'conservative', 'liberal' and theology

A blog I've enjoyed reading over the last few months is Dan Reid's. He is an academic editor for InterVarsity Press, and he writes mostly about theology and theological publishing. (I also seem to think I've met him in real life once when he was here in Cambridge for a sabbatical.)

He recently wrote a particularly good post which dovetails with a good deal of my own thinking and writing, and I wanted to at least dogear the reference for another time (and share it with you as well).

In the post he cavils with the ease with which the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' are deployed in theological writing, and (especially) the pernicious effects of such. Put simply, it hinders thinking and engagement, two things we dare not live without.

If you need a goad to get you to click over and have a look, here is a choice quotation from the entry:

'It is a cheap scholarship that out of fear or partisan motives feels the need to immediately divide viewpoints into the simple categories of conservative or liberal—or relegate something to the ominous “slippery slope.”' - Dan Reid

Well put; thank you Dan - may your tribe increase!