What is the difference between liberal and conservative? I have heard these terms used for years and just wondered how you would describe them?
Answer
As in politics, so also in religion, the terms “liberal” and “conservative” mean different things to different people. They are extremely relativistic terms. That is, what they mean to you depends mostly on where you are on the political or religious spectrum. I have been called liberal because I went to a “Christian” college. I have been called conservative because I don’t clap my hands during songs in the assembly, or because I don’t support the use of musical instruments other than the human voice in the worship of the assembled church.
Generally, my definition of a conservative is anyone who wants to tell me I can’t do something I want to do. A liberal, therefore, is anybody who wants to do something I think they shouldn’t be doing.
Please see Reading the Label for my previous article on the dangers of using such labels on someone else.