Negative. If what constitutes liberal Protestantism is treated as solely relating to theological propositions then I guess I could be considered a liberal Protestant (although I'd be honestly more comfortable being considered a politically left-wing Catholic in a state of impaired communion with Rome, which is saying something because I'm not comfortable being considered that either), but I really cannot distance myself enough from the internal culture and collective psychology of liberal Protestantism as a movement.
Could you elaborate?
The culture within most liberal Protestant churches--the kind that go out of their way to be liberal and pride themselves on their liberalism, rather than just ones that happen to be liberal or in liberal denominations, which is what I'm trying to distinguish by saying 'as a movement'--tends to be...glib, image-focused, somewhat superficial, on top of any theological problems. I don't know if you've read Sawx's 'Party of Macklemore' post in this thread, but attending certain of these churches (the ELCA and UCC in particular can get bad about this, although I hasten to add that there are absolutely wonderful ELCA and UCC parishes as well) that's the same general vibe one gets. They're also one of the few environments in which I think the charge that liberals are as intolerant of conservatives as (certain types of) conservatives are of LGBTQ people, minorities, women, et cetera is, unfortunately, more or less true.
This isn't to denigrate the genuinely important work done for explicitly or implicitly left-leaning anti-poverty, anti-inequality, anti-discrimination causes that a lot of 'liberal churches' do. But a lot of 'conservative churches' do that kind of work as well.
Would you not contend that the culture and somewhat importantly, the ‘cultural relics’ masquerading as Serious And Important Points Of Principle And Faith, within churches that go out of their way to be
conservative or just downright contrary are also glib and superficial? Is the glacial progress of these churches actually just stubborness masquerading as piety? Because, with a big American hat on here, the fact that issues over gays and women and social justice are issues at all within a religious/theological setting, rather than being reserved as generally secular concerns is not the fault of the liberally inclined churches. They are reactions to the heightened attention conservative churches decided to give to these matters some forty years as an opening shot in a cultural war and then export to the rest of the world.
For all their ideological pap, at least liberal Christians when confronted with a world that is actually out there try to actively engage with it. A significant number of conservative churches do not have a response to modern challenges, to people, to
people they know other than categorising them, because they can’t be cross referenced with a verse or a piece of dogma or a tradition as a ‘A Bad Thing’ or trying to hold back secular and liberal religious progress because they don’t want to have to be forced to confront the issue internally.
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