Jesus was a Liberal.

Rick had an interesting post talking about the need to be liberal in how we love each other. I agree with him. Here’s a snippet:

I even heard someone say, liberal Christians talk about following the teachings of Jesus but not about following Jesus. How can one follow the teachings of Jesus without following Jesus? Wouldn’t this suggest that it is possible to follow Jesus without following his teachings?
Many of the folks I know who claim to follow Jesus actually follow John Calvin’s understanding of Paul.

So, I looked up the word liberal.

According to Webster it means, not limited to or by established, traditional, orthodox, or authoritarian attitudes, views, or dogmas; free from bigotry. Favoring proposals for reform, open to new ideas for progress, and tolerant of the ideas and behavior of others.

That sounds like the Jesus I read about in the Gospels!

In the comments, Mac had a few good points about the flip side of Christianity, where liberalism pulls Jesus out just as fundamentalism does:

My reading of this blog tells me that most here are very CLEAR on the dangers of Fundamentalism in America and how anti-Gospel it is. There is simply no “good news” in any religion based in fear and control.

But as a Liberal (both politically and theologically) I still recognize the bankruptcy of traditional liberal Christianity and it’s decline in mainline denominations.

It’s decline came from it’s own kind of fear (and arogance…they often go together). They were so worried about being “legitimate” in the face of Modernity, that they capitulated to it.

Lots of food for thought there. My frustration with this (as in politics) is that the middle gets lost. As I’ve said before, I often get a bit of exposure to rightwing media when I spend time with my parents — FOXNews, Rush, O’Reilly, Hannity, etc. If I listened to these as my sole sources of news, you know, I’d worry about the liberal too, I suppose. By the same token, if I listened only to Air America Radio, I’d probably demonize Republicans/Conservatives much more as well. Each side has such fears of the other — that the other side has a conspiracy against it, and they’re out to destroy us!

Back to religion, I especially see this in today’s evangelical conservative Christianity, but then I’ve always seen that — I just used to see it from within, and now I’m outside viewing as an observer. In visiting a blog a few minutes ago (the one where I found the compatibility test), I read a post where the author talked about how she fears that the removal of things like “under God” from the Pledge signify a dangerous turn in our schools, and how she hopes that when she has children, her living a godly life will counterbalance the anti-christianity they will likely encounter in school. I’m not doing her words justice (and have already lost the blog site, oops), but to me, this is a pretty good example of the sorts of fears I see often coming from the religious right.

Removing a reference to God does not necessarily mean *adding* anti-Christian sentiment. It doesn’t mean an attack. It’s simply the removal of something pro-Christian. (Personally, I think removing “under God” from the pledge is not a big deal either way…) There’s a spectrum of action here, and the middle is again ignored.

IMO, we’re moving toward the middle, not toward anti-C…but in many cases, any move away from pro-Christianity is labeled as an attack. No, it’s not an attack. It’s simply stopping “you” from preaching to me. The recent USAFA scandal fell into this category as well.

I’m rambling now, but that’s not exactly new, is it?