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 141 Liberalism without Illusions Seven One day in my office, I was contacted by a local newspaper reporter who was doing a story on the religious history of our region. He inquired about an Episcopal priest named Algernon Crapsey, who in the early twentieth century was tried for doctrinal heresy by the Episcopal Church.1 The interview was going fine until the reporter asked me whether Crapsey would be considered controversial if he were alive today. I could tell that my response was not what the reporter expected, nor wanted to hear. I noted that if you looked at Crapsey’s views on scriptural interpretation, on the nature of Christian doctrines such as the virgin birth, and on the meaning of salvation, you would find that he echoed themes that one hears today from prominent liberals such as Marcus Borg and John Shelby Spong. I noted the ongoing controversy surrounding the views of Borg and Spong, as well as data citing the continued fidelity of many contemporary Americans around literal interpretations of Scripture and beliefs in doctrines such as the virgin birth. After a few more polite questions, the interview ended, and I could tell by the reporter’s tone that I had destroyed his storyline. What I’ve described, I believe, is typical of how some liberals, both secular and religious, tend to view the twenty-first-century American social, political, and religious context. The reporter’s supposition was that I would say that Crapsey’s ideas would not be controversial today, and would fall into the mainstream of contemporary American religious thought. Yet a cursory Internet search on figures like Borg and Spong would reveal that, despite their strong appeal, many view their theology as way outside the mainstream of contemporary Christianity. For all of the ways in which liberal theology has gone through continuous cycles of adaptation and change, the movement has 142 Liberalism without Illusions been very reluctant to concede that a large cross section of Americans still holds vehemently to long-standing notions of theological orthodoxy that show no signs of breaking down in the face of liberal logic or theological acumen. What is clear is that, if an individual’s faith in liberalism is tied to the inevitable triumph of human rationality, or that God’s kingdom will occur if only we elect more individuals from a particular political party, or that the basis of Christian virility is contingent upon embracing particular positions on political issues, then there would be little basis for carrying on as a liberal Christian in the early twenty-first century. In exploring the contemporary landscape of American Christianity, there is no such thing as a unified liberal movement. Places where liberal theology resides academically, primarily represented by a small number of elite voices within theological seminaries, as well as some colleges and universities, now represent the heirs to an earlier heritage of American liberal theology. The many labels that theologians wear today, whether it be process, feminist, liberationist, womanist, post-liberal, neo-conservative, neo-evangelical, or postmodern, only scratch the surface of theological movements that in one form or another grew out of some sort of dialogue with the classic heritage of liberal Christianity that was spawned in the nineteenth century and came to maturity in the early twentieth century. As we have seen, few contemporary theologians, Christian ethicists , and church leaders today choose to label themselves primarily as liberals, and even fewer persons use the label to describe themselves on a popular level. And yet, the broad heritage of liberalism represents a continuing force in American theology, even as it faces significant challenges in the future. As noted in the introduction, Gary Dorrien reflected that liberal theology has moved beyond its academic base only when it has balanced what is “modern” with the imperative to stay grounded in historical themes of Christianity. Dorrien goes on to identify this “transformative” tradition with many names familiar to most students of American religious history: Horace Bushnell, Henry Ward Beecher, Walter Rauschenbusch , Harry Emerson Fosdick, Reinhold Niebuhr, Howard Thurman, and Martin Luther King Jr. I concur with Dorrien’s assessment, but given the fact that recent developments in liberal theology have been largely confined to academic circles, what are the prospects of liberalism becoming any sort of transformative movement within twenty-first-century American Christianity? I certainly understand that theological creativity needs to come through the work of scholars who devote their efforts to critical thinking and reflection that lead to creative...

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