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Liberal Christianity is not a well-articulated religion that emerged from generations of theologians influenced by higher criticism, but is a modern folk religion. What is this new religion, based around human Jesus, and how did it prevail in the mainline churches? 1/13
While traditional Christians draw upon the teachings of the Church Fathers, Reformation thinkers, and more recent theologians to sharpen their understanding of Scripture, the average Liberal churchesâ laymen have nothing like this. 2/13
Ask them about Schleiermacher, Ritschl, or von Harnack, and youâre liable to get a shrug or a puzzled look. For them religion is not a system of obedience and belief within ecclesial communities, but a commitment to tolerance and acceptance. 3/13
Although not universally true, for the most part Liberal Christian laity donât even really talk about religious topics with their children, relatives, or friends. Many grow up without really understanding their parents religious beliefs at all. 4/13
Their identification with Christianity is that they simply like it more than Islam or Buddhism, but they donât have any strong conviction that one faith is true and others arenât. They have a pluralistic view of other faiths as a means to avoid fundamentalism or nihilism. 5/13
A near universal among them is the belief that all the religions teach the same morality (even though this is obviously untrue), and therefore God helped to create all of them to reach the particular needs of the diverse groups of humans on earth. 6/13
The teleological end of liberal Christianity is being a âgood personâ, which boils down to practicing the Golden Rule and not judging others. In fact, the afterlife is an area they are particularly squishy on; some believe in heaven, some reincarnation, others nothing at all 7/13
The only thing they share in common in this regard is denial of Hell. In their view, God cares about things like truth and justice, but not enough to actually punish people for a lifetime of wickedness. 8/13
The Protestant Deformation that took place most notably from the 1960s to the early 2000s was preceded by weakening all forms of discipline in the prior generations. Embracing amusements and immodest dress became acceptable in the 1920s; Sabbath observance in the 1930s 9/13
Even norms against excessive alcoholic consumption eroded by the 1950s. As discipline weakened, so did commitment to the churches themselves, and with that, any concern for doctrinal orthodoxy. In many cases it was the laity who pushed for this. 10/13
The clergy, infected with the liberal Christianity that emerged in the 19th century from higher criticism, found that if the people donât want these things, and Holy Scripture is just some book like any other, who really needs these rules in modern times? 11/13
Thus we see that the bishops and superintendents of these denominations, ostensibly there to supervise clergy and defend the apostolic faith, ceased to see either doctrine or discipline as important. When the laity began to deviate from norms, the norms were disregarded. 12/13
The broken church windows theory: the erosion of Mainline churches has its origins in a relativistic view of Scripture from above and a decline in commitment to Christian norms from below, w/clergy doing nothing to stop the process; accelerating disintegration naturally followed
