Progressive Christianity

It has been a busy week, and hence no blogging until now. In any case...

Fresh on the heals of Open Circle's explanation to the Northern Plains District of our understanding of Christianity, I just received in the mail the latest issue of The Fourth R, the periodical of the Westar Institute (Jesus Seminar - www.westarinstitute.org). It includes an article by Hal Taussig, a Methodist pastor currently serving as Visiting Professor of NT at Union Theological Seminary in NY. He has a book on the way on the emerging and growing movement of progressive Christian congregations: A New Spiritual Home. In the article he says that there are now over a thousand self-described progressive Christian churches in the country, to be distinguished from conservative, mainline, and even old-style liberal churches. Below are the five characteristics of this movement, of which Open Circle is a part.

The Five Characteristics of Progressive Christianity
Hal Taussig

1. A Spiritual vitality and expressiveness. The wide-range of churches and groups in this movement--in contrast to the traditional liberal Christians--are not just heady social activists and intellectuals. They like expressing themselves spiritually in meditation, prayer, artistic forms, and lively worship. It is astonishing how similar these spiritual and worship expressions are, even though they come from widely different denominations and parts of the United States. A New Spiritual Home details five aspects of this new spiritual vitality: participatory worship, expressive and arts-infused worship and programming, a reclaiming of discarded ancient Christian rituals (for example baptismal immersion and annointing with oil), a wide variety of non-Christian rituals and meditation techniques, and development of small groups for spiritual growth and nurture.

2. An insistence on Christianity with intellectual integrity. This new kind of Christian expression is devoted to and nourished by a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity and critique. It interrogates Christian assumptions and traditions in order to reframe, reject, or renew them. God language, the relationship between science and religion, and postmodern consciousness are the major arenas of this intellectual vigor.

3. A transgression of traditional gender boundaries. These groups are explicitly and thoroughly committed to feminism and affirmation of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. The feminism is regularly a part of new kinds of family and child-rearing dynamics. The extent of gay-friendliness is illustrated by at least seven national Christian movements devoted to support of GLBTs and rooted in thousands of local churches.

4. The belief that Christianity can be vital without claiming to be the best or the only true religion. In contrast to mainstream Christianity's lukewarm "tolerance" of other religions, progressive Christianity pro-actively asserts that it is not the best or the only. Progressive Christians take pains to claim simultaneously their own Christian faith and their support of the complete validity of other religions.

5. Strong ecological and social justice commitments. The longstanding Christian interest in aiding those who suffer or are poor is continued in progressive Christianity. Similarly, this new movement is committed to old style liberal social justice programming and peace advocacy. In addition, however, there is a passion for environmentalism, including explicit attention to changing life style and consumer patters in order to lessen the human footprint on the earth.