Where There’s Blayze

The nature of the dispute

Since the very start of organised religion there has been conservatives and liberals and that same distinction is still present in all faiths today. I have had much experience within both camps in the last five years. When I first became a Christian, although I might not have known it, I was most certainly more on the liberal end of the belief. Most of this is because I had no experience of the more dogmatic side of the faith and subsequently I relied on the morality that I had been raised with rather than one more based on Biblical teaching. Whether people realise it or not to live by the morality of the Bible is to, by its very nature, be counter cultural. As the western morality adapts and goes off in different directions the textualist Christian will remain steadfast in a Bible based morality rather than the moral relativism of the day. To live as a liberal Christian presents a different lifestyle in regards to moral thought and historical tradition. You will instead adapt your theology and morality to coincide with the advancements of society today, you don’t fear the idea of casting off or moving away from tradition because you would believe that tradition is wrong. Both have their strengths but both are plagued with great dangers if allowed to go to the extreme. During my time studying at Cliff College I found myself slowly moving more and more over to the more dogmatic conservative side of Christianity. In the last few months I have been thinking about this divide within Christianity and wondering why there is such division and hostility between the two groups.

The good, the bad and the ugly side of Liberalism

Let’s start with the positives in regards to liberalism within the Church, because believe me there are positives if viewed correctly. Many great disciples of Christ have been accused of being liberals and going against the conservatism of the day. To name a few there are, John Wesley, Martin Luther and William Booth. All three of these men were very dedicated Christians who saw the Bible as the supreme word of God. By today’s standard they would clearly be seen as conservatives, but what would have made these individuals liberals is the fact that they went against the tradition of the day. Ironically each one goes against traditions based around what the predecessor started. Martin Luther went against Catholicism and its practices which led to protestantism, John Wesley went against the traditional belief of Anglicanism, William Booth went against the traditional belief of Methodism. This is not to suggest that what came before was completely wrong, but what it had manifested as in the time of these individuals was something arguably negative. For example John Wesley moved away from the tradition of Anglicanism because at the time they had lost what it meant to be evangelists, they would not go to the people, they would not go to the lengths that John Wesley would. We cannot accuse the Anglican Church of not doing that today, but at the time of John Wesley, this was just the way things were. That kind of attitude fit with the morality of the class system of that age and drew tradition off of the Catholic Church which was doing the same. We can today look back at these three individuals and applaud them for not becoming so dogmatic that they refuse to question the actions of the Church and its tradition, but in their time they would have been the equivalent of a liberal. This is a wonderful part of liberalism that we should strive to keep alive today. When we see the Church going wrong or become enlightened to some of our traditions that are shown to be outright wrong, then we should humble ourselves and move forward. As soon as we dogmatise a tradition or thought we stop ourselves from being able to discuss it or rethink it. This is clearly shown in the second Vatican, a time where the Catholic Church was opening themselves up to discuss everything and anything within their denomination and belief structure. Yet when it came to discuss women in leadership, it was thrown out, couldn’t even be discussed because the tradition of the Catholic Church has never had women in leadership. They would not even discuss it. Regardless of what you believe on women in leadership you should surely be open to the discussion instead of burying your head in the sand and pretending it’s not even a question.

Despite the fact that liberalism can be a wonderful thing that brings about change and reinvention when it is so sorely needed, I would argue that this is not what the Liberals of today are doing. If we look at the three individuals we just spoke about as being liberals of their time, we can see that all three of them were textualists who held the Bible in very high regard and saw it as the supreme word of God. This tends to be very different to the liberals of today. In my experience when debating certain theologies with more liberal individuals, as soon as I pull a bit of scripture that goes against their argument, they tell me how the Bible was written by flawed people and therefore we should take it with a pinch of salt. This is miles away from the likes of John Wesley, Martin luther and William Booth who would have defended their actions on biblical grounds. When all three of them were challenged on their actions, they would defend themselves by pointing to the Bible and showing how the established Church of the day had gone away from what is biblical and that they were trying to return to it. Now don’t get me wrong, I have friends who are liberal christians who have a very high view of the Bible and would argue that it points to different conclusions as the conservative might come to. But at least we are debating using the same foundations. If I debate the topic of abortion with a non-christian, then I will not quote Jeremiah 1 to them, or indeed any Bible verse to them. They do not believe in the Bible in the same way I do, so what would be the point. I have to find the same foundational belief so that we can debate from that point. If I am debating the same topic with a liberal Christian who believes the Bible is flawed, then we are just going to go around in circles. I will throw out Bible verses and it will do nothing. They will throw verses at me that they deem correct and I will still be baffled as to why we are ignoring the other verses. Modern day liberalism has the potential to take us away from our foundations. If we go down this route of saying that the Bible is flawed, then what do we preach on? What parts of the Bible do we take in? Who is the authority on what is inspired and what is flawed scripture? We follow this route too much and we will find the foundations of our faith crumbling beneath us and we will fall. I do want to end this paragraph by reminding people that there are liberals out there who do still see the Bible as the supreme authority. Even if their theology becomes more accepted than mine, at least we will still have our foundations intact for future discussion and growth.

