doesn\u2019t seem to line up unproblematically behind any particular party in American politics or any modern economic system. But certainly there are things <a href=\"http:\/\/afeatheradrift.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/26\/are-we-being-biblical-or-just-selfish\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">in the Bible<\/a> that <a href=\"http:\/\/diglot.wordpress.com\/2010\/05\/13\/the-more-i-study-the-bible\/\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">problematize<\/a> the views held by modern-day conservative Christians\u00a0about <a href=\"http:\/\/kenschenck.blogspot.com\/2010\/05\/government-should-aid.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">poverty<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.faithinpubliclife.org\/2010\/05\/socialists.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">wealth<\/a>, social justice, and even the Bible itself.<\/p>\n<p>So what do readers think? What passages in the Bible, if any, have you understood (or found others to\u00a0understand) as denouncing \u201cliberalism\u201d of some sort?<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-8291973427782329680?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Having had some conservative Christians label me as \u201cliberal\u201d in recent weeks,\u00a0with the apparent assumption that doing so is all that is necessary in order to show that I\u2019m wrong, I began thinking about this question: Where do conservative Christians find in the Bible the idea that liberalism is wrong? Given the propensity of conservatives [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Be Thou Not Liberal?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Having had some conservative Christians label me as &quot;liberal&quot; in recent weeks,&nbsp;with the apparent assumption that doing so is all that is necessary in\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/be-thou-not-liberal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Be Thou Not Liberal?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Having had some conservative Christians label me as &quot;liberal&quot; in recent weeks,&nbsp;with the apparent assumption that doing so is all that is necessary in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/05\/be-thou-not-liberal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/religionprof\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-26T11:45:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-8291973427782329680?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"James F. McGrath\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@ReligionProf\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"James F. 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