Liberal Christianity

Liberal hermeneutics

The interpretation of the Bible (hermeneutics) within liberal theology is non-propositional. This means that liberal theologians do not take the Bible as an inventory of factual statements such as 'God divided the light from the darkness', but rather interpret the Bible as a document of the human authors' beliefs and feelings about God at the time of its writing, within a historical and cultural context.

Related Topics:
Bible - Hermeneutics

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Therefore, religious models and concepts must be updated to reflect the class, gender, social and political etc. context from which they emerge, so that they will appear relevant and interesting. Liberal theologians would not make the claim that any particular apostle's account of their religious experiences could be any more true, or more relevant to an individual, than the experience of the individual themself.

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Liberal theology has also been the theistic group most prominent in Biblical criticism in the 19th and 20th centuries.

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