A Fresh Perspective

I recently wrote two pieces published at Baptist News Global (“ A Scripture Lesson on Fundamentalism ” and “ What does a progressive Christian statement of faith look like ?) that ignited a response I repeatedly hear from conservatives. Their claim is that progressive Christian faith is based on subjective criteria not rooted in any objective reality. Of course, their objective reality is their inerrant Bible. One frequent commenter on my articles said: “The authority for what is written begins and ends with those that wrote it. . . . These so-called progressives don’t use the term infallible but in reality they see what they wrote [the reference here is to  the Phoenix Affirmations ] as correct without any authority except themselves.” Another who is also a frequent contributor of articles on the website said: “I fail to see how on the progressive worldview any of these [ the Phoenix Affirmations ] can really be taken as more than mere expressions of personal pre...

Once a month I visit with my mother who lives a couple of hours away. Typically, we talk for a couple of hours, I take her out to eat and we run some errands. Though I am a minister, spiritual teacher, and a writer, we rarely talk about religion. There is a reason for this. On a recent visit, I took her a copy of my book, Being a Progressive Christian (is not) for Dummies (nor for know-it-alls): An Evolution of Faith. I did this, as I have done with all my books, because she is my mother. And because I am her son, she reads them. She doesn’t read them quickly or easily, but she reads them. She told me, “They’re deep.” What she really meant was, “How the hell did my son come to believe such nonsense?” She would never admit this. She would severely object to the way I just used “hell,” in her view a perfectly sound biblical teaching. I am joking, of course . . . kind of. Our conversation turned toward the state of the world. Such a state signals for many conservative Chris...