Many people often refer to the Lincoln-Douglas debates as a high point in American politics. Two individuals spent hours discussing and debating their points of view. If people attended the debates or read about what was said, in detail, they had a clear perspective on each candidate. The debates were serious, deep, and done very respectfully.
People often wish that this kind of debate could take place now. The difficulty of such debates, however, is that we live in a society that dwells in the trivial, superficial, and personal. We can blame, in part, political handlers who keep their charges from speaking in an unscripted and unplanned fashion. We can blame the news media for trivializing serious stories and dwelling on the silly. We can blame talk radio for its shallowness. It’s cruelty, and its pettiness.
We can blame others very easily. The problem is that we, as a society, have consumed all of this. We no longer seem to be interested in listening to complex explanations of complex issues. We respond and often delight in cruelty and pettiness and see nothing wrong with it.
A great part of the dilemma plays itself out in the use of labels. We delight in labels. We label someone ‘conservative’ and decree that it expounds conservative values or condemn these ideas. We label someone ‘liberal’ and decree that this person expounds liberal values or, in turn, condemn the ideas. What always strikes me is the use of the world ‘values’ in describing ideology. Ideological opinions are many things, but to label them as values suggest a limited desire to even understand what a value is.
This is a long, roundabout way of making a point. The words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ are political words. They are words that, at least in their inception, were used to define a perspective and demonstrate that there are differences of perspective on subjects. The problem with the words now is that they are seen as having meaning in and of themselves. The usage of the words tends to presume that there are never more than two sides to any issue and that the world and its problems can be summarized briefly and quickly.
They are political words----and badly used political words.
The great dilemma within Christianity, however, is that the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ have crept into the vocabulary of Christians. We now have ‘liberal’ churches ‘conservative’ churches. We now have ‘liberals’ in a denomination and ‘conservatives’ within a denomination. A person’s expression of their Christianity is now couched in an ideological perspective.
There is a problem with this, however.
If the Bible is, indeed, a guide of faith and the source of how we know God, and what the priorities of God are, than the usage of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ is problematic. They simply are not Biblical words. These two words actually never show up in the Bible. One translation uses the word ‘liberal’ but in reference to generosity and not ideology. The word, in one definition, refers to generosity and people are invited to be ‘liberal’ in their giving. Most translations render this as generous and generous is the better word.
If we are driven by the Bible, the usage of the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ just do not make sense.
Furthermore the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ did not show up in any sort of theological discussions until the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. It makes one realize (or ought to make one realize) that these are not historic theological terms. Christianity is based on faith in God and not on any ideological perspective. Actually, when we use the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ to describe or even define Christianity, we are making the presumption that Christianity is based on an idea or actually is an idea. One would like to think it is significantly more than that.
Jesus’ prayer that all may be one has become a sorry joke within Christianity right now. Christianity has become more sectarian and more polarized than it has been in a long time. People have embraced the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ and, frankly, have made these ideas the foundation of their faith rather than Christ. We, in the churches, have dug trenches where we sit and wait for....
Meanwhile, 80% of the American population under the age of 18 has never had any church affiliation whatsoever. A group of young people who are looking to make a difference and are searching for places that offer substance and meaning to life have found the Christian Church to be little more than a political machine which demonstrates little distinction from any other political group in society. Much of this is because we have embraced the words ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ and use them as much as possible.
What happens when you base your theology on what you want to base it on instead of where the Bible leads you is that you ultimately get lost. What happens when you define your theological outlook from an ideological perspective is that you have made an idea more important than God.
Frankly, Christianity will diminish and just get itself more lost clinging to labels that offer the world very little.
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