{"id":727,"date":"2010-11-27T16:06:00","date_gmt":"2010-11-27T16:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/11\/peer-reviewed-christianity\/"},"modified":"2010-11-27T16:06:00","modified_gmt":"2010-11-27T16:06:00","slug":"peer-reviewed-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/11\/peer-reviewed-christianity.html","title":{"rendered":"Peer-Reviewed Christianity"},"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>While I\u2019m reasonably content to wear the label \u201cLiberal Christian\u201d (even though adjectives like \u2018Romantic\u2019 and \u2018Bultmannian\u2019 are probably more accurate in indicating my views), I\u2019m aware that many are uncomfortable with the term Liberal, as at once unhelpfully vague and as having negative connotations in certain circles.<\/p>\n<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both;text-align: center\"><a href=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_BtqUSG7RCA0\/TPF-oSiOtaI\/AAAAAAAAAuI\/4osRfVwayVc\/s1600\/PeerReview.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"258\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_BtqUSG7RCA0\/TPF-oSiOtaI\/AAAAAAAAAuI\/4osRfVwayVc\/s320\/PeerReview.jpg\" width=\"320\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>Perhaps instead we could talk about <i>peer-reviewed<\/i> Christianity. By this I mean an approach to Christian beliefs and practice which recognizes the provisional character of all human understanding and \u201ctruth\u201d, and that the most effective approach to understanding we\u2019ve thus far developed is the scientific\/scholarly one which subjects conclusions and claims for scrutiny by others, realizing that some of what we think will not stand up to such scrutiny.<\/p>\n<p>If conservative forms of Christianity can be criticized for clinging to beliefs in spite of mounting evidence that they required revision if not outright rejection, liberal forms of Christianity have been criticized for jumping too quickly onto cultural bandwagons, only to find their reputation tarnished when cultural trends shift (as they inevitably do). Perhaps a better approach is to aim for a \u201cscholarly\u201d approach to Christianity, one that knows enough about how science and history work to understand when a conclusion is for all intents and purposes certain, and when it is not. Could such an approach allow for needed revisions, without simply swinging to the other extreme that revises and abandons things simply because they are traditional?<\/p>\n<p>Any thoughts?<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/7622297540113836091-5936839777448511458?l=exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com\" alt=\"\"><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While I\u2019m reasonably content to wear the label \u201cLiberal Christian\u201d (even though adjectives like \u2018Romantic\u2019 and \u2018Bultmannian\u2019 are probably more accurate in indicating my views), I\u2019m aware that many are uncomfortable with the term Liberal, as at once unhelpfully vague and as having negative connotations in certain circles. Perhaps instead we could talk about peer-reviewed [&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-727","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>Peer-Reviewed Christianity<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While I&#039;m reasonably content to wear the label &quot;Liberal Christian&quot; (even though adjectives like &#039;Romantic&#039; and &#039;Bultmannian&#039; are probably more accurate 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\/11\/peer-reviewed-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Peer-Reviewed Christianity\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While I&#039;m reasonably content to wear the label &quot;Liberal Christian&quot; (even though adjectives like &#039;Romantic&#039; and &#039;Bultmannian&#039; are probably more accurate in\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2010\/11\/peer-reviewed-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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