Conservative and Liberal Distinctives

by    T. C. Pinckney                                                                                                                                     Vol. IV, No. 7, October 1991

This article suggests a characteristic which tends to differentiate conservatives and liberals. I do not claim that this is the only factor explaining such differences, but I do believe it is inherent in human nature regardless whether the individual is acting within a denominational or secular arena.

My hypothesis is: Conservatives and liberals tend to prefer different ways to get things done. Perhaps an example from my military experience will clarify the thought.

The instrumental preference: During thirty years in the Air Force as a fighter pilot, instructor in political science at the Air Force Academy, and varied assignments in Washington, this phenomenon was obvious. The "conservative" typically wants to be active personally doing whatever it is that needs to be done. In the Air Force first choice for the conservative is to be a fighter pilot, second choice is to be a bomber pilot. If he can be neither, he prefers not to be in the Air Force. Likewise, in the Army conservatives choose infantry first, armor second, artillery third, and preferably not anything else.

Individuals must, of course, always take into account factors other than personal preference, factors such as insuring an income for himself and his family. Another is what education and training the man has; is he equipped for other lines of work. How easy is it to find that other work? The reader can readily think of additional influential factors, often beyond the control of the individual. For example, when I entered the Air Force, new pilot graduates taller and/or heavier than a certain limit were usually assigned to multiengine aircraft (bombers or transports) regardless of their desires because fighter cockpits were cramped even for us smaller guys and almost impossible for large men. (I would maintain that the best things really do come in small packages, but that is another article.)

It is crucial to remember that these preferences are tendencies, not imperatives. There will be many individual exceptions, but the preference holds true in the mass. Some Air Force conservatives do not want to be fighter pilots; some prefer staff positions. Nevertheless, the overall tendency is there. It is not uncommon for officers to retire rather than accept an assignment to the Pentagon. Moreover, most conservatives in staff jobs continue to view themselves as fighter pilots in temporary assignment elsewhere, which suggests that the self-concept may be as important as the outward circumstance.

Once more, let me draw from my Air Force experience. In late 1968 I was flying F-4's with the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing at Da Nang Air Base in northern South Vietnam. I had been there about six months when a friend assigned to the MACV staff in Saigon visited the base. We met by accident, and in the course of our conversation he said that there was a good job available at MACV for an Air Force lieutenant colonel (my rank at the time) and that, if I wished, he would recommend me to the general. My immediate reaction was decidedly negative, if not utter horror. In fact, if my recollection is correct I threatened to shoot him if he did so. (Hyperbole is not exactly unknown among fighter pilots.)

Now note the different approaches to what is desirable. To my friend being at Da Nang flying combat, ordered not to leave the base because of the possibility of assassination, undergoing two or three rocket attacks per month was to be avoided if possible. He intended to do me a favor by getting me a job in Saigon. He was the liberal. To me flying combat was what being an Air Force pilot is all about. Why be in a war at all if you can't fly combat? I was the conservative.

There are parallels in denominational life. The conservative prefers to pastor a local church saving souls, equipping the saints, caring for the sick, working personally and directly for the glory of God. The liberal, however, sees a broader field for the investment of his life. To him success lies less in individual than in joint effort. His ideal is to be at or near the top of a pyramidal, hierarchical organization where one or a few intelligent, highly educated men can collect all the pertinent information, consider all the pros and cons of every alternative, select the one best solution, and tell everyone below them what to do and how to do it. Thus in the SBC, liberals have a tendency to migrate to the staffs of our agencies, our state conventions, and our local associations. The larger the staff, the wider your potential impact, and hence the more attractive the job.

If the liberal cannot attain, his first choice, he has two attractive alternatives. Though he may not be the decision-maker, he can teach those who will become decision-makers. So liberals are naturally drawn to our seminaries in faculty and administrative positions. Finally, a third route attractive to liberals is the media, within the SBC primarily Baptist Press and our state papers, because the media also greatly impact people's minds.

