What Is The Difference Between Liberal, Conservative and Fundamentalist Christians?

[GodsGrace]

I'm not sure "liberal Christianity" is a thing. Those who consider themselves "liberal" are generally not those who consider themselves "Christian." These are the Bart Ehrman's of the world - they know about Christianity, but are not actually believers in Christ.

There is such thing as a progressive Christian. Essentially, this is someone whose worldview is that the world is getting better, rather than worse. Christ is thought to be already ruling, and the world improves under his reign, until eventually it is perfected and he "renders up the kingdom" to the Father.

"Conservative" seems to be the de facto position for Christians. The conservative believes that "the old ways are better" and that the world is deteriorating. Eventually, Christ will come to save/redeem the world. In the meantime, we live out what was handed down to us.

"Fundamentalist" is someone who rejects common sense or any kind of learning/education in favor of whatever-their-pastor-said. This is someone who has completely subscribed to... someone-else's interpretation of Scripture... essentially they have given their own mind a vote of no-confidence and decided to rely ENTIRELY on someone else. This is not a good thing by my estimation.

Thanks a lot WS....very good post
BUT
you've added a new category!!
A progressive Christian.
I definitely don't see the world getting better,,,
and if this is how Jesus rules....we're in trouble!

I agree with your statement of Conservative Christians...also known it seems, as traditional, or orthodox (not the denomination).

The way you describe Fundamentalist sounds a little Catholic to me. They believe whatever their church teaches....and some of it is good, but some of it is just not biblical....but I love my Catholic brothers too. It also seems that fundamentalist means that the bible is taken literally...each and every sentence.

 

[GodsGrace]

As far as age, I am 70 years old

Like I said, if you’re playing around with abortion and things that are against the Bible, you are not a Christian

I don’t know why you still seem to think a liberal is a Christian

A liberal in your definition today is the farthest thing from a christian

So I don’t see the importance of this conversation
Of trying to tie them in with the Christians

Your conversation should be non-christian versus christian
not liberal versus conservative

Thanks Stash.
This conversation is going just as I had hoped it would.
It's been helpful for me since I'm very much out of Protestant circles these days.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Right OK.
I guess I'm an OEC.
God created everything but I don't think we can know when.
At the rate of the distancing of the stars...it looks like billions of years.
If you use geneology, it looks like a few thousand.

it looks.

But that does not mean it is.

When God created the starts and the heavens, he said he created them for a light and for times and seasons. for man.

If he created them for this purpose. then it goes to reason he made their light show on the day he created them.

I like to take peter as a warning to not look at things today to determine things from the past. Because that world perished. destroyed by a flood. And if we look at the flood, we can answer prety much all questions from science.

3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

the second issue I and many others have is you have death before sin.. If adam sinned and caused death, then why is there death before adam?

 

[GodsGrace]

it looks.

But that does not mean it is.

When God created the starts and the heavens, he said he created them for a light and for times and seasons. for man.

If he created them for this purpose. then it goes to reason he made their light show on the day he created them.

I like to take peter as a warning to not look at things today to determine things from the past. Because that world perished. destroyed by a flood. And if we look at the flood, we can answer prety much all questions from science.

3 knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.

the second issue I and many others have is you have death before sin.. If adam sinned and caused death, then why is there death before adam?

How did the Grand Canyon form in only 6 thousand years?
But this really does not seem important to me.

But I don't understand your last sentence and the story of A and E is one of my favorite in all the bible.
What death before Adam??

 

[Wick Stick]

It also seems that fundamentalist means that the bible is taken literally...each and every sentence.

People like to claim they're "literal," but it seems disingenuous to me... nobody is really completely literal.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

How did the Grand Canyon form in only 6 thousand years?

actually it formed in a manner of days when 2 gand lakes in the area overran and drained all of their water. Most scientists believe this now a days, most no longer believe the river caused it. When Mount St. Helens blew. A mini canyon was formed resembling the grand canyon.

But this really does not seem important to me.

But I don't understand your last sentence and the story of A and E is one of my favorite in all the bible.
What death before Adam??

Do you believe there was no life whatsoever before adam? I love this subject and always am out to learn.. I changed my view about 10 years ago. I am always open to learn new things and change

 

[Runningman]

That's it.....

Please explain your point of view.
Thanks.

A liberal Christian would be a Christian who believes church creeds and commentaries are of equal or greater importance than Scripture. In my point of view, this encompasses most of church. For example, the Catholics are most liberal and Protestant less liberal than the Catholics.

Conservative would be the opposite of the liberal. Those who reject the creeds and commentaries in exchange for sola scriptura.

A fundamentalist would be someone who seeks to return to the earliest known examples of church teachings, beliefs, and practices. As you know, church has changed a lot over time as the institution has taken on many creeds, traditions, and other teachings. A lot of it can't actually be found in Scripture. So a fundamentalist may just be someone who simply follows the teachings of Jesus and that's it.

