A Liberal Christian Credo by David Little

A Liberal Christian Credo

David Little

As American liberal Christians, faced with a crisis brought on by severe threats to our political order from religious nationalists and their allies, we affirm our commitment to a “new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the [unfulfilled] proposition that [everyone is] created equal,” to paraphrase Lincoln. We oppose any form of theocracy and authoritarian government, including any belief in special privilege based on race, gender, class, or religion, and favor, instead, a constitutional democracy designed to guarantee the equal rights of every citizen.

There are biblical and historical warrants for our position. According to the Gospel of Matthew, “all nations” are finally judged, not by whether they “know Jesus,” but by how well they provide for the material needs of “the least of these.” Paul’s letter to the Galatians proclaims the ideal of overcoming ethnic, class, and gender divisions. His letter to the Romans concludes that Jews and Gentiles share a common moral law, and that governments fulfill their responsibility to uphold justice, not by regulating religious belief and practice, but by enforcing laws that keep people safe from secular harm, like threats to life and property. Protecting the survival and security of all citizens does not involve controlling consciences or establishing a religion. The common interest all citizens share in such protection is a sufficient basis for passing laws and conducting government.

This thinking underlay the idea of “natural rights” in the history of the church, going back at least to the Middle Ages. The language of rights came to depict the equal protection of survival and security as a universal entitlement that is the fundamental responsibility of government to enforce. Since monarchies or other forms of autocracy tend to favor the ruler’s interests over the people’s rights, representative governments with divided powers are best, and since theocracies tend to extend special privileges to one religious group and ignore the rights of others, the separation of religious and political authority is best. That understanding informed the American Declaration of Independence and the vision derived from it captured in Lincoln’s summary. It also informed the same vision expressed in the modern idea of human rights.

As Christians, we affirm that finding a common, natural basis on which to make and enforce laws is indispensable, but we also affirm that for us the rights involved take on a special sacred status. Providing what the despised and neglected deserve is a duty of ultimate importance. So is averting wanton violence, including the official abuse of force. At the same time, fully honoring these rights is a superhuman task made all the more difficult by human recalcitrance and indifference in which we share. Such conditions call for sacred assistance and inspiration acutely illuminated by the events surrounding the life and death of Jesus. Our faith engenders hope and confidence to continue the struggle. In the process, it also tempers righteousness with humility, justice with mercy, indignation with forgiveness, and hostility with love. Although we hold these convictions strongly, we acknowledge they are affirmations of conscience freely embraced. To try to impose them on others is to violate them.