Liberals and Conservatives
Moral psychologist Jonathan Haidt[1]As an atheist psychologist, Haidt has no theological agenda. His goal is simply to research and understand the psychology of how human beings make moral judgments. has identified six basic types of moral concern, grounded in six different types of moral intuitions that are innate to the human mind: care (vs. harm), liberty (vs. oppression), fairness (vs. cheating), loyalty (vs. betrayal), authority (vs. subversion), and sanctity (vs. degradation).[2]Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012), 155-186). These basic moral intuitions provide the foundation for human moral beliefs, which vary considerably due to the particularities of each society and culture; this is analogous to how cuisines vary considerably across different societies and cultures, even though they are all based in the five basic taste receptors (sweet, salty, sour, bitter, and savory) that are innate to all human beings.[3]Haidt, 112-127. The fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives value all six basic areas of moral concern equally, while liberals are almost exclusively concerned with the first three: care/harm, liberty/oppression, and fairness/cheating.[4]Haidt, 297-306. Interestingly, research shows that, while conservatives tend to understand the liberal mindset very well, liberals tend to not understand the conservative mindset, wrongly believing that conservatives have a lack of concern for care and fairness.[5]Haidt, 287. From a global and historical perspective, the liberal moral framework is very “WEIRD”, existing only among people who are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic.[6]Haidt, 95-111.
Given how WEIRD the liberal moral framework is, it should come as no surprise that the liberal moral framework is fundamentally at odds with the moral framework taught by the Church across every time, place, and culture since the time of the apostles. More importantly, the liberal moral framework is fundamentally at odds with the moral teachings of God’s Word. Biblical morality is a conservative morality, in which all six areas of moral concern are valued. Moral teachings about loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation are woven throughout the whole of the Old and New Testaments, and are an essential, vitally important part of the Christian faith. Trying to mix the liberal moral framework with Christianity inevitably results in a heretical pseudo-Christianity: “progressive” Christianity. In this post, I will briefly sketch some of the important ways that loyalty, sanctity, and authority are an integral and essential part of an authentic Christian moral vision.
Loyalty
Throughout Scripture, the primary moral concern is that God’s covenant people will be loyal to the LORD, the God of the covenant. Moses and the prophets certainly have a lot to say about care, liberty, and fairness, but they were not, as progressive Christians sometimes make them out to be, preachers of an abstract social justice. Their primary concern was that Israel would be faithful to her God alone, that she would love and worship her God wholeheartedly, and that she would avoid all idolatry and religious syncretism. The prophets certainly have a lot to say about the importance of justice and caring for the socioeconomically vulnerable, and orthodox Christians have always followed in their footsteps by teaching that these are essential aspects of Christian holiness. But for the prophets, these things are valuable insofar as they are expressions of being loyal to the LORD.
In the New Testament, as well, loyalty is a central moral theme, with the focus shifting to loyalty to Jesus, the Incarnate LORD. Although progressive Christians will often claim that New Testament ethics is simply about “love,” there are entire major New Testament books–Mark, Acts, Hebrews, and Revelation–in which love is not a major moral theme; rather, these books are focused on the importance of steadfast allegiance to Jesus, even in the face of hardship and suffering. Jesus made a sharp, uncompromising demand of absolute loyalty to Him, even above one’s family (Luke 14:26; Matt 10:37). He was no preacher of shallow platitudes about universal human brotherhood; rather, He declared, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword,” as divisions would be created based on who gives their allegiance to Him and who does not (Matt 10:34-36).
Nothing could be more extraordinary, therefore, than the repeated assertion made by progressive Christians that non-Christians can be in right relationship with God, as long as they are morally good people. God’s Word is repeatedly extremely clear that idolatry is the worst sin of all, the most morally heinous act a human being can commit. Yet now we have many modern Western progressive Christians speaking as if idolatry is morally neutral and that people can be morally good even if they do not believe in, worship, and give their allegiance to Jesus. From a biblical perspective, this is simply nonsensical. It is one thing to hope that some people who do not put faith in Jesus in this life might somehow eventually be saved through Him. It is quite another thing to claim that morally “good” non-Christians are already in right relationship with God as “anonymous Christians” or to heretically claim that non-Christian religions are alternative, valid paths to God. The end result of the trivialization of the sin of idolatry and the importance of exclusive loyalty to the LORD is a rejection of the importance of evangelism, which the New Testament clearly teaches is one of the most important moral responsibilities of Christians.
