Liberal Pastor?

[Joe_in_RP]

I'm not trying to start trouble. It appears my posts are very controversial, I'm just exploring original thoughts.

Thoughts that don't seem to fit in anywhere else on this forum, in fact there NOT many places we can discuss this kind of thing. I'm being rather bold and posting with my real name. Possibly I will create many enemies. But my purpose here is to stimulate discussion and get people thinking.

 

Okay so here is the post:

 

Is it possible pastor can preach conservative doctrine or even ultraconservative doctrine and yet have liberal Opinions or even the liberal personality, or liberal viewpoints?

 

Let me give you an example. Let's say a pastor or church leader is preaching on Daniel 2 or the Mark of the beast. They can be preaching a very conservative / ultra conservative viewpoint. One of the historic positions of the Adventist Church.  But in other sermons he/she could be preaching more about liberal politics, like gun control, socialized medicine, encouraging unchecked immigration and others.

 

Is it possible for a pastor to think that he/she is conservative and preaching conservative sermons, yet in fact have a liberal worldview?

 

Is it possible for a conservative pastor to have a socialist worldview?

 

Does it matter?

[Gregory Matthews]

Joe: To all of your questions, YES. I consider myself to be a "middle of the road" SDA, in part because I am a mixture of conservative and liberal viewpoints. That is true for both my religious and political//social viewpoints. IOW, a conservative religious perspective does not ipso facto translate to a a conservative political/social perspective.

NOTE: This should all be considered in context. My so-called liberal religious views would in the overall religious climate be considered quite conservative.

[Gregory Matthews]

Lyndon:  A lot of good thinking.

 

I would expand on one thought in your last paragraph.  Yes, I would weigh every issue against the Bible.  However that does not always tell me how I might vote.  God gave us freedom of choice.  I would not always vote to take that away from people.  I would not vote to force people to abide by issues where God does not force them.  E.G.  Sabbath observance--I would not vote for either Saturday or Sunday Blue laws.  Movies--I would not vote to restrict Hollywood to only producing movies that I considered to be in accord with Biblical principles.

 

NOTE:  Lyndon, I am not suggesting that you would do any of those.  I am simply saying that if I were making that above statement, that is how I would expand it.

[Ted]

I was going to reply:

Internal and external consistency are necessary.

 

However, I grew.

 

Others brought out (I inferred?) that humans, having freedom of choice, are not linear. For example, liberal<->conservative, happy<->sad, funny<->serious.  We have more than one dimension; a more accurate representation would be planar or solid --- or more (new physics says they do exist), composed of individual traits of character.

 

What one believer considers essential, another may not.  Both viewpoints are valid.

 

Does this mean that "anyone can do anything?"  I don't know, but I cannot judge.

Yes, there are "absolute" values. How they relate to "relative" values is subjective.

This opens a nasty can of worms --- situation ethics.

[Sojourner]

I was a member for a while of a baptist forum I had no knowledge that it was based around being an "Independent fundamentalist Baptist", I was eventually told I was not welcome there any more because I was a "liberal". The reason that I was a liberal was because I supported and endorsed the universal healthcare system in Australia-Canada-U.K and because I believed that speaking in tongues was a valid spiritual gift. - I don't believe that either of these makes a me a liberal but if people want to use labels that is their choice, not mine! 

[Lauralea]

You know I heard Lavonne Tucker give an example of speaking in tongues when he was in Africa witnessing to a woman of the evening- long story but it was providential. he knew no Swahili and she knew no English, but she understood him. This was like the original gift of tongues at Pentecost, where each man heard the disciples speaking in the language of the hearer. Often when people claim to speak in tongues they say it is some unkown language, but the early believers had the gift of being understood in languages spoken at that time.

[Stewart (SDA)]

Jesus was a perfect blend of liberal/conservative teachings, in my view.

 

Many of the people that Jesus spoke with believed in the immortality of the soul, and when He gave the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, He met them where they were at (mentally). Jesus never qualified His lesson by saying something like, "But of course the dead do not know anything...". He never appears to have corrected the people on the state of the dead.

 

Jesus actually uses a popular error as a vehicle for truth. This, to me, is the mark of a very free teacher.

[Lauralea]

At least the Jews did not commonly attempt to contact the dead- it was grounds for stoning. Not like there were mediums on every street corner in Israel.

[Lauralea]

Joe about your OP the doctrines you cite are conservative as you stated, but the social positions discussed while liberal would not be considered socialist in the US- except maybe by those who were very conservative. They are positions that many in one of our 2 major parties might hold, maybe not exactly, but similar ones.

It is a general policy in US Adventist churches to not preach politics from the pulpit, so while ministers might have various positions privately and vote accordingly, they would not preach about them.

An exception would be clear moral issues such as not harming others by racism,

 We believe in the separation of church and state and that includes not preaching about politics, except clear moral issues, from the public. In some cases it could also cause the church to lose its tax exempt status.

[Stewart (SDA)]

At least the Jews did not commonly attempt to contact the dead- it was grounds for stoning. Not like there were mediums on every street corner in Israel.

True, Lauralea. It's not like there were mediums on every street corner. But still, I understand that Jesus was basing His lesson on a piece from the Apocalypse of Zephaniah -- one of the old Jewish apocryphal Books not included in the Bible -- not included for good reason. But it was popular among the Jews, and many believed that Abraham was chief intercessor for the dead, and that he could assist dead people that were suffering torment.

[Lauralea]

Interesting Stewart. The point of that parable was I think that if they do not listen to the Scriptures, miracles would not change their mind either. So he was saying, forget this idea that some superstitious belief in your biological relationship with Abraham is going to solve all your problems- you need to have faith that transforms your lives, faith in the Scriptures. Not sure that this book would have been included in their concept of Moses and the prophets.

[Gregory Matthews]

The Apocalypse Of Zephaniah, in the original, was probably written, in the Greek language, sometime after 100 BCE and before 70 CE.   The original MS does not exist today.  it is only known by two fragments of text, one called the Sahidic MS, which was probably written in the 5th Cent. CE and the second called the Akhmimic MS probably written in the 4th Cent. CE.

 

The Sahidic MS is written in the Sahidic language and the Akhmimic MS in written in Cpptic.

 

Scholars are not in total agreement as to whether or not these two MS refer to the same work, or if they refer to two separate works.

 

In any case, it is a "wild" and interesting work.

[Tom Wetmore]

The little excerpt above sounds like a zombie apocalypse.

[Stewart (SDA)]

The little excerpt above sounds like a zombie apocalypse.

Yes, and my point is, that if Jesus based one of His lessons on this book (from chapter 11 if I remember properly), then Jesus shows us something quite significant here, in terms of His teaching methods.

 

Jesus knew exactly what He was doing of course, and if we feel moved to employ the same method, hopefully we will know what we are doing too. But as I mentioned earlier, Jesus was, and is, a very "free" teacher.

 

"In this parable Christ was meeting the people on their own ground. The doctrine of a conscious state of existence between death and the resurrection was held by many of those who were listening to Christ's words. The Saviour knew of their [wrong] ideas, and He framed His parable so as to inculcate important truths through these preconceived opinions." (COL p.263, on the Rich man and Lazarus.)

[Gregory Matthews]

Interesting concept.