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Liberal Christianity, sometimes called liberal theology, is an umbrella term covering diverse, philosophically-informed religious movements and moods within late 18th, 19th and 20th century Christianity. The word "liberal" in liberal Christianity does not refer to a leftist political agenda or set of beliefs, but rather to the freedom of dialectic process associated with continental philosophy and other philosophical and religious paradigms developed during the Age of Enlightenment.
Liberalism is not the rejection of the orthodox beliefs, but Christian orthodox beliefs can and are examined. It is not inaccurate to say that liberalism is at variance with Fundamentalism for it is impossible to be both a fundamentalist and use the liberal hermeneutic method; Fundamentalism assumes the inerrancy of the Biblical Scripture. Many individuals who use the liberal hermeneutic method come to the conclusion that they can affirm orthodoxy of the Nicene Creed.
The theology of liberal Christianity was prominent in the biblical criticism of the 19th and 20th centuries. The style of scriptural hermeneutics within liberal theology is often characterized as non-propositional. This means that the Bible is not considered an inventory of factual statements but instead documents the human authors' beliefs and feelings about God at the time of its writing—within an historic/cultural context.[1] Thus, liberal Christian theologians do not discover truth propositions but rather create religious models and concepts that reflect the class, gender, social, and political contexts from which they emerge.[2] Liberal Christianity looks upon the Bible as a collection of narratives that explain, epitomize, or symbolize the essence and significance of Christian understanding.[3]
Liberal Christianity is a method of biblical hermeneutics, an individualistic method of interpreting the word of God in scripture, not a belief structure. Unlike conservative Christianity, it has no unified set of propositional beliefs. The word liberal in liberal Christianity denotes a characteristic willingness to interpret scripture in a broad-minded, frank, and intellectually independent manner—with no preconceived notion of inerrancy of scripture when its passages are literally interpreted.[4] A liberal Christian may hold certain beliefs in common with traditional, orthodox, or even conservative Christianity.
Liberal Christianity was most influential with mainline Protestant churches in the early 20th century, when proponents believed the changes it would bring would be the future of the Christian church. Despite that optimism, its influence in mainline churches waned in the wake of World War II, as the more moderate alternative of neo-orthodoxy (and later postliberalism) began to supplant the earlier modernism. Other theological movements included political liberation theology, philosophical forms of postmodern Christianity such as Christian existentialism, and conservative movements such as neo-evangelicalism and paleo-orthodoxy.
The 1990s and early 2000s saw a resurgence of non-doctrinal, scholarly work on biblical exegesis and theology, exemplified by figures such as Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, and John Shelby Spong. Their appeal is also primarily to the mainline denominations.