Conservative Christianity Vs. Liberal Christianity

730 Words3 Pages

Conservative Christianity, also known as Fundamentalism, is the belief that everything in the bible should be taken literally. However, Liberal Christianity, also known as Modernism, is the belief that God could be understood simply through the use of scriptures and by utilizing the same modern interpretations that are also used to understand any ancient passages, symbols, and scriptures (Pals, 2006). Conservative Christianity is commonly viewed as being the thinking and beliefs of the past and they make up the fundamentals of Christianity, hence their other name Fundamentalism. On the other hand, Liberal Christianity is viewed as being the “modern” way of thinking and believing in Christianity, hence the name Modernism. These differences separate …show more content…

One similarity is that Liberals and Conservatives agree that hierarchies should be used as an organizing principle of society which is something that they both have kept the same for many years. Another commonality that they share is their view on equal opportunities for all (Handout #1). They both support the idea of everyone being able to live another person’s life in the sense that someone poor could still receive the education that a wealthy person gets.
Liberal and Conservative Christianity are very different in the ways that they handled their encounters with the other world religions. There are two types of Conservative Christians; exclusionist and inclusionists. Exclusionists believe that only their religion is correct while everyone else is completely wrong whereas inclusionists believe that they are completely right while every other religion is only partially true (Pals, 2006). Conservative Christianity’s encounter with other world religions has not been well since they view other religions to be very similar (even when they are not) …show more content…

He named this new philosophy Positivism and it greatly influenced “the emerging disciplines of sociology (Durkheim, Weber) [and] anthropology (E. B. Tylor, James Frazer)” (Handout #1). Marx and Durkheim both interpreted religion as “illusions created by a needy consciousness that fabricates them” and Marx, who was once an important disciple of Hegel, rejected Hegelianism and turned “towards materialism and atheism” which led him to these interpretations (Handout #1). However, Durkheim wanted to prove that religion was actually created by society rather than the supernatural (Pals, 2006). He interpreted religion as being a meaning for life and he viewed it as a crucial part of society. The naturalistic-reductionist assumptions informing these disciplines included the influences of the philosophy of Positivism and Hegelianism. Karl Marx and Émile Durkheim had reductionist views which means that they believed that religion preformed specific functions for society (such as capitalism). However, Tylor and Frazer both share the naturalistic view which means that people believe in religion because it makes sense as long as it is valuable and understandable. Tylor and Frazer specifically focus on the explanatory value of religion for its supporters whereas