One thing I like least about liberal theologies (both popular and academic) is how they so often, without any apparent reason, toggle between something like pantheism and something like classical theism.

In many cases, what's intended is probably panentheism (which can be done well), but the people trying to pull it off very, very often fail to do so in a way that can take much scrutiny.

So you end up sometimes talking about worshipping God and sometimes mumbling about how we are all sacred, divine beings (as is the natural world). But it doesn't really hang together in any coherent way.

Two big things from the tradition of liberal theology come into play here: 1) a sense of innate human goodness and 2) the assertion that God is immanently involved in historical processes.

The first is not necessarily great. The second is definitely defensible and important.

(Thoughts partly provoked by the beginning of Christopher Evans' "Liberalism Without Illusions")