When I took civics in high school, half a century ago, the text said that conservatives preferred to use methods that had proved reliable in the past and liberals liked to experiment. This was in Ft Worth, Texas, the home of the Southern Baptists. I mention that because they were once conservative in the historical sense and kept their noses strictly out of politics. Not that they didn't throw their weight around, but they did it nicely. They believed in the separation of church and state. The denomination was taken away from it's conservative leaders in very much the same way the republican party was taken from it's leaders by very much the same people. Perhaps that's why the definition no longer works.