Religion, Liberal

Liberal religion is distinct from the liberal wings of particular religions such as liberal Catholics, liberal Baptists, liberal Hindus, and the like who seek a liberal way through their own particular religious traditions. Depending on the relative strength of the anti-liberal wing of those same religions, liberal wings of the various religions will come and go, wax and wane, or sometimes develop into completely new religions. Although there are certainly expressions of the liberal religion phenomenon in religion, liberal wings of religions are not the liberal religion phenomenon itself.

Anyone or any religion or any society can manifest principles of liberal religion. These principles are expressed within a particular religion as one among its many manifestations. Or they are expressed outside religion, moving beyond institutionalized religion if liberal religious impulses have been too thoroughly repressed.

The religious truths of liberal religion are, by necessity, open to questioning. Perhaps surprisingly, this does not mean that liberal religion necessarily rejects the possibility that its truth claims are in fact eternal. It merely means that this eternality will remain a possibility, a speculation. The beliefs of liberal religion may be strongly held, but liberal religion welcomes further development, interpretation, and even rejection when proven by experience or new revelation to be inadequate or just plain wrong. Any investigation into liberal religion should beware of claims that practitioners “have no beliefs,” “can believe anything they want,” or “are non-creedal.” Even “non-creedalism” is itself a belief and should be understood as such. That the many creeds of liberal religion are acknowledged as contingent on the process and progress of truth does not thereby render those creeds nonexistent. Liberal religion simply refuses to confer on creed the status of dogma.

Perhaps the most fundamental doctrinal aspect of liberal religion is the ultimate freedom of the individual to question all aspects of religion, even the aspect of questioning itself. This has, at times, earned the religious institutions that fully embrace the liberal religion phenomenon the name “Free Religion” or “Free Thinkers.” But this liberal religious tendency is, of course, manifest in a wide range of religious institutions. This fundamental aspect of liberal religion asserts itself whenever forces within religious organizations bring traditional or historical beliefs or practices into question. Contributing to the constant reformation of religion through liberal religion, the most basic assumptions, even those understood as eternally true (for example, God's grace, the finite power of human sin) are open to interrogation and, if need be, reform. Because of this incessant questioning, liberal religion presumes neither inevitable progress (a common hope of liberal religions) nor inevitable degeneration (a common lament of the illiberal).

Liberal religion, liberal religious movements, and individual liberal religionists seek to discover the good, the true, the beautiful, and the loving for their time and place, reforming or rejecting those religions, or those individual aspects of particular religions, that do not fit the best definitions and highest aspirations. This constant pursuit acts as barometer or compass for reforming religious institutions, revealing the excesses and deficiencies to which even avatars and scriptures are susceptible. Revelation from avatars and scriptures are not by necessity rejected, but liberal religion claims that revelation is never final.

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