Liberalism and Self-Righteousness

Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom From Religion organization stated that the proof against original sin is that over half of all the people on earth are women and women do not sin. She said this during a debate with David Barton on the PAX TV program, Faith Under Fire, July 2, 2005. Of course, she was provoked by David's statement that the Founding Fathers of America were Christians and that they took precautions to limit the power of government knowing that all human beings are sinful by nature and cannot be trusted with too much power. David's assertion, of course, is easily verifiable in source documents that are readily available. This assertion that human beings are sinful goes against the very most basic tenet of Liberalism and is the very reason that the religious leaders crucified Jesus. Had Jesus pointed to them (the religious leaders of His earthly lifetime) as being righteous in their own right, they would have left Him alone, but instead He told them that their works were worthless to God and that they had need to repent. In the same way, David Barton's statement of the Founding Father's belief in human sinfulness brought an emotional response in Annie Laurie Gaylor that was so strong that she lost her composure to the point that she exposed her primary belief--the human goodness presupposition. Of course, she had an interesting twist. She apparently knows, probably through sad experience, that men are sinful, but she also is quite convinced that women are perfect.

... the view common to totalitarian movements, that human nature is infinitely malleable so that a new, better, and perhaps perfect nature can be produced by the rearrangement of social institutions. Since actual humans resist attempts to remake their natures, coercion and, ultimately, violence will be required. The initial rhetoric of the movement [the sixties rebellion movement], however, before disillusion set in, was one of peaceful aspiration.

Slouching Toward Gomorrah, Robert H. Bork

The talk of brotherhood, of man's unfulfilled capacities for reason, freedom, and love, and of radical equality was, and proved to be, dangerously unrealistic. Without reference to a supernatural Being, SDS was proposing, largely through politics, to bring their secular vision of the kingdom of God to fruition on earth, now. It is an ideal that the most devout and active Christians have never remotely approximated for any community larger than a monastery, and probably not in any monastery.

SDS' search for a shortcut to heaven was in the spirit of millenarianism, a phenomenon well-known in history of Christianity.

Slouching Toward Gomorrah, Robert H. Bork

Liberalism is centered on a belief that human effort can bring about perfection and a utopian society. The Bible tells us that human efforts to be perfect will always end in frustration. The Bible tells us that the Holy Spirit of God gives us the power both to will and to do His good pleasure. There is no need to change God's laws so that we can appear to be perfect because we have just re-defined perfection to be exactly what we are and what we want to be doing at the moment. There is no need to try to hide all of our faults, but rather to confess them. There is only a need to cast all of our cares upon Him, for He cares for us.

Bob S.

Liberal Christians sometimes get the idea that one of the functions of the Church is to use the government to coerce unbelievers into to paying to help the poor or less fortunate. Christians never had a responsibility to use the government to coerce unbelievers into helping anyone. The Church is not to coerce unbelievers into righteousness. Christians are to yield to the Holy Spirit to the point that righteousness springs forth from the Christians. Then, Christians will reach into their own pocket and help the less fortunate. It won't be through a government program. It won't even be through the self-effort of the Christian. It will be through the power to God in the believer both directing and doing the actual work through the believer. The idea that Christians should push for government social engineering programs is anti-Bible.

Bob S.