WHY I AM NOT A “LIBERAL”

I intend for this to be as personal and candid as if it were a personal letter to you, my reader friend. It may turn out to merit the same evaluation that one follower gave Nixon’s Six Crises some years ago. “The book may even be more candid that Mr. Nixon realizes,” he observed, noting that the former vice-president may have said more than he intended. Let’s just call this a one-sided heart to heart talk. I want to share with you some things that I believe, whether I’m given credit for them or not, if indeed credit is relevant. I am reminded of Emmanuel Kant’s dictum that our behavior should always be praiseworthy, whether it ever be praised or not. To be worthy of praise is the point, not the praise. And it is an irony of history that those who are worthy of praise are seldom praised (until after they are dead), while the applause and acclaim goes to the superficial, the preservers of the status quo, and the men-pleasers. What history has done here suits me. I have now passed the point where approval from men has any special appeal. That is just as well! If in that day Jesus says to me, “Well done, Leroy . . .” that will be my glory. I’ll settle for, “Well tried, Leroy. . .”

I am going to talk about why I am not a “liberal,” a label that has been pinned on me long since, and one that fits me about like charismatic would fit Nixon. Reading some of the brotherhood war bulletins through the years, I have often remarked to Ouida, in view of some of the things I have been called, “If I am a liberal, then what would a real liberal be!” While I am not much given to labels, the term liberal does have some meaning, and I suppose we have some liberals among us, which is not necessarily bad. The liberals are my brothers as well as others, and I love them just as much. I just happen to believe that I am not one of them, except that we are in Jesus together and that of course is what really matters.

One Easter season when I was at Harvard the faculty-student committee in arranging for a special program thought it appropriate that the speaker should be one who believed the Easter story, which drastically reduced the possibilities in that particular Harvard community in those days. The lot fell upon “that tall guy from Texas” since it was apparent that the empty tomb did indeed have special meaning to me. They didn’t know that I really didn’t believe in “Easter” either, but I did believe in the risen Christ, so that qualified me to address both faculty and students, all of whom had two degrees or more, on that memorable occasion.

I took my text, not from the Bible, but from Goethe, where he has one of his infidel characters say, upon hearing the toll of the Easter bells, “I hear your message, but I cannot believe.” My thesis was that old Faust could have believed if he wanted to, for the evidence warrants acceptance of the resurrection story. I then recounted from the scriptures the occasions that the risen Jesus appeared to people, and analyzed the testimony of those who said “We have seen the Lord” somewhat as a jurist would in a court of law. My case was buttressed by the study made by old Prof. Greenleaf, years before, at the Harvard Law School. After examining the witnesses as only a lawyer could, the law professor concluded that there was no way that the testimony could be impeached. It was a dramatic moment in my life, with the likes of Prof. Henry Cadbury sitting before me, when I pointed to the towers of the law school across the way, and said, with an open Bible held aloft, “Dr. Greenleaf, speaking as a jurist, assures us that the testimony of the evangelists would stand up in any court of this land. So, as the Easter bells toll this day we can believe if we want to.” I was at Harvard and I had Harvard on my side! But I have found that that is like being at Abilene or Nashville and having Campbell and Lipscomb on my side!

My Unitarian colleagues filed by with respect for my sincerity. One of them leaned toward my ear and said quietly, “I heard your message, but I cannot believe!” Prof. Cadbury, always mild-mannered and peaceful, took my hand and smiled, saying nothing, which was about like exploding a firecracker in my face. But they had always said that they didn’t care what we believed so long as we could make a reasonable defense. I stated my case and they listened, so I guess we can leave it at that. But I had to report to Ouida that night, who was then a working girl, that I supposed I had done nothing more than to assure my reputation as “the conservative of the conservatives.”

