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By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who...

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

Progressive Christianity: Reconstructing Our Theological Witness
By Delwin Brown

Progressive Christianity has been seriously hampered by at least two illusions.  One is that the triumph of progressive ideas is pretty much inevitable. The other is that progressive ideas are inherently persuasively. Neither is true. The progressive Christian witness will not triumph inevitably triumph or under its own power. Convictions prevail when they are part of social movements. Progressive ideas may be intrinsically credible, but they are actually believed only when they are effectively stated and lived, and embedded in alliances of people who act together with informed intentionality.

Jesus: The Way That is Open to Other Ways
By Paul Knitter
I am one of those Christians whose faith has been uncomfortably challenged by a reality that has been with us since the dawning of humanity but has become even clearer and more pressing over the last century: that there are many ways to be religious. There are many religions; there always have been; and, despite two millennia of Christian missionary work, it sure seems like there always will be. The manyness, the diversity, of religions is here to stay....
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Prayer Given by the Right Reverend V. Gene Robinson at the Opening Inaugural Event
As many of you know, the Right Rev. Gene Robinson, the openly Gay Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire , gave the opening prayer at yesterday's Lincoln Memorial event. It was the first event in the inaugural festivities this year. HBO, which had paid for exclusive rights to the event chose not to broadcast Bishop Robinson's prayer. So if you watched there you wouldn't have caught it or even known that it occurred. NPR didn't air it either. There's no record of it in images placed on the sites of Getty Images, New York Times and the Washington Post. It's a complete erasure of his ever having delivered the prayer.  Such is the continuing policy of silence and erasure we have to live with from people who should know better. We are used to this. If you know your Gay history this has happened again and again. In fact this little list-serve is really about recovering the truth in our history and celebrating it. So we're going to celebrate it by providing here the full text of Bishop Robinson's prayer....
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The Phoenix Affirmations Full version
Phoenix Affirmations full version from CrossWalk America...
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From the Third Floor of the Gargage- The Story of TheOOZE
By Spencer Burke
I used to be a pastor. More than that, I was a pastor at Mariners Church in Irvine, California-a bona fide mega church with a 25-acre property and a $7.8 million dollar budget.  For years, I played by the rules and tried hard not to think too much about the lingering questions in my soul. Doubt, after all, was dangerous. Who knew where it might lead?...
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Saving Jesus From The Church - How To Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus
By Robin Meyers
"In his least political and most thoughtful book to date, Dr. Robin Meyers finds the common ground in the world of Jesus and lays out a call to action that unites us under a banner of hope and reconciliation." ~Erick Ebama.  This is not a call to the church to move to the far left or to try something brand new. Rather, it is the recovery of something very old. Saving Jesus from the Church shows us what it means to be a Christian and how to follow Jesus' teachings today....
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Mind In The Balance-Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity
By B. Alan Wallace
By establishing a dialogue in which the meditative practices of Buddhism and Christianity speak to the theories of modern philosophy and science, B. Alan Wallace reveals the theoretical similarities underlying these disparate disciplines and their unified approach to making sense of the objective world.  "This work is replete with lucid argument and wonderful, (nearly breathtaking) detailed explanation as to the congruencies and parallels between Eastern & Western contemplative traditions and modern, that is to say: quantum physics. Mind in the Balance is now in my top three favorites of all time, easily a must read 5 plus star effort," reviews Matthew J. Schimpf.

The Leap of Advent

By: Chuck Queen,  The “Advent” of God in the person of Jesus not only challenged old ways of thinking about God and old patterns of relating to God, Jesus’ Advent marked the beginning of a spiritual revolution, a conspiracy of love.

Praying A New Story
By Michael Morwood

In this invigorating, poetic and imaginative paperback, Morwood shares prayers that can be used in small groups that reflect a fresh and bold reframing of Christian views of God, the universe, Jesus, the Spirit, and holidays such as Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost. Here you will read about an everywhere God instead of an elsewhere God, who is present and active in every corner of the universe and in every dimension of our everyday life.

What About Sin?

Obviously how we think about sin changes how we think about repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation.  If we understand sin to be primarily personal… the burden is on us individually to change our behavior. Change in personal behavior is always good when we identify behaviors and thoughts that we know we need to change.  But personal change does not adequately deal with destruction and hurt and evil that can come from the corporate, communal sin. For example: we might know that we have to change our attitudes toward homeless persons…and be more generous in our personal charity.  And it is good to do so.  But that still does not change the structural economic and political situations that will continue to result in more and more homeless people.  Or we might become aware that we personally need to be more open minded to those who are different from us.  So personal transformation is good.  But that does not change the systems of racism, sexism or homophobia. That infuses much of our cultural landscape.

Servant or Sucker? Wise and Compassionate Ways to Help the Poor, A DVD

No one wants to be a sucker in these situations but at the same time Jesus’ call to help the poor echoes in our hearts and minds. Servant or Sucker? Wise and Compassionate Ways to Help the Poor helps viewers discern appropriate, Christ-centered actions when it comes to addressing poverty on a personal or organizational level.

