Theological liberalism originated in Germany at the end of the 19th century (reflecting the writings of Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher, Ritschl and others).
Broadly speaking, it taught that all religious beliefs must be reasonable. The Bible was not God's true revelation to man, but a record of religious experience or feeling. God was not a transcendent Being, but the soul and life of the world. Good works were more important than doctrinal confessions. Liberals readily adopted the conclusions of science and accommodated to evolution as an explanation of origins. They emphasized a social gospel, which sought to build the "kingdom of God" by seeking to modify society through economic and political action. Liberalism was optimistic that the church would eradicate war and racial discrimination, but WW I revealed the naiveté of this view.
CCC rejects the wrong conclusions of liberal theology, its historical-critical method of interpreting the Bible and its faith in the social gospel, which has made a come-back in the last decade among many who call themselves evangelical in the West.
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