 

[Eternally Grateful]

actually it formed in a manner of days when 2 gand lakes in the area overran and drained all of their water. Most scientists believe this now a days, most no longer believe the river caused it. When Mount St. Helens blew. A mini canyon was formed resembling the grand canyon.

Do you believe there was no life whatsoever before adam? I love this subject and always am out to learn.. I changed my view about 10 years ago. I am always open to learn new things and change

sorry for taking your thread out of context.. I love discussing this, but it usually gets heated and cause fights.. so i rarely talk about it.

 

[GodsGrace]

People like to claim they're "literal," but it seems disingenuous to me... nobody is really completely literal.

Aren't fundamentalists literal?
Don't they believe the earth is 6 thousand years old and every other little detail the bible gives?

 

[GodsGrace]

actually it formed in a manner of days when 2 gand lakes in the area overran and drained all of their water. Most scientists believe this now a days, most no longer believe the river caused it. When Mount St. Helens blew. A mini canyon was formed resembling the grand canyon.

Do you believe there was no life whatsoever before adam? I love this subject and always am out to learn.. I changed my view about 10 years ago. I am always open to learn new things and change

It would be interesting to know how your view has changed.
Mine has remained the same....from as far back as I could remember about A and E.

By life and death, I guess you mean that if the earth is older, then there were animals and they died and then there was man....
this would be the scientific explanation for the creation of earth and mammals, including us.

I thought that maybe what I think might be heretical....so I checked and it seems this could be believed, as long as God always was involved.
So here it is:

I know you don't trust carbon dating and I don't blame you....I used to know a little about how it worked, but I really can't recall.
I THINK, however, that it does work for big periods of time...it's the small periods/ages that can fail.

Mountains are really old. Dinosaurs are really old. Whatever happened before...we cannot be sure of. There's also the problem of the fossil record which is not continuous...there are jumps or gaps in the fossil record (for instance the Cambrian Explosion) which show that evolution is very problematic and cannot be confirmed by scientific methods.

So what could have happened or existed before A and E is impossible for us to know.
But Genesis states that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
The earth was formless and void and in darkness.

I believe that God decided, at some point, to give order to the planet and to prepare it for His greatest creation...us.
In fact, this is shown in Genesis 1 when God actually prepared the Garden for mankind.

How could we possibly know the time frame between Genesis 1:1 and Genises 1:3?

John Lennox did a great talk on Adam and Eve. If I could find it, I'll link it.

So death could have been happening all along....
but the writer of Genesis is explaining about sin,,,,how everything was perfected at some point in time...
but man could not follow the command of God and so he fell.
Death entered into man....which God had created for a higher purpose than any other creation.

I believe the creation story is about man and His relationship with God AFTER God created the "Garden" for man. (the world).

I also believe that if we take Genesis to be LITERAL it will cause problems in our theology.
Genesis is TRUE....but it cannot be literal.
Snakes don't speak.

There are other creation stories....but they truly lack any inspiration from a higher power but are simply the ideas of men.
Genesis is incredible in its accuracy and explanation of the condition man finds himself in.

 

[GodsGrace]

@Eternally Grateful

Found this. Haven't watched it but I really respect J. Lennox:

 

[GodsGrace]

@Eternally Grateful

I believe this was it:

 

[Eternally Grateful]

Aren't fundamentalists literal?
Don't they believe the earth is 6 thousand years old and every other little detail the bible gives?

Not all of them no. I was a fundamentalist. and they believed in OLD earth, as did I until 10 years ago

 

[Eternally Grateful]

It would be interesting to know how your view has changed.
Mine has remained the same....from as far back as I could remember about A and E.

I would be happy to discuss this in another thread or I can email you. I do not want to take away from your thread any more. I am curious to know what people think about these terms also

By life and death, I guess you mean that if the earth is older, then there were animals and they died and then there was man....
this would be the scientific explanation for the creation of earth and mammals, including us.

I thought that maybe what I think might be heretical....so I checked and it seems this could be believed, as long as God always was involved.
So here it is:

I know you don't trust carbon dating and I don't blame you....I used to know a little about how it worked, but I really can't recall.
I THINK, however, that it does work for big periods of time...it's the small periods/ages that can fail.

Mountains are really old. Dinosaurs are really old. Whatever happened before...we cannot be sure of. There's also the problem of the fossil record which is not continuous...there are jumps or gaps in the fossil record (for instance the Cambrian Explosion) which show that evolution is very problematic and cannot be confirmed by scientific methods.

So what could have happened or existed before A and E is impossible for us to know.
But Genesis states that the Spirit of God hovered over the waters.
The earth was formless and void and in darkness.

I believe that God decided, at some point, to give order to the planet and to prepare it for His greatest creation...us.
In fact, this is shown in Genesis 1 when God actually prepared the Garden for mankind.

How could we possibly know the time frame between Genesis 1:1 and Genises 1:3?

John Lennox did a great talk on Adam and Eve. If I could find it, I'll link it.

So death could have been happening all along....
but the writer of Genesis is explaining about sin,,,,how everything was perfected at some point in time...
but man could not follow the command of God and so he fell.
Death entered into man....which God had created for a higher purpose than any other creation.