Whether at Harvard or in my own university classroom as a professor, I have never had the slightest misgivings about the great fundamentals of the Christian faith, and these are all precious to me in my own personal prayer and study. I often thank the Father for Jesus, for making him both the Lord and the risen Christ. As a college teacher I have often given testimony to my faith in Jesus as Lord and my assurance that God raised him from the dead. And I have laid a concerned hand on the shoulder of many students, bearing witness to how Jesus lives for me in the Now and that he can live for them too.

The scriptures are dear to me in that they are the revealed word of God. I am aware of the problems that disturb a lot of people, but they do not bother me. It may well be that Isaiah is of dual authorship with one part later than the other, or that Daniel was written in the time of the Maccabees, but it is nonetheless God’s word to me. I suppose there are conflicts in the resurrection narratives, but they say to me what this whole thing is all about: He is Lord and he is risen! I find theories on inspiration awfully boring, and since the scriptures give us the fact of inspiration, I have no particular interest in the how of it. Men can speculate, but I choose to keep believing.

And I believe in the objectivity of God’s revelation, which is in line with the church’s faith through the centuries. That is, God was really, objectively in Jesus, reconciling the world to Himself. Jesus is distinctively the Son of God, unlike any other person ever. He existed even before Abraham as the eternal Logos. He was the Wisdom that the Greek philosophers anticipated. He became flesh and tabernacled among men, thus reflecting the resplendent glory and majesty of the Father. His relations with people—slaves, prostitutes, children, women, clergy, lepers, disciples, the masses—wherein we have both his teaching and his example is the greatest revelation imaginable, and I revel in its mystery and richness. This revelation was vouchsafed to his chosen envoys and only to them. I cannot believe that he continues to reveal his will in some subjective manner to those in every age who dream dreams and see visions. I may have sympathy for those who speak “by the Spirit” in the King James vernacular and confuse their texts in doing so, and I certainly do not favor excluding them from the fellowship, but I do not buy all that I hear. But I do read, “At various times in the past and in various different ways, God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets; but in our own time, the last days, he has spoken to us through his Son.” That’s for me!

I revel in the scriptures because they tell me about Jesus, and I want to be more like him. And they speak of God in history, of how He rules in the kingdoms of men and places over them whom He will. Nebuchadnezzar was his battle ax and Cyrus was his anointed, though both pagan kings. He “called” Babylon from the north to discipline His people and the Assyrians became “the rod of my anger.” At will He summoned ravens to feed His servants and locusts to punish his people. He is the God of history and a history-making God. And so He is present in our history, ruling in the affairs of men so as to realize His ultimate will. The Jews are still his “chosen” people and we cannot read Ro. 9-11 without realizing that God is up to something in the ongoing of history, not only in the eventual conversion of the Jews but in a triumph of righteousness that defies the imagination. So, I look forward to God’s ultimate victory in history upon this earth, call it a millennium or what you will. I cannot believe that the prophetic cries for a kingdom in which men learn war no more and where the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea has yet come to this earth, though I do see the community of God as a reflection of that kingdom.

I therefore see the universe as open-ended rather than as a closed system. God can and does change things. He can and does intervene. There are powers in the universe that we know little or nothing about, including those within ourselves. I like Kant, to quote him again, when he says that the things that amazed him most were the starry heavens above and the moral law within man. I am naive enough to believe that the Ruler of the universe hears my prayers and responds to them. Prayer can and does change things. The universe itself testifies to the goodness and morality of God. I am as far from the presumptions of nihilism, secularism and skepticism as day is from night. While I believe in giving such philosophies of despair a fair trial in the classroom, it is evident to my students that I believe in an ordered universe ruled over by a loving Being.

