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Showing posts from December, 2005

Liberal Religion is a call to a higher moral standard

Often conservatives bemoan liberals for a lack of clear morality. Because liberals do not acknowledge a single authority on good and evil, conservatives reason, liberals fall into 'relativism' where no action can be clearly discerned as right or wrong. On the contrary, I have found that religious and political liberals have a very clear idea of right and wrong. For example, it is generally liberals who stand for universal human rights. In conservative religion, knowing the truth is easy, but following the truth is hard. In liberal religion, knowing the truth is hard, and following the truth is still harder. Liberalism is the harder path, the path that takes more self-discipline and effort. In fact it is possible that many conservatives spurn liberalism because it is hard, because the moral challenge of a brotherhood with all humankind is too weighty a burden to bear. In liberal religion, right and wrong must continually be discerned and the moral understanding must continua