By calling ourselves progressive, we mean we are Christians who...
Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women and men, those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, those of all races and cultures, those of all classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope
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.
Early Christian writers celebrated the loving, same sex relationship of two Roman soldiers who were also Christian martyrs, Sergius and Bacchus. Documents from the 10th and 11th centuries reveal that the Christian church devised same sex marriage rituals alongside heterosexual marriage liturgies. Homophobia is a recent aberration in the Christian church. Could we step forward, by regaining the Christian celebration of diversity?
Mercy and Truth Will Meet, What It Takes To Be a Movement That Matters
By
Peter Laarman Bill Coffin said, Liberal Christianity, or what we today call progressive Christianity and what some call "seminar room Christianity," has until now had a really unhelpful taint of elitism around it. We need to change that. So let's just agree to get the conversation started. Let's begin to grow in faith. Find strength in one another. See the world more clearly. And in and through all this, liberate ourselves and liberate one another for the sake of social transformation. If we ourselves can become the first fruits of the change we seek, then change itself-real change-cannot be far behind....
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POST DENOMINATIONAL HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS Change is in the air and the deep rooted change of mind required of us in the present global stress challenges us all to set our own lives in the big picture.......Here is an attempt to make word picture of the mindshift required. I wonder if it would stir creative thoughts among tcpc participants....
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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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Remarks of President Barak Obama at the National Prayer Breakfast
But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate. There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent human being. This much we know.
The Phoenix Affirmations Full version Phoenix Affirmations full version from CrossWalk America...
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Engaging the Recovering Christians
By
Fred Plumer So how do we progressive Christians share our perspective so recovering Christians can hear us and actually get excited about the progressive path of Jesus and what our churches have to offer?...
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Why I Left Christianity
By
Steven Locks I remember feeling that what happened to Jesus was unfair as (so I thought) he just wanted people to be good and to love each other. So he had my support. This was basically my attitude until my late teens. Very simplistic, and not so far particularly damaging! What I believed in from the start and what attracted me to Christianity was a message of love. It was the desire for this that was primal and would become the driving force that took me out later....
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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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A Heretics Guide to Eternity
By
Spencer Burke "If Spencer Burke is a heretic, it's not because he's teaching dangerous doctrine, but because he asks the questions about faith that today's sensibilities naturally raise. Spencer is a winsome walking companion for those who find traditional dogma too narrow. It's a thoughtful conversation." -Marshall Shelley,...
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The Bible and Homosexuality- A Faithful Look
By
Lea Mathieu
Too many Christians blindly accept that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but rarely are the few verses that do so discussed in their textual and cultural settings. The author, a United Church of Christ minister, investigates the small print and finds no support for oppression and bigotry in the name of faith. This article was prompted by protests against the ordination of openly gay clergy in her husband's Lutheran congregation.
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.
RDPulpit: Is Barack Obama a “Fierce Advocate” For Gays or Just Pragmatist-in-Chief? The Obama administration has gone from indifference to actively promoting religious opposition to the civil rights of gay Americans, comparing same-sex marriage to incest and pedophilia....
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The Christianity I knew had nothing to do with today’s moral judging from the religious right. It didn’t depend upon a church hierarchy throwing around its weight in the name of ecclesiastical authority. It wasn’t defined by the drama of today’s fights over gay rights or attempts to sneak creationism into the schools. There was no political grandstanding. It was a deeply humble, self-emptying, other-serving Christianity.
Butterflyfish is a rootsy blend of American folk, gospel, blues, country, and bluegrass, cooked down and spiced up into fresh takes on the spiritual themes so characteristic of old American music.
By: Bethany Moreton To Serve God and Wal-Mart is one account of the anointing of free enterprise, the unlikely legitimation of neoliberal economics through evangelical religion. It tells this story through the twinned biographies of the world's largest company and the ideological apparatus it nurtured. It is not intended to blur the harsh picture of 21st-century political economy offered by a Naomi Klein or a David Harvey; their facts speak for themselves. Rather, it is meant to populate that picture with three-dimensional historical actors who support a purportedly irrational worldview. This move reveals the triumph of that vision as even more clearly the outcome of human effort and corporate resources, not of historical inevitability
Gary's third and final book - Lots Of Love - is an urgent and loving testimonial to the simple but fundamental building blocks of our human and spiritual DNA - that "love is the beginning and the end of our journey." Each day physical life may conspire to ebb out of Gary's body but his spirit flows through his pen and his glorious fight to bring us all a message of hope at the holiday season. Lots of Love is an ornament to be hung on every tree, a candle to be lit on the last night of Hanukkah, an Eid prayer at Ramadan and a strand of lights at the new moon of Diwali.
