As I said in my piece above, I was generalising. I have met fundamentalists who do not believe liberals are saved at all. I accept that others are less extreme, but my point was to emphasise the extremes to make the point that this is not what God wants.

Where we disagree with the doctrine of other Christians, it is – in my opinion – important that we deal with the doctrinal issues alone, and never seek to attack by group.

For instance, if I say “the Episcopal Church of the USA is full of liberals, and X is a member of them and is thus a hopeless liberal with views that are hateful to God”, I have done nothing but alienate X. If I get to know X, engage him in debate, understand his views and then tell him I disagree with his stance on Y (and Y I disagree), then I am dealing with him constructively and honestly, and we can hope that we will move together towards some kind of enlightenment.

I think this is the kind of thing Jesus did, when he met with Zacchaeus. Where other people wrote him off and just criticised the whole class of tax collectors, Jesus saw a human being with just the same hopes and needs as the rest of us.

There is a line between believing something about a person’s stance in Christ and whether I will fellowship with them or believe they are correct in their doctrine. You can be saved, but have incorrect doctrine as the church of Corinth was a prime example.