Biblical teaching about the importance of loyalty extends inter-human relationships as well. For example, the New Testament clearly teaches that marriage is a lifelong covenant commitment and that divorce and remarriage is forbidden (except possibly in the cases of a spouse’s adultery or abandonment by a non-Christian spouse). In spite of this very clear teaching from the mouth of Jesus Himself (Matt 5:32, 19:9; Mark 10:11-12; Luke 16:18), liberal and progressive Christians today condone divorce and remarriage for all sorts of trivial reasons, giving their blessing on what Jesus Himself clearly calls adultery. This is related to the liberal rejection of the importance of sexual purity (about which I will say more later), but it is also a result of the liberal rejection of the importance of loyalty. If care, liberty, and fairness are all that matter, then breaking a covenant commitment, if that will make one happier, is justified. But such an attitude is simply not consistent with an authentic Christian moral vision, in which Christians must be faithful to their covenant commitments, even when it is difficult and costly, just as the LORD has always remained faithful to His covenant commitments to His people, in spite of it being difficult and costly for Him, ultimately costing Him suffering and death on the Cross.
Sanctity
Biblical morality at its root is all about the Holiness of God. Therefore, the moral concern of sanctity is central to the moral teachings of God’s Word. God’s Word commands respect for the Sanctity of God and the things of God. It commands respect for the sanctity of human life as created in the image of God. And it commands respect for the sanctity of marriage and the need to avoid sexual impurity.
Although it is radically countercultural in a modern Western context, the call to sexual purity is an important moral theme throughout God’s Word, in both the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament Scriptures condemn sexually immoral acts such as adultery, fornication, incest, homosexual acts, and bestiality. The New Testament goes even further, forbidding divorce and remarriage and even lustful thoughts, calling Christians to the highest standards of sexual purity.
Progressive Christians who reject traditional Christian sexual ethics but still want to pay lip service to the authority of Scripture try to fit biblical teaching about sexual ethics into the Procrustean bed of their WEIRD morality by claiming that these are just culturally relative teachings that, in their historical context, were really about justice, not chastity. Therefore, they argue, we can simply discard these teachings and create new standards for sexual ethics for our culture today. However, the claim that biblical teachings about sexual ethics are merely cultural relative teachings about justice is quite simply false. In I Corinthians 6:12-20, the apostle Paul urges Christians to avoid sexual immorality, not because it will somehow harm others, but because their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, and sexually immoral acts are sins against their own body which defile the temple of God. According to God’s Word, sexually immoral acts are intrinsically immoral because they are a degrading use of one’s body, regardless of whether or not they cause harm to others.
Of course, there are progressive Christians who will simply brazenly claim that biblical teachings about chastity are primitive, premodern superstitions and that they are being reasonable and enlightened by rejecting them and advocating sexual “freedom.” What they cannot see is that they are the ones being small minded and unreasonable by assuming that the peculiar WEIRD morality of their decadent cultural context is self-evidently true and authoritative, rather than the clear moral teachings of God’s Word and the entire one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. At least these progressive Christians are more honest in acknowledging that the Bible does, in fact, teach the importance of sexual purity. But by outright rejecting the Authority of God’s Word as well as the importance of chastity, they place themselves even further outside the bounds of authentic Christianity.
Authority
Human Authority
The Old Testament Law clearly teaches the importance of submission to human authorities, commanding severe penalties for those who show contempt for the authority of judges, priests, or parents (Deut 17:12, 21:18-21). In the New Testament epistles, there are the “household codes,” which clearly command that there be orderly structures of authority and submission in Christian households (Eph 5:21-33, Col 3:18-25, I Pet 3:1-7), as well as clear teaching that Christians should submit to the authority of church leaders (Tit 2:15; Heb 13:17).
Reacting to instances of abuse of authority in families and churches, progressive Christians repudiate the moral imperative of submission to authority. But instances of abuse of authority do not take away the validity of godly, Christilike servant leadership, or the moral responsibility of Christians to submit to such authority. Leadership and submission are vitally important to the healthy functioning of any organization, family, or church.
Church Discipline
Both Jesus and the apostle Paul clearly teach that the Church should exercise authority over its members by disciplining church members who fall into sin (Matt 18:15-20, I Cor 5:1-13, 2 Thess 3:6-14). The Church should rebuke a Christian who falls into serious sin. If the sinning Christian stubbornly refuses to repent of their sin, the Church should excommunicate them, excluding them from the Christian community until they are willing to repent. According to Jesus, when the Church practices such church discipline, it is acting with His Authority: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven” (Matt 18:18). The excommunication of a church member should not be done in a harsh manner: “Do not regard him as an enemy, but warn him as a brother” (2 Thess 3:15). But it should be done in a firm manner, and it is vitally important that the Church practice church discipline in order to maintain the integrity of its life and mission.
