Podcast appearances and mentions of albrecht ritschl

In the fourth episode of BerlinsideOut season two, Ben and Aaron sit down with Albrecht Ritschl, a renowned German economic historian, to trace the historical origins of Germany's economic model – and how its current emphasis on geoeconomics and free riding on security has influenced German foreign policy towards Russia, Ukraine, and wider Europe.

This part of our Christology series overviews the ideas of Protestant Liberalism with Friedrich Schleiermacher and Albrecht Ritschl.

This is the 100th anniversary of the publication of J. Gresham Machen's book, Christianity and Liberalism. Danny Olinger and Camden Bucey speak with Alan Strange about the fourth chapter of Machen's classic, which addresses the Bible. In this chapter, Machen addresses those who would seek to maintain that what we hold in our hearts about Christ can remain true no matter what the facts of history actually show. These people subjectivize Christianity—making it a function of personal experience. Machen, however, emphasizes the importance of the historical fact of Christ's life, death, and resurrection and the Bible's inspired, inerrant, and infallible testimony to this work. In the course of conversation, the panelists discuss several liberal theologians and the events in American Presbyterianism that led up to 1923, when Christianity and Liberalism was published. These include Friedrich Schleiermacher, Albrecht Ritschl, Wilhelm Herrmann, and the case of Charles Augustus Briggs. Dr. Alan Strange is Professor of Church History and Theological Librarian at Mid-America Reformed Seminary in Dyer, Indiana and an associate pastor at First Church (OPC) in South Holland, Illinois. Links Alan Strange, The Doctrine of the Spirituality of the Church in the Ecclesiology of Charles Hodge Camden Bucey, Karl Rahner (Great Thinkers) Danny Olinger, Geerhardus Vos: Reformed Biblical Theology, Confessional Presbyterian Mid-America Reformed Seminary's Round Table podcast The OPC Ruling Elder Podcast New Horizons

Wie auch beim Marschallplan sei es für den Wiederaufbau der Ukraine wichtig, Hilfe zur Selbsthilfe zu leisten, sagt Wirtschaftshistoriker Albrecht Ritschl. Sonst mache man das Land abhängig und lege die Wurzeln für eine spätere Schuldenkrise. Von WDR 5.

This is our special podcast series on the Ukraine crisis. In our new CONVOCO! Podcast Corinne M. Flick speaks with Albrecht Ritschl, Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics.  "We are at the Threshold of Economic War"

von Jürgen Vagt 11.11.21 Für Sie sind es ein paar Euro, für mich ist es eine wichtige Unterstützung und ein unabhängiger Podcast für die Zukunft erhalten. paypal.me/JuergenVagt Heute begrüßte ich Prof. Dr. Albrecht Ritschl von der London School of Economics bei den Zukunftsmachern. Der Wirtschaftshistoriker lebt und arbeitet schon seit 2017 in London an der London School of Economics. Was sagt ein Wirtschaftshistoriker zum Brexit? Wie die Mehrheit der Ökonomen, findet Prof. Dr. Albrecht Ritschl die Entscheidung, einen Wirtschaftsverband und eine Zollunion zu verlassen, ziemlich dumm. Die aktuellen Wirtschaftszahlen bestätigen auch die Prognosen von Prof. Dr. Albrecht Ritschl, der negative Brexiteffekt ist größer als der negative Effekt der Corona-Pandemie. Die zweite Frage war dann raumgreifender, wieso hat eine 200 Jahre alte Demokratie eine Ja oder Nein Entscheidung über die Mitgliedschaft der Europäischen Union getroffen. Es liegt am Parteiensystem und in den beiden großen Parteien haben die jeweiligen Extremisten einen erheblichen Einfluss und die älteren Bevölkerungsschichten wollen in beiden politischen Lagern wollen nicht wieder zurück in die Europäischen Union. Prof. Dr. Albrecht Ritschl macht wenig Hoffnung auf einen Wiedereintritt der Briten in die Europäischen Union.

