Theo Hobson writes the first of two articles for The Guardian: Eureka! My quest for an authentic liberal Christianity.
And Dave Marshall of Modern Church also writes about liberal theology in No need to whisper.
Nick Duerden of The Independent interviews the Rev Richard Coles: ‘I don’t have any concerns that God is cross with me for being gay and eventually the Church won’t either’.
T M Luhrmann writes for The new York Times that Belief Is the Least Part of Faith.
Giles Fraser writes for The Guardian that Wickedness, allied to the ‘truth’ of religious belief, can lead us to evil acts.
John Robinson ended up by saying the task of the Church was to find a new way to uphold the definitiveness of Christ, because, of course, his theology ‘from below’ could not. Liberal theology does where it will, and it does not have to support Christian doctrines at all. This is why so many end up with this ‘textual’ material or some other given position that preserves the dogma somewhere or somehow. The question always is why – so many when they realise they’ve arrived at the point of cutting the rope cling on all the more tightly.
“The question always is why – so many when they realise they’ve arrived at the point of cutting the rope cling on all the more tightly.”
For people with faith this is no question at all. In fact, this is the answer. When you have stripped “it” of all that you believe to be man made and artificial you are still left with “it” and with the need to describe “it”. You change your words – maybe, or you come back to them giving them a deeper meaning. But you certainly cling on tightly.
Poor piece by T Hobson, I thought. The case for ‘liberal’ in the sense of non-coercive is characteristically underpinned by honest recognition that a wide range of different views under the general umbrella of ‘Christianity’ is inevitable, because for most people this thing is difficult (however rewarding) and they believe what they can – and disbelieve what they cannot believe. Hobson’s attempt to shut out ‘liberal Christianity’ in the other sense is no better than – and no more successful than – similar attempts by ‘the orthodox’. We would all be much happier if we just honestly admitted the inevitability… Read more »