Liberal Theology as a Slippery Slope: What’s in the Metaphor?

A metaphor sometimes used by the critics of liberal theology portrays it as being on a slippery slope, sliding from Christianity to unbelief, or even worse: liberal theology is sometimes portrayed as itself being a slippery slope between Christianity and agnosticism or atheism or even “anarchy”. More broadly speaking, the very idea behind this metaphor that liberal theology leads (usually unintentionally) from belief to unbelief can be seen as a slippery slope argument. In this chapter, I examine a few different anti-liberal slippery slope arguments in order to reflect on what a liberal response to these arguments might be. I do this by focusing more on the conceptions of religious belief than the contents of religious beliefs.