The word "Liberal" is not a dirty word!

I was once a proud Conservative, both in my theology and in my politics. The word “Liberal” was not a very nice word for me and if I were to say it my lips would be dripping with vitriol.

What it represented to me stood in opposition to my strongly held Conservatism.

It was the liberals behind the Civil Rights movement. 

It was the liberals who protested the war in Vietnam. 

It was the liberals who attended such mega events as Woodstock. 

It was liberals who smoked pot and used other recreational drugs. 

It was liberals who populated places like Haight-Asbury and Greenwich Village.

It was liberals who wore their hair long or went braless.

It was the liberals who dared to vote for a African-American president.

Okay, I’m getting a little ahead of myself here.

Did you know that our nation’s foundational documents, such as our Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, were inspired by the liberal ideas of that day, ideas spawned by the European Enlightenment of the late 17th and 18th centuries?

But I wonder if the America we know today would have ever been formed were it not for the liberal spirit of our Founding Fathers that energized their passions to create a new nation and a new government in a new land? 

The conservative status quo within the original colonies remained deeply loyal to England and her Monarchal form of government. Can you imagine America being ruled by a King or a Queen? That was the plan!

Now granted, at the time America was founded there were no conservatives and liberals as we know them today. There was no Conservatism or Liberalism. 

Yet in the words of Thomas DeMichele: 

“The founders’ wide range of beliefs eventually led to both party politics and famous compromises, but despite their differences, they had one thing in common: They were not loyalists (and thus not true conservatives for the time).”

But the question that continues to nag me is what would America look like today had it not been for those liberal ideas that inspired its birth? Perhaps author and blogger Anthony M. Joseph says it most succinctly:

"Across vast stretches of human inquiry, liberals believe truth changes over time as circumstances change and new evidence comes to light. Above all, perhaps, liberals embrace generosity, especially government generosity, as a value."

Perhaps our Founding Fathers intuited that the Middle Ages and Monarchal governments were coming to an end. Perhaps their penchant for an open mind and a more progressive bent towards the future led them to create one of the most liberal projects in history: The founding of American Democracy.

With that said I would also suggest that the same liberal spirit that permeated the founding of America also led to a more enlightened Christianity that is based on an informed faith rather than mere superstition that so characterized the Middle Ages.

We may also assert that it was the same liberal ideas of the European Enlightenment that spawned the Protestant Reformation. So we ask our Evangelical brothers and sisters: "Would you even exist today were it not for the liberal ideas of the Reformers?"

So my point is this: The word “Liberal” is not inherently a bad word nor an evil idea. I still retain some of my old conservative values that I inherited from my youth, but being liberal in the classical sense is no longer anathema (a curse) to me. 

I close with the words of Anthony M. Joseph:

“A liberal person . . . is broad-minded, open to reasoned argument and to new evidence. A liberal person views truth as growing, developing, and inclusive, not changeless and exclusive. A liberal person can think and plan on a large-scale–can apply big solutions to big problems. He or she does not shrink from such a task but relishes it.”

This is classical Liberalism at its very best. This is how liberals in 1776 thought. 

And this is why I am a liberal today!