Religious liberalism

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Religious liberalism is a conception of

religious liberty, which is the tolerance of different religious beliefs and practices, but not all promoters of religious liberty are in favor of religious liberalism, and vice versa.[3]

Overview

In the context of religious liberalism, liberalism conveys the sense of classical liberalism as it developed in the Age of Enlightenment, which forms the starting point of both religious and political liberalism; but religious liberalism does not necessarily coincide with all meanings of liberalism in political philosophy. For example, an empirical attempt to show a link between religious liberalism and political liberalism proved inconclusive in a 1973 study in Illinois.[4]

Usage of the term liberal in the context of religious philosophy appeared as early as the mid-19th century

Disciples of Christ minister Edward Scribner Ames wrote in his article "Liberalism in Religion":[6]

The term "liberalism" seems to be developing a religious usage which gives it growing significance. It is more sharply contrasted with fundamentalism, and signifies a far deeper meaning than modernism. Fundamentalism describes a relatively uncritical attitude. In it custom, traditionalism, and authoritarianism are dominant. ... There is no doubt that the loss of the traditional faith has left many people confused and rudderless, and they are finding that there is no adequate satisfaction in mere excitement or in flight from their finer ideals. They crave a sense of deeper meaning and direction for their life. Religious liberalism, not as a cult but as an attitude and method, turns to the living realities in the actual tasks of building more significant individual and collective human life.

Religious traditionalists, who reject the idea that tenets of modernity should have any impact on religious tradition, challenge the concept of religious liberalism.[citation needed] Secularists, who reject the idea that implementation of rationalistic or critical thought leaves any room for religion altogether, likewise dispute religious liberalism.[citation needed]

In Christianity

"Liberal Christianity" is an umbrella term for certain developments in

Christian denominations in the Western world, but is opposed by a movement of Christian fundamentalism which developed in response to these trends, and by Evangelicalism generally. It also contrasts with conservative forms of Christianity outside the Western world and outside the reach of Enlightenment philosophy and modernism, mostly within Eastern Christianity.[citation needed
]

The Catholic Church in particular has a long tradition of controversy regarding questions of religious liberalism. Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801–1890), for example, was considered to be moderately liberal by 19th-century standards because he was critical of papal infallibility, but he explicitly opposed "liberalism in religion" because he argued it would lead to complete relativism.[7]

The conservative

Anglican Christian apologist C. S. Lewis voiced a similar view in the mid-20th century, arguing that "theology of the liberal type" amounted to a complete re-invention of Christianity and a rejection of Christianity as understood by its own founders.[9]

In Judaism

German-Jewish religious reformers began to incorporate

critical thought and humanist ideas into Judaism from the early 19th century.[citation needed] This resulted in the creation of various non-Orthodox denominations, from the moderately liberal Conservative Judaism to very liberal Reform Judaism. The moderate wing of Modern Orthodox Judaism, especially Open Orthodoxy
, espouses a similar approach.

In Islam

Liberalism and progressivism within Islam involve professed Muslims who have created a considerable body of liberal thought about Islamic understanding and practice.[10] Their work is sometimes characterized as "progressive Islam" (al-Islām at-taqaddumī); some scholars, such as Omid Safi, regard progressive Islam and liberal Islam as two distinct movements.[11]

The methodologies of liberal or progressive Islam rest on the interpretation of traditional Islamic scripture (the Quran) and other texts (such as the Hadith), a process called ijtihad.[12][page needed] This can vary from the slight to the most liberal, where only the meaning of the Quran is considered to be a revelation, with its expression in words seen as the work of Muhammad in his particular time and context.

Liberal Muslims see themselves as returning to the principles of the early ummah ethical and pluralistic intent of the Quran.[13] They distance themselves from some traditional and less liberal interpretations of Islamic law which they regard as culturally based and without universal applicability.[citation needed] The reform movement uses Tawhid (monotheism) "as an organizing principle for human society and the basis of religious knowledge, history, metaphysics, aesthetics, and ethics, as well as social, economic and world order".[14]

progress.[16][page needed] It featured a "critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence" and a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis.[15]

It was the first of several Islamic movements—including

Muhammad Rashid Rida
(d. 1935).

The early Islamic modernists (al-Afghani and Muhammad Abdu) used the term

salafiyya[17] to refer to their attempt at renovation of Islamic thought,[18] and this salafiyya movement is often known in the West as "Islamic modernism," although it is very different from what is currently called the Salafi movement, which generally signifies "ideologies such as wahhabism".[18] According to Malise Ruthven, Islamic modernism suffered since its inception from co-option of its original reformism by both secularist rulers and by "the official ulama" whose "task it is to legitimise" rulers' actions in religious terms.[19]

Examples of liberal movements within Islam are

]

In eastern religions

Eastern religions were not immediately affected by liberalism and Enlightenment philosophy, and have partly undertaken reform movements only after contact with Western philosophy in the 19th and 20th centuries.[

Zen Buddhism.[20][21]

