This article has been updated in response to a helpful comment from Bojaws Dubois, below.

What does liberalism stand for today? Ask a liberal, and they’ll tell you they’re the ones who care. “Care for what?” you ask. Good question! You can judge a tree by its fruit, a very wise teacher once said, and there’s plenty of bad fruit festering on the ground under this one. Let me illustrate with a dozen rotten fruits of liberalism:

12 Rotten Fruits of Liberalism

1. People across the country shouted “Not my president!” last November, and liberal leaders did nothing to remind them of America’s grand heritage of orderly transitions of power. The Constitution is fine with them when it supports their power. Otherwise, apparently, it’s optional.
2. Portland, Oregon erupted in violence after the election. Liberal leaders could have spoken up to calm the protests, but they said nothing. Or rather, by their silence they spoke quite clearly: Violence is okay with us, if it’s on behalf of our cause.
3. Liberal leaders keep reinforcing the same tacit message by saying nothing — nothing! — on behalf of free speech on college campuses, where protests, many of them violent, have barred many conservatives from speaking freely. It appears that disruption and disorder are fine with them, if it’s on behalf of their cause.
4. Liberals lately have even begun to speak freely about the “dangers” of free speech. And just what is the “danger” there? It’s that someone will speak a message that conflicts with theirs, and thereby bring harm to vulnerable populations.
5. But that “harm” depends on one thing above all: People must be fragile. They mustn’t be strong enough to stand even the nearby presence of contrary views. In other words, liberalism depends on individuals’ weakness. “For when they are weak, then we are strong!” — to mangle another very wise teacher’s words from long ago.

6. Liberalism also seeks to support the disadvantaged through government entitlements, which of course channels both money and power through the liberal establishment. This again echoes the previous: “When they are weak, then we are strong!”
7. Liberalism believes in religious freedom: their freedom, not yours. “Does your religion include the belief that you should speak up about it in public? Then change that belief! Religion only belongs in the home and the church.” They’re actually trying to re-define our doctrine!  Freedom of religion is fine, in other words — as long as they have that much freedom to tell us what to believe.
8. But liberalism hasn’t abandoned all freedoms. It still believes in sexual freedom — which displaces every other historic American freedom that would seek to rival it.
9. Liberalism’s belief in sexual freedom is complete and absolute. Sexual expression must be free, not only in law but also in the consequences of sexual activity, even to the point that if sex leads to a baby born alive, it’s okay to kill him or her.

10. Liberalism doesn’t care as much as it claims. Jordan Peterson’s interview with Cathy Newman is just one sign of that. Soon I’ll be sharing …  but no, I’ll let that additional evidence of that wait until I have time to say it the right way.
11. Liberalism doesn’t believe in America. Witness the State of the Union, address, where (as many, many have noted) liberals didn’t care about good news about America. Of course if they’d been the party in power when that good news was delivered, they’d have been ecstatic about it. Which goes to show what they really care about: power.
12. Liberals support people of color, women, the poor and members of other disadvantaged groups. This is to their credit. Except see points 6, 7 and 10 above.

Liberalism’s True Reality

What then does liberalism really stand for today? Disadvantaged peoples, for one thing, but there’s more than a slight taint there of co-opting them for the sake of their own power, so it’s hard to credit that for counting as much as tell us it does.

Sexual freedom, for another.

And their own power, for yet one more — or did I already mention that?

Those last two count for sure. Sexual freedom, and liberals’ control of power. That’s definitely what liberalism stands for today. 

Is that it? Have I missed anything? Well, of course I have. I’ve treated liberalism as if it was all about its leaders. I do see a strong and disturbing tendency toward tyranny there, for tyranny is what you get when political leaders gain a great deal of power.

Still, though, you’ll find liberals in cities everywhere who think they’ve chosen the party of caring. I applaud their motivation, for their hearts are in the right place, even if their methods are mixed up. They’re not the ones using liberalism to build personal empires of power. They’re just the ones letting themselves be used. Their wisdom needs to catch up with their hearts.

For when liberalism — or any other political doctrine, for that matter — is subverted into a means for amassing power, this is the kind of fruit it produces. 

So How Should We Respond?

What I’ve shared here is dark. Christians need to live in the light. One purpose of light is to let us see what would otherwise be hidden, including these rotten fruits of liberalism. We need to understand these things so we can act in wisdom. We dare not cooperate with these works of darkness. I raise that warning especially for Christian believers who might otherwise want to align with our country’s current liberal leadership.  

The light is also the Gospel, which includes the message that God loves us all. The apostle Paul was “chief of sinners” when he accepted the Good News in Jesus Christ. We should be praying for liberal leaders, that they, too, would meet Christ in his love, glory and holiness. 

And speaking of fruit, we must watch our own. Let us seek by the power of the Holy Spirit to bear the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23).