Protestant liberal thought in its most traditional incarnations emphasized
1.) The universal Fatherhood of God
God is not a Judge to any man. God loves all men indiscriminately. All men have a Democratic claim upon God. There is no eternal distinction between elect and reprobate.
2.) The universal brotherhood of man
Men are all brothers. This means when the implications are teased out that all men are heaven-bound since all men have God has Father and are Brothers.
3.) The infinite value of the human soul
Souls are so infinitely valuable that God would never cast one into hell. Souls are so infinitely valuable that Capital punishment is always wrong. Liberals often believe that they can rescue any soul from a wayward path by re-education.
4.) The example of Jesus
All talk is about the moral example of Jesus that men are to follow. This cunningly leaves out any talk about the juridical and propitiatory work of Jesus Christ on the Cross as the only hope for men’s acceptability with God. One is saved by following Jesus’ example. One is not saved by the Cross work of Jesus Christ. Liberals talk a great deal of “walking in Christ’s steps,” and very little of the necessity of Christ’s death to be right with God.
5.) The establishment of the moral-ethical Kingdom of God on Earth.
In Christian eschatology, God brought in the Kingdom and is bringing in the Kingdom by the finished work of Jesus Christ and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit upon the Saints to live out Christ in all of Redeemed men’s callings consistent with the Revelation of Scripture. In Christian Humanist Liberal eschatology man, quite apart from the work of the Spirit and the instruction of Scripture brings in the Kingdom in keeping with his autonomous sense of oughtness. This means that any Kingdom the Liberal successfully brings in is an anti-Christ humanist Kingdom. The Liberal Kingdom of God has often been relativistic, pluralistic, and non-doctrinal.
6.) Ethics over doctrine and experience over Scriptural authority.
Schleiermacher, one of the chief theological mavens of Liberalism emphasized that the essence of Christian faith is a state of mind called ‘the feeling of absolute dependence’ This absolute dependence was not arrived at by learning the Scriptures and so knowing God but rather this feeling of absolute dependence was an intuitively arrived at immediate self-consciousness of being in relation with God.
7.) Liberal Christian scholars embraced and encouraged the higher biblical criticism of modern Biblical scholarship with its inherent anti-supernatural presuppositions.
You can sniff out a Liberal by being very pointed with questions put to them on the Supernatural. Don’t let them fool you with their poetic and contradictory language. Ask them directly …”Did Jesus Christ who was dead and buried bodily arise alive again from the grave so that post-resurrection photographs of Him with His disciples could be taken?
How we need more men in our day to restore the necessary distinctions in Theology which show that MERCY is coordinate (not contradictory) with JUSTICE in God’s economy.
“No statement in the Bible more deeply stirs the resentment of the unrenewed heart than personal election to eternal life. It is alleged to be unfair, unjust, and abridging human liberty. p. 30.
In dealing with the fallen angels, God made a triumphant display of His justice; in dealing with fallen man, it is His purpose to make an equal disclosure of His mercy enthroned in the bosom of His justice. … Just here, in the gift of a seed to His Son (Is. 53:10-11), is found the decree of personal election, which many regard as unjust and dishonorable to God. p. 33.
It is overlooked in this complaint that sin completely estranges man from God, entailing upon him a corrupt nature, which, left to itself, will never become reconciled. … Salvation, so fully revealed and so freely offered to all men, has been declined by an overwhelming majority. … What does this import but that every sinner of our race would do the same if left wholly to the influence of that corrupt nature which he inherits? p. 34.
It is not the foreknowledge of those who will accept the great salvation, but the foreknowledge that every soul of man will of himself reject it to the end. In His absolute sovereignty He sees fit to pluck multitudes of these from perdition, giving them in covenant to His Son to reward the “travail of His soul,” and to be in Him the heirs of glory in the world to come. p. 35.
It must not be forgotten that in the whole method of salvation by grace, the mercy has always been wrought out in the sphere of justice itself. Mercy acknowledges throughout the claim of infinite justice; and justice, on its part, stands for the protection of mercy.” pp. 35-6.
Benjamin Morgan Palmer, ‘Fellowship & Assurance’