So, without going into the context, I feel a need to write this article. It's been something that's been bugging me for a while, and honestly, I really want to make this clear
So....worldviews. You have the biblical Christian worldview conservatives have which sounds like a cult, and then the secular humanist worldview which is secular. But then you got moderate and liberal christians who kinda sorta do something...different. Having gone from one to the other, I just don't understand the point of liberal or moderate christianity. As an ex christian i feel more honest not beiing a Christian at all, than merely tweaking my philosophical bases and trying to make this work. I tried the moderate christian thing for a while, and honestly, I just felt a need to leave. If people make it work they make it work, but I honestly don't see the point in trying.
To map out the moderate or liberal Christian worldview:
Theology- Christians normally start out their worldview based on their theology. While more secular and naturalistic worldviews tend to approach philosophy first, as a way to build up to God (I do this), Christians tend to presuppose God, often by faith here. Their worldview begins with "in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", and they go from there. I assume liberal Christians do too, but already I see tension here. Conservative Christians normally assume God exists, and the Bible is the reliable word of god, and they tend to make those views their primary overriding beliefs that trump everything else, including reality itself. Which is how we get weird ideas like Satan made dinosaur bones or they were from the flood. Because science says differently and that comes from a philosophy first perspective like what I hold. What do moderate christians do here? Do they trust god and the bible? or do they trust naturalistic accounts of things? often they trust naturalism to some degree. And that's where the conflicts begin appearing.
Philosophy- As stated above, as a guy who has primarily secular humanist leanings, at the very least the base and core of my worldview is based on humanism, for Christians, philosophy is second to theology. And then moderate christians do this thing where they tend to accept the bible, but then they tend to have more naturalistic leanings. They seem to start with a more naturalistic understanding of the world, but then accept christianity on faith. It comes off as a form of compartmentalization, and for most people, it seems to work since many of them...dont think about it very hard and ask all the hard questions. But eventually, I couldn't do it. I tend to think in the same camp as, say, David Noebel, who i got this conception of worldviews from as a young christian teen. Either all of it is real or none of it is. But moderate and liberal christians just have a mishmash of things.
Now, given I have a spiritual worldview myself, and still call myself a secular humanist, most will wonder how that works. I got criticized for this recently. To answer, most humanists dont have a hard line on god not existing. They are soft atheists, skeptics, agnostics. They dont know. They dont claim absolute knowledge, and if the concept is demonstrated to them, they'd just do what I ended up doing in supplementing their existing worldview by acknowledging that there is a supernatural realm that exists outside of our current naturalistic understanding of things. It's a lot like how in our every day lives we have a newtonian concept of physics, but then in an atomic level, we might have a more relativistic or quantum understanding. The fact is, we dont understand everything about how this world works, and there is room in a naturalistic oriented worldview for the supernatural if such a concept is properly demonstrated. While I dont have scientific proof for such a thing, on an anecdotal level, I've seen enough.
I guess liberal christians can do the same, but given the nature of the christian worldview and its specific claims about the world and god, it seems significantly harder to square that circle in my opinion given the specificity of the claims surrounding christianity and the christian god. And that's what I see as limiting, why this specific concept? It was made by bronze age people for a bronze age concept and it seems as ahistorical to accept as say, the greek or roman gods.
Ethics
From a christian worldview, ethics comes from God. He is the author of the universe, his word is final. From a secular worldview, ethics comes from humans. They're social conventions we make up about our lives. While, ideally, god's ethics can be tested and their goodness can be self evident, if they are valid, christians are often more...axiomatic. As in, they would accept the plank of the euthyphro dilemma closer to "stuff is good because god said so", whereas I'd go in the direction of "god said so because it is good." You see, with the first version, again, it leads to reality denial and prioritizing the religion and the book over reality. In the second, morality becomes a testable thing. We can figure out what's good or not by other means and study christian ethics and see if they're good. And outside of the golden rule and stuff like that, christian ethics just dont work. The old testament was a bunch of old and antiquated stuff that clearly only applied to that culture, and should not be seen as the gold standard of morality. Even jesus's morality in context is strange and seems unsustainable in the long term IMO. It only makes sense if one considered he was an ascetic apocalpytic preacher from the 1st century. Im not saying everything in christianity is bad, but there isnt enough here to justify calling myself christian or a follower of jesus. I guess liberal christians do do that, but idk, to me it just seems to defy the point. I think that once you start placing your own morality over god's where you start contradicting your own source material you might as well just leave and say you're out.
