by Delwin Brown
What Does a
Progressive
Christian
Believe?
What Does a
Progressive
Christian
Believe?
A Guide for the
Searching, the Open,
and the Curious
by
Delwin Brown
SEABURY BOOKS
an imprint of
Church Publishing Incorporated, New York
Copyright () 2008 by Delwin Brown All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.
Unless otherwise noted, the Scripture quotations contained herein are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright (0 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Cover design by Lindy Gifford Interior design by Ronda Scullen
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Brown, Delwin, 1935What does a progressive Christian believe? : a guide for the searching, the open, and the curious / by Delwin Brown. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-1-59627-084-8 (pbk.) 1. Liberalism (Religion) I. Title. BR1615.B76 2008 230'.046-dc22 2007043198
Church Publishing, Incorporated. 445 Fifth Avenue New York, New York 10016 www.churchpublishing.com 54321
For our grandchildren
Stella Rae
Sophie Elizabeth
Cody Benjamin
Georgia Anne
Emma Nayali
and the far better world they deserve
Contents
Acknowledgments ................................... ix
Preface ............................................. xi
Chapter 1 What Progressive Christianity Is Not ........ I
Chapter 2 Bible: Negotiating the Heritage ............ 15
Chapter 3 Christ: Overturning the Categories ........ 29
Chapter 4 God: Exploring the Depth ................ 43
Chapter 5 Humanity: Continuing the Creation ....... 57
Chapter 6 Sin: Failing and Hiding ................... 69
Chapter 7 Salvation: Seeking and Finding ............ 83
Chapter 8 Church: Serving and Being Served ......... 95
Epilogue Rightly Mixing Religion with Politics...... 111
Notes ............................................ 123
Acknowledgments
f it takes a village to raise a child, at least that many people are needed to write a book. Here, though, I have space to thank by name only the most immediate contributors to this endeavor. In a parking lot after a lecture in Alabama, Ernest Stokely, president of South Points Association for Exploring Religion (SPAPER), told me I should write a hook like this rather than continuing to write exclusively for academic colleagues. When I recounted this conversation to Steve Swecker, editor of The Progressive Christian, he suggested that I post serially a draft of my chapters on a TPC-sponsored blog, told nee what a "blog" is, and made all of the arrangements necessary for my doing so. A number of readers of the bldg made helpful comments. I cannot mention them all, but some deserve explicit credit for their critical responses and/or corrections, especially Walter John Boris, Cythia Astle, Peter Sawtell, Dean Smith, "Chuck," Brook McBride, and Richard Allen. Jennifer Jesse, a young ("progressive Christian;' I would say) scholar of great promise, read the manuscript with a sympathetic critic's eye and proposed numerous improvements. Margaret Allen, wonderful colleague with me on the staff of The Progressive Christian Witness, was my first reader and editor, for clarity as well as correctness. Janet Carlson, professional editor and friend of years past and to come, gave the manuscript a final pre-submission proofing. Cynthia Shattuck, my editor at Church Publishing, blessed the final stages of this project with editorial efficiency and an insistence on the importance of what I was attempting to do.
"Ihe next circle of contributors to this project know who they are: in particular, former colleagues at Pacific School of Religion who supported me as I began to write in this vein for a general audience, and leaders of various grass-roots progressive Christian organizations whose efforts have created the larger context within which I now find myself speaking and writing. They all deserve special thanks for their labors, but here I mention only those whose work I know best, the leaders of SPAFER, Ihe Beatitudes Society, Micahs Call, Progressive Christians Uniting, The Center for Progressive Christianity, and, of course, The Progressive Christian ("a bi-monthly magazine for people of faith seeking the common good").
Preface
rogressive Christianity is a family of perspectives that vigorously rejects the "religious right" as a gross distortion of the Christian faith. Just as important, progressive Christianity criticizes and moves beyond the (other) conservatisms and the liberalisms of the immediate Christian past. In our time, it is new. 'Ibis hook presents one progressive Christian standpoint-introductory in character for ordinary people, not specialists.
'lhe conviction that eventually gave rise to this book was horn about two oclock in the morning, the day after the 2004 presidential election. It grew out of the stunned realization that the long tradition of progressive Christian thought and action had virtually disappeared from the public discussion leading up to that election. The progressive Christian voice had not been silenced by others. It had stopped speaking. Or, more accurately, we who are progressive Christians had stopped speaking.
Why had we become silent? There are no doubt several reasons, but two are quite clear. First, we had assumed that progressive Christian ideas are inherently persuasive. Second, and for that very reason, we also assumed that the triumph of progressive ideas is pretty much inevitable, at least in the Church and in that portion of society that is more or less culturally Christian. We could not believe that others would not recognize the inherent validity and worth of our enlightened and redemptive understanding of the Christian gospel.
