Liberalism: Defined By Its Starting Point

Where and why you begin is important to any endeavor, yet it is the destination that holds the ultimate seat. Unfortunately, Liberalism, as an ideology, focuses entirely on the starting point and usually has no end in sight. T.S. Eliot can put it better than I can:

For [Liberalism] is something which tends to release energy rather than accumulate it, to relax, rather than to fortify. It is a movement not so much defined by its end, as by its starting point; away from, rather than towards, something definite. (pg. 12)

Liberty and equality are virtuous cornerstones for Liberalism to contend for. However, when those stones have been laid, Liberalism doesn’t have much of a plan for the rest of the building. Liberalism lacks a Telos; or at least one strong enough to support liberty and equality.

Liberty and equality for the sake of liberty and equality cannot sustain itself. Liberty and equality must be for something, it must be toward something. In the same way that a determined finish line determines a runner’s course, so too must a telos determine the shape any particular worldview takes.

It is somewhere along these lines where Colossians 1:15-19 comes in handy for the Christian concerned with Liberty and Equality.

Food for thought.

Michael