Progressive Christianity: Vol 4
April 5, 2005
4. By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
- believers and agnostics,
- conventional Christians and questioning skeptics
- women and men,
- those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
- those of all races and cultures,
- those of all classes and abilities,
- those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope…
I don’t really feel a huge need to write much more about this. These are some of the themes that have come up on pomomusings before. There are no outsiders. What exactly does that mean? I’m not entirely sure. But I do know that it’s time to live in a kingdom of God that is big. A wide-open kingdom. Perhaps a kin-dom. This was mentioned today in our Systematic Theology course, but it was also mentioned in the comments on one of the last posts by my friend Sibeal. She wrote:
Try rethinking Kingdom as kin-dom, to remove the idea of a hierarchy (go with Reign of Christ if you need a substitute for King of Kings). Substitute kin-dom during the Lord’s Prayer and it will make a difference in your thinking (along with debt/debtors). The idea being, of course, that Jesus came to bring us together has Brothers and Sisters in Christ — as a Family, not as a political structure… as a family that takes care of each other through good times, through hard times, in differences and agreement, etc.
We are called not to judge, but to embrace. We are called not to fight against, but to love. I’m trying to read through McLaren’s new book, The Last Word and the Word After That, in short segments right now (as I find time), and I’m interested to see what tertium quid McLaren finds between the two traditional answers of exclusivism and universalism. Like most good theologians, McLaren is interested in finding the tertium quid, the third way, that is not an either/or answer, but rather a both/and: an answer that lies on a different plane. The church needs to be a place where we are looking for the tertium quid on this issue….the Church needs to be a place where all of these people find a place, where they feel loved, safe, comfortable, challenged, embraced, transformed and where they experience true grace. Let us seek to be that Church.
Tags: Kingdom of God, Liberal-Theology, Progressive Theology
Posted in 
Adam Walker Cleaveland: 
April 5th, 2005 at 2:28 pm
This is my first post on Adam’s blog. I read all the time and am a long time friend. He and I go all the way back to preschool. Just a little info about our relationship for all you readers out there. We disagree on a lot theologically, but I love him and he loves me.
I must ask the question…What is the standard of living for the “progressive christian”? I’m not talking about someone who goes to church (we all know that going to church doesn’t make you a Christian), but someone who calls themself a follower of Christ, otherwise known as Christian (for a more specific definition: someone who acknowledges they are a sinner, confesses their sin, and accepts Jesus as their sacrifice, thus making him ruler/lord of their life). If they call themself a Christian and yet do not follow the narrow path that Jesus described, what are we to do? Are we supposed to ok sin to make them feel accepted? Of course this argument all goes back to sin…what is it?
We are to be a church that accepts all people. But we are not to be a church that makes people comfortable with this worlds standard of living…sin. We are to be strangers in this world.
I guess that is enough for my first post. I just could not go without posting about this point. Please accept my post as sincere and for those who are offended, I am a seeker also. I don’t claim to have all the answers.
April 5th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
Adam, I like the points made in this post. It reminds me of a little book I read awhile ago called “The Celtic Way of Evangelism” by George G. Hunter III. The basic idea was that the Celtic way was to bring people into a community and then allow that community to be transformative for them. That’s instead of trying to change people before they can become a part of the community.
But I wonder…we do need to be transformed, correct? I’m not saying you’re disagreeing with me on this. I just wonder where that comes into play with what you’re saying.
Another thought that comes to mind is something that Doug Pagitt has said. He claims that his church expects to be CHANGED by the outsiders who come in. That’s basically the opposite of what we normally expect! In other words, instead of asking people to conform to a preconceived notion of what the community IS, they expect the community to actually benefit from changes wrought by adding more “personalities” into the mix.
I, personally, wonder if you could take that too far, but it’s an interesting thing to think about.
April 5th, 2005 at 3:54 pm
Based on the original post, I don’t think “sin” is the issue at hand. I think we can all agree that obviously sin is a real issue in humanity (how each of us defines sin is a different subject), but the purpose of the church has never been to point out people’s faults. If this were the church’s purpose, none of us would be welcomed. The purpose of the church has always been to be a beacon of hope to the hopeless and light in darkness.
Perhaps we should let the judging (of sin and otherwise) be the job of God and God alone. Instead, I think the beauty of this point could be that all people could feel welcomed into a place where they could experience the presence of God. Certainly the power and presence of God is enough to change the wrongs in our lives. Isn’t that a continuous process for all of us?