Neither of our assumptions is true. It is mistaken-and arrogant-to think that progressive versions of the Christian faith are inherently persuasive. Religious claims, including ours, are never self-evidently true. It is equally mistaken-and dangerous-to assume that progressive Christian ideas will triumph inevitably. The progressive Christian witness will be taken seriously, and make a healing difference, only when and where it is effectively espoused by committed, reflective people who understand that witness, express it compellingly, and enact it together with informed intentionality.
This book seeks to contribute to one of the things now needed-a systematic understanding of progressive Christian beliefs and the reasons for them. This is by no means all that must happen to make the progressive gospel effective in our nation. It may not even be the most important thing needed now. But it is important and it is needed now. It is absolutely urgent that progressive Christians become articulate about the transforming faith that is within them. For the sake of our nation as well as the Church, we must be able to say what we believe, and why, and to say so effectively.
It is the profoundly healing voice of the Christian faith that is important now, not the specific label we give it. And, in fact, there are at least three reasons for hesitating to refer to the voice now needed as a "progressive" Christian voice. First, "progress" is not always good and continuing the past is not always bad. Second, the various "progressive" movements and eras in the United States have been political in character and, though not without merit, they have left a great deal to be desired from a Christian standpoint. Final
ly, unlike our intention here, in current political discourse the term "progressive" is virtually synonymous with, if not a cover for, the term "liberal."
Despite these important concerns, the label "progressive" Christian is retained in this book, partly because the best alternatives are also problematic. For example, to call it "prophetic" Christianity, as some have urged, seems more than a bit presumptuous. Whether a particular Christian voice deserves to be called "prophetic" should be left for history to decide. "Evangelical liberalism;' another alternative, seems inadequate, too. It is not a combination of the two traditions but their mutual transformation that is needed. Admittedly, however, the main reason for using "progressive Christianity" here is simply the fact that it is the term now used most often to refer to this Christian viewpoint. Sometimes it is best to accept an imperfect label and endeavor to give it a specific meaning, trusting that it will then be heard and judged fairly for what it is.
In the end labels should not determine our judgments about any point of view, Christian or otherwise. "Conservative" and "liberal" are not inherently wrong standpoints. Isn't every person, including every Christian, in some respects "conserving" of the past and in others "liberated" from it? And surely every faithful Christian voice conveys "good news" and thus is in that sense "evangelical." the issue is not the label; it is the message. To the extent that this hook preserves what, of the Christian tradition, should be retained and frees itself from what should be left behind, it might come to the reader as truly good news. And if so, it might also contribute to the kind of "progress" we desperately need today, in the Church, in the country, in the world.
Chapter I
What Progressive
Christianity Is Not
omething new is afoot in Christianity. It is a thoughtful, vital faith offering hope for the Church and the world. Most commonly it is referred to as "progressive Christianity-" All of a sudden, especially in the United States, there are progressive Christian websites and e-newsletters, progressive Christian bloggers and discussion boards, progressive Christian periodicals, conferences on progressive Christianity, churches and new organizations arising that claim to present a progressive Christian gospel, and, of course, there are now millions of Christians who identify themselves in this way.
What is progressive Christianity?
'Ihe easiest answer, though insufficient, is to say what it is not. Let's begin there, clearing up immediately some possible misconceptions about the progressive Christian perspective.
Not Only Rejecting the Religious Right
Progressive Christians vigorously distinguish themselves from right -wing Christianity. Check out the postings in cyberspace, for example, and you'll find self-identified progressives commonly describing themselves as Christians who emphatically reject the views of Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and Jim Dobson.
This widespread rejection is important. During the past two or three decades these three pillars of the religious right and their followers and funders have managed somehow (lots of money and organizational savvy were a big part of it) to coopt the name, language, and morals of the Christian faith. They convinced the public that theirs is the true Christian point of view, and then they tried to impose their views on everyone else. America is, or should be, or was supposed to have been, a Christian nation, the right-wingers claimed, and for the benefit of the rest of us they established themselves as the arbiters of what is and is not Christian. So they sought to use the courts and legislatures at every level of government to put into law their views, especially on anything having to do with marriage, sex, and reproduction.
