@johnZ
At no point have I argued that everything said or done by people called “conservatives” has been right or good. Indeed, I called for a new conservatism, which leaves open the option of preserving all that was good in traditional Christianity, while not hanging on to various partisan excesses and various injustices and even theological errors which were sometimes intermingled with the truth.
As for being a Biblical Christian, just about every Protestant in the USA (except maybe some of the Episcopalians and the UCC people) would describe his or her Christianity as truly “Biblical.” So making “Biblical” the non-negotiable reference point gets one no nearer to clarity than making “conservative” the reference point. Indeed, in some respects, “conservative” positions, e.g., adherence to the Creeds, provide more clarity than Biblicism. A thousand Protestant sects in the USA are very “Biblical” in their belief in the book of Revelation, but their interpretations of Revelation wildly differ. On the other hand, the Orthodox, Catholics, Reformed, Lutherans, Anglicans, Presbyterians, etc. all agree on the Creeds. Over time and space, there is a broader base of agreement among Christians that the Creeds (especially the Apostles’ Creed) are reliable than that any particular interpretation of Revelation is reliable. And there is a broader base of agreement on the Trinity than there is on the interpretation of Genesis. If you are looking for a rock which can settle all disputes and bind all Christians together in one doctrine and practice, you will not find it in the Bible any more than you will find it in “conservative” positions that have been held over centuries by the majority of practicing Christians.
But I"m not pitting conservativism against Biblicism. I see conservatism as, at least in principle, the ally of Biblicism, since conservatism at its best represents the mind of the entire church, not just of some narrow sliver (sect or denomination) of it. It represents the ongoing consensus of Christians in action, living out the Christian life and thinking out the Christian teaching. It is therefore to be placed in dialogue with the Bible, not in opposition to it. We need the Bible, but it is a static record; and without a tradition to help interpret that static record, any sect, or any individual nut case, can read anything into the Bible and take anything out of it.
Admittedly, traditions can sometimes become too narrow and rigid, and this must be guarded against. But individual Biblical interpretation, sectarian interpretation, and even denominational interpretation, can be erratic, selective, unbalanced, and heretical. It can also become narrow and rigid. I would not call the Biblical interpretation of the JWs even-handed, balanced, etc. Even Luther and Calvin, who said “Scripture alone” has final authority, did not in practice deny the importance of harmonizing Scripture and the core of the earlier tradition. They had immense respect for Augustine, and disagreed with him only rarely, and with hesitation. They also had immense respect for the deposit of tradition generally. They denied that the Pope could make up new doctrines out of whole cloth, of course, and they felt that many of the teachings current in their day were falsehoods to be rejected; but they were not crude Bible-toting anti-traditionalists.
It is true that “tolerance” is greater today, but tolerance is a social rather than a religious virtue. Should Christians “tolerate” idolatry? Should Christians “tolerate” sin? Should Jews “tolerate” the view that their religion is largely false, having been superseded by Christianity? Should Muslims in Saudi Arabia “tolerate” the consumption of alcohol by Christians there? Historically, “toleration” and liberalism have gone hand-in-hand. Religious belief has become more liberal in the very periods when toleration was most practiced. The intention of “toleration” may be originally only political or social – to allow people of different beliefs to get along – and it is hard to oppose “toleration” in that sense in the modern world, given that pluralism is an established fact. But in the age before pluralism was a reality, and most lands were religiously homogeneous or nearly so, “toleration” was likely to appear to the true religious believer as a shocking indifference to religious truth. That is why the Church of Rome was not “tolerant” of Luther, and why Luther and Calvin were not “tolerant” of Anabaptists, and why Luther was not “tolerant” of Jews, etc.
I’m not sure that even you are advocating that the Church should have been more “tolerant” of Pelagianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Manichaeism, Marcionism, Gnosticism. Are you saying that if you had been the dictator of the earth in the era of these heresies, you would have forced the orthodox Church to leave these heresies alone, and would have allowed them full access to the public square to attempt to lure people away from the Nicene Creed, and from orthodox faith generally? And that if you were the Holy Roman Emperor in the Middle Ages, you would have guaranteed the religious rights of the Cathars of southern France and refused to launch any crusade against them?
But I have to commend you for keeping up the self-confidence. But there is a huge difference between academic debate and media savvy.
Quite the opposite. The first “you” does.