Is there a difference between today's theological liberalism and today's political liberalism?

[livingwordunity]

I say today’s liberalism because I don’t want someone to try to confuse it with a definition of “liberalism” from the past. I want the definitions to only be reference to how the terms are most commonly used in today’s world. And I don’t want someone’s personal idea of what liberalism means to them. I want the definition of the terms as it relates to the most common usage of it. When I’ve used the term “liberalism” some have tried to say there is a difference between these two supposed types. It seems to me like they are trying to split hairs. Is the difference like the difference between water and wetness? If there are differences can someone tell me exactly what that differences are between these two?

 

[OxygenMan]

Political liberalism is atheistic. But that’s the largest difference.

 

[Morwenna]

I completely understand what you’re getting at, and I think that for the very reasons you mention in your post, it is better to use the terms “orthodox” (small ‘o’) and “heterodox”, rather than “conservative” and “liberal”.

As I’m sure you (and most of CAF ) have noticed: very often when someone mentions theological liberalism, a lot of time is burned up in bickering over the definition of “liberalism” in the theological sense, even though I suspect that most of the bickerers know exactly what is intended by the term, but really just want to drag the thread away from the real ‘meat’ of the discussion .

For this reason, I believe that it’s preferable to use the terms “orthodox” and “heterodox”.

 

[livingwordunity]

I completely understand what you’re getting at, and I think that for the very reasons you mention in your post, it is better to use the terms “orthodox” (small ‘o’) and “heterodox”, rather than “conservative” and “liberal”.

As I’m sure you (and most of CAF ) have noticed: very often when someone mentions theological liberalism, a lot of time is burned up in bickering over the definition of “liberalism” in the theological sense, even though I suspect that most of the bickerers know exactly what is intended by the term, but really just want to drag the thread away from the real ‘meat’ of the discussion .

For this reason, I believe that it’s preferable to use the terms “orthodox” and “heterodox”.

Thank you very much. I will try to take that advice.

 

[John_Savage]

Modern liberalism is mostly old leftism, down to the disdain of the family.

 

[livingwordunity]

Modern liberalism is mostly old leftism, down to the disdain of the family.

Teenagers who become adults but didn’t grow out of their rebellion. The rebellion toward parental authority is transferred to rebellion against Church authority.

 

[Pugsly]

Modern liberalism is mostly old leftism, down to the disdain of the family.

I agree with John here.

Political liberalism in the West today, is so ubiquitous because it won over so many Christians via a philosophical infection of the Social Gospel movement. At the same time, it took over higher education through Enlightenment philosophies and has worked its way into nearly every source of public information today…especially public education.

In 1903, the backlash against all this (old leftism) saw the publication of “The Fundamentals” a book of essays by Christian pastors and scholars trying to bring Christians back to the true Gospel message. By the end of WWI, Social Gospel organizations were actually turning against Christianity…eg…the American Union Against Militarism (the AUAM) a pacifist arm of the Social Gospel Movement…became the ACLU.

Today, the NAACP and many other organizations that were of a classical liberalism and orthodox Christianity…have become much more atheistic/leftist organizations.

 

[Pugsly]

Theological liberalism would primarily entail belief in Theos…God. Political liberalism today is anti-theos at it’s core…with a majority of it’s adherents ignorant of this fact.

Ps…The reason the vast majority of political liberals are Christian and hold to “a worldly philosophy that denies the power thereof”] anti-christian philosophy is because they are self-deluded by indifference mostly. Modern liberalism says its empathetic and loving and that God is Love…end of discussion…let me get back to my cell phone.