When I was more dualistic in my faith the key question was: Are my beliefs correct and how do I get others to believe the right things? Now that I am more inclusive in my thinking the key question is: How can I fall in love with an unconditionally loving God and share this love with others?
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.
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.
The Path of Jesus Means Inclusion of All
By
Ronald Sparks
Jesus, obviously, saw everyone as "being created in The Imagio Dei" ("The Image and Likeness of God"). He saw everyone as having worth and dignity before God. He proclaimed that we possess these attributes not because of who we are, or what we do, but rather because of Who God is: Our Divine Parent and the One in Whose "demut" and "selem" (Hebrew Words in Genesis for "Image" and "Resemblance") we were created. When we defame, demean, devaluate, dehumanize,demonize, and discriminate against any human being we denigrate God's "Image" and "Likeness" in them and, ultimately, in ourselves.
From religiondispatches.org. By Jeanne Carstensen. While religious conservatives are vocal on issues of sexuality—from pre-marital sex to masturbation to abortion—progressive religious leaders have largely ‘abstained’ from discussing these matters in the pulpit. A new report urges more clergy education and openness on sexuality issues.
Raymond J. Lawrence Jr. This is powerful book if you want to get an overview of the Christian influence on today’s sexual ethics and sexuality. Sexual Liberation is mostly an account of how wrong Christianity has been about sex over the centuries. Raymond Lawrence is the Director of Pastoral Care at New York Presbyterian Hospital at the Columbia University Medical Center. He brings years of scholarly and life experience to his writing.
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.
I do not think that very many people believe that we have a very healthy attitude towards human sexuality in the Western World today, especially in the USA. Twenty minutes of television will generally demonstrate that sad truth. The great irony of all of this is that while many of the causes of this unhealthy sexuality can be traced back to the church, the teachings from Jesus--that we can learn to experience all Creation as Divine, including women and men--has been lost in the process. Our continued subtle, and not so subtle, patriarchal bias has been a road block for us learning to see and experience all creation as One or Sacred Unity, through our practice of radical egalitarianism. We all lose in the process, especially our children.
“Mojados in the Promised Land”: words by Jim Burklo and Lisa Atkinson, music by Lisa Atkinson and George Kincheloe, on “Connie’s Songbird”, CD by Lisa Atkinson, www.atkinsonkincheloe.com, reprinted with permission.
There was Jay, welcoming people with a smile and exuding a joie de vivre that spread throughout the group gathering for worship at St. Andrew’s United Church last Sunday (May 10). This was a special Sunday. Not only was it Mother’s Day, it was the day they were voting on whether to become an Affirming Congregation.
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...
Is God A Delusion?: A Reply To Religion's Cultured Despisers
By
Eric Reitan
"Is God a Delusion?" addresses the philosophical underpinnings of the recent proliferation of popular books attacking religious beliefs. Focuses primarily on charges leveled by recent critics that belief in God is irrational and that its nature ferments violence Balances philosophical rigor and scholarly care with an engaging, accessible style Offers a direct response to the crop of recent anti-religion bestsellers currently generating considerable public discussion.
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.
The Bible and the Church have become more or less irrelevant to the contemporary world. Sadly the message of Jesus, totally relevant to all times, has been ignored and lost because it is seen as being part of the Church that is now rejected with nothing important to say to present-day life. This book deals with the need to move away from structures of traditional beliefs, creeds and doctrines that are outmoded in our contemporary world. It encourages a move into a Church-based environment, living by a set of Jesus values that include compassion, sacrifice and acceptance of difference without having to believe the unbelievable and the unscientific.
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.
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.
Much has been written on the plight of women in Indian society, but this book presents an effective practical response to the appalling injustices - and a model of hope for agencies and programs for oppressed women around the world. This book recounts the true story of "Maher", a remarkable project and centre for battered women and children located near Pune, India. Founded in 1997, the project has provided refuge to more than 1250 women, half of whom might otherwise have been murdered, committed suicide, or starved to death. Maher is an interfaith community that honours all religions and strongly repudiates caste distinctions - making it a rare beacon shining new hope upon some of the gravest problems in India and around the world. The book is rich with stories - poignant first-hand accounts by women and children whose lives have been transformed by the Maher project. Later chapters explore the larger implications of this pioneering work, with guidance for implementing similar projects elsewhere. Written in a concise narrative style, "Women Healing Women in India" is an easy and compelling read.
Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)
By
Frank Schaeffer
Author Schaeffer (Keeping Faith) adopts a feisty tone in this essay about evangelical Christianity and aggressive atheism. In the first half of the book, he rebuts justifications from both sides, taking aim at the ideas of such celebrity atheists as Richard Dawkins as well as religious leaders like Rick Warren. Schaeffer asks each side to allow for an evolving religion in which allegory takes precedence over literalism. In the second half, he gives space for his own memories, recalling moments that led him to a middle path of “hopeful uncertainty.”
Interview of Brian McLaren on Patheos.com Challenging the traditional assumptions around core Christian beliefs and advocating a dynamic discipleship that is more about the questions than the answers, this evangelical pastor-turned-author is preaching a compelling message for the future of Christianity that is building bridges across religious divides within the Church and beyond.
Invisioning a future in which the Christian church plays a viable and transformative role in shaping society, Gretta Vosper argues that if the church is to survive at all, the heart of faith must undergo a radical change. Vosper, founder of the Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity and a minister in Toronto, believes that what will save the church is an emphasis on just and compassionate living-a new and wholly humanistic approach to religion. Without this reform, the church as we know it faces extinction.
Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimaged in His Own Time
By
Sarah Ruden
In Paul Among the People, Sarah Ruden explores the meanings of his words and shows how they might have affected readers in his own time and culture. She describes as well how his writings represented the new church as an alternative to old ways of thinking, feeling, and living.
Converting Christians to the Way of Jesus
By
Chuck Queen
Renewing the institutional church that has settled for some lesser version of Christianity shaped by our Western/American sense of comfort and security, governed by rewards and punishments, fixated on getting beliefs correct, and oriented around feel-good, self-glorifying, God wants you to be happy and prosperous teaching, is a very difficult and slow process.
A parable of how a vision can be distorted, so that a process of liberation, healing and inclusiveness becomes an an institution preoccupied with conformity.
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.
Imagining a future for the Bible in tomorrow’s churches and a post-Christian world
By
Gregory C. Jenks
Jack Spong has attempted to rescue the Bible from fundamentalism and Marcus Borg has encouraged us to read the Bible again for the first time. However, the Bible remains a problematic text for religious progressives, including Christians and people from other faith traditions. This presentation will acknowledge the constraints on the capacity of the Bible to function in the post-Christian global era, but also imagine some ways in which the Bible may make a constructive contribution to progressive religious communities in the future.
The Challenge Progressive Thinking Is Making to the Church
By
Gretta Vosper
We come to this moment in time, called by a very long list of voices, and it has been many, many years, decades, even centuries, that those voices have been calling us. Over the course of the next years, we must find again that inspiration that was the spark for what has been an incredible journey toward wholeness but one that has, ironically, continued to fragment and judge, to deny rights and oppress.
'This book... is an alleluia view of every present moment, a view that welcomes its complexity and subjects it to the more lasting view, the long view, of life. To that, alleluia (p. x1).'?
At the recent Southern Baptist Convention which met in Orlando, a theme reiterated throughout the meeting was the “lostness” of the world. Consider the following quotes, taken from an article in the Western Recorder by Editor Todd Deaton titled: SBC takes ‘fresh look’ at nation’s lostness:
The New Atheists are to be commended for demanding that humanity update our maps of reality and that we begin to value and actually use our modern and much enhanced capacities to discern right relationship and to devise age-appropriate ways for psychologically and materially moving in those directions.
The New Atheists as God’s prophets: What a twist! How could we have arrived at such an absurd reversal of who speaks for God?
Mercy and Truth Will Meet, What It Takes To Be a Movement That Matters
Engaging the Recovering Christians
A Heretics Guide to Eternity
Saving Jesus From The Church - How To Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus
Mind In The Balance-Meditation in Science, Buddhism, and Christianity
ButterflyFish Music CD
To Serve God and Wal-Mart
Lots of Love
Praying A New Story
Sexual Liberation-The Scandal of Christendom
From History To Mystery, The Life And Teachings Of The Historical Jesus
Mojados
Is God A Delusion?: A Reply To Religion's Cultured Despisers
Religionless Religion: Beyond Belief to Understanding
Setting Jesus Free
I Want to be Left Behind: Finding Rapture Here on Earth
I Met God in Bermuda, Faith in the 21st Century
Women Healing Women: A Model of Hope for Oppressed Women Everywhere
Patience With God: Faith For People Who Don't Like Religion (or Atheism)
With or Without God
Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimaged in His Own Time
Uncommon Gratitude Alleluia For All That is
Well-Fed Spirit Website