Ist die aktuelle Versorgungskrise in Grossbritannien eine Folge der Corona-Pandemie? Oder sind das die Auswirkungen des Brexit? Der Ökonom und Wirtschaftshistoriker Albrecht Ritschl, der selbst in London lebt, ordnet im «Tagesgespräch» die Situation ein. Schätzungsweise 100'000 Lastwagen-Fahrer fehlen derzeit in Grossbritannien. Und das hat Folgen: Leere Supermarktregale, lange Autoschlangen vor Tankstellen mit leeren Zapfsäulen. Nun soll das Militär bei der Benzinversorgung aushelfen. Was der Grund für die akuten Versorgungsengpässe ist, darüber wird heftig diskutiert. Sind es die Auswirkungen der Corona-Pandemie? Oder sind es die Folgen des EU-Austritts, der Ende 2020 erfolgt ist? Am Wochenende sagte der britische Premierminister Boris Johnson in einem BBC-Interview, die aktuelle Situation sei Teil der Übergangsphase zur neuen Post-Brexit-Wirtschaft. Was genau kommt da auf Grossbritannien noch zu? Wie soll diese Wirtschaft aussehen? Darüber haben wir mit dem Ökonom und Wirtschaftshistoriker Albrecht Ritschl gesprochen. Ritschl, ein gebürtiger Münchner, ist seit 2007 Professor für Wirtschaftsgeschichte an der London School of Economics und lebt in London. Er ist Mitglied im Wissenschaftlichen Beirat des deutschen Wirtschaftsministeriums. 

What is 'liberal theology'? Is it an umbrella term? Is it something that denotes something specific? It is certainly a "charged" term that elicits different responses amongst Christian theologians and scholars. Dr. Roger E. Olson joins Rev. Andrew on this podcast to discuss what he terms as 'real' liberal theology, or, the Liberal Theological Tradition, as it developed historically, along with its implications and problems. Dr. Olson is the author of many books theology and church history, some of which include the recent title The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction published by InterVarsity in 2013, God in Dispute: “Conversations” among Great Christian Thinkers from the Early Church into the 21st Century published by Baker Academic in 2009, and Finding God in the Shack published by InterVarsity Press in 2009. Dr. Olson has written and contributed articles for such publications as Christianity Today, Scottish Journal of Theology, Books & Culture, Christian Century, and Christian Scholar's Review. He also hosts a blog “My Evangelical Arminian Theological Musings” at the website Patheos where he regularly writes, and we highly encourage our listeners to check out his blog at: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/ Episode artwork is a photograph of Albrecht Ritschl who receives some attention in this episode. Taken from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_Ritschl --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Die Lufthansa fliegt aus dem DAX raus, die Deutsche Wohnen rückt dafür nach. Der Wirtschaftshistoriker Albrecht Ritschl erklärt, was diese Veränderung an der Börse über Deutschland und den gesellschaftlichen Wandel verrät. Albrecht Ritschl im Gespräch mit Julius Stucke www.deutschlandfunkkultur.de, Interview Hören bis: 19.01.2038 04:14 Direkter Link zur Audiodatei

Corinne M. Flick speaks with Albrecht Ritschl, Professor of Economic History at the London School of Economics and Member of the Board of Academic Advisors of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, about: What History Tells Us - and What It Doesn´t

GR - Interview w/ professor Albrecht Ritschl of the London School of Economics on the history of Germany's unpaid World War II debts and reparations towards Greece. Greek translation and voiceover by Konstantinos Papatheodosiou. Aired January 18-23, 2014.

EN - An interview with professor of economic history Albrecht Ritschl of the London School of Economics, on the history of Germany's unpaid World War II debts and reparations towards Greece and other countries. Translated to Greek. Aired Jan. 16-17, 2014.

This lecture covers the two main types of criticisms leveled against Christianity during the Enlightenment period: biblical and philosophical.  In addition you’ll see how some Christians dug their heals in and worked hard to defend their faith while others gave ground but reinterpreted Christianity in a way that would not only survive the criticisms but Read more about 129 Losing Faith (Five Hundred 13)[…]

This lecture covers the two main types of criticisms leveled against Christianity during the Enlightenment period: biblical and philosophical.  In addition you’ll see how some Christians dug their heals in and worked hard to defend their faith while others gave ground but reinterpreted Christianity in a way that would not only survive the criticisms but Read more about 129 Losing Faith (Five Hundred 13)[…]

Griechenland drängt auf einen Schuldenschnitt – für die EU und vor allem für Deutschland ist das inakzeptabel. Zur Wahrheit gehört aber auch: Deutschland ist heute nur so stark, weil ihm in jüngerer Zeit gleich zwei Mal massiv Schulden erlassen wurden. Auch Griechenland stimmte damals zu. Eine Einordnung der aktuellen Schlagzeilen und Debatten – von Albrecht Ritschl von der London School of Economics. >> Artikel zum Nachlesen: https://detektor.fm/wirtschaft/schuldenschnitt-in-griechenland-deutschland-bekam-das-schon-mehrfach