Biology- So the christian worldview assumes creationism. The secular worldview assumes an old earth evolution. Moderates and liberals tend to accept the scientific explanation, but how does adam and eve fit into all of this? Were they real people? Were did sin come from? Is it a metaphor? Why do we need salvation? While liberals have explanations, they often seem unsatisfying to me. Because to me, I tend to accept noebel's line of "either all of it is real or none of it is." Again, why accept any of this stuff? Why try to reconcile these two ideas that are clearly at odds with each other? Doing so just leads to unnecessary complexity and seems to be an exercise in futility. If old earth theory and evolution is real, then "sin" as christians understand it isn't a real thing. The arguments for suffering and theodicy no longer make sense. Because we are trying to reconcile two different views that can't be. I know one of my moderate christian friends once gave me a list of like 5 explanations for how salvation fits and none of them make sense to me. Again, because it's all or nothing.
Psychology- Christian worldview, humans are evil and at odds with god and need salvation. Most mental illness comes from sin. Secular worldview, humans are animals who arent necessarily evil, but do evil things. I feel like the humanist worldview is more nuanced, charitable and realistic. I also feel like it's more aligned with reality, given it follows science, while christianity is based on this old book and an ancient society's faulty assumptions about human nature.
I admit, I am inclined to believe souls exist, and humans have them, and our inclinations may partially come from the soul. However, I am not likely to strongly emphasize this, and tend to represent scientific consensus. Either way, again, the christian worldview tends to assume a lot, while a naturalistic worldview tends to just let the evidence speak for itself.
Sociology- From a secular worldview, sociology is the study of society, or humans in a collective fashion. And once again, we tend to led the evidence speak for itself. Christian sociology is more authoritative and prescriptive, with god proscribing how people should live by saying they should go to church, get married, have kids, respect the state, and work. Liberal christians and people with a more "cosmic humanist" spiritual view can respect the science, but i feel like given the bold and prescriptive claims christianity makes, it's far more likely to go against scientific consensus and just push their ideas instead. Once again, moderate and liberal christians seem between two worlds here.
Law/Politics- In biblical christianity, states exist as an institution put there by god, with god putting rulers to rule over people and people needing to obey them. Christians, and christian nationalists, tend to put their religion over secular law, and use secular law as an excuse to push their religion. Secularists tend to believe in separation of church and state, recognizing that theocracy ends poorly for people and leads to persecution. Moderate christians tend to side with the more secular side here, which is why i respect them. They DONT push their religion on people all that much, although their philosophy still finds their way into their politics sometimes through their ethical assumptions (they may be pro life, for example). They might also oppose trump and the republicans on being pro social justice, or pro immigration, as they prioritize jesus' words over the more law and order sentiments of right wing christians. Still, to retread ethics, I see the two systems at odds and see liberals as trying to reconcile that which shouldn't be.
From a secular perspective, morality, law, and politics all intertwine and I tend to approach things from a largely consequentialist perspective that focuses on improving human well being. I sometimes align with liberal christians but do recognize my own basis for supporting ideas is a bit different than theirs, since they often still inject jesus into everything (although let's face it jesus had good points sometimes, like on healing the sick, feeding the hungry, and loving your neighbor). Still, again, i tend to see conflicts due to aforementioned issues further up the worldview chain that I just mentioned.
Economics- The christian worldview often assumes work as an institution put here by god, and that humans are here for a purpose, and should work, and not doing so is sinful. Even liberal christians tend to assume as much, although are less hardline and cruel about it. I feel like, as a humanist, my lack of the protestant work ethic often puts me at odds with society. Because i DONT accept that crap, and see the whole point of the economy simply to serve our needs. I dont glorify work and productivity, if anything, i am rather anti work. This puts me at odds with most forms of christianity, even though I can sometimes align with the liberals a bit more.