In summing up the instrumental discussion we should note that liberals emphasize collective human effort and specific centralized direction, whereas conservatives stress competitive, decentralized personal effort. Liberals rely upon education, upon finely tuned and trained minds, upon developing effective programs to achieve success. (A perversion of the liberal ethic is intellectual elitism.) Conservatives are suspicious of centrally developed programs, deride the hubris that assumes anyone or any group can find the one best answer for all situations (or even that one best answer exists), point to the dynamic nature of both problems and solutions, and emphasize the tremendous creative power that flows from involving hands-on workers in decision-making, as opposed to solutions being decreed from remote staffs. (A perversion of the conservative ethic is anti-intellectualism.) Whereas liberals emphasize unified central planning, conservatives stress the benefits of decentralized competition. In the political realm the conservative excess is individualism run rampant, anarchy; the liberal excess is planning run rampant: the dictatorial, autocratic state. Liberals face the temptation of extreme rationalism, denying both the unique potential and limitations of individuals in favor of organizational uniformity. They lean toward centralization, hierarchy, logic. They speak much of diversity but in actuality mercilessly repress those they cannot co-opt or control. Conservatives may speak as if, or at least sometimes give the impression that, they demand absolute uniformity but in actuality only require minimal accord (the fundamentals of the faith) and outside those few parameters allow complete leeway.

This brings us to jurisdictional preference. Whereas SBC liberals assert their adherence to the Bible, they reserve the right to interpret it in accord with cultural change and their own experience. Conservatives adhere to the complete authority of God's inerrant Word without regard to cultural change, maintaining that God was clever enough to say what would apply throughout time and, moreover, that man's flawed nature is a constant throughout the centuries. Conservatives look at history and see continuity only slightly obscured by morally neutral technological change. Liberals look at history and believe they see "humankind" evolving onward and upward toward our full potential as evidenced by technological change.

There is an inescapable tension between the liberal and the supernatural. If the liberal does not capitulate fully to the Holy Spirit, he will, probably by degrees and over a period of perhaps many years, rationalize away and reject the supernatural even while asserting that he is merely stripping away earlier cultural accretion ("saga and legend" as one well-known Southern Baptist has characterized it) in order to interpret the Bible's deeper truth for our time and circumstance. The predictable result of removing any part (i.e., Adam & Eve as real people) of a carefully integrated whole is to destroy the entire structure (without original sin there is no need for the Second Adam). Once the force of their logic impels the liberal mind to the perhaps subconscious realization that his only authority is his own inadequacy, that in his construct all material achievements turn to ashes, that this life is all he will admit, we witness the unedifying spectacle of Ph.D.s reverting to mysticism (i.e., the current revival of satanism, eastern religions, new ageism, et cetera) in a desperate effort to retain control yet still reach out to the infinite. This extremity may occur in a blinding loss of faith but more characteristically takes two or three generations. In any event, at this final stage the individual would no longer claim to be a Southern Baptist.

Liberals must deal with their tendency to idolize man and his abilities, which tempts them to consider man so important that God would never condemn anyone to eternal damnation, to fix on God's love but reject His judgment, to focus on improving mankind's material circumstances but neglect their souls, and to so reinterpret God's written Word as to impose their personal preferences upon it even while asserting their devotion to it.

Conservatives must deal with our tendency to elevate rules above agape, to fix on God's judgment and slight His love, to focus so on learning about the Bible that we neglect to live it, to save men's souls and neglect their bodies, and consequently to place our preferences above His written Word even while asserting our devotion to it. Thus the mind is so deceptive that it is quite possible for conservatives and liberals to arrive at the same incorrect destination (imposition of my will on God's Word) by entirely separate routes.

How have these two currents played out within the SBC? For decades we conservatives largely ignored what was happening in our agencies, seminaries, media, and state conventions. We centered so much attention on our local churches that we abdicated our responsibility to guard the theological integrity of our convention agencies. It is difficult to see why we should now blame liberals for following their natural bent and moving into the vacuum we left. Note that this is not to say the conservative resurgence should cease. Clearly it is critically important for the future strength of American evangelicalism and the renewal of the SBC. But insofar as blame is to be apportioned, we merit a major share.

Note that if the above analysis is accurate, there is no need to posit a secret scheme by liberals to steal the Convention, at least in the early years. The conservative tendency to avoid staff, seminary, and media positions combined with the liberal tendency to seek them provides adequate explanation. Once the process was well developed, there is ample evidence of intentional exclusion and derogation of conservatives (in the 60s and 70s) and of the intentional placing of liberals into key positions, but the Convention was then already well down the road to confrontation and controversy.

Looking to the future, the above analysis bears a warning. Human nature does not change. The mass of conservatives over the next fifty years will still prefer to avoid bureaucratic, academic, and media positions; the mass of liberals will still be drawn to them. If we forget the past, we will condemn our Convention to repeat it.