The Fatal Flaw

Liberalism in religion grew strong in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then collapsed. Why, when so many people hunger for religious expression unhampered by traditionalism?

Duncan Howlett argues that a fatal flaw at the heart of the movement undercut its progress. The Liberals were unwilling or unable to hold to their own central principle: the need to maintain a free and open mind, heart, and spirit in religion. In the end Liberalism always fell back on its understanding of the basic traditions and dogmas of the organized religions. Alert minds drawn to Liberalism by the prospect of complete freedom of thought in religion felt betrayed, and many abandoned the movement.

Howlett summons us to a new and self-consistent Liberalism, one that tests to the uttermost the validity of every belief we hold. True Liberalism means a continuing quest for ever broader and deeper concepts of truth. It means allowing no exceptions to the standards of inquiry that religious Liberals inherited from the Enlightenment and from science.

Is there then no end to the search for truth when the mind, heart, and spirit are completely free? Does a thorough-going Liberalism give us nothing to believe in or to live by? Howlett's answer is clear and emphatic. The latter half of the book spells out the positive beliefs of a self-consistent Liberalism and the demands those beliefs place upon us.

Liberalism in religion grew strong in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, then collapsed. Why? Duncan Howlett argues that a fatal flaw at the heart of the movement undercut its progress. The Liberals were unwilling or unable to hold to their own central principle: the need to maintain a free and open mind, heart, and spirit in religion. In the end Liberalism always fell back on the basic traditions and dogmas of the organized religions. Alert minds drawn to Liberalism by the prospect of complete freedom of thought in religion felt betrayed, and many abandoned the movement. Howlett summons us to a new and self-consistent Liberalism, one that test to the uttermost the validity of every belief we hold. The latter half of the book spells out the positive beliefs of a self-consistent Liberalism and the demands those beliefs lay upon us.