JW Burgeson wrote:
> George wrote: "I am not a liberal - a statement I make not to clear my
> theological honor but because the theological truth that I think the Bible
> conveys includes a great deal that many "liberals" wouldn't be interested in
> defending (resurrection, Incarnation, &c)."
>
> George -- you seem to have some views on "liberals" that I neither hold
> myself nor do I personally know other "liberals" that hold them.
>
> Perhaps we need new words, for example "far out liberal" to describe, for
> example, Bultman. But even here at Iliff I find nobody seriously defending
> Bultman's models. We do study them.
Yes, the terms "liberal" and "conservative" seem of increasingly little
value to me in theological discussion. If "liberal" simply meant someone who
wasn't tied to a naive reading of the Bible and to traditional theological
formulations of Christianity then I'd have no problem with having the term
attached to myself. But if it means the liberal protestantism of the 19th
century as represented in different ways by Schliermacher, Strauss or Harnack
then I do. & to be more contemporary, I have no wish to be identified with the
views of a John Spong or with those who are offended by traditional Christian
claims of the uniqueness of Christ.
I know that you are quite comfortable with the "liberal" label. I'm
not. OTOH, I'm also not comfortable with the "conservative" one,
though I would
have been 25 years ago. I find it both amusing & at times annoying that a lot
of people in the ASA think that I'm dangerously liberal while in Templeton-type
circles I'm seen as quite conservative. I must be doing something right.
BTW, you probably know what the fundamentalist said to the liberal:
"I'll pretend you're a Christian if you'll pretend I'm a scholar."
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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