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Conservatism Is Not The Opposite Of Liberalism

Conservatism refers to conserving, whether conserving good things or bad things.  However, the meaning of the word, conservatism, has been changed to mean: anyone who opposes the liberal characteristics.  And, liberals have defined three levels of conservatives, receiving increasing levels of liberal hate as you go from "conservative" to "ultra-conservative" and finally to the most hated "ultra-conservative Christian."
 
So the word, conservative, has been altered.  It's meaning has been changed.  It almost means "Christian" now, while the word, liberal, has almost changed to mean "anti-Christ."  Yet, conservatism still is used for the original meaning, "to conserve or keep things as they always were."  There is a confusion that is brought about.  Some people are conservatives only because they hate to see the Government waste so much money.  Others are conservatives because they hate to see the Government spending money to kill babies.  Others are conservatives simply because they hate change.
 
According to its classical definition, conservatism wants to keep things the same as they always were.  For this reason, there is a certain laodicean lukewarmness to conservativism.
 
Where Liberalism seeks to usurp, Conservatism tends to abdicate.  Conservatives tend to say, "I have legal authority to do this, but someone may not like it, so I won't take my responsibility.  Liberals tend to say, "I know it's illegal and unethical, but I'm going to do it anyway."  

As an example, in the U.S., we can look at the abuse of power by the liberal judges as an example of liberal usurping of power. We can see the lack of intervention by the executive branch in these cases of judicial abuse of power as an example of conservative abdication.

Conservatism can know that the source is foul (as in the news media, the liberal education system, or the entertainment industry) and yet continue to go to that source because that's the way it has always been.  Conservatives have a hard time dealing with change . . . because they are conservatives.

Here is an interesting thing.  Liberals want to conserve all types of things.  It is very common for liberals to be conservative of certain things.

A list of some of the things that liberals want to conserve:

  • Maintain the current rate of decline of morality in the church
  • Maintain the current rate at which the State is taking over the church
  • Maintain the current rate of decline of morality in the world
  • Maintain the current rate of decent into perversion
  • Maintain the current rate of decent into socialism
  • Maintain the current rate of increase in government spending
  • Maintain the use of public schools to indoctrinate children in New Age religious beliefs

What puzzles me is the extent to which those who want government to endorse their faith seem ready to compromise their true beliefs in order to receive an honorable mention from the state.  

Some seem willing to settle for a moment of silent prayer in government schools, a type of religious Miranda right, in which believing students have the right to remain mute. Others are willing to place their God as co-unequal with almost anything, just to have his name publicly mentioned, even if that tends to dilute him so much he wouldn’t recognize himself, much less be familiar to others.

Cal Thomas

Conservatism wants to keep things the same.  It seeks to conserve.   Granted, many people use the term, conservative, to mean pushing toward positive change, but the basic meaning of conservatism has to do with conserving.  Some things are good to conserve.  Others are not.

In America, conservatism is not about stuff. Consumerism and materialism are part of liberalism.  In fact, liberalism has made an art form out of envy, which is and out-growth of consumerism and materialism.

Related article: http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/10/32005gst.asp

Some conservatives want to conserve the current rate of decline.  Some want to slow the current rate of decline or even stop the current rate of decline.  There are some who want to turn back the clock to the morality, the home, and government of 150 years ago.  Some even want to establish the principles of the Bible.  Such differences in mindset, yet we use the same label, conservative.

 

Some people are conservatives because they are Christians who believe the Bible and what it says about right and wrong, and some people are liberal for the opposite reason.

 Many Liberals and Conservatives don't fit the mold, making the definitions seem fuzzy.   There is the obvious fact that liberals want to spend more while conservatives want to spend less--in the United States.  That's why it is true that many conservatives are simply people with good math and logic skills and many liberals are simply people with lousy math and logic skills.  Many conservatives are simply people who are aware of what Socialism does to a country and they don't like to suffer.  Still, Conservatism is not the opposite of Liberalism.

Liberalism has its root in a belief that most people are basically good. Liberalism and Conservatism are not opposites, and many conservatives and liberals don't understand the roots of the label they are wearing.

Liberal can mean "marked by generosity but that is not what is meant when we are talking about liberals versus conservatives.  The root belief of liberalism is the belief in human goodness. 

The true opposite of liberalism is a dependency on Jesus Christ for forgiveness and real righteousness.  How many Christians do you know who are thirsting for deeper depths and higher heights in God, and how many are simply trying to conserve their current spiritual experience?  How many are there who resemble the slothful steward who buried his talent?