I see in the universe spiritual beings as well as physical, and they are of such magnitude as to surpass our imagination. They are in some way for our service and glory, but there are evil ones as well as good. Demons are surely both real and present. We will one day be impressed with the reality of the spirit world, and we will then see that it has always been much nearer us than we supposed. Gabriel is as much a being as Lincoln. Maybe not a person like Lincoln, but a real being, a created reality. And so with Satan. In view of scripture I see him as an intelligent reality, pervading the universe with frightening power, and not just an idea. It is all a mysterious drama between the forces of good and evil, with armies gathered in confrontation, and all of us as God’s community upon earth, are caught up in this struggle. Without faith it would be impossible to contemplate, but we have the assurance that Christ and his servants will be triumphant.

And that assurance that is our anchor is a simple trusting faith that God is and that He rewards with victory all those who seek Him. Faith may begin in the acceptance of such factual propositions that Jesus is the Christ, but it matures into trust. Faith is thus a childlike conviction that God will do what He says, that He will make good all His promises.

I believe that the Holy Spirit in our lives is the continuing presence of Jesus, that through the heavenly Guest he is as much with us as he was ever with Peter, James and John. That Spirit not only comforts and strengthens us, but his presence serves as a guarantee that we have been purchased of God and that He will indeed give us redeemed bodies in a reality beyond this world.

Heaven will in some way be a complement of our existence here. Even suffering may play its role in preparing us for both service and devotion. I do not expect to walk on golden streets or be propelled about on angel’s wings. I expect to be in God’s presence, and the prospects of looking upon His glory is almost too much even to contemplate, but in some way it will be so. I will see my Savior in all his majestic reality. He will have (and does have) a body, and by then God will have given me a body too “like unto his glory”. And some way, somehow we will be in God’s service. It is all breathtakingly exciting, but don’t you think that I don’t believe it. I have laid claim to the promises, and I’m bound for glory!

God’s community is dear to my heart. I have deep faith in the one, holy, catholic, apostolic church, and each of those adjectives are big in my thinking. But the church on earth will never be like “the spirits of just men made perfect,” and so it will always be in need of reform. I therefore think of myself as part of the reformed tradition and thus a reformer, as we all should be, allowing the reformation to begin always and continue always with ourselves. I see the Body of Christ as one by nature, but it is a unity that has been raped by sectism, and so we must labor to restore that lost oneness.

I see the Church of Christ (and I am not bothered by the term denomination in this context) as part of God’s community upon earth, the most that could be claimed of any group in a Christian world cursed by division. I am pleased to be where I am, and I have always thought it remarkable that by the circumstance of birth I should have landed in the right church! Had God “let me down” amongst the Lutherans or the Presbyterians, I might see it differently. And surely there are disciples in all the sects that desire to make the church what it ought to be, and I suppose they should remain where they are and work for reform in their own context. But we are working with ideals, whether in unity, ethics, ministry or missions, and we must realize that we can only approximate those ideals at best.

I see man as “crowned with glory and honor” and as a creature in God’s image, and yet I am all too well aware of his fallenness. I agree with Niebuhr’s way of putting it: “Man is a strange mixture of good and evil.” And Ferre may be right in adding “But he has the drag of evil upon him.” And as I grow older I can appreciate Campbell’s analysis: “As I grow older I am more and more impressed with the majesty of God and the frailty of man.” But God did not create us to be self-sufficient: We are not suppose to be gods. He intends to help us. And man is capable of so much if he will but draw upon the powers that God has given him. But I doubt if many people ever really come to see the real nature of sin and the toll that it takes in their lives. What was true of old Nebuchadnezzar is generally true of the human race: “His heart grew swollen with pride, and his spirit stiff with arrogance.” I have labored in both the church and in the world, and have sort of “walked with kings” in university centers, and I have seen enough pride to last me several lifetimes; but I fear that I have seen more arrogance in the church than in the world. Pride is almost the whole story of sin, and it is a tragedy when one can see it in others but not in himself. Pride keeps man from seeing the depths of his own sin, and it keeps him from seeing Jesus, who is the only answer there is to such sin.

