A United Methodist pastor of my recent acquaintance told me that he is religiously conservative. I couldn’t figure out what he meant. Surely the desire to love God and our fellow humans is not a left or a right issue. So I responded with my puzzlement, and said that I believe God calls every last one of us to follow him. I don’t know whether the belief that God favors certain people is liberal, conservative, or just calvinist.
The pastor somewhat straightened me out by saying he totally accepts the Bible. I still didn’t really understand how that makes someone conservative. Then he went on to say that evangelicalism is a conservative approach to life.
So just what is conservative? The word often means a belief in proven tenets. Or the desire to conserve those tenets. I accept that evangelicalism is conservative because it seems very close to the attitudes of the first followers of Jesus. It conserves the spirit of reaching out to all people.
The question becomes – which tenets are worth conserving? I think the Bible was written to show us the processes that other people have gone through in searching for God; not as a guidebook to the streets of heaven. This position conserves the spirit of Jesus’ teachings (IMO). But others would say it is liberal because it pays heed to some parts of the Bible more than others. I’m still confused. So forget that nonsense. Conservative is just a label. I feel like a conservative; but if the tenets I try to preserve warrant it, then please do consider me a fellow liberal. I’ll be proud to wear either label.
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