The title of this 138th episode is Liberal v EvangelicalIn our last episode, we considered the philosophical roots of Theological Liberalism. In this, we name names as we look at its early leaders and innovators.When I took a philosophy course in college, the professor dispensed on us sorry, unwashed noobs his understanding of faith and reason. After a lengthy description of both, he concluded by saying that faith and reason had absolutely nothing to do with each other. Reason dealt with the evidential, that which was perceived by the senses, and what logic concluded were rationally consistent conclusions drawn from that evidence. Faith, he declaimed, was a belief in spite of the evidence. When I asked if he was thus saying faith was irrational, he just smiled.That professor was an adherent of Immanuel Kant's philosophy. In Kant's work Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781, Kant argued reason is able to comprehend anything in the realm of space and time; what he called the phenomenal realm. But reason is useless in accessing the noumenal, or spiritual realm transcending time and space.Kant didn't argue against the existence of the spiritual realm. He simply said it's only something we can experience by feelings. We can't really THINK about it in the sense that it touches the rational mind.Traditional, orthodox Christians pushed back against the Kantian view of faith as feeling by reminding themselves Jesus said the greatest command was to love God with all they had, including their minds. But liberals found in Kant's philosophy a justification for unhitching reason from faith and for allowing modern people to live in a secular world while still enjoying the benefits of religious sentiments about ultimate meaning. In other words, it allowed them to get along content with the WHAT of life in the world, without having to bother much with the HOW, or concern themselves at all with WHY.A few years after the publication of Kant's Critique, the German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, going against the heart and soul of Christian apologetics dating back hundreds of years, said the heart of Christian Faith isn't a historical event, like the Resurrection. It was, he argued, a feeling of one's absolute dependence on a reality beyond one's self. That awareness, he claimed, could be developed to the point where a person would be able to imitate Jesus' own good deeds.He wrote, “The true nature of religion is immediate consciousness of Deity as found in ourselves and the world.” This earned Schleiermacher the title, Father of Theological Liberalism.Schleiermacher was born in a pious Moravian home, but as a young man, he imbibed the rationalism of the Enlightenment and became an ardent apologist for accommodating Christianity to popular society. As a professor of the newly founded University of Berlin, he insisted debates over proofs of God's existence, the authority of Scripture, and the possibility of miracles weren't the issues they ought to focus on. He said that the heart of religion had always been feeling, rather than rational proofs. God is not a theory used to explain the universe. Rather, God is to be experienced as a living reality. For Schleiermacher, religion isn't a creed to be pondered by the rational mind. It's based on intuition and a feeling of dependence.Orthodox Christians who identified religion with creedal doctrines, Schleiermacher maintained, would lose the battle for the Faith in the Modern world because those creeds were no longer rationally acceptable. Religion needed to find a new base. He located it in feelings.Sin, Schleiermacher said, was the result of people living by themselves, isolated from others. To overcome the sin that makes man independent from God and others, God sent a mediator in Jesus Christ. Christ's uniqueness wasn't in doctrines about his virgin birth or deity. No à What made Jesus a Mediator who can help us is the perfect example he was of one utterly dependent on God. By meditating on Christ's example, and feeling our own inner sense of dependence on the universe around us, we too can experience God as Jesus did.In Schleiermacher's theology, the center of religion shifts from Scripture to experience. So, the Biblical criticism we looked at in the last episode can't harm Christianity, since the real message of the Bible speaks to an individual's own subjective pursuit of the divine. The Bible doesn't need to be factual or true, as long as it affects the feeling of dependence that is the spark that leads to spiritual illumination.Albrecht Ritschl enlarged on Schleiermacher's ideas, taking them mainstream.For Ritschl, religion had to be practical. It