Liberal Theology

Definition and Meaning

Liberal theology is a theological movement that took shape in European Protestantism after the Enlightenment. It treats modern scholarship, reason, and individual religious experience as important criteria for understanding the faith. It accepts historical criticism (a method that uses scholarly inquiry to examine the authorship, dating, and editorial history of the Bible), studying the Bible as a body of literature written within history. It tends to emphasize ethics and the practice of the kingdom of God over doctrine.

In the Korean church, "liberalism" functions less as the name of a particular school than as a broad term conservatives use to criticize opposing theologies. Those so labeled often reject the designation.

Biblical and Historical Background

Friedrich Schleiermacher is commonly regarded as the movement's founder. He located the essence of religion in the "feeling of absolute dependence." Albrecht Ritschl, Adolf von Harnack, and others later carried the movement forward. Some of them reinterpreted traditional doctrines such as miracles, the Incarnation, and the bodily resurrection, or understood them symbolically.

In the early twentieth century, a controversy arose in the United States between fundamentalism and this movement. In Christianity and Liberalism (1923), J. Gresham Machen argued that liberalism was a religion distinct from Christianity. In Europe, Karl Barth criticized liberal theology after World War I and opened the way for what came to be called neo-orthodoxy.

In the Korean Church

In the 1930s, the Presbyterian General Assembly was the scene of theological controversies over claims denying the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch and over writings addressing the role of women in the church. In 1953, after a conflict over the view of Scripture held by the Rev. Kim Chai-choon (Kim Jae-jun), the Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea split off (see Korean Presbyterian schisms).

Denominational positions are as follows:

• Conservative Presbyterians: The Presbyterian Church in Korea (HapDong), the Presbyterian Church in Korea (Kosin), and many evangelical denominations are wary of liberalism, taking biblical inerrancy as their standard.
• Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea: It accepts historical criticism and a theology of social engagement, and describes itself as a progressive tradition that interprets the Bible in light of its historical context.
• Korean Methodist Church: In 1992, Professors Byun Sun-hwan and Hong Jung-soo were excommunicated over issues of religious pluralism and their understanding of the resurrection.
• Ecumenical controversy: The charge of "liberalism" also appears frequently in the WCC controversy over joining the World Council of Churches.