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Clergymen carry a symbol of peace,
indicating their opposition to nuclear
arms. Critics of theological liberalism
argued that an emphasis on personal
feelings encouraged indifference to
important issues in the world.CHRISTIANITY
origins (the belief that it was of
divine authorship). The result was
that, for many people, the Bible
could no longer be referred to as
the inspired word of God.
Friedrich Schleiermacher’s view,
however, helped to rescue the Bible
from what some perceived to be
irrelevance. He claimed that since
religion relates fundamentally to
experience, the Bible is supremely
important as a record of religious
experience. It can therefore be used
as the ultimate guide to Christian
experience, as believers compare
their own feelings of dependence
on God with those described
within the sacred text.
This approach to the Bible
became known as the liberal
view, as opposed to the more
conservative view, which insisted
—in the face of this historical
criticism—that the Bible contained
facts about God, and not just facts
about human experience. Tension
between these two views has
shaped Protestantism ever since.
Unintended consequences
Schleiermacher developed his idea
of religious experience in order to
protect Christianity from being
relegated to history while science
moved forward to shape the future
of the world. By assigning religion
and science to different spheres
of human life (religion to feeling,
and science to knowledge), he
was successful in establishing a
means by which they could coexist.
However, while many Christians
embraced Schleiermacher’s
thesis as a solution to the friction
between science and religion,
others were dissatisfied with
what they saw as the relegation
of Christian faith to the sphere of
feelings. They also identified
an unintended consequence:
Christianity could no longer claim
to have an authoritative voice in the
public sphere if it was associated
most strongly with an individual’s
feelings, since feelings are always
personal. This seemed to be at
odds with the original message
of Christianity, which concerned
the arrival of God’s kingdom in
the whole world (not just in private
religious experience) and indicated
an important societal role.Taking a stand
In the 20th century, the liberal
movement was strongly criticized
by a new generation of scholars,
including the eminent Swiss
theologian Karl Barth. He was
particularly appalled that his liberal
theology teachers had failed to take
a principled stand against the rise
of Nazism in Germany in the 1930s,
and claimed that this was because
Schleiermacher’s theology had
been allowed to become far too
influential within the Church.
He maintained that a private
Christian experience could be
too easily indifferent to the needs
of the world outside.
Barth argued that for
Christianity to be successful
in opposing some of the obviousmisuses of science and knowledge
—such as genocide, the arms race,
and nuclear armament—in the
modern world, Christian theology
would need to be based on more
than private feelings.
Today, Christian thinkers still
face the challenge of explaining to
peple how they can trust what the
Bible says about God, when what
it says about the world is often
disputed by scientific reasoning.
Many Christians would answer
with a modified form of
Schleiermacher’s argument. The
Bible talks about the same reality
as that described by science,
history, politics, and other social
sciences. However, it simply
answers different questions:
not, “how did this come to be?”
but “why did this come to be?”
Science and faith—the “how?”
and the “why?”—do not disprove
each other, but complement each
other. They help Christians to reach
a more complete understanding
of the universe that Galileo
observed through his telescope. ■Christian doctrines
are accounts of
the Christian religious
affections set
forth in speech.
Friedrich Schleiermacher