From there I continued a gradual swing across the theological continuum, becoming less and less fundamentalist, more of a moderate evangelical. I was accepting invitations to preach and sing in a variety of churches, including many liberal congregations. After a couple of years I migrated further into a more moderate position where I still held the basic theological beliefs but discarded many lesser doctrines as either nonessential, or untrue. What distinguishes many brands of Christianity is where they draw their line between what is essential and what is not. Extreme fundamentalists draw the line way down at the bottom of the list, making all doctrines equally necessary.
Moderates draw the line somewhere up on the middle of the list.
Liberals draw the line way up at the top, not caring if the Bible is inerrant or if Jesus existed historically, but holding on to the existence of God, however he or she is defined, and holding on to the general usefulness of religion, and to rituals, which many people claim to need despite its irrelevance to reality, to give structure or meaning to life. As I traveled across the spectrum, I kept drawing my line higher and higher. I studied some liberal theologians, such as Tillich and Bultmann. These authors, though perhaps flawed in this or that area, appeared to be intelligent and caring human beings who were using their minds, doing their best to come to an understanding of truth. They were not evil servants of Satan attempting to distract believers from the literal truth of the Bible.