began with the question, “What must I do to be saved?” But he eschewed the merely theoretical. So the question “What must I do to be saved?” can't just mean, “How do I get to heaven after I die?” Ritschl said salvation meant living a new life, free from sin, selfishness, fear, and guilt.Ritschl's practical Christianity had to be built on fact, so he welcomed the search for the historical Jesus we talked about in the last episode. The great fact of the Christian Faith is the impact Jesus made on history. Nature, he maintained, gives an ambiguous understanding of God while History presents us with moments and movements that convey meaning.History conveys meaning alright – but I'm not sure all that history's given us a less ambiguous understanding of God than Nature.Ritschl asserted religion rests on human values, not science. Science conveys facts, things as they are. Religion weighs those facts and attributes more or less value to them.Many Christians of the late 19th C considered Ritschl's work helpful. It freed them from the destructive impact of the increasingly secular pursuits of history and science. It allowed biblical criticism to use scientific methodology in determining things like authorship, date, and the meaning of Scripture. But it recognized religion is more than facts. Values aren't under the purview of science; that's religion's turf.Protestant Theological Liberalism accepted higher criticism's denial of Jesus' miracles, His Virgin Birth, and His preexistence. But that did not in any way diminish Jesus' importance. For Liberals, His deity didn't need to arise from His essence. It resides in what Jesus MEANS. He's the consummate human being who shows us the path to enlightenment and nobility. He's the embodiment of supremely high ethical ideals whose example inspires us to emulate His example. For Liberal Christians, The Church didn't come out of some actual, factual events around Jerusalem 2000 years ago, it arose from Jesus' awe-inspiring example. The Church isn't a community of people who believe in a literally resurrected Savior so much as a value-creating community that gives meaning and mission to life. That mission is to create a society inspired by love, the Kingdom of God on earth.The impact of this Theological Liberalism wasn't felt in just one denomination or region. It challenged traditional groups all over Europe and North America.  It appeared in the churches of New England with the moniker: New Theology. Its leading advocates came out of traditional Calvinism. Its greatest early popularizer was Lyman Abbott. Then came Henry Ward Beecher, William Tucker, and Lewis Stearns.Prior to 1880, most New England ministers and churches held to basic orthodox doctrines . . . The sovereignty of God; the depravity of humanity in original sin; the atonement of Christ; the necessity of the Holy Spirit in conversion; and the eternal separation of the saved and lost in heaven and hell.But after 1880, each of those beliefs came under withering fire from Liberals. The most publicized controversy took place at Andover Seminary. The seminary was established by Congregationalists 80 years before to counter Unitarian tendencies at Harvard. Attempting to preserve Andover's orthodoxy, the founders required the faculty to subscribe to a creed summarizing their adherence to classic Calvinism. But by 1880, under the influence of liberalism, several of the faculty could no longer make the pledge. The spark that lit the flames of controversy was a series of articles in the Andover Review by liberal professors who argued the unsaved who die without any knowledge of the Gospel will have an opportunity at some future point to either accept or to reject the Gospel before facing judgment.Andover's board filed an action against one of the authors of the articles as a test case. After years of moves and counter-moves, in 1892 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts voided the action of the Board. By then, most denominations had their own tussles with liberalism seeking to infiltrate their colleges and schools.The response to Protestant theological liberalism was a movement which many of our listeners have heard of – Evangelicalism.Evangelicalism began in England in the 19th C, an epoch that in some ways singularly belonged to Great Britain. It was the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. London became the largest city and financial center of the World. British trade circled the globe; her navy ruled the seas. By 1914, Britannia ruled the most expansive empire in history.But the rapid commercial and industrial growth wasn't equally distributed across England's population. The pace of