The Church is a hospital for sinners; it exists to help its members along the path of repentance and sanctification, to form every member into a mature disciple of Jesus Christ, conformed to His image. Sin leads to eternal death, but through His body, the Church, Jesus carries out His work of saving us from our sin and bringing us into eternal life. This is why, as pastor-martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, “Nothing can be more cruel than that leniency which abandons others to their sin. Nothing can be more compassionate than that severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin.”[7]Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 5 (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2005), page 105. This is the attitude toward church discipline taught by Jesus, the apostles, and the entire one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church.
Progressive Christians, though, have a very different attitude toward church discipline. They claim that it is “unloving” to exclude anyone from the Church, and that the “loving” thing to do is to be “inclusive” of everyone, no matter how they live. On this basis, they reject the vitally important ecclesial practice of church discipline, and pride themselves on doing so.
Because liberals reject the moral responsibility of submission to authority, they do not see a disciplined church member’s failure to submit to the authority of their church community as being a problem. Rather, the only problem they see is the fact that the disciplined church member feels bad when they are disciplined. Given the liberal rejection of the moral importance of sexual purity, this is especially true when church members are disciplined for sexual sins, such as homosexual behavior. Making people feel bad by disciplining them is considered to be “harm,” and therefore immoral.
Here we see how the problem with trying to mix a liberal mindset with Christianity is not just that it results in a truncated, shallow, impoverished account of Christian holiness. The problem is that it actually results in a twisted, heretical account of Christian holiness. Progressive Christians actually regard as “loving” the cruel leniency that abandons others to their sin. And they regard as “unloving” the severe reprimand which calls another Christian in one’s community back from the path of sin. The loving practice of church discipline is then considered to be “oppressive,” while encouraging people to commit whatever sins make them feel good is a matter of “justice.” Some progressive Christians will even go so far as to condone the violence of abortion, claiming that this is the “loving” thing to do.
Imagine a fitness club that gets rid of all its exercise equipment because it is “unloving” to “fat shame” anyone, but still calls itself a fitness club. Imagine a nutritionist who encourages people to eat tasty, unhealthy foods because it is “unloving” to make people eat healthy foods that taste bad, but still calls themselves a nutritionist. Imagine a drug rehab program that encourages people to keep doing drugs because it is “unloving” to make people give up the pleasure of getting high and instead make them go through the discomfort of withdrawal, but still calls itself a drug rehab program. Imagine a hospital that stops performing life-saving procedures because it is “unloving” to cut people open in surgery, but still calls itself a hospital. Such are the “churches” of liberal and progressive Christianity. They are no longer hospitals for sinners. They are no longer genuine churches.
Divine Authority
From beginning to end, biblical faith is about obedience to God’s Authority. In the Old Testament, God called His covenant people Israel to obey His instructions given in His Torah. In the New Testament, Christ frees us from the requirements of Torah observance, but this is not a freedom to go our own, disobedient way. It is a freedom to joyfully, lovingly obey God as we submit to the Authority of King Jesus. The Church has always believed that obedience to the teachings of Scripture, the Word of God, is the primary way in which Christians express obedience to God.
Progressive Christians, however, reject the Authority of God’s Word. Some progressive Christians will pay lip service to the idea that the Bible is the Authoritative Word of God. But as soon as any actual discussion of biblical interpretation begins, one can immediately see that they do not actually believe this. In their actual discussions of biblical interpretation, they treat God’s Word as merely ancient human writings that can simply be dismissed or critiqued if their teachings do not align with their own values. It is not God’s Word which is the ultimate Authority, but their own WEIRD liberal moral intuitions.
Most progressive Christians, at least, are honest about the fact that they reject the Authority of God’s Word. Some of them will claim that they affirm the Authority of Jesus, not Scripture. But their picture of Jesus is so distorted in order to fit into the Procrustean bed of their liberal moral intuitions as to be “another Jesus” (2 Cor 11:4), not the real Jesus. Other progressive Christians will claim that the Holy Spirit is the one leading them to make claims that contradict the clear teachings of God’s Word. But it is very clear that it is actually an unholy spirit, the spirit of the age of their WEIRD culture, that is leading them to make these theologically false claims. Here C.S. Lewis’s warning is very apt: “On those who add ‘Thus said the Lord’ to their merely human utterances descends the doom of a conscience which seems clearer and clearer the more it is loaded with sin.”
Some progressive Christians even openly acknowledge that they reject the idea of obedience to God’s Authority altogether.[8]For example, Dannis Matteson, “Resisting Christofascism Today,” https://politicaltheology.com/resisting-christofascism-today/. These are the most honest progressive Christians of all. They openly acknowledge that they do not believe in the Holy and righteous Lord of the universe who has revealed Himself to us through the prophets, Jesus, and the apostles. They believe in a completely different god, a god who is merely a useful concept to use for furthering their liberal moral agenda.
