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The trouble with liberalism

By Peter Sellick - posted Monday, 30 March 2009


However, liberal democracy is not entirely satisfied with itself. There is an insight that the “as long as no one gets hurt” freedom has produced a crass and shallow culture and we are sickened at the sight of conspicuous consumption. The problem is that we cannot criticise because we would be criticising someone’s free choice. This unease has led to programs to insert chaplains in schools and lessons on values with the proviso that these programs are not allowed to proselytise. One thing that liberalism will not stand is conversion to serious religion. Any attempt at evangelism is seen as imposing ones ideas on another, as brain washing. For liberalism is committed to rationalism in the public sphere. It is only in private that one can be religious, indeed you can be as crazy as you like in the privacy of your own home. And so as the late Richard John Neuhaus observed, the public square is stripped of any theological content.

It comes as no surprise that liberalism has infected the church, particularly in what has come to be called “Liberal Protestantism”. While the Catholics and the Evangelicals have held out in their own ways, Liberal Protestants have colluded with the program of liberalism. It has done so in order to be a part of the society that surrounds it in a parody of Paul becoming all things to all men. However, Paul remained a disciple of Jesus, while liberal Protestantism became an expression of the society around them. This is marked by the unwillingness to ask too much of parishioners. Instead of inducting them into rich traditions that penetrate to the centre of life, public worship is in danger of becoming a form of group therapy at which spiritual insights are dispensed to help us in our lives.

The besetting sin of Liberal Protestantism is that it has mistaken the grace of God to mean that nothing is asked of the believer and that almost any moral position can be defended. As Dietrich Bonheoffer pointed out many years ago this is cheap grace that costs nothing and therefore leads to nothing. Cheap grace means that no attempt is required of the believer to amend his life, the call of the gospel may be “come as you are” but certainly does not mean “remain as you are”.

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There is a tendency in Liberal Protestantism to reduce the liturgy of the church or abolish it altogether. With “the man in the street” in view anything that is puzzling or confronting is erased. Often the creed is dropped for being too doctrinaire. The prayers of confession are weakened. The Eucharist, that most radical act that we do in church, is celebrated rarely. This is the church on the back foot, mired in apologetics and willing to give anything up in order to be loved. Its one prize characteristic is to accept all comers. The problem is that such a reduction means that it may offer no alternative view other than that of the culture that it has conformed to and is thus irrelevant.

Liberal preaching tends to avoid the difficult readings, i.e. anything to do with the great upheaval that the gospel brings. One must be careful not to say anything that threatens the self assertion that lies at the centre of life. Love is often central but is disconnected from the love that propelled Jesus to Jerusalem and the cross. Love is a principle that can be used to heal our lives and the world. Preachers are into spirituality rather than theology and spirituality can come from anywhere. It is therefore difficult to proclaim that Christ is the way, the truth and the light without, at the same time acknowledging other sources of enlightenment. While this sounds fair and tolerant and broad minded, when the narrow way of Christ is broadened to include all spiritualities that are uncritically accepted as goods in themselves, the Church loses its identity as a sign in the wilderness. Preaching is hedged in with qualifications and loses its edge.

Liberal Christianity has been aided by modern biblical criticism because it robs the text of its authority and power. I am reminded of a play about Luther who freezes up during a celebration of the mass. When asked by his father what happened he said that the gospel “struck at his life”. Such an event is unlikely when the scripture is dissected and analysed even when that process is a respected academic pursuit. Liberalism carefully manages biblical texts so that they lose any ability to strike at the life of the preacher, let alone those listening to him. It is obvious why liberal Protestant churches are failing all over the Western World, its demise lies in its inability to differentiate itself from secular society and articulate a radical alternative. Christians are no longer aliens in a strange land but well ensconced worshippers of secular deities by another name.

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About the Author

Peter Sellick an Anglican deacon working in Perth with a background in the biological sciences.

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