Progressive Christians are saying "No!" They reject the right-wingers' claims for good historical and political reasons. America was not founded as a Christian nation, which fact is all the more remarkable because its founders were Christians. The founders were careful to acknowledge the power of religion in society and to protect the free expression of religion. But the principles on which the country was founded were not those of a specific religion or, for that matter, of religion itself in some general sense. Progressive Christians therefore oppose the agenda of the Christian right-wing because, in part at least, it is historically and politically inaccurate. (They also reject it for Christian reasons, as we shall see.) America is a democracy. Relative to religion this means at a minimum that no one religion or view of religion, including its rejection, is to be privileged over any other.
ibis negative way of defining progressive Christianity, as I say, is important. But it is not enough. After all, there are a number-a rapidly growing number, thankfully-of conservative or evangelical Christians who also reject the Christian right wing, both its views and its tactics. For example, Gregory Boyd, a leading evangelical mega-church pastor, recently said the right-wingers are, in biblical terms, guilty of the sin of "idolatry" because they assume theirs to be the only defensible interpretation of Christianity and they then conflate it with a particular political viewpoint.' They give religious reverence to a political philosophy-or, to be perfectly blunt, they equate Christianity with the socially conservative wing of the Republican Party.
You can be a Republican and a Christian-indeed, you can be a very conservative Republican and a Christian!-and still see that this conflation is a dangerous mistake, both politically and religiously. You don't have to be a progressive Christian to identify and condemn the idolatry of the Christian right wing. Progressive Christianity, in other words, has to be more than a rejection of right-wing Christianity. But what is this "more"?
Not Liberal Christianity in Disguise
Progressive Christians often define themselves against liberal Christianity-and, as we shall see, against conservative Christianity, too. 'This distinction gets a little fuzzy. Clearly, both are still developing historical movements with considerable internal variety, and both contribute something of importance that progressive Christians wish to affirm and continue. Still, the distinction is helpful. At the very least the progressive Christian movement today is an effort to criticize and transform the liberal and conservative traditions of American Christianity.
When liberal Christianity emerged in the United States during the middle third of the eighteenth century it was often called "the new theology." Its defining viewpoint was expressed succinctly in a statement by Charles A. Briggs: "'Ihe Bible gives us the material for all ages, and leaves to [us] the noble task of shaping the material so as to suit the wants of [our] own time." Making the biblical tradition relevant to the needs of the day-that was the driving passion of liberalism. But how are the legitimate wants or needs of a time to be determined, and according to what criteria do Christians go about shaping the biblical material so as to make its message relevant? To determine the needs of the time liberals counted especially on the democratic process, particularly as its outcomes were interpreted by the newly emerging social sciences. And the criteria on which liberals relied to study and reconstruct the biblical materials were also those of the secular sciences, namely reasoned inquiry based on empirical evidence. The liberal interpretation of the Christian message was to be consistent with reason and experience.'
A progressive Christian perspective, we shall see, does not minimize the Christian mandate to make the gospel relevant in each new age, and it does not object to the sciences, democracy, empirical evidence, and certainly not to reasoned inquiry. In those respects, progressive Christianity unabashedly continues the liberal Christian outlook. However, the liberals went wrong, from a progressive perspective, when reasoning based on (supposedly common) human experience became for them more than valued tools and tests to be utilized in shaping the inherited Christian materials; gradually it became also the source of liberal theology. As that happened, the "material" of historic Christian faith-its stories, symbols, ideas, analyses, and imperatives-moved to the dim and largely optional margins of liberal Christian reflection. Liberal theology became something more akin to a philosophy of religion.
Philosophy is not at all a had thing,
of course. But what of the distinctive insights offered in the Scriptures and historic (;hristian reflection? Is there nothing of value in Christian understandings of creation, humanity, freedom, sin, hope, healing, history, and the meaning of life? I)o these offer no critical edge, no distinctive perspectives worth introducing and developing as a Christian contribution to the contemporary search for truth?
'Ihe liberal failure to keep the distinctive resources of the (;hristian inheritance at the center of their reflection was rooted in another failure, one common to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Liberals "forgot" that our human beliefs and practices, individually and collectively, are fed and formed by our distinctive human histories. In other words, the liberals were seduced by "modernism" Modernism is the idea that there is one truth grounded in the nature of things in such a way that thinking individuals can have immediate access to this truth through reasoned analysis of contemporary experience, without any special dependence on inherited resources. It is the idea that we don't need history in the pursuit of truth; we can go right to the truth by thinking clearly now. 'the point is not that "history is bunk," as Henry Ford once claimed. Rather it is that our varied histories, traditions, ancient texts, and the like have no special role in guiding and testing contemporary life.
Gradually moving toward this point of view, liberal Christianity too often became-by the 1940s and 1950s-little more than the sanctimonious expression of common beliefs and values. Liberal sermons became secular social commentary that began with a Scripture and ended with prayer. Liberal Christian education became secular schooling interlaced with sentimental renditions of stories from the Bible. Liberal Christian morality was reduced to the common cultural interpretation of rectitude. Like almost everyone else in that time, liberal Christians forgot the importance of the past, their specifically Christian past-their rich biblical and historical inheritance.