Progressive Christianity is Heresy
As the heresy of Gnosticism was to the early Church, progressive Christianity is to the modern Western church. Gnosticism was a diverse, rather than monolithic, movement. Rather than being a separate institutional religion, the Gnostic cults were parasitic upon the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. On the surface, the Gnostics may have appeared to be Chrsitian. But once one examined their actual beliefs, one could see that they were not. The Gnostics were not stupid or crazy. They simply came to Christianity with the Greek dualist assumption that the spiritual is good and the material is bad. Rather than allowing God’s Word to challenge this assumption, they allowed this assumption to distort their understanding of Christianity, resulting in heresy. Thus, they ended up believing in a quite different god than the God of the Bible, denied basic Christian beliefs such as the Incarnation and the resurrection of the body, and embraced absurdities such as believing that Jesus was just a hologram. As the heresy of Gnosticism spread in the early Church, there were Christians who were influenced by Gnostic ideas without fully embracing Gnosticism. But full-blown Gnosticism is heresy. Orthodox early Church fathers had to fight tooth and nail to prevent Gnosticism from corrupting and destroying the Church.
Progressive Christianity is a diverse, rather than monolithic movement. Rather than being a separate institutional religion, it is parasitic upon the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church. On the surface, progressive Chrsitians may appear to be Chrsitian. But once one examines their actual beliefs, one can see that they are not. Progressive Christians are not stupid or crazy. They simply come to Christianity with a set of WEIRD liberal moral intuitions. Rather than allowing God’s Word to challenge these intuitions, they allow these intuitions to distort their understanding of Christianity, resulting in heresy. Thus, they end up believing in a quite different god than the God of the Bible, denying basic Christian beliefs such as the vital importance of evangelism, chastity, and church discipline, and embrace absurdities such as believing that encouraging people to practice sexual sins is the “loving” and “just” thing to do. As the heresy of progressive Christianity spreads in the modern Western Church, there are Christians who are influenced by progressive Christian ideas without fully embracing progressive Christianity. But full-blown progressive Christianity is heresy. Faithful, orthodox Christians today must fight tooth and nail to prevent progressive Christianity from corrupting and destroying the Church.
Unfortunately, persuading people to abandon the heresy of progressive Christianity is much easier said than done. Psychological research shows that, the vast majority of the time, people are fundamentally irrational, making moral judgments based on intuition, and only then trying to come up with arguments to rationalize the nonrational judgments they have already made.[9]Haidt, 27-51. Sadly, it is clear that this is the case within churches as well, which is why clearly demonstrating that the WEIRD liberal moral framework is fundamentally incompatible with the teachings of Jesus, the apostles, and Scripture as a whole is so often ineffective at actually getting progressive Christians to change their minds. It often seems like the modern Western church is hopelessly corrupt and decadent. It is quite significant that the WEIRD liberal moral framework exists only among people who are “rich.” Modern Western Christians (and this includes conservative Christians too) do not take seriously enough Jesus’s warning, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matt 19:24). Yet there are glimmers of hope that some Christians, at least, are willing to humbly and reverently submit to the clear teachings of God’s Word, even when they are radically countercultural, and even when following them is costly.
Conservative Christian vs. Conservative American
My point in this post is not that being conservative automatically makes someone a faithful, orthodox Christian. The overwhelming majority of hypocrites and heretics throughout Church history have been conservative. My point is merely that trying to mix the liberal moral framework with Christianity inevitably results in a particular heretical pseudo-Christianity: progressive Christianity.
The sad fact is, most American “conservative Christians” are really conservative Americans, not conservative Christians. The sacred value of conservatives is to “preserve the institutions and traditions that sustain a moral community.”[10]Haidt, 306. But the Church and American society are very different kinds of moral communities, and the institutions and traditions that sustain them are very different. When so many American churches celebrate Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day, but have no days set aside to venerate the saints and martyrs of the Church, what are we to make of this, especially when war, like all forms of violence, is antithetical to authentic Christian values? Having lost the sense that the Church itself is a political community, conservative American Christians more often than not are more focused on the institutions and traditions of the American nation, rather than on the politics of God’s Kingdom.
Liberals are not the only ones who create distorted, pseudoChristian heresies by trying to mix their preconceived ideologies with the Christian faith. Conservatives can do this as well, if their preconceived conservative ideologies are incompatible with the moral vision of God’s Word. What the modern Western Church needs is a revival of authentic Christian faith, which will only come, as always, by full submission to the truth of God’s Word, and Spirit-empowered obedience to that truth.