Liberal religion in Unitarianism

The term liberal religion has been used by

Meadville Theological School, and Universalist Ministerial Association from 1939 to 1949, and was edited by James Luther Adams, an influential Unitarian theologian.[24] Fifty years later, a new version of the journal was published in an online format from 1999 to 2009.[25]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Newman 1991, p. 144: "... when people talk about 'religious liberalism,' they are normally referring to a commitment to a certain kind of conception of what religion is and, accordingly, of how religious attitudes, institutions, and communities should be developed or reshaped so as to accommodate and promote particular forms of personal and group freedom."
  2. ^ Newman 1991, p. 159: "... religious liberalism came to be so concerned with respect for reason, reasonableness, and rationality ... ."
  3. ^ Newman 1991, p. 143–144: "However, given the way in which terminology has evolved, we must be careful not to assume too close an association between 'religious liberty' and 'religious liberalism.' Many people who think that religious liberty is basically a good thing that ought to be promoted do not wish to be regarded as advocates of religious liberalism; some of them even feel that many of those who call themselves 'religious liberals' are enemies of religious liberty, or at least end up undermining religious liberty in the process of promoting their own special brand of 'liberal religion.' ... One notable problem here is that, when liberalism is considered in relation to religion, one may be thinking primarily of a certain 'liberal' conception of religion itself (in contrast with, say, orthodox, conservative, traditionalist, or fundamentalist conceptions) or one may be thinking more of a 'liberal' political view of the value of religious liberty. But, when people talk about 'religious liberalism,' they are usually thinking of the former more than the latter, although they may uncritically assume that the two necessarily accompany one another."
  4. JSTOR 4105689
    .
  5. ^ . The first of all the requisites in such a religion is that it shall be Liberal. We mention this condition even before that of Truth, because a religion that is not liberal cannot be true. The devout and intelligent demand a liberal religion, a religion large, free, generous, comprehensive in its lessons, a religion expansive in its spirit, lofty in its views, and with a sweep of blessings as wide as the range of man's necessities and sins. This is what is meant by a Liberal Religion, or Liberal views of religion, or Liberal Christianity. ... Thoughtful, earnest, and devout minds now demand a liberal religion. Liberal in the honest, pure, and noble sense of that word. Not liberal in the sense of license, recklessness, or indifference; not in making a scoff of holy restraints and solemn mysteries. Not liberal as the worldling or the fool uses the word, for overthrowing all distinctions, and reducing life to a revel or a riot. ... Such a faith cannot afford to raise an issue with reason on a single point, so far as their road on the highway of truth will allow them to keep company together. When they part for faith to advance beyond reason, they must part in perfect harmony.
  6. .
  7. ^ "Liberalism in religion is the doctrine that there is no positive truth in religion, but that one creed is as good as another…", J. H. Newman 'Biglietto Speech' http://www.newmanreader.org/works/addresses/file2.html
  8. OCLC 368048449
    .
  9. . All theology of the liberal type involves at some point—and often involves throughout—the claim that the real behavior and purpose and teaching of Christ came very rapidly to be misunderstood and misrepresented by his followers, and has been recovered or exhumed only by modern scholars. (From an essay titled "Modern theology and biblical criticism" written in 1959.)
  10. .
  11. ^ Safi, Omid. "What is Progressive Islam?". averroes-foundation.org. Averroes Foundation. Archived from the original on July 9, 2006.
  12. OCLC 720168240
    .
  13. ^ Sajid, Abdul Jalil (December 10, 2001). "'Islam against Religious Extremism and Fanaticism': speech delivered by Imam Abdul Jalil Sajid at a meeting on International NGO Rights and Humanity". mcb.org.uk. Muslim Council of Britain. Archived from the original on June 7, 2008.
  14. ^ "Tawhid". oxfordislamicstudies.com. Oxford Islamic Studies Online. Archived from the original on September 17, 2017. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
  15. ^
    OCLC 55870974
    . Islamic modernism was the first Muslim ideological response to the Western cultural challenge. Started in India and Egypt in the second part of the 19th century ... reflected in the work of a group of like-minded Muslim scholars, featuring a critical reexamination of the classical conceptions and methods of jurisprudence and a formulation of a new approach to Islamic theology and Quranic exegesis. This new approach, which was nothing short of an outright rebellion against Islamic orthodoxy, displayed astonishing compatibility with the ideas of the Enlightenment.
  16. ^ .
  17. .
  18. ^
    puritanical ideology of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
    .
  19. . Retrieved 23 April 2015.
  20. .
  21. .
  22. . The repetition of the distinctive pattern in both higher and lower ranking of both terminal and instrumental values leads one to a firmer basis for sensing a distinctive Unitarian Universalist pattern of religiousness. It is, perhaps, more accurately defined as a pattern of liberal religion which further research may disclose is typical, for example, of such groups as Reform Judaism.
  23. .
  24. ^ "The Journal of Liberal Religion". worldcat.org. Retrieved 2017-11-20. Published from 1939 to 1949.
  25. ISSN 1527-9324
    . Retrieved 2020-06-19. Published from 1999 to 2009.

References