change left many stunned. Every traditionally sacred institution cracked at its foundation. Some feared the horrors of the French Revolution were about to be repeated on England's hallowed shores while others sang the praises of Lady Progress and dreamed of even greater advances. They regarded England as the vanguard of a new day of prosperity and liberty for all. Fear and hope mingled.As the Age of Progress dawned in England, Protestants attended either the Anglican Church or one of the Nonconforming denominations of Methodist, Baptists, Congregationalist, and a handful of smaller groups. But now, for maybe the first time, Christians from different denominations also formed specialized groups with a specific aim; like distributing Bibles, redressing poverty in urban slums, teaching literacy, and supporting missionaries in the far-flung reaches of the Empire.While liberalism grew in seminaries and colleges among professors and theologians, many ministers working in churches as local pastors and the people in the pews grew increasingly uncomfortable with the emerging doubt in the intellectual centers of their denominations. They may not be as sophisticated or learned in the academic pursuits of the experts, but by golly, they didn't think a PhD was necessary to believe in or follow God. And if holding a Ph.D. meant having to deny cardinal doctrines of the Faith, then no thank YOU, very much.Evangelicals pushed back on Liberals, saying Christians ought not just to accept what Science says, just because it says it. History proves today's so-called “science” is tomorrow's mockery. The Christian faith isn't just about how it makes you feel and the meaning it brings you. It's a Faith that rests on the actual, literal events of history. To deny those facts and events is to depart from traditional, orthodox Christianity.The Evangelical Movement began with the work of John Wesley and George Whitefield. Its main characteristics were its emphasis on personal holiness, arising from a conversion experience. It was also devoted to a practical concern for serving a needy world. That holiness and service were nourished by devotion to the Bible which was regarded as inspired and inerrant. The Evangelical message went forth from a large minority of Anglican pulpits and a majority in other denominations.The headquarters of Evangelicalism was a small village three miles from London called Clapham. It was the residence of a group of wealthy Evangelicals who practiced remarkable personal piety. The group's spiritual leader was John Venn, a man of culture and sanctified common sense. They met for Bible study, conversation, and prayer in the library of the well-to-do banker, Henry Thornton.But the most famous member of the Clapham Groups was William Wilberforce, the parliamentary statesman. Wilberforce found a universe of talented help for Evangelical causes among his Clapham friends. These included John Shore, Governor-General of India; Charles Grant, Chairman of the East India Company; James Stephens, Under-Secretary for the Colonies; and Zachary Macauley, editor of the Christian Observer.At the age of just 25, Wilberforce was dramatically converted to Christ after reading Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.  He possessed all the qualities for outstanding leadership: ample wealth, a liberal education, and outstanding talent. Prime Minister William Pitt said Wilberforce had the greatest natural eloquence he'd ever known. Several testified of his amazing capacity for close friendship and his superior moral principles. For many reasons, Wilberforce seemed providentially prepared for the task and the time.He once said, “My walk is a public one: my business is in the world, and I must mix in the assemblies of men or quit the part which Providence has assigned me.”Under Wilberforce's leadership, the Clapham friends were knit solidly together. At the Clapham mansion, they held what they called “Cabinet Councils.” They discussed the wrongs and injustices of their country, and the battles they'd have to fight. Inside and outside Parliament, they moved as one, delegating to each member the work he could do best to accomplish their common purpose.They founded . . .The Church Missionary SocietyThe British and Foreign Bible SocietyThe Society for Bettering the Condition of the PoorThe Society for the Reformation of Prison Disciplineand many more. Their greatest effort though was the campaign to end slavery. Which is a tale I'll leave for others to follow up.While the Clapham group accomplished much, it was their role in abolishing slavery that provides a sterling example of how an entire society can be influenced by just a few.