Conservatism refers to conserving. That's why, in the former USSR, a conservative is one who wants Communism while in the US, a conservative is one who doesn't want Communism. That is to say, a conservative in the USSR is a leftist, in favor of Communism, while a conservative in the US is right wing, opposed to Communism.

The good side of conservatism is that conservatives are not open to destroying what we already have. They are not open to the wild claims, speculations, unsupported suppositions, and silly scoffing of liberalism.

The bad side of conservatism is that conservatism conserves the status quo even if that is the wrong thing to do.

So in some ways, Christians are and should be conservatives, but they cannot be liberal in the sense of believing in human goodness. The human goodness cult is anti-Christ. The human goodness cult says there is no need for Christ.  It does not admit its lostness and hopelessness without Jesus Christ. It does not cry out for forgiveness. It thinks it can do good works without the power of the Holy Spirit. It thinks it can enter the Kingdom of Heaven without being born again, or, worse yet, rejects the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven.

Christians must conserve those things they have received of the revelation that God has given. Since we are all at different maturity levels, we are all keeping certain things as sacred, but God may have revealed more to you than to me or vice versa. Some have said that there are some basic fundamentals that every Christian must believe, and they call themselves fundamentalists. However, not all fundamentalists agree as to what those fundamental beliefs are.

Christians are conservatives in the sense that they reject many of the anti-Christ declarations of liberalism: unproven ideas like evolutionism, global warming, the notion of the hole in the ozone layer, warped history, claims of Bible error, socialism/communism, natural human goodness claims, rejection of Christ, soulish and even devilish music to replace spiritual music, relativism, post modernism, chaos theory, or high-cost, low-success school systems.

Christians must not conserve the flesh. Christians must not only conserve the good, but they must also progress when God tells them to do so. They need to be open-minded to God but closed-minded to the devil. They must conserve the Spiritual, but not conserve soulishness, error, or spiritual deadness. There is no need to conserve empty form and ritual or extra-biblical rules, patterns, or rules. There is no need to conserve that which is not according to the pattern of Scripture no matter how hard it is to leave old bad things behind.

Is this what conservative Christians wish to settle for: a governmental genuflection or acknowledgment that they exist? Do Christians wish to permit government not only to set the parameters for the public expression of their faith, but to define the faith itself?

The courts have been wrong for at least half a century in their limitation of religious expression, but the way to win back that right of expression is not mainly through courts, but through hearts.

The first option offers limited power and no guarantee of compliance. The other offers unlimited power and the possibility of changing lives. Which seems better from a biblical standpoint?

Cal Thomas

Here are some non-conservative ideas: 

  • Let the 81% of the population that identifies themselves as Christian have a real, living experience with Jesus Christ.  Let them take their responsibility and start voting.  In their choices, let them be led by the Holy Spirit and the Bible.
  • Return education to the system that worked.  Let the religious organizations and homes teach the children.
  • If the liberals want to teach Humanism, Atheism, and Agnosticism, DON'T let them do it with public money.  They can start their own New Age religion schools in which to teach the precepts of naturalism, materialism, and political correctness.
  • Let the church be the church and make the government stay out of church business.
  • If the Secular Humanists, or any other New Age denominations, want to do service to those in need, DON'T let them use the Government to coerce tithes and offerings from those who don’t believe in their doctrines.  Make them start their own organizations and take offerings from among their own members.
  • Let the church return to the Biblical orders and priorities of the church.  Let them use their resources to help those who cannot help themselves and to spread the Gospel. 
  • Let any who have fleeced the flock repent.
  • Let any who have squandered tithe and offering money repent.

I was attending a denominational church that believed in the Holy Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit, but seemed to put certain limits on that power. This denomination has since opened up to the power of the Spirit to a greater degree than it had at that time. At that time, they were not all that open, but being Bible believers, the pastor was teaching from the Bible. One Sunday the pastor taught about the Holy Spirit and His mighty power and how one of the words used to describe the Spirit is the same word from which we get the word, dynamite. I left that service on cloud nine. To think that this mighty Spirit of God is available to us!

A couple of days later, I was in my car thinking about this mighty Holy Spirit. I wasn't very conservative of my old spiritual deadness. I was open to God's Spirit. Suddenly, it happened. I can't give a name for it, but my life was changed. I had been saved since I was about four years old. I don't remember a time when I didn't have faith in God. Now, at about 19 years old, I was changed, never to be the same. The Holy Spirit was on me in a way that I had never experienced before. I had moved on to a higher height and deeper depth in Christ. The Bible opened up to me and it became exciting and alive. The worship services at our church became wonderful and full of the glory of God. My young wife wanted me to be more restrained, but I was about to jump out of my skin and into the arms of my Lord.

