3 - Inhabiting the Rule

Summary

Doctrine became increasingly less important, giving way to the second form of the conservative quest: the turn to culture as the defining feature of Christianity. The third chapter traces the development of postliberalism through the lens of mainline Protestantism’s interest in the authority and interpretation of scripture, beginning with biblical theology and concluding with the postliberal project of theological interpretation of scripture. This development explains how the norms of Christianity became understood as cultural norms, thus paving the way for orthodoxy becoming a form of culture war.