Of all the labels that we commonly use none are more frequently invoked, it seems to me, than conservative and liberal. Most of us want to know, “Is he a conservative?” Or, perhaps, “Is he (really) that liberal?” Whether the debate is about politics or theology the same phenomenon is common. Before I even tackle this question, with regard to myself, I need to provide a few definitions and some background.

The word conservative, used in a broadly understood way, refers to someone who preserves or conserves. A conservative, notes Webster’s New World College Dictionary (1997), “tends to preserve established traditions or institutions and to resist or oppose changes in these (e.g. conservative politics, conservative art).” I believe the same definition works for the way the term is broadly used in our religious debates. A conservative is moderate, generally cautious and desires to preserve belief and ritual with, at most, very modest adaptations.

The word liberal, in some ways, if a far more difficult word to define. Coming from the Latin liberalis and liber, which simply […]