I believe the creation story is about man and His relationship with God AFTER God created the "Garden" for man. (the world).

I also believe that if we take Genesis to be LITERAL it will cause problems in our theology.
Genesis is TRUE....but it cannot be literal.
Snakes don't speak.

There are other creation stories....but they truly lack any inspiration from a higher power but are simply the ideas of men.
Genesis is incredible in its accuracy and explanation of the condition man finds himself in.

again, I would be happy to go over why my view changed concerning all of these things if you would like. let me know

I will just add if we do not take genesis literal. then that puts into question (in my view) the rest of the bible, If I can not trust the first 11 chapters of genesis, why should I trust anything else in the word?

 

[Eternally Grateful]

@Eternally Grateful

I believe this was it:

do these men go over what they call the "GAP" theory or the "Day Age" theory?

I learned the GAP theory when I was in high school, and was so happy I had answers for what science was insisting the age of the earth had to be, and dinosours and other things.. I was an advocate of that until like I said 10 years ago when I went to the creation museum in Kentucky, and had questions, and purchased three books from creation scientists, and my after a year or more, my view changed..

 

[Wick Stick]

Aren't fundamentalists literal?

Some of them. They follow whatever pastor or tradition was handed down to them. That isn't always the same thing.

Don't they believe the earth is 6 thousand years old and every other little detail the bible gives?

You know... the Bible doesn't actually say the earth is 6,000 years old. It contains a bunch of genealogies, and someone in the 17th century "did the math" to come up with that number. There are a bunch of assumptions that underlie that math.

 

[Lambano]

 

[GodsGrace]

A liberal Christian would be a Christian who believes church creeds and commentaries are of equal or greater importance than Scripture. In my point of view, this encompasses most of church. For example, the Catholics are most liberal and Protestant less liberal than the Catholics.

Conservative would be the opposite of the liberal. Those who reject the creeds and commentaries in exchange for sola scriptura.

R,,,,you're giving different descriptions.
Doesn't LIBERAL mean that a person has an open mind and is willing to accept new ideas?

If a Christian believes in the creeds doesn't that mean he's a conservative Christian?
Seeking to keep the old theology alive....

I don't speak to commentaries.....they have no authority.

A fundamentalist would be someone who seeks to return to the earliest known examples of church teachings, beliefs, and practices. As you know, church has changed a lot over time as the institution has taken on many creeds, traditions, and other teachings. A lot of it can't actually be found in Scripture. So a fundamentalist may just be someone who simply follows the teachings of Jesus and that's it.

I think what you call FUNDAMENTALIST is what we know as TRADITIONAL.

I do agree that the original church has changed over the centuries.
l also agree that a fundamentalist would follow the teachings of Jesus.

Problem is that we also have the OT to deal with.
Seems like in that case a fundamentalist is someone that takes every verse of the OT literally.

 

[GodsGrace]

do these men go over what they call the "GAP" theory or the "Day Age" theory?

I learned the GAP theory when I was in high school, and was so happy I had answers for what science was insisting the age of the earth had to be, and dinosours and other things.. I was an advocate of that until like I said 10 years ago when I went to the creation museum in Kentucky, and had questions, and purchased three books from creation scientists, and my after a year or more, my view changed..

I know about the Creation Museum.
Heard some of what they believe.
I just can't accept it, but I don't think it's important one way or the other.
Re Adam and Eve.....I'll PM you so as not to derail too much.

 

[JohnDB]

So....
The more I read this thread...
The more I realize that there is no definition or group I belong inside of.

Because...things on Earth are getting both better and worse as time goes by. Morally and physically at the same time.

I don't think old theologies are the best theologies as some things have not changed....such as our desires for having our itching ears scratched. They scratched itching ears then...not now. We have a fresh batch of theologies to scratch our itching ears.

YE or OE? I have absolutely no thoughts....because this is a very bad use of scriptures on a subject they do not speak about whatsoever. The ONLY real fact that the scriptures tell us is that God did it...Not Bob from Accounting.

Adam and Eve?
First off these are not tags but titles of positions and authorities. They are real people who lived and died. Scriptures do not give a complete biography on Adam and Eve because it is not the focus or even relevant information. However...they are real individuals with real children and descendants. So was Noah.

And God is considerate. He included nothing of "extra" or "Common" knowledge in scriptures. Because a Torah scroll alone cost between a whole year's wages to five year's wages. Yes, the Torah is written in a poetic fashion...this was for memory retention, accuracy in transcription, and so that more could be said in fewer words. (Some here have expressed their obvious lack of knowledge of scriptures by their actions and words)

So...
Do you know what exactly was said?
Stemming from an "Originalist" viewpoint?
Who was saying it to whom?
Why was it said?
How was it said?

Flat reading is not going to provide answers. But people seem to be ready to fight/slander over their version of "truth"....meaning they have zero understanding about God. And if that's the case then their knowledge of scriptures given to us is highly suspect along the lines of Satan's knowledge given to us.