User:ConradParamor

Liberal Christianity or Theological Modernism is a broad term which basically refers to a movement within American Protestant denominations to stress the social role of Christianity, as in the Social Gospel of the early 20th century. This movement is characterized by a lack of emphasis on or denial of the plenary Divine inspiration and authority of the Bible, and commitment to doctrinal purity.christianity.org.uk Prevalent Biblical themes such as repentance from personal moral sin, hell and damnation for those who reject Christ, His blood atonement and His future literal reign are minimized, or militated against. Theologically, Liberal Christianity stresses a basic continuity between man and God, emphasizing the immanence of God rather than His transcendence. It tends to see religious knowledge emerging from research and the use of reason, as superior to Biblical revelation.


Thus the liberal idea of religion as a personal relationship with God is one which is not necessarily bound to a Biblical doctrinal basis.bates.edu This stands in in contrast to salvation resulting from faith in the Biblically substantiated gospel of grace, and in conformity with orthodox theological beliefs. The most influential liberal Christian theologians were 19th century Germans: Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl. Schleiermacher sought to re-establish the importance of Christianity using Christian religious experience rather than scientific knowledge. Doctrines that did not relate well to religious experience or moral experience tended to disappear. Liberals view the Bible as the witness of God rather than the word of God.


Here some see Paul conveying that that scripture is a direct result of the authors contact with God ("witness"), whilst stopping short of claiming actual divine authorship ("word"). ] The word "liberal" in liberal Christianity does not refer to any political agenda or set of beliefs, although liberal theological beliefs will often form the basis of liberal political beliefs. Espousing a liberal view of Christianity invalidates a person's Christian witness. If a self-proclaimed Christian does not take the entire Bible seriously, unbelievers will assume that they need not do so, either. The first-quarter 20th century neo-orthodoxy movement was a renewal of Christian doctrines that had been neglected by liberal Christianity within the American and European academy.


At the heart of the neo-orthodox renewal appeals to symbolic and aesthetic interpretations of long forgotten Christian doctrines can be found in the works of Karl Barth, the Niebuhr brothers, and Paul Tillich. Liberal Christianity also embraces the evolutionary paradigm (see also: Evolution and liberalism). The research survey of 1535 people, conducted by the Australian National University, revealed that belief in evolution is associated with moral permissiveness. Darwin himself apparently feared that belief in evolution by the common man would lead to social decay. The survey showed that people who believed in evolution were more likely to be in favour of premarital sex than those who rejected Darwin’s theory. Another issue which highlighted the contrast between the effect of evolutionary ideas and that of biblical principles was that Darwinians were reported to be ‘especially tolerant’ of abortion.


Baylor University yesterday, shows that traditional Christian religion greatly decreases belief in everything from the efficacy of palm readers to the usefulness of astrology. The paradigm cases are closed sects like the Amish and Hutterites, or ultra-Orthodox Jews, who have 3 to 4 times the birthrates of their co-religionists. Kaufman wrote in his 2010 book Shall the Righteous Inherit the Earth? Although liberal Christianity adherents disagree with atheists on various matters, they do work together on points of agreement (see: Atheism and liberal Christianity alliances). In terms of atheists and politics, most atheists are secular leftist. The liberal credo is that human beings are basically good, and it is on this basis that liberals reject much of the biblical revelation. Ahlstrom, Sydney E. A Religious History of the American People. Marty, Martin E. Modern American Religion, Vol.


Noll, Mark. A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (1992), by a conservative historian. Machen, J. Gresham (1881-1937), Presbyterian theologian. M. James Sawyer, Liberalism. ↑ The Kingdom of God in America (1937), New York: Harper and Row, 1959, p. ↑ What Liberal Protestants Believe Beliefnet. ↑ Are There Religious Variations in Marital Infidelity? ↑ Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? ↑ Why are 2012 and 2020 key years for Christian creationists and pro-lifers? ↑ Is Christianity taking over the planet? Is Christianity taking over the planet? ↑ Is Christianity taking over the planet? ↑ Is Christianity taking over the planet? ↑ Is Christianity taking over the planet?


The Gospel of Jesus Christ is political to its core. To understand how and why the Gospel of Jesus Christ is political we have first to understand what political means. Political is not necessarily the same thing as partisan. Political refers to the way human beings order their life together in communities, in societies, in villages, towns, cities, and nations. A Gospel that was not political would be a Gospel that didn’t care about how we humans order our life together, and that would hardly be a Gospel at all. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is political. How can a Gospel that has as its central image the Kingdom of God not be political? It can't. It is political. Radically political. We have already noted that when Jesus’ earliest followers said "Jesus Christ is Lord" they meant "and Caesar is not." "Lord" was a political term in the ancient world.


