Permission to Speak - Progressive Christianity

What is Progressive Christianity?

As far as I am concerned there is no one-way of understanding and interpreting progressive Christianity. In fact there will be as many ways of interpreting and understanding as there are progressive Christians - and then many more ways again! So this evening I want to reflect with you on what I understand as Progressive Christianity.

Progressive Christianity values the past as important in understanding the present but is more concerned with contemporary Truth than with tradition.

Progressive Christianity is concerned with a spiritual journey to be lived for the ever present 'now' rather than as a preparation for a 'home' beyond the grave. The journey is our home!

Progressive Christianity re-evaluates Christian belief and how to live in today's fast changing world.

Progressive Christianity believes that Jesus of Nazareth is its Gateway to the God-experience and respects all who have found other Gateways to the Sacred. Such relativism is to be welcomed and celebrated - it is not wrong!

Progressive Christianity welcomes honest searching and open questions, aiming to be spiritually rewarding and intellectually satisfying, stretching the mind and encouraging social action. The heart of Progressive Christianity is experienced in principled living.

Progressive Christianity encourages its followers to be steeped in Biblical and ethical study and practice. The two go together. If study does not result in practice then it is not worth the time spent on it. Progressive Christianity is all to do with personal and corporate transformation for the benefit of all.

Progressive Christians tend to take the line that the world is one under One God and can be a better place where love and compassion are the ways in which we try to live as imitators of Jesus.

Progressive Christians often start with a commitment to the understanding that inherent goodness, wholeness of life and 'original blessing' are more the ways of God than is the centrality of belief that is core to Christian creeds, doctrines and traditional teaching, namely that we are all infected with 'original sin' from which we need to be saved, and only the blood of Jesus can do that for us.

Such progressive spirituality in the Christian Church presents major implications for preaching and for the life of the Christian Church today.

So much traditional Christianity and its illegitimate and dishonest offspring, 'Churchianity' maintains a flawed perception of reality in that it so often sees it self as the 'only way' and therefore seems to 'outlaw' alternative visions of reality, including Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, etc - and also 'outlaws' liberal and progressive Christians as the root cause of the decline in church attendance over the past century or so.

To develop the context for this presentation I offer four important definitions. I admit that I am biased but these are my definitions with which you may disagree!

Fundamentalism is a painstaking observation of the conventional teachings of a specific religious or political dogma. Although it is often assumed that Christian fundamentalism goes back to the early Church it is, in fact, a recent reaction to the impact of the Enlightenment. It was first applied in the 1920s to American conservative Protestants who built dogma around a literal interpretation of the Bible.
Literalism allows limited interpretation of creeds and doctrines but preserves a meticulous and precise understanding of the literal significance of the words of the Bible.
Liberalism is flexible towards diverse beliefs but is often lacking in rigor. The fundamentalists and literalists also often accuse liberals of being 'wishy washy', knowing what they don't believe but seldom stating what they do believe.
Progressive Christianity is cutting-edge and unorthodox in belief, developing on the past but pushing the boundaries in the conviction that this is the most important strategy for the continued existence of the Jesus story in the post-modern industrialised world. It is meticulous in research and learning, leading to a clear statement of not only what it believes but also to a commitment to apply these values to life in the present-day world. Progressive Christianity is more concerned with spirituality than correct belief and worship.

I do not put Progressive Christianity on the Fundamental - Literal - Liberal Continuum. It is a different animal altogether. So different in fact that many of my 'liberal' friends have been the most critical of my progressive stance: I think this is because being progressive enables me to state not just what I don't believe but very clearly state what I do believe and am able to offer contemporary research and scholarship to support my stance.

Being 'Christian' often signifies that Jesus, as the Christ of the Church, is central to one's belief in the creeds and doctrines of the institutional Church. But using the term 'Christian' ignores the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was never a Christian. He was born a Jew, lived a Jew and was executed as a Jew. He never intended setting up anything outside of Judaism. Indeed, his intention, as I understand it, was to reform the Judaism of his day. And yet the transformational teaching and life style of Jesus of Nazareth remains relevant to all times and in all places.

Some local churches give emphasis to tradition and ceremony. Central to the approach of some other churches is preaching based upon what they believe about the Bible, that it is the authoritative revealed Word of God. Yet other churches acknowledge themselves as being Evangelical and/or charismatic. The heart of other churches is logical thinking. I don't have a problem with any of these but regret that I seldom find that my open acceptance of them is reciprocated. As Marcus Borg says, "I don't mind what other people believe as long as they don't beat up me or anyone else who doesn't see things their way!"

It is not easy being 'progressive' and still remain in the institutional Christian Church, especially now that I have ceased calling myself a Christian, preferring instead to be known as a Follower of the Jesus Way. Fundamentalist and literalist Christians often consider progressive Christians like me, to be heretics and blame us, along with the liberals, for the decline in church membership and church attendance. But to put decline into perspective, as Bishop Jack Spong has said on many occasions, 'The Church will die of boredom long before it dies of heresy!'

In all mainstream denominations in UK you will find Progressive Christians [but not in all local churches!] and many sit quietly in the pews preferring the sense of community to rocking the boat - so they sit Sunday by Sunday in silent suffering. Many UK Christian denominations have a progressive branch: for example the Methodist Church has 'Nothing Sacred', The URC has 'Free to Believe', The Church of England has Modern Church. In the USA progressive post-denominational 'churches' include the Progressive Christianity Alliance based in Atlanta and C3 Exchange based in Spring Lake, Michigan.

In conclusion, I stress that I love the Church but I fear for its future as an institution in Britain. Unless it abandons the old paradigm of its ancient but increasingly irrelevant creeds and doctrines, it will surely die. The Church, in whatever form its future might be, will have to adopt the new paradigm that I see emerging amongst progressive followers of the Jesus Way.

I am convinced that we are now involved in a paradigm shift. We are no longer trying to liberate Christianity from dead dogma but we are doing something entirely new. We are now living the New Reformation of Spirituality that I experience as being a global movement, transcending all religions, supporting people to think outside of the traditional boxes of faith and their inherited understandings of God. It is a new spiritual movement that transcends individual religions and encourages the praxis of what we say we believe, committed to human rights, inclusiveness, open thought, peace, social justice and tolerance.