As I heard a pastor say, “maybe we should put a sign in front of our church that says, ‘Gays and Lesbians welcome…as well as other imperfect people!’”
April 5th, 2005 at 5:08 pm
quoth, “substitute kin-dom during the Lord’s Prayer and it will make a difference in your thinking.” true. trouble is, “kin-dom” wasn’t the word our Lord used (nor intended); hence, that different kind of thinking, in regards to this prayer, is irrelevant.
i appreciate the observation that “Jesus came to bring us together as brothers and sisters in Christ”; but feel hesitant in going so far as to discount the aspect of hierarchy in our relationship with Christ as King.
do you take critical comments on this blog, too? i’m glad it was a joke!
April 5th, 2005 at 5:16 pm
Couple of thoughts. If we lessen the idea of Kingdom, we lessen the focus on Christ. He is the King. We are all less than God. He is not our brother, cousin, or even father. He is our Father figuratively. That is how he approaches us so that we can know how to approach Him. Abolishing a hierarchy under God himself may be a step i’d be willing to take, but never would I substitute kin-dom for Kingdom. I still have a King, and although He plays the role of Abba, He is still my King.
Secondly, God has really big arms. I think we will all be surprised to see who’s in heaven, in one way or another. But I think the way is still narrow. It is not my place to define the Way. That’s a given… But it seems that a side effect of having no standard or expectation of transformation in our communities, we are falsely giving the impression to new believers that the Way is broad and that no transformation is really required. God transforms us, but we must be willing to be transformed. If we aren’t sharing that with the people we want to share the love of God with, we are doing a great disservice to our King and to our brothers. I agree with the idea that we must embrace, and overflow with the love of Christ so that people can experience grace and be drawn to God himself… but the end goal is so that they can experience NEW life through the renewing of their minds, not conforming to the patterns of the world, or their previous existence…
So how are our communities going to treat the idea of transformation… is that something that you agree is necessary in the life of a believer in Christ? I believe so.
April 6th, 2005 at 2:09 am
how is this progressive as opposed to any other church? I do not think it is.
Toward what is this christianity progressing?
your pal,norm
April 6th, 2005 at 2:20 am
I don’t see how this progressive Christanity is different than other modes of Christianity. Can anyone be a Christain? Are Hitler and Gandhi Christians in the progressive church? Are Osama and President Bush Christians in the progressive church? Isn’t this more “progressive ecclesiology” rather than “progressive christianity?”
At what point does one stop, draw back, and say, “this is looking a bit too ideal and utopian.” Does everyone join hands and sing and dance in circles in the progressive church? It is obvious you are searching for a perfect re-enactment of the kingdom of God here on earth, but at what point does human falliblity and theodicy enter into the equation? Where does the heavenly/earthly sacred/profane dictomoy break down? Where doesn’t it break down? How do you reconcile the kingdom, or reighn of God, here and now in the church with the eschaton? These are fundamental questions, not to mention the Christogical question, that must be addressed before any progressive or emergent theology is proffered. Am I wrong?
your pal, norm
“You can fool some of the people some of the time and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”
April 6th, 2005 at 11:10 am
On the idea of kinship and inclusivity…
I agree that all must be invited to the table. I agree that an inclusive Christian community is one way in which we bear the light of Christ and become salt to a dark and bland reality that is the time in which the kin-dom exists before the reign of Christ breaks down the walls of this Jerico that we know as an affected design of the Creator. But I wonder, around that table to which all should be included, is there room for us as family to disagree? As a brother, kin, can I not expect and hope that a sister who saw me living outside of my identity as a part of that glorious family might call me to a standard set by the head of the family who has called all to dine? Does being a kin-dom mean we can ignore the sin-dom that we are a part of? Kinship does not mean that I am free from responsibility. I think it means that around that table, to which we have all been invited, we have an obligation to call eachother to a righteousness that has been layed out by the One who sits at the table head. Part of what makes us kin is sin. It is not ours to decide who comes to the banquet, we’ve simply to invite all as we have been invited. But not all who sit around that table will feast with the family. Do I not, in the spirit of kin-ship, have the burden to share with a brother or sister that their clothes are not worthy of the table to which they have been invited? My clothes were not fit either. But we have not only been invited to the banquet but to the wardrobe of the one at whose table we have been called. We are all invited but we all need new clothes. I hope that progressive Christianity leaves room for that.
Chancy Blithe