PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANITY…12/8/09
by SteveWhen asked what kind of Christian I am, I unhesitatingly reply: I am a progressive Christian. Most folks don’t understand what I mean by that, so in today’s post I am going to spell it out. The eight points which define progressive Christianity are as follows:
1. By calling ourselves progresssive, we mean that we are Christians who have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
2. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are for us.
3. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’ name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples.
4. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who invite people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting they become like us in order to be acceptable.
5. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.
6. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty — more value in questioning than in absolutes.
7. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of God’s creation, and bringing hope to those called the least of his sisters and brothers.
8. By calling ourselves progressive Christians, we mean that we are Christians who recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
Now stay tuned this week. Each day I will be “unpacking” one of these statements, helping us to understand what progressive Christianity is all about.
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My personal favorite is No. 6 “….we mean that we are Christians who find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty — more value in questioning than in absolutes.”
I strongly encourage folks to take the journey and search – I promise it will be one that will not only liberate you but make you fall deeply in love with God.
Thanks, Debra…I like’em all!
The way I see it PROgressive is the opposite of REgressive. I have a theroy that as people and more importantly as Christians we can NEVER remain stagnant, we are either moving forward or back. So if we are not progressive but regress then we are going back. I recently heard Tim Allen, yes the Toolman, say a good lesson he learned from racing cars was that when you are patient and spend time looking forward you don’t have to spend so much time looking back. As progressive Christians we need to spend the majority of our time looking forward and to what we can acomplish for God. And when we do we will, as Debra said, fall more deeply in love with God.
From one progressive Christian to another, thank you for spelling it out so clearly. I look forward to reading this.
Amen, brother.
Now that you have spelled this out so clearly, as Jeanne stated, we need to spread the word to folks that you are allowed to think and be a Christian too. I think I will be forwarding this to a few folks…
I’ll be reading… good topic!