The good, the bad and the ugly side of Conservatism

I will start this by talking about the inherent dangers of conservatism, simply because we have already discussed them in part in the last section. Conservatism often has the potential to fall too deeply into dogmatism. The danger of this becomes that we end up eradicating the concept of free thought and curiosity in the Church. This would be disastrous and has been disastrous. If we look back to some of the very dark and embarrassing parts of Christian history, we can see dogmatism gone mad. Look at the crusades, a time when individuals went out killing people who did not believe what they believed or even dared to question their belief. We can also see this in the history of the British monarchy. When a monarch took up a certain belief, anyone who did not share that belief was hunted down and forced to convert, and if they didn’t then they were killed. Now I know that these examples are pretty much sociological examples of tyrannical governments taking over and imposing their will, but Christian history is littered with the deaths of those who dared to think and speak out. That is not what Christianity should be and it’s not what it should ever become again. This all comes about because individuals dogmatised certain beliefs and when you do this it means that this belief cannot be questioned, changed or challenged. That is a dangerous point for anyone to get to. If we come to a point where we refuse to listen to logic and reason due to a blind following of a certain belief then what’s the point? What becomes the point of education, reasonable discourse and discussion? I am a Christian and I hold that belief due to both rational and empirical evidence, but I still listen to people like Carl Sagan, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris (famous atheists) so that I am constantly being challenged and learning more. My beliefs on certain things has indeed changed over the course of the last few years and that has typically been because I hear an argument, or experience something that is at odds with my own belief. If those things poke a hole in my belief that I cannot reconcile then I must come to the conclusion that I am wrong. Becoming too dogmatic is typically something associated with the conservatives rather than the liberals. Liberals will have dogmas that they stick to but they tend to be less defined and ultimately not as difficult to change.

Although I have just moaned and groaned about the effects of dogmas I don’t want people to think I am completely against dogma. On the contrary I think there are certain things that need to become dogma on the grounds that they are complete essentials. If we look at the belief, for example, that Jesus is the son God and rose again on the third day, then that is an essential belief to christianity. Without that belief, you are not a Christian, but rather a Jew. Subsequently, it is logical to make this one of the fundamental dogmas of the Christian faith because if we ever lose that belief then we lose the faith itself and at which point who cares about dogmas as they will die anyway. For these reasons I believe that certain essential dogmas are both helpful and necessary, however, I will concede that it can be a thin line between what should be a dogma and what should simply remain common belief. I also don’t want people assuming that if you ever become stumped in a debate or find that you cannot answer a certain question that you should abandon your faith in light of a better argument. You should go away and seek more information and draw from both rational and empirical evidence. For example, I once got into a debate on how an individual believed that science had rendered Christianity obsolete and incorrect. Although I did not know how to respond in the moment, I went away and listened to professor John Lennox who is an expert on this very issue. I then learnt more and strengthened my faith accordingly. But what happens when you come to a dead end? You can’t find evidence to back up your faith in God and you feel the other arguments are just too good and convincing. Firstly, I would say keep looking! There are defenses out there for pretty much any criticism of a belief in the Christian God. But if you feel those defences are not very good then I would encourage you to draw strength from your experiences, in other words, your empirical knowledge. Whenever I debate my uncle on the existence of God, I always seem to come up short and it takes many hours of research to figure out the answers to some of the questions I have after a conversation with him. But I remain strong in my faith because I know I have felt the Holy Spirit, I have felt the power of God. I know that because I have experienced that. In which case even if I am unsure about some tough question, I rest on the fact that I have experienced what the Bible talks about and that allows me to take a leap of faith on other issues. Not because I am leaping with no evidence to back me and I am doing so in blind faith, but rather because I have enough evidence to point me to the fact that if He is real and that I can trust in Him.

