Recovering Evangelical

dlw

What do Y'all mean by Conservative/Moderate/Liberal Theology?

I put other, simply because I don't like throwing the multifaceted nature of theology into three urns....

My view of systematic theology comes from Allister McGrath in his "Genesis of Doctrine"(twds the beginning) where it's purpose was to help communicate the identity and significance of Christ using concepts embedded in a non-hebraic language, most definitely alien, in part, to how Yeshua communicated to his disciples.

I oppose the view that a systematic theology "the right one" is to unify Christians, as I am post-creedal and that unfortunate notion seems to be logocentric, meaning it puts too much faith in the ability of words to communicate meaning with stability over time and place. Translation's are either ugly or unfaithful and languages are always changing...

I also oppose the Zinzendorff/Schleiermacher emph on the "core" common to all true believers in favor of using systems to create what I call theological icons meant to point ourselves and others to God and to how we should advance God's kingship.

I am a pluralist, but not because I believe in common grace. I don't believe in the distinction between natural and special revelation, as we see only in part as thru a mirror darkly the extent to which in the history of Israel, as described in the OT, seeds of points of contacts were scattered amongst other nations. (I suspect strongly that Pythagoras, a charismatic religious-political leader best described as a pre-socratic philosopher who believed that numbers were at the center of existence, may have been influenced by post-exilic Judaism. Especially since he imported into Greco-Roman cultures the concept of the (unconditional) immortality of the soul and started his own community in Southern Italy that was centered around sacrifice (of soulless vegetables, not animals) and rituals.
(See Christoph Riedweg's Pythagoras book).

So I am a pluralist simply because I do not want to privilege the use of hellenistic concepts in the communication of the identity and significance of Christ, as such, not unlike with the misguided views of the Judaizers, seems to inhibit the spread of the Gospel to the ends of the Earth. After all, Ghandi did once consider himself a Christian and then changed his mind when came to believe he could not affirm Classical Orthodox Christian Theology...
dlw
Fred Holland Comment by Fred Holland on January 12, 2009 at 9:28pm
To be honest, I don't know what I mean by "liberal Theology". It could be that I mean that I believe in the freedom to think about or study God any way that seems fit. But I probably have limits on just how much of that liberty I can agree with. The plain truth for me is I like the face my so called conservative friends make when I claim to be a liberal. Is that ok?
Fred
dlw Comment by dlw on January 15, 2009 at 9:17pm
y'okay...

I'm no pope. I think one can both embrace pluralism and the need to overcome errant views/practices thru acts of self-sacrificial love, not the wielding of ecclesial authority.

dlw
dlw Comment by dlw on January 30, 2009 at 4:18am
I wonder, how much of the liberal vs conservative is more like calvinist vs anything closely resembling Schleiermacher or the European theological currents of the past two centuries that took an either accommodative or less combative stance against "modernism".

dlw

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