In Season 1 we spent a little time tracking the Enlightenment's impact on the Christian Faith. Dual impetuses emerged; one leading to Liberalism, the other to Fundamentalism, which was the reaction of Orthodoxy to the challenges of Liberalism.In this episode, we'll drill down a bit more on Christian Liberalism.Those promoting theological liberalism hoped to bring Protestantism into the modern world of science, philosophy, and secular history. The pastor of the hugely influential Riverside Church in NYC & champion of Liberalism Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote in his autobiography that he aimed to make it possible for a person to be both an intelligent modern and a serious Christian.Theological Liberals grappled with a dilemma as old as the Faith. How were they to make religious faith meaningful to the world without compromising The Gospel? That seemed especially difficult for modern liberals since so much of the philosophy of the modern world had itself risen as a reaction against religion in general and Christianity in particular. In making Christianity palatable to the growing number of people who were being more influenced by a secular than a religious worldview, Liberals gutted The Faith of many of those elements that seemed as impediments to a rational mind. The result was a Liberalism that begs the question –Why bother with faith at all if what you have is so watered down, so void of content there's no point in maintain the façade? Richard Niebuhr explained theological liberalism as believing in “a God without wrath, Who brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a Cross.”Liberals concluded theology had to be reconciled to science & rationalism if it hoped to hold a place in the modern world. They refused to take as fact doctrine that rested on authority alone; whether that authority was tradition ensconced in ecclesiastical hierarchy, or Scripture. They insisted that faith had to align with the tests of reason. Doctrine must conform to scientific norms. A subtle edit was made to the way people did theology. Classically it had been that God was understood as infinite while man was finite, limited. So God would always be bigger than man's intellect. While God made man in His image so he could have a meaningful relationship with Him, there would always be aspects of God's being that transcended man's finite mind. God could be apprehended, but not comprehended. Liberals tweaked that and said that the human mind was able to “think God's thoughts after him.” Therefore, God was to be understood through reason & deduction. God could not transcend the realm of human experience.It was this point that gave theological liberals their access point into making an appeal to modern people. They knew that the cold, mechanistic, purely rational world of the atheist left out a key experience of all human beings; the realm of “feeling.” By “feeling” we're not just talking about emotions, though that is a part of it. Deep down inside, human beings have the sense that their lives have purpose, meaning; that there's some great reason for their existence. Momentary flashes of revelation that result in profound wonder, the experience of love, awe – all these conspire to impress people with an unshakeable awareness that they're MORE than corporeal collections of chemicals animated by random electrical impulses that accrue the label “alive.”Interesting that throughout history people may have not know WHY they existed, but they certainly had a sense there was a reason and spent a good portion of their lives seeking to discover it.Liberals glommed on to this very real if otherwise irrational faculty of feeling within people as the point of contact with modernity, saying they could help scratch that itch – because it was the religious urge they had answers for. Christianity wasn't irrelevant as secularists gleefully proclaimed. Liberals confidently claimed their edited form of Christianity could nurture and provide solace for modern man's emotive self. It would babysit his soul while the rest of him got on with the harsh demands of Modernity and Progress.Liberals conflated the spiritual realm with human consciousness, especially that capacity to “feel;” the intuitive self that endlessly seeks connection with others. They called it the “God-consciousness.” Some just called it “God.” Indeed, the God of the Bible Who exists beyond the realm of time and space was exchanged for a deity within creation Who'd long been at work through natural law to produce the universe as we have it. One liberal poet wrote, “Some call it evolution, and others call it God.”The new darling of modern science, Evolutionary theory quickly became Fact for Rationalists. Liberals were duty bound to accommodate the new ideas. They attempted a reconciliation of their beliefs with evolution. They claimed Darwinian Evolution supplemented Christianity. They regarded  Scripture, the church, faith and even the human soul as all being products of evolutionary progress.But it was in modernity's impact on the study of history that Christianity faced its biggest challenge. Science questioned God's role in Creation. The new approach to history challenged Christianity's authoritative base: The Bible.And this is where we turn to speak of “Biblical criticism.” As used here, criticism doesn't mean to rip scripture to shreds. The Bible critic is an academic or scholar who approaches the text from a rationalist perspective. They find a scientific basis for their conclusions rather than accepting religious dogma.Biblical criticism had 2 flavors. There was what's known as lower & higher criticism. Lower criticism handled issues of problems of the written text. It dealt with things like manuscripts; their ages, transmission, quality, and other physical realities attached to so many ancient documents. It produced little to concern orthodox believers.That can't be said of higher criticism which attacked the traditional & accepted meaning of the text. Driven by the need to reconcile Scripture with the accepted standards of rationalism, miracles and the supernatural were dismissed; assumed to be flights of fancy of a pre-scientific world evolution had blessed delivered the humanity from. Higher critics went to work investigating when Scripture was written, who wrote it, to whom and why. The problem is, they brought to their study almost a knee-jerk determination to disregard anything traditionally believed about it. Their conclusions shook orthodoxy to its core.The Torah, the first 5 books of the Bible which tradition said were penned by Moses, were given a new treatment by higher criticism which developed the Documentary Hypothesis, claiming it was written by 4 different authors. Passage that were thought to be prophetic were made out to have been penned after the fact but only