Finally, I must say that I am an optimist about the whole of human existence, perhaps a chastened optimist, but an optimist just the same. Dewey used the word meliorist to identify the view that takes the world realistically in all its evil and suffering, but still believes that truth will out and that there is a destiny that shapes our ends. “God is on His throne and all is well with the world” is saying too much, but it is true that God rules and that ultimate victory is assured. The fact of life that chastens me most is the magnitude of human suffering and misery, and I can understand why Buddhism would make this problem central in its concerns. I consider it the weightiest of all philosophical and theological problems, as to why a good and powerful God allows so much suffering in a world over which He has control. Years of study convinces me that there is no answer apart from a childlike faith that in another world everything will be set straight, including a reckoning of those who have perpetrated gross injustices against the innocent.

This means that I can see the likes of Watergate in a rather positive light. God can use it to teach us and to make us stronger because of it. And perhaps to humble us. It is not, of course, either the beginning or the end of sin in Washington, and it is likely that we have made too much of it, bad as it is. It indicates that we have lost our perspective when we become overly wrought up over one evil and rather indifferent to things far worse. Sins of racism have never bothered us as much as Watergate, for example. World starvation has not exactly got us worked up, and some national leaders a generation ago showed more patience toward Hitler’s treatment of the Jews than some now show toward Nixon’s handling of Watergate. Moral wisdom calls for distinguishing between evils. Child abuse, which is becoming a national problem, may be far more offensive to God than all the folly of Watergate.

In any event we should allow for due process and not presume a man to be guilty before he has his day in court. Our media, including some in the church, should learn from the Stans-Mitchell acquittal. The jury found two of our leaders innocent that we had already hanged on Haman’s gallows! I don’t believe in poking fun at our national leaders or in caricaturing our President. The Bible tells us to honor the king and to pray for our rulers (kings were not paragons of virtue in those days either!), but we have done little honoring and apparently too little praying. On several occasions my dear wife has prayed for President Nixon beside our bed at night, calling him by name and asking God to guide him. That is not only tender but it is right. She is right however right or wrong Nixon may be. Indeed, if he is all wrong in this, then Ouida is all the righter in praying for him, for it is those who are in the wrong that need God’s help the most. Besides, it is obeying God to pray for and honor our leaders. We are to criticize, yes, but with respect and in the fear of God. If one believes that it is God who makes men kings and presidents, then it is amiss to take much of the judgment into our own hands.

Well, enough of this. All of this of course proves that I am not a liberal! Really, now, how can one be a liberal who believes in the being of God, the unique sonship of Jesus and his resurrection, miracles, heaven and hell, the inspiration of the Bible, the catholicity of the church, the fallenness of man, the indwelling of the Spirit, angels and demons, a millennium, a spiritual universe, and the objective revelation of God?

It is true that I accept all those who believe in Jesus and obey him in baptism as my brothers, which is another way of identifying the only church there is, scattered amongst a sectarian world. If that makes me a liberal, then most all of our pioneers were liberals before me.

It is true that I don’t believe in making our private opinions, like having a Sunday School or using instrumental music, tests of fellowship, but if that makes me a liberal then the Restoration Movement was founded on liberalism, for from its inception its intention was to create a fellowship based only on what is clearly set forth in scripture.

Really, I don’t object to name-calling all this much. This is just my way to get folk to think about what they are saying. As the terms are usually understood, I am a conservative in more ways than I am a liberal, but I might one day come back with a piece on why I am a liberal. I would be a liberal in education, social action (but not in economics), freedom concepts, and international relations. I might one day explain, for instance, why I vote for “liquor by the drink” even though I don’t drink liquor, or why this very day in Texas I will vote for the right of communities to decide on parimutuel betting, in spite of a vigorous campaign of the Baptists (which is our state church!) against it, even though I haven’t the slightest desire to bet on a nag. Here I am definitely a liberal. Does the Church of Christ stand with the Baptists on the betting issue?, you ask. Why don’t you know that Church of Christ folk in Texas don’t vote. They may bet but they won’t vote!—the Editor