American Liberalism Essay

Liberalism began with the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher who claimed that religion was not based on orthodox ways and that religion was an emotion one felt as being close to God. Christ was separate from God therefore, Christianity completely relied on God. According to Bingham (2002), Schleiermacher believed that “God is a sovereign power, but God is not to be separated from the world. The theologian’s refusal to objectify God is consistent with his subjective approach to religion” (p. 151). Liberalism condensed Christianity into a single aspect of feeling. Liberalism was mostly a reductive theological movement that reduced the orthodox essence of Christianity into an aspect that the modern world could easily accept (Larsen, 1998, …show more content…
221). Evangelists believed that the bible is the supreme authority for faith and practice, believed in the new birth through conversion, the centrality of Christ’s redeeming work, the need to evangelize the world, and that the church is made up of believers dwelling in the holy spirit. These convictions are similar to the classical protestant doctrines that were a characteristic of the protestant reformation. Evangelicalism in America underwent fundamentalism that made the miraculous new birth more acceptable in the American society. At this time of the twentieth century, America had a large number of immigrants that led to modernists who started declaring the bible as untrustworthy. Fundamentalists went on to form independent churches that were based on the aspects of evangelism (Bingham, 2002, p. 160). The neo-orthodoxy theological movement struggled to remain faithful to the confession that revelation was found in the bible and in Jesus Christ, faithfully reflecting on God’s holy immensity, and living in the Holy Spirit according to Jesus’ ethical teachings. The neo-orthodox theological movement focused on reading the scripture in order to encounter