Where I believe conservativism draws its strengths is its steadfast belief in the word of God. Great Christian liberals and conservatives of our history are united in their foundational belief in the supremacy of the Bible. I have already said that this belief is not limited to the conservative side but I would argue it is harder to find on the liberal side. I would be blind if I did not acknowledge that conservative Christians can use the Bible to support their hatred, like the Westboro Baptists, in the same way liberals can take the parts from the Bible that support their view and dismiss the rest. Where the fundamental difference comes is how to change both those generalisations. If a member of the Westboro Baptist Church believes in the supremacy of scripture and we have a debate on how they are treating others, they must either acknowledge their wilful ignorance of the passages in the Bible that promote love to others or change their stance. But if we share no foundational belief with liberals who do not believe in the supremacy of scripture, then there is no way to change their mind or show how they are wrong and equally they have no way of showing when the conservatives are wrong. Some may be reading this and saying, that this is more of a blog on the beliefs regarding scripture, but as I have previously stated, I believe that this is predominantly the way liberal Christians are heading in the western world.

What should we do?

Methodist conference recently stated that there would be a two year discussion on the topic of gay marriage within the the Church and would come to a conclusion in 2020. Firstly, I think it is embarrassing that the Methodist Church has been debating this issue since 1992 and it is going to take us till 2020 to actually come to a conclusion. I don’t think that is fair to members of either side of the debate and has only acted as a way to deter people from the methodist Church. Despite all this, I think we should back away from this question and focus on what the real issue is. If the more liberal belief is that the Bible is not the divine word of God then logically speaking the flawed elements of the Bible are constricting them from showing the true love of God to gay people. If this debate is coming to a certain conclusion because people no longer believe that we should follow everything in the Bible, then there are conservative Christians who believe their foundational beliefs are at risk. Both sides feel constrained and have something that is being threatened. Conference has us debating a hot topic without knowing our shared foundation. As a Church we should be discussing what our belief of the Bible is. If our conclusion is that we still believe it is the infallible word of God then the debate of gay marriage becomes more of an exegesis on what the Bible really says. If we come to the conclusion that the Bible was written by flawed individuals interpretation of God then the debate on gay marriage is based purely on empirical reasoning. It would also force us to reevaluate which parts of the Bible we should be ignoring and which parts we should be keeping. That outcome would also have strong implications on how we have services within the Methodist Church and what the source of our preaches should be. Until we understand the common foundation our beliefs we are simply debating in two different languages.

The sad consequence of this

Ash Cooper said at Methodist conference that the debate on gay marriage should not be the topic that divides us, and I absolutely agree with him. The sad reality of my suggestion is that if we were to have this debate on our beliefs on scripture then I think that this would be an issue that divides us. I said at the start of this blog that both liberals and conservatives are needed to balance out any belief unless they go too far in the wrong direction. But if either side goes too far then there comes a point where we should cut away from that denomination. To put it into an extreme, the liberals of the world would not stick around in the KKK because they have gone too far (Neither would the conservatives, but in this example the KKK are a conservative group gone mad), radical conservative dogmas have gone too far and there’s an imbalance. In the same way if we are to suggest that the foundational text of the Christian faith is no longer a source of pure truth then that is a point when conservatives realise they will never have a foundational point with which to debate. That may not be grounds to separate from that group but it is then a much bigger issue that needs a lot of thought. It is for this reason why I believe churches are not having this discussion and are instead allowing us to debate hot topics from two different foundational camps of beliefs so that the Church does not end up having to rejig its entire structure to adapt to not seeing the Bible as the word of God. Despite this I think we need to take the plunge and have the discussion.

Conclusion

We are all loved by God and we are united in our faith. I have written about some challenging and difficult parts of the Church currently and in its history. We must never lose sight of the good that God does with and through us, and how we must be united in our service of his perfect love.