It meant the person to whom one owed allegiance, the person from whom one took direction, the person one pledged to obey and to follow. "Lord" was title that the Roman emperors claimed. It was therefore a political title. The first Christians gave that title to Jesus, and when they did they were making a radically political statement. Nearly everything Jesus said and did had political overtones. We often miss those overtones because we are not sufficiently familiar with the social and political context of the Gospels. All sorts of other things that Jesus said and did were political too. He treated women as people of worth and dignity. Doing that was radically counter-cultural in his world, and anything that is counter-cultural is political because it criticizes and upends the social and political norms of a society. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is political.


Jesus said nothing at all about homosexuality or about abortion, but he said a great deal about justice. Jesus knew and proclaimed a God whose primary characteristic is love, with love (agape) understood not as a sentimental emotion but as a giving of the self for the sake of the other. Justice is the social aspect of love. Love that does not go out from itself and become a matter of justice is a stunted and incomplete kind of love. The love Jesus taught and lived was anything but stunted and incomplete. It included justice, and justice is a radically political concept.


The love that Jesus proclaimed is therefore necessarily and unavoidably political. So those Christians who say they want to separate politics from faith misunderstand the Christian faith. The Christian faith is never only political of course. It is also always personal, but a Christianity that shuns politics is a stunted and incomplete Christianity. It isn’t fully Christian because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is political. Christianity is necessarily political because the Gospel of Jesus Christ is political, but that doesn’t mean of course that any politics professed by one who claims to be Christian are truly Christian politics. Truly Christian politics are politics that reflect the values and the teachings of Jesus Christ.


That means that truly Christian politics reject violence as a tool of public policy because Jesus rejected violence in all aspects of life. Truly Christian politics are politics that call a society as a society and not merely as individuals to care for the poor, the vulnerable, and the marginalized. Truly Christian politics are politics of justice that extend beyond mere charity (as important as charity is in an unjust world) and seek so to structure society in a way that all are cared for, all have enough. Truly Christian politics are not the politics of radical individualism but of social conscience. Truly Christian politics have, in a great phrase from the Catholic social teaching, a preferential option for the poor.


That is Jesus’ Fourth Way. It is the way of faith. That faith is political. Those politics are about peace and justice, indeed about peace through justice. Jesus’ Fourth Way is the way of justice and peace grounded in faith. It rejects atheism and secularism. It rejects an apolitical distortion of the Gospel. It works for, indeed it demands, peace and justice for all people. That is Jesus’ Fourth Way. It must be the way of the Christian too. It must be made perfectly clear that no political party in the United States today truly advocates Jesus’ Fourth Way. No political party in the United States today, at least none of any prominence or any possibility of influencing public policy, truly reflects Jesus’ Fourth Way.


We have only two really significant political parties in this country, and my purpose here is definitely not to advocate one of them over the other. Neither of them so reflects Jesus’ Fourth Way that I can endorse either of them without reservation. Perhaps most significantly from the perspective of Jesus’ Fourth Way, both of them advocate and readily resort to the use of violence as a tool of American public policy, both at home and abroad. There are significant differences between our two major political parties. I personally believe that one of them is worse than the other, and you can probably guess which one I think that is. Yet that isn’t really the point here.religioustolerance.org The point is that so few in our country seem really to understand the appropriate relationship between faith and politics, and so few seem to understand the politics of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Most Americans who advocate for peace and justice aren’t Christians. Most vocal, self-proclaimed politically active Christians focus primarily upon issues related to sexual morality about which Jesus said nothing and support a political party and candidates whose policies benefit only the wealthy, which is a profoundly un-Christian kind of politics. We desperately need to reclaim Jesus’ Fourth Way, and we need to do it now.


Losing weight is a very odd thing. I have now lost 80lbs and weigh just 5lbs more than I did in high school, I am in the final stretch, probably 10 - 15lbs more and I will be in maintenance mode for the rest of my life. But it is not just weight I have lost, I have gained many things along the way, some expected, some unexpected. In March I was able to stop taking my blood pressure meds, this week I went to the doctor for a check up, my bp was 100/60, he removed the diagnosis hypertension from my medical record.


I am glad I developed hypertension because it was the motivator for Is Christianity Taking Over The Planet? taking charge of my health and it is why I started my weight loss journey. Exercise, I have always enjoyed walking and bike riding, and for most of my adult life have been active but oftentimes with months and months of inactivity. At my heaviest last year I took no exercise, I sat most of the day, and although I thought about walking that was really all I did, I ached and felt old and unmotivated.washingtonpost.com Now I find it easy to move around, there is a lot less of me to move around, I have lost a third of me, and my body craves exercise. Diet, I eat so differently now, and I enjoy my food.


So many foods I used to add butter, salt or sugar to, and now I wonder why, I find that my veggies taste just fine as they are.theatlantic.com I used to add butter and brown sugar to sweet potatoes and squash, I slowly reduced the sugar over time and then stopped adding it, then I stopped adding butter, and you know what? These veggies have a wonderful flavor and I was totally covering it up with butter and sugar, I cannot not imagine adding anything to them now. What does a typical day look like for me? Three days a week I run and the other days I walk, and I recently added some weight training to tone and strengthen.


my web site; Is Christianity Taking Over The Planet?