Scripture verses that had never made much sense suddenly made a lot of sense. I went to the pastor and asked him about apostles, prophets, miracles and speaking in tongues. He told me that those things were for the “apostolic age,” as if there were such an age. He told me that those things were only temporary until that which is perfect is come according to first Corinthians 13, but his words rang hollow. I said, “Isn't this happening anywhere?” He said, “Nowhere.” He was conserving deadness. I could no longer do so.

God has been restoring. There was a great falling away beginning in about the fourth century under Constantine, an expert politician who used Christianity for his political ends. Beginning in the fourteenth century with Wycliffe, then the Lollards, then Luther, Calvin, and the Anabaptist movement in the sixteenth century, God began His restoration. There were always those who wanted to conserve the spiritual deadness and that which was not according to Scripture, so there was persecution. In the eighteenth century, much was restored, but the emphasis shifted to an imbalance where doctrine had become devoid of the life factor. Just in time, God raised up the Wesleys and Whitfield and breathed life into the doctrine once again. This unfolding of Scripture and of Jesus Christ has continued, but each group seemed to, all too quickly, lose its ability to move on with God.

People can become conservative of the wrong thing. There was nothing wrong with the revelation when it was given.  The revelation they received came from Scripture as unfolded by the Holy Spirit. In an effort to conserve the revelation, the people enshrined the concept (they actually enshrined a mental exercise) rather than the great revealer, Jesus Christ.

They refused to move on with God because they became disconnected from God and connected to an idea, a mental exercise of rationalized faith rather than spiritual faith. They tried to put God's flowing stream into cisterns, but, as the prophet said, they were broken cisterns. So God moved on without them, still loving them and blessing them with what they had obtained from Him, but finding a new group of people in which to work.

In many cases, those who had refused to move on with God formed organizations, denominations, that eventually split into more and more denominations. Some kept pure the doctrine they had receive, though not moving onward with the Spirit of God. Some mutilated the gospel and have earned themselves shame. Some have even lost their very salvation having strayed so far from the truth that they are no longer connected to Jesus Christ or they sometimes become connected to a different Jesus.

The point is that it is good to conserve that which is good, but that is not enough. We need to move with the living, flowing Spirit of God, to higher heights and deeper depths in God.


 

Agnosticism claims that it knows nothing about God and then goes on to dogmatically claim that no one knows or can know anything about God.  Well, that is silly, but there is a small element that is almost according to Scripture.  How could they possibly think that they know about the inner experience of every person?  And all of us who do have a real relationship with Christ can testify that the agnostic cult is totally out of touch.

The Bible says that we can know some things, but those things that God has not yet revealed belong to God. Deut 29:29 

The Bible says that we know only in part. 1 Cor 13:9. 

The Bible says that if we think we know anything, we do not know it as we ought to know. 1 Cor 8:2 

In Psalms 131 the message is that it is immaturity that makes a person push into things that are over our heads.


What this means is that we need to realize that God can show us more no matter how good we may think that we are. God is infinite. We are finite.  When we say that we have the ultimate truth, we close the door to God's desire to bring us up higher.

If there were no speculative aspect to denominational doctrines, there would be no denominations because we would all believe the same things. The suppositions of the Christian are corrupt just as the suppositions of the evolutionist are corrupt. The same self-righteousness that plagues the evolutionist can also plague the Christian.

Sometimes, the more the Christian has studied, the more mired he or she becomes and the harder it is for God to get through.  Much of this study constitutes memorizing arguments for highly speculative doctrines.  The reality is that it is impossible for anyone to see his or her own error and to turn from it.  What is required is an intervention from God. In fact, more than intervention is needed if God is going to have His ultimate will.  What is needed is a permanent connection to God Who continues to intervene in a continuous and perpetual intervention. This kind of relationship cannot fit into a static mold but only fits in the Church of God that is being formed according to the pattern of Scripture.

God is moving us on.  He is leading the way.  It's a way we have never walked before.

There are other ways that conservatism and liberalism are defined other that what appears on this site.  To argue about the meanings of words gets us nowhere.  We don’t have words that show the difference between all the different motivations and mindsets of liberals and conservatives.  The labels fit poorly.

Some people are liberal because they hope to establish a kind of utopian kingdom of god without the king--if they could just get enough money and power.  And some people are conservative because they have seen these utopias in the USSR, North Korea, Red China, Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Fascism, North Vietnam, Cuba, and other totalitarian, socialist states.