Notes
| ↑1 | As an atheist psychologist, Haidt has no theological agenda. His goal is simply to research and understand the psychology of how human beings make moral judgments. |
|---|---|
| ↑2 | Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (New York: Pantheon Books, 2012), 155-186). |
| ↑3 | Haidt, 112-127. |
| ↑4 | Haidt, 297-306. |
| ↑5 | Haidt, 287. |
| ↑6 | Haidt, 95-111. |
| ↑7 | Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 5 (Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2005), page 105. |
| ↑8 | For example, Dannis Matteson, “Resisting Christofascism Today,” https://politicaltheology.com/resisting-christofascism-today/. |
| ↑9 | Haidt, 27-51. |
| ↑10 | Haidt, 306. |
Hi! Where do you get your definitions of “liberal” and “conservative”? And what exactly are those definitions?
For the purposes of the theological argument I am making in this post, I am using Haidt’s basic psychological definition: the moral intuitions of conservatives include all six basic types of moral intuitions, while the moral intuitions of liberals are almost exclusively concerned with care/harm, liberty/oppression, and fairness/cheating. Haidt’s book analyzes how this basic difference plays out in the realm of American society and politics: liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans. I am not concerned here with such political definitions. Rather, I am analyzing how this basic difference plays out in the realm of theological disagreements in the modern Western Church.
So you are defining conservativism within Christian theology in entirely psychological terms? And you are defining liberalism within Christian theology in entirely psychological terms?
Perhaps the language I used to define “liberal” and “conservative” in my comment was a bit misleading. In the post itself, I define “liberal” and “conservative” in this way: “The difference between liberals and conservatives is that conservatives value all six basic areas of moral concern equally, while liberals are almost exclusively concerned with the first three: care/harm, liberty/oppression, and fairness/cheating.” It is not about psychology and intuitions per se, but about frameworks of moral values. Psychological analysis of people’s moral intuitions can give us great insight into why liberals and conservatives have have different moral values. But it is possible (though, sadly, rare) for a Christian to submit to the moral teachings of God’s Word even if their own moral intuitions do not align with those teachings.
I should probably also clarify that when I use the term “liberal” in this post, I am not talking about “theological liberalism.” Theological liberalism, which arose in 19th century Europe, was a product of Enlightenment rationalism; it denied the Authority of Scripture and basic tenets of Christian theology, such as the Incarnation and Resurrection of Jesus, on the basis of historical-critical questioning of the historical accuracy of the Bible and rationalistic philosophical arguments against the possibility of miracles. The “progressive Christianity” which I condemn in this post is quite distinct from classical theological liberalism. It is not based on Enlightenment rationalism, and usually (I think) includes a belief in Jesus’s Incarnation and Resurrection. Progressive Christians do not call into question the Authority of Scripture on the basis of rationalistic historical-critical biblical scholarship, but on the basis of their WEIRD liberal moral intuitions.
Ok, this is both making more sense and less sense. Thank you for trying to help me understand what you’re saying!
You are NOT condemning humans who are motivated by only those three moral concerns, you are instead condemning progressive Christians who also happen to be humans who are motivated by only those three moral concerns.
Now we’re getting back to my original question: can you please define “progressive Christian”? (I understand you to be using “liberal” and “progressive Christian” as the same thing.)
What I am saying is that trying to combine the liberal moral framework with Christianity results in heresy. Non-Christian liberals do not claim to be Christians, so they cannot be heretics.
Never mind! I see that you have a blog post series dedicated to defining the term progressive Christianity. That’s great!
I’m curious about the psychologists research: did he specifically restrict his research to progressive Christians and to conservative Christians? And does his definitions match yours?
Also, I’d still be curious to hear a definition of conservative Christian. But that’s slightly less relevant now.
As an atheist psychologist, Haidt has absolutely no interest in analyzing theological and moral disagreements within the Christian Church. He is solely interested in analyzing moral and political disagreements among Americans. The purpose of his book is to help Americans understand why they have these disagreements so that, hopefully, they can disagree more constructively. In this post, I am taking his insights into human psychology and applying them to theological and moral disagreements within the Church.
I’m not sure what definitions you are referring to. My definitions of liberal and conservative come directly from Haidt. He does not provide definitions of progressive Christian and conservative Christian because he has absolutely no interest in Christian theology.
A conservative Christian is a Christian who values all six basic areas of moral concern. The vast majority of Christians have been conservative Christians because the liberal moral framework is very WEIRD and so did not exist until recently in the modern West.