From History To Mystery, The Life And Teachings Of The Historical Jesus
By Lisa A Morris

This book explores the quest for the Historical Jesus and seeks to discover the original meanings of his teachings, in particular his kingdom of God teachings. You will learn about the last 200 years of Jesus research, including the Jesus Seminar. The author discusses Gnosticism, The Gospel of Thomas, The Secret Gospel of Mark, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene along with the four canonical gospels; Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The author spends much of her time investigating the Parables of Jesus. In the parables, Jesus preaches about "the kingdom of God." This concept is taught by Jesus on two levels. One for the masses and one for his inner circle. The uncovering the "secret teachings" of the parables is very illuminating and inspirational. Whether you are a seminary student, pastor, educator, or layperson; this is a must read on the subject of the historical teachings of Jesus! The book was written by a respected scholar in Historical Christianity, Dr. Lisa Morris.

Sacred Marriage, Sacred Sex, Sacred Text- the Song of Solomon
By Sea Raven

The Song of Solomon would never have become sacred scripture if it had not been interpreted as allegory. In the traditional Jewish understanding, the Song recounts God’s love for Israel and the history of their relationship. For Christians...
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Religionless Religion: Beyond Belief to Understanding

In these perilous times when the very survival of the human species is at stake, there is a desperate need for wisdom to provide guidance. The sacred literature of the world's major religious traditions is a source for such wisdom, but it has largely been misinterpreted and misunderstood, and, thus, instead of being a source for wisdom, it has been a source for confusion and conflict. The ancient scriptures, for the most part, were written in a language which is quite different from ordinary language. It is a mythological language, which is symbolic, and therefore its meaning is hidden. In the Bible, for example, there are many narratives that appear to be historical, but they are history that has been mythologized, and therefore their surface meaning is not their real meaning. Clyde Edward Brown clearly illustrates that the correct interpretation of the world's religious texts would lead to a different concept of religion. Instead of belief in the literal truth of texts that have been misinterpreted, the emphasis would be on having those religious values, such as social and economic justice, which are common to all religions.

I Want to be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth
By Brenda Peterson

In Brenda Peterson’s unusual memoir, fundamentalism meets deep ecology. The author’s childhood in the high Sierra with her forest ranger father led her to embrace the entire natural world, while her Southern Baptist relatives prepared eagerly and busily to leave this world. Peterson survived fierce “sword drill” competitions demanding total recall of the Scriptures and awkward dinner table questions (“Will Rapture take the cat, too?”) only to find that environmentalists with prophecies of doom can also be Endtimers. Peterson paints such a hilarious, loving portrait of each world that the reader, too, may want to be Left Behind. Her clever take on the "Left Behind" phenomenon in the book's title isn't just a gentle refutation of an escapist religious prophecy. It's an appeal for something more inclusive than the idea that true believers will one day be swept up midair and whisked off to an eternal paradise, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

Living in Two Kingdoms
By Jim Burklo

I live in two kingdoms.  They occupy the same space and time, but they are very different places.  One might think that these two kingdoms would be so at odds with each other that one or another would have prevailed by now.  But they remain in an ongoing, dynamic tension in the same fabric of space-time.

I Met God in Bermuda, Faith in the 21st Century
By Steven Ogden

It is time to challenge traditional understandings of God in order to create a twenty-first century faith. We have to say goodbye to the Sunday school God and find new ways of thinking about God.

This is not an exercise in theory, but an effort to take the practice of life seriously. In fact, a twenty-first century faith is an open, dynamic and courageous attitude toward life. It presumes that God is found not in the sky, but in the midst of life. It begins with experience, our shared experience. While experience is not everything, it is a good starting point. It is what we know.

To Have and to Have Not
By Sea Raven

 Luke’s Jesus seems to be saying, pay attention to how you are listening to the message.  Are you receptive (fertile); rocky (rejecting); thorny (resisting); or dry (uninterested)?  Because . . . but here the non-sequitur called “to have and have not” throws us off the track.  The Jesus Seminar scholars suggest that “Luke presumably wants the reader to know that those who grasp at the initial stages of faith will be given more to understand as they mature” (The Five Gospels  p. 307).

Homodoxuals and Heterodoxuals in the Church
By Jim Burklo

Lately I've seen many uses of the term "heterodoxy" in my reading about current trends in religion in America, referring to people who mix a variety of religious traditions and beliefs in their spirituality.  That got me to thinking about what its opposite would be: "homodoxy".  This struck me as an ironic twist in language, since so many "homodoxual" people oppose homosexuality, and so many "heterodoxual" people are open and affirming towards gays and lesbians.  This musing resulted from these observations.

Coming Back to Earth From gods, to God, to Gaia
By Lloyd Geering

The mainline churches in the Western world are declining, concludes Lloyd Geering, because they are “all out of step” with the modern secular world. This is not so much a result of the supposed renegade behavior of the secular world as the failure of the church to take the next steps in its path of faith. Abraham left his idols behind to go out into the unknown. In contrast, the churches reveal a lack of faith by insisting on an infallible Bible and a set of unchangeable doctrines tailored to an obsolete worldview. In Coming Back to Earth, Geering calls upon us to complete the work of the Second Axial Age by bringing the sacred—banished to an imaginary heavenly realm in the wake of the First Axial Age—back to earth.

Imagining a future for the Bible in tomorrow’s churches and a post-Christian world
By Gregory C. Jenks

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