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"All the literary men of Massachusetts were Unitarian. All the trustees and professors of Harvard College were Unitarians. All the elite of wealth and fashion crowded Unitarian churches. The judges on the bench were Unitarian, giving decisions by which the peculiar features of church organization, so carefully ordained by the Pilgrim fathers, had been nullified." -- Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1825
"They sowed tares while men slept and grafted heretical churches on orthodox stumps." -- Lyman Beecher
This semester I'm taking "American Religious Liberalism" with Dr. Albert Mohler (the President of my seminary). His lecture last week, which built the philosophical base on which American Religious Liberalism is founded, was pretty awesome. I look forward to hearing him dig deeper.
The reading is remarkable -- Dorrien's trilogy "The Making of American Liberal Theology." Dorrien is, by confession, a Christian liberal, so it's not like he's writing with a conservative slant. He seems to treat the subject very objectively.
What I'm struck with, and have suspected for years, is how well intentioned (no matter how misguided and unchecked) liberal theology is -- both in its early days as well as in it's present form. Reason stands above revelation -- "it functions not merely as the interpreter of scriptural revelation, but also as its legislator," and sentiment often informs and interprets theology and operates as a foundation rather than a means of coloring and enlightening what scripture tells us.
Sentiment and reason -- praise God, they are good, but in and of themselves, they are only tools subject to the authority of God. The gist: There is no genuine Christianity without the external authority of God's transcendence.
And all that said, I don't mean to suggest that there isn't something to be learned from liberal theology or that liberal theology hasn't brought valid points to the table or good influences to our society, but liberal theology is, I think, unjustifiably optimistic, both in its view of man and it's eschatology. And despite its positive contributions, I think that liberal theology poses a larger threat to historic Christianity than does any other worldview -- atheist, Muslim, Hindu, etc. I say that because, when orthodoxy succumbs to liberalism, Christianity is rendered quite impotent to be anything more than a system of morality. There are plenty of systems of morality out there, but there is only one worldview that teaches Christ, crucified on our behalf -- the penal substitutionary atonement for those who'll put their faith in Him for their salvation -- resulting in our being rescued from a very real, very deserved hell. And there is only one triune God, immutable in His goodness and character, who created us and rightly judges us and saves us -- for His glory.
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or if you'd prefer 
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