But to me the liberals....once again, even if their understanding of the issue and emphasis on social justice because of jesus makes them align with me more, I still dont really agree with them. Im not sure if on law/politics/economics that liberals are necessarily moderates, they just seem to take the "god said so" thing from a different perspective, downplaying the old testament and focusing on jesus instead. Which is an improvement as jesus was more loving and less authoritarian, but it still has that "god said so" thing. Even more so, if we go back to conservatism, it seems to be cherrypicking. I mean, I guess conservatives to it too. They will emphasize some weird passage from leviticus while ignoring the love your enighbor parts, but that is a broader worldview issue. The bible, as properly understood, represents an emerging religion and cultural tradition spanning 1000 years. It's not intended to be read coherently as a single document. Different authors in different ages and sometimes in the same age didnt always agree. And that's fine. If we dont put some weird priority on it being the end all be all of morality, and thus, law, politics, and economics.
I ask, why accept any of it? Again, if i cant agree on the more abstract fundamental stuff, I struggle to find agreement on issues of more specificity. I just rejected the entire thing and built my perspective independent of christian influences. If i agree, i do so on my own terms. If i disagree, I'll make that clear. I dont "follow" the bible or 'follow" jesus, and I think making my whole philosophy around some other guy as really weird. Think for yourself, people.
History- While I would have put history well and above as more basic philosophical diferences, noebel put his account at the end. here, he defends the historical account of Jesus, and ends his book claiming that either all of it is true or none of it is. As I said, I agree with the premise, but after studying the history itself in various bible courses in college, I kinda learned that maybe the gospels arent all that reliable. Maybe there was no empty tomb and it was just a story spread like a game of telephone. I mean they didnt teach it that way for the record, but there is room to argue it. Most sources about jesus came decades after his death and alleged resurrection. And they come off as hearsay. Tall tales spread by locals who spread rumors like wildfire.
Christians tend to accept the historicity of Jesus. Even liberals do. But as I said above, how does this whole death and resurrection fit into a world where the concept of sin itself is...incoherent? if I dont accept the biblical account of biology and history of the universe, why should I accept this? At the end of the day it's faith.
Conclusion
And that's where I'll end this. It's faith. Christians believe in this stuff because of faith, and then they will try to see the world in accordance with their preconceptions. Fundamentalists do this in an extreme form, where they'll literally say that reality is wrong and that their stuff is right. And they come off as dangerous cultists. Liberal and moderate christians...well...they seem to acknowledge the bible and the religion being wrong where its wrong, but they still accept it on a level where they actively identify with it and its ideas. They'll often accept it where it doesnt seem to conflict with reality, but will reject the parts that do. That is...okay I guess, but I dont see the point. Because at that point youre clearly using your own judgment to decide what's true and false, and what to follow and what not to, and the further upstream we get with this worldview toward the bigger metaphysical ideas of this worldview, the less I see the point.
Here's why people are moderate christians. many of them were raised in it, they never left, but they moderated their tendencies away from the extremists. Which is GOOD, the moderation part I mean, but it just comes off as coherent. Why accept any of it? And I guess some people like me who "come to god" (or "come back to god" in my case) later in life adopt the framework because it's the go to default option of society for that sort of thing. But that's the thing. Even i didnt feel a need to go back TO CHRISTIANITY. Because to me, it's an incoherent mess, and my own understanding of god is closer to the cosmic humanist worldview which is a lot more nondescript and spiritual. Really, I'm one of those "spiritual but not religious" people these days. If you wanna know how i square the circle, it's as i said above, I saw enough to acknowledge something is there, and even have theories on it, but quite frankly, I'm really just building upon the agnostic atheist perspective of understanding that there is room for a god to exist, and im acting as if I found something that convinced me that it's real. And that's all it is. I see no reason to accept strange dogmas of some jewish guy from 2000 years ago who died and rose from the dead. I dont see a need for the sin and salvation dynamic. I dont accept the bible AT ALL. And yeah. I just dont see a point in being a moderate or liberal christian. It seems to be an exercise in futility. It's fine if people believe it (as long as they don't force it on me), but yeah, I just don't see the point.
