You have a tendency to make everything about ideological generalities. This isn't a liberal or a conservative issue but an issue of Church culture. Paternalism is paternalism whether it flows from the right or the left.

And Scripture scholarship is an actual thing, you know -- not all are "so called." There are people, lay and ordained, who spend their lives studying Scripture seriously and in depth, and they know a heck of a lot more than those who don't. 

I pay attention to what Scripture scholars say about the Bible for the same reason I pay attention to what my doctor says about my health and what my attorney says about the law. I want to be properly informed about things that are important to me, not just told that which validates my preconceptions.