What is Progressive
Christianity? A 4-Sermon Series
Sermon 1: Christianity
in the Context of Other Religions
By
Rev.
Addendum: The 8 Points of Progressive Christianity
I want to
begin with a story about a Dutch village in 1952 when a series of terrible
storms and floods hit
Today we
begin a 4-sermon series on Progressive Christianity, which bears some
similarity to the liberal theology of the past century, though it is different
in some ways. Progressive Christianity
is actually a movement that is not simple to define.
That’s
because progressive Christians tend to be comfortable disagreeing on matters of
theology. Some folks have tried to
summarize broadly worded beliefs of this growing number of Christians, e.g. the
8 points offered by The Center for Progressive Christianity found on the insert
in your bulletin. But there is no single
creed or required set of beliefs, nor uniformity of beliefs among this group of
Christians today.
Perhaps that
is because a key characteristic of progressive Christians is a high regard for
independent thinking. Progressive
Christians tend to question religious authority, and to examine religious
tradition. The command to love God with
heart, soul and mind, is seen as a command to think critically, as well as to
live faithfully. To think critically is
to remain open to the Spirit, and to God’s continuing revelation. This creates an
openness to letting go of earlier ideas about God if they prove to be
inconsistent with what God’s Spirit seems to be revealing through experience
and reason today.
I want to
quickly mention two inherent characteristics in this openness to new ideas that
we see among so many Christians today. The
first is suggested by Rev. James Gertmenian of Plymouth Congregational
UCC. It is humility. He says, “We cannot claim that all progressive
Christians practice humility…to claim we are all humble would, of course, be a
very ‘un-humble’ thing to do! But there
is, in the very structure of this openness theology, a built-in bias toward
humility, because by its very nature, it does not claim to have exclusive or
eternal truth. Its openness to
self-critique gives it an appreciation for diversity of ideas, and a humble
awareness that more truth may be out there, still to be revealed in the
future. A theology that is always questioning itself
and which is honestly engaged in examining those beliefs in light of human
experience tends toward humility.[i] Recall Jesus’ great wisdom found in the
Sermon on the Mount: “Blessed are the
poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” i.e. blessed are the
humble-minded, for God’s Spirit finds room in their hearts” (Interpreter’s
Bible, Vo. 10 p. 33). Humility leaves
room for the Spirit to nudge us.
Humility reminds us that the mysterious, infinite nature of God can
never be fully comprehended by human minds.
There is a
second characteristic that seems to go along with this openness to new ideas
that we see in Progressive Christianity.
It is an emphasis, not on a correct set of beliefs, but rather an emphasis
on how we live our lives. To follow
the “Way” of Jesus is to live the way he taught us—with compassion and respect
toward all God’s children. How we
behave toward one another and toward people we see as “other,” is the fullest
expression of what we believe. That is why
many are beginning to ask whether it is possible that other faiths might also be paths to God,
if they too, lead their followers to lives of compassion and respect.
There is a
story, a fable that may help illustrate this, the source of which is, again, Rev.
James Gertmenian.[ii] I will paraphrase just a little:
Imagine a time so early in the life of
the human race that the only record we have of it is
written in the cave dwellings of pre-historic
people. It is so far back that there was
no religion, only the “inexpressible awe our ancestors felt when they confronted
the sun and the stars, the power of
fire, the creative blood of birth and the…mystery of death.”
Human settlements were scattered then,
isolated from one another, a few campfires in Africa, in Europe, in Asia…separated
by wilderness, each fire glowing in solitary splendor so that the light from
one could never be seen by those gathered around another, each fire sending up…
smoke into the heavens. The people must
have told stories around those
fires—stories of how the moon came to be, and why the rains fell, and which
spirits visited them in their dreams—and whole religious cultures, ways of
understanding the world, accreted around those stories—the culture of each
encampment quite different from the others.
Then one day, after eons, a member of
one clan set out on a journey. He didn’t
know why he did it, really, but after weeks of walking through uninhabited
territory, he came upon another settlement…And around the fire that night, he
told his stories, and he heard the stories of this other clan. Well, how did the moon come to be…in this way
or that way? What are the names of the
spirits; are they the familiar ones he knew or the ones used by these strange
people? And there was a seed in his
heart, the tiniest seed, of discomfort about the difference of the
stories.
He was not the last traveler, of
course. Now there were hundreds, and
then thousands, traders and immigrants and wanderers, the web of cultures
growing ever more complex, their stories and religious ideas mixing and
clashing and changing and growing. On
through the generations the web grew until… there is barely a spot left where
any campfire can burn in solitary splendor…Now the campfires around which we
are settled—our cities, our neighborhoods—are places where there is no unified
story, nor even a unified language, but where all varieties are heard. Now in many of our neighborhoods, you can
expect to encounter in one single day, a Hindu, a Buddhist, a Moslem, a
Christian, a Jew, a humanist, a Native American and who knows how many others.”
This is a fable,
but it is true in its suggestion that no religion can now live in isolation. We share a pluralistic world in which
religion can be a source of conflict, or a source of common ground. The religious impulse is universal; could we
not be enriched by conversation with people of other faiths, developed around
other fires? We need not be converted;
we may, instead, be transformed and deepened in our own faith as a result of
contact with the richness of theirs. Who
knows what the Spirit can do, for as our scripture says, “The Spirit helps us
in our weakness…[and] the Spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for
words.”
Today, with our expanding knowledge of the universe—of quantum physics,
and multiple dimensions— we would do well to remain open to expanding knowledge
of an infinite God as well. Let us treat
with respect the search of people of other faiths, as all of us remain open to
Spirit as it continues to reveal yet more light and truth. This is the challenge of the thinking
Christian today—to humbly seek our great and mysterious God and to remain open
to where God’s Spirit may lead us all. Amen.
[i] For this
idea, I am indebted to James Gertmenian’s description of liberal theology in The Foundations of Liberal Theology: The
Power of Humility, Sermon delivered at
[ii] James
Gertmenian, No Other Name? Sermon
delivered at Plymouth Congregational Church,
Progressive
Christians often demonstrate the 8 characteristics described on the website of
The Center for Progressive Christianity (www.tcpc.org). It says that
Progressive Christians are those who…..
1. Have found an
approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus;
2. Recognize the
faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God’s Realm,
and acknowledge that their ways are true for them as our ways are true for us;
3. Understand the
sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a representation of an ancient
vision of God’s feast for all peoples;
4. Invite all
people to participate in our community and worship life without
insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable;
5. Know that the
way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest
expression of what we believe;
6. Find more grace
in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty—more value in questioning
than in absolutes;
7. Form ourselves
into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called
to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and
restoring the integrity of all God’s creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus
called the least of his sisters and brothers; and
8. Recognize that
being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and
renunciation of privilege