"Liberal" is not a bad word

Growing up in church the easiest way to write off a group of people (i.e. another church, a university etc.) was to label them "liberal". Liberal in my congregation was equivalent to if not worse than claiming someone to be a heretic or apostate (fancy word for stabbing your 'faith-group' in the back). The dichotomy was clear: to be liberal was evil, conservative was good. The champions of conservatism in my church would declare that this was a black and white issue. They had chosen the white, and in there mind all shades of gray, no matter how pale were obvious compromises in the purity of true, Christian doctrine.

This church, being in Texas, upheld the patriotism that all good Christians hold to. The Holy Republican Party ruled. All Democrats were dismissed with a social armband identifying them as "misguided", and definitely not to be paid attention to. After all, the Democrats were the liberal party. To vote for Kerry in the last election meant you probably delved into witchcraft in your spare time.

And it is here that I find an irony worthy of the harshest ridicule. Part of the propaganda that America puts forth to prove ourselves better than other countries is the obvious fact that we are "free" to believe what we each feel to be right. Conservatives will defend this lofty ideal, and in the next breath condemn anyone who would practice freedom by believing differently than they do. Political beliefs bring out some of the deepest (and most misguided) vehemence from peoples hearts towards other people. I'm sure it comes in the other direction (liberals condemning conservatives), but I've spent my whole life in the South and mainly witnessed the Left being backed into a corner.

Monuments are a way of encompassing meaning for a culture. In the OT they would make piles of rocks to serve as monuments for later generations to remember what God had done. They would erect huge pillars of rock to commemorate significant battles. Monuments are markers where a societies idenity is anchored. All cultures have them, and they do quite a bit to tell you about that culture. It's funny that one of our prided monuments is known as the Statue of Liberty. That would be the same root word as liberal. On the one hand we are called to patriotically declare our country to be a place of liberty, and then if you live in Texas espeically, scream "Anathema!" at anyone who would be so arrogant as to make use of the liberty to believe differently than the rest of the crowd.

Lord Acton was a guy who could be described as a historian, who lived in the time when the Catholic church was officially beginning to declare the pope to be infallible. Acton didn't like this. He was a Catholic, and a liberal. One his statements was, "Liberty is so holy a thing that God was forced to permit Evil, that [liberty] might exist." Over the past year I've read a lot of stuff related to liberation theology. Liberation is giving liberty to those who have lacked it, which allows them to be liberal if they so choose. Liberation theology is a declaration that the oppressed people of the world have the right and duty to create their own theology based on their own worldview and experiences of reality. It is a declaration that the poor are free from oppression, by the blood of Jesus, and now have the right to live free of the yoke of the privileged. Now, history has shown that in the light of this liberation there will most likely arise a plethora of syncretism and religions "from the buffet". This is the mark of a liberal world. Pluralism loves liberty. America is often paving the way. Never before have we seen so many people who are "cool with Jesus", who also participate in occult New Age rituals, and do a little Yoga meditation on the side. Cars with a Jesus-fish on the bumper are commonly seen with Indian dream-catchers and Mardi Gras beads hanging from the mirror. Being liberal opens one to the newly recycled polytheism that is sweeping America.

And it is on that point that I think Acton's statement is so profound. There is no shortage of evil in our world. There is plenty of it to go around. Yet liberal and conservative both suffer its consequences equally. God allows liberty, even at the cost of Evil. Evil's result is a cross, and only rarely do we begin to grasp the astounding price that actually is. Being conservative is not the answer. By holding to the traditions, we do not spare God the slightest pain. His lashes number the same whether we appear moral, or descend into hedonism, and God's silence on that day is not broken by our outward purity.

The most under-valued doctine in the church is Free Will/Liberty. Liberty is holy.

. . . our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons and daughters of God to be revealed. For creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from bondage unto decay, being brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. - Romans 8

Liberty is a fact of the Kingdom, and a sign of heaven. It is only in liberty that we can truly become what God intends us to be. Irenaus once said, "The glory of God is man fully alive." Part of our coming to life is having the freedom of choice. Only in and through our poor choices now are we taught to set the trajectory of our life in such a way as to live for the Kingdom. Liberty is the provision of space to become what God has already made us. It is one of the many great foundational concepts that America has lost.

Our age is one of uncertainty. It is one where true freedom is distrusted, and understandably so given the track record of humans granted total freedom. Yet, Christians receive their liberty not from Jefferson or Adams. Nor is our freedom given solely by our being born. It is given by God who absorbed a cost that should teach us to hold Freedom with a reverence much deeper than even the most patriotic of Americans. The story of Braveheart is a pathetic shadow of Our God's story. All of us, created in God's image, have a Glory waiting to be revealed. The spectrum of humanity is unified in its need for a liberal freedom to shine as God intended us to.