Yes—But Not Over There

We have been needing a book that tries to talk sense on the question: Can a man be a Christian and a Liberal at the same time? Been needing it, but not likely to get it, because the Christian Liberals tend to deny that the problem exists, and because non-Christian Liberals are not yet ready to drive the Christians out of the Liberal camp with an honest No, and because one good way for the Christians who deem Liberalism incompatible with true religion to keep out of trouble is not to write books saying so. We may, therefore, count ourselves fortunate that a professional philosopher like Theodore M. Greene should have come forward at this moment with a book, Liberalism: Its Theory and Practice (University of Texas, $4.50), that does try to make sense of the problem from one side, and that no future writer who addresses himself to the problem from the other side will dare ignore.

Professor Greene does not, to be sure, pose the problem in the terms I have just used. He writes as a Christian Liberal who is quite certain that the good Christian must be a Liberal, that the good Liberal ought to be a Christian and in due course probably will be, and that any apparent incompatibilities between Christianity and Liberalism are due, quite simply, to troublemakers who misrepresent the one or the other or both. His purpose is to state a Christian Liberal position, to explain how he can hold it without betraying either his Christianity or his Liberalism, and to urge others to help him discover any possible weaknesses in it and correct them. So, even without posing my question, he gives an affirmative answer to it that at least takes into account some of the major issues involved.

WK

About the Author

Willmoore Kendall

Featured Tags

We have been needing a book that tries to talk sense on the question: Can a man be a Christian and a Liberal at the same time? Been needing it, but not likely to get it, because the Christian Liberals tend to deny that the problem exists, and because non-Christian Liberals are not yet ready to drive the Christians out of the Liberal camp with an honest No, and because one good way for the Christians who deem Liberalism incompatible with true religion to keep out of trouble is not to write books saying so. We may, therefore, count ourselves fortunate that a professional philosopher like Theodore M. Greene should have come forward at this moment with a book, Liberalism: Its Theory and Practice (University of Texas, $4.50), that does try to make sense of the problem from one side, and that no future writer who addresses himself to the problem from the other side will dare ignore.

Professor Greene does not, to be sure, pose the problem in the terms I have just used. He writes as a Christian Liberal who is quite certain that the good Christian must be a Liberal, that the good Liberal ought to be a Christian and in due course probably will be, and that any apparent incompatibilities between Christianity and Liberalism are due, quite simply, to troublemakers who misrepresent the one or the other or both. His purpose is to state a Christian Liberal position, to explain how he can hold it without betraying either his Christianity or his Liberalism, and to urge others to help him discover any possible weaknesses in it and correct them. So, even without posing my question, he gives an affirmative answer to it that at least takes into account some of the major issues involved.