Liberal Christian Theology?

[SPR]

Hey,

Just want to ask who is know for liberal Christian theology(doctrine) because I have only been exposed to fundamental doctrine (I.e. Everything in the bible is literal). So who would be the best authors to buy from?

[Socius]

If you have never read any Liberal works before you may be interested to start reading a couple of books which are a dialogue between Conservatives and Liberals. Two good ones that come to mind are:
The Meaning of Jesus by N. T Wight and Marcus Borg (anything from Borg is worthwhile from a Liberal perspective)
Essentials by David Edwards and John Stott (This one is more doctrinal related)

A couple of good ones to start on the Historical Jesus are
The Historical Jesus by John Crossan
Historical Figure of Jesus by E. P. Sanders

An important book is Honest to God by John A. T. Robinson
Some other names to look out for are:
Friedrich Daniel Ernst Schleiermacher
Paul Tillich
Edward Schillebeeckx
Hans Kung

For a scholar that has gone beyond liberalism and is now an athesist, is German scholar Gerd Ludemann. He has written a couple of books on the Resurrection. If you google his homepage you will find writings online also. The reason I mention him here is because the way he deals with Scripture is not so different from a number of other Liberals. Many of his colleagues are Liberal. He is a member of the Jesus Seminar which is strongly liberal, at the least.

[tinythinker]

Hey,

Just want to ask who is know for liberal Christian theology(doctrine) because I have only been exposed to fundamental doctrine (I.e. Everything in the bible is literal). So who would be the best authors to buy from?

Just an aside on the general issue...

The problem is that fundamentalism do distorts things that people then start associating it with religious conservatism. This kind of confusion is dangerous because it distorts what liberal vs conservative actually mean. By extension, people assume that conserving tradition = fundamentalism, when in fact fundamentalism involves distorting tradition to serve its own divisive aims. This kind of confusion happens because of the way liberal and conservative have come to be used in American political circles. In fact, there is quite a bit of "tradition" which flies in the face of fundamentalism and which by American political standards would be considered "liberal".

[Metacrock]

Hey,

Just want to ask who is know for liberal Christian theology(doctrine) because I have only been exposed to fundamental doctrine (I.e. Everything in the bible is literal). So who would be the best authors to buy from?

Paul Tillich's book Dynamics of faith would be a good place to start.

In Biblical scholarship Goodspeed, Bernet Hillman streeter. These are old guys.

the basis of liberal theology is to start with an understanding of the divine as it is experienced by humans. That means bible is not inerrent.