made to look like they were written before the events they foretold. Higher critics said the Gospel of John, wasn't – written by John that is.They made it their aim to liberate the real, “historical Jesus” from the One traditional Christianity, and even The Gospels of M,M,L&J had made Him. Discontent with the Jesus of Scripture they wrote their own accounts of what he was REALLY like, nevermind that they were penned nearly 2000 yrs later. Apparently it's better to trust the scholarship of a liberal scholar informed by rationalism than one of the guys who lived with Jesus.The upshot of Biblical criticism was the bruising blow it leveled to the confidence of the average person in the reliability of the Bible as a valid witness to the Christian Faith. But Liberals saw in it a radically different approach that opened the door to the new class of “intelligent moderns” as Fosdick called them, who wanted to scratch that indelible religious itch. Liberals no longer had to apologize for difficult passages skeptics had questioned. They simply said those passages were merely the inclusions of fallible people whose societies hadn't evolved yet.So, in this new version of Christianity, if authority no longer lay in Scripture, where did it lie? Where was its new home? Liberals suggested it lay in “Experience.”The early 19th C saw the rise of a reaction to the cold, sterile mindset raw rationalism tended to produce. It was called Romanticism & flowed most demonstrably in the realm of philosophy & the arts. It looked at life thru feelings. Romanticism railed against the idea humanity was some cog in some vast universal machine. It stressed the individual's pursuit of meaning, relevance, and purpose, not through propositional truths that produced doctrines, but through feeling alive in such a way that it sparked a sense of wonder that fueled the awe that leads to worship.While the rationalist sees lightning and proceeds to explain how & why it strikes, the romanticist says, “Yes! Do it again God.”Romanticism swept those branches of Christianity that had been shaken by Rationalism. Romantic Christianity forfeited the intellectual realm to modernity and retreated into a kind of religious sentimentalism centered on feeling. God no longer lived in people's heads, only in their hearts. Some went so far as to assign their intellect to Rationalism while maintaining an emotional attachment to religion. Faith & Reason were divorced. As one said, “Faith is believing what you know ain't so.”The two most influential proponents for Christian Romanticism were a couple of German theologians; Albrecht Ritschl and Friedrich Schleiermacher.Schleiermacher said attempts to provide a rational basis for Christianity were useless because they missed the point. Religion wasn't about proof, it was about feeling. God isn't a needed to explain origins; He's needed to provide a reason for existence. Who cares HOW we got here; all that matters is WHY we're here now – and that why doesn't need to be connected  the the how, or what, or when or where of intellectual investigations. For Schleiermacher, religion was intuition & feeling; the awareness that there must be a reason back of it all. And being a genuine human being meant being intentional about finding that reason.Schleiermacher was critical of orthodox Christianity that located what it believed in creedal statements embodying propositional truth. He said modern Christianity must eject its creeds. If it failed to do so, it would lose the battle for the hearts of modern men and women. He cast sin as a sense of alienation & isolation from others, supremely from God. That alienation came from being selfish and was remedied by being kind, compassionate, by linking one's inner sense of purpose with other's sense of purpose.Jesus, Schleiermacher said, wasn't to be understood as God incarnate, but as someone who achieved the perfect realization of His union with all others, and especially to God. In other words, no one felt more alive & connected than Jesus. He was “our great pioneer” in the realm of the spirit and morality who paved the way for us to achieve the same kind of connectedness.Schleiermacher's ideas set the stage of Liberalism two great theological innovations: The Universal Fatherhood of God and the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity. The Faith's center shifted from the Scripture to individual experience. Schleiermacher was such the titan of liberalism he is known as “the father of modern theology.”Albrecht Ritschl elaborated on Schleiermacher's ideas by asking a practical question, “What must I do to be saved?” But for Liberalism, salvation isn't a matter where going to heaven after death. Salvation is liberation from sin, and sin for liberals is alienation and isolation, a loss of the feeling of connectedness with others. So to be saved means a life free from selfishness. And no one did that better than Jesus. So Ritschl accepted the demythologized historical Jesus produced by higher criticism and used him as the template for what a genuine, authentic human being looks like; what a life worth living is like. Christians ought to follow Jesus, Ritschl said, not because He'd lead them to heaven, but because he'd lead them to their true selves.In the late 19th C, many Christians found these ideas helpful because they seemed to take it away from the very fronts Rationalist critics were attacking. What did it matter if skeptics said the virgin birth was a myth? Christianity wasn't dependent on that. In fact, nothing the rationalist said harmed anything the Faith said was important because Rationalism had nothing to do with wonder, awe, feeling.Liberalism didn't intrude into a single or even small number of denominations. It challenged traditional orthodoxy across Europe and North America. When it first emerged, it was battled hard by conservative leaders and theologians. But it eventually won out in many seminaries and colleges and eventually in many main line denominations where it's ministers were fed a heavy does of it in their schooling.In conclusion, traditional orthodox theology regards liberalism as heretical because it denies the essentials of the Christian faith. Those essentials are well knowns to the subscribers of Cs who remember how earnestly the early church labored over exactly how to express what it believed about who and what Jesu was and made it clear he was nothing less than God incarnate; two unmixed natures in one integrated person. Jesus is indeed our example, but He's not JUST that. He's also the Savior Whose death atones for sin and Whose resurrection bestows the power of a new life.Yes, feeling is important in the Christian faith, but it's feeling founded firmly on FACT. Believers don't check their brains at the door. They use them to love the unseen God by serving those they do see.