# Progressive Christianity **Summary.** A loose but recognizable family of theological commitments and practices within Protestantism and Catholicism that treat scripture as inspired but not inerrant, affirm LGBTQ+ people as full members and leaders, read the gospel through a lens of social and economic justice, honor interfaith neighbors without demanding their conversion, and sit easily with doubt, embodied experience, and the provisional. Distinguished from both theological liberalism (which can strip the tradition of its scandal) and evangelical or charismatic Christianity (which often binds faith to certainty and exclusion). ## Core Commitments Synthesized from the sources named above and from wiki-internal sermons at St. John's UCC. 1. **Scripture as inspired, not inerrant.** Read historically and critically. Lectionary-shaped. Translation matters — see [[The Inclusive Bible]]. 2. **Full LGBTQ+ inclusion.** Ordination, marriage, leadership, sacraments. Not a secondary issue. 3. **Justice as gospel, not application.** Feeding the hungry, housing the unhoused, dismantling structural racism and patriarchy are not side-effects of salvation. They are the shape of salvation in the world. 4. **Ecumenical and interfaith humility.** Christianity as one tradition among many ways of faithfulness, not a monopoly on truth. 5. **Embodied and sacramental.** The Table, the Bath, embodied suffering, creation care. 6. **Doubt as partnership, not threat.** See [[Faith and Doubt]]. Progressive Christianity does not treat the questioner as a problem to solve. 7. **Non-violence and peace-making.** Often, though not universally, pacifist or peace-church adjacent. ## What It Is Not 1. **Not theological liberalism of the 1920s.** Progressive Christianity generally affirms incarnation, resurrection, and trinitarian theology, though with reopened metaphors and imagery. 2. **Not "Christianity lite."** It does not treat the tradition as embarrassing baggage. Progressive pastors and theologians write sermons, lead sacraments, pray the daily office, and stand under scripture. 3. **Not deconstruction itself.** Progressive Christianity is often where deconstruction lands, not deconstruction itself. See [[Deconstruction]] (stub — to build). 4. **Not uncritical.** The movement has internal critics: Rachel Held Evans named the trap of becoming "merely not-evangelical." Serene Jones, Diana Butler Bass, and others have pushed for a positive constructive theology rather than reactive identity. ## Named Voices - **Theologians and pastors.** Brian McLaren, Rachel Held Evans, Rob Bell, Pete Enns, Walter Brueggemann, N.T. Wright (adjacent), Diana Butler Bass, Serene Jones, Elizabeth Johnson, Sallie McFague, Phyllis Trible, Sandra Schneiders. - **Activist historians.** Beth Allison Barr, Kristin Kobes Du Mez. - **UCC voices.** John Thomas, John Dorhauer, Traci Blackmon, Otis Moss III. - **Inclusive-language hymnodists.** [[Brian Wren]], Miriam Therese Winter, Jann Aldredge-Clanton, Mary Louise Bringle, Mark Miller. - **Pastoral.** [[Caroline Saxton]] (St. John's UCC Chambersburg). ## Institutional Homes - **United Church of Christ.** The home denomination for this wiki's local context. See [[St. John's UCC Chambersburg]]. - **Presbyterian Church (USA).** - **Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.** - **Episcopal Church.** - **Disciples of Christ.** - **American Baptist Churches USA** (mixed). - **Alliance of Baptists.** - **Metropolitan Community Church.** - **Convergence Music Project and the Center for Progressive Renewal.** See [[Convergence Music Project]]. ## Relationship to NAR Progressive Christianity and the [[New Apostolic Reformation]] are positioned at opposite ends of the contemporary Protestant spectrum. | Axis | Progressive Christianity | New Apostolic Reformation | |------|--------------------------|---------------------------| | Scripture | Historical-critical, liberation hermeneutics | Prophetic-literal, revelatory | | Authority | Congregational, ecumenical, scholarly | Apostolic-prophetic offices, spiritual covering | | Gender | Full egalitarian inclusion | Complementarian or hierarchical | | LGBTQ+ | Affirming | Non-affirming or actively opposed | | Politics | Often progressive / peace / climate justice | Often Christian Nationalist | | Miracles | Cautious affirmation, not formula | Central, on-demand, outcome-proving | | Doubt | Companion of faith | Enemy of faith | See [[NAR Worship Critique Traditions]] for how the critique operates. > [!contradiction] > **Evangelical critique of Progressive Christianity:** that it slides into universalism, denies substitutionary atonement, and waters down biblical authority. > > **Progressive response:** it holds substitutionary atonement as one metaphor among many biblical atonement metaphors (Christus Victor, moral exemplar, ransom, recapitulation). It treats biblical authority as substantive — the Bible exerts claim — but recognizes that authority is mediated through interpretive tradition, and patriarchal and colonial interpretive traditions have often bound the text to unjust outcomes. ## Hermeneutical Toolbox 1. **Historical-critical method.** Date, context, author, audience, genre. 2. **Liberation hermeneutics.** Who is the text for? Who is the text about? Who gets crushed when the text is used as it has been used? 3. **Feminist and womanist hermeneutics.** Recovers suppressed women and gendered imagery; reads through the lens of women's experience. 4. **Queer hermeneutics.** Reads the tradition for its queer possibilities and for its violence against queer people. 5. **Postcolonial hermeneutics.** Recognizes the imperial trajectories encoded in and against scripture. 6. **Canonical and narrative theology.** Brueggemann, Wright. The Bible as unfolding story and countertestimony. ## Courtney's Location Progressive Christianity is where this wiki's processing lives. Courtney's journey out of charismatic/NAR contexts arrives here — within the UCC, under Caroline Saxton's preaching, with the New Century Hymnal and [[The Inclusive Bible]], in conversation with [[Paula Gooder]], Brian McLaren, Rachel Held Evans, and the longer feminist and liberation traditions. ## Open Threads - **[[Deconstruction]] concept page.** Still open. Progressive Christianity is the landing pad; deconstruction is the process. - **Primary ingest.** Caleb Lines's "What Exactly IS Progressive Christianity" article (54 KB) sits in the vault unread. High priority. - **Eight book reviews** in `4. Archives/Book reviews/` — Courtney's own prior work on progressive-Christianity-relevant books — remain the largest untapped wiki reserve. - **Rachel Held Evans** deserves her own entity page. - **Brian McLaren**, **Diana Butler Bass**, and **Pete Enns** all merit entity pages. ## Related - [[Faith and Doubt]] - [[New Apostolic Reformation]] - [[NAR Worship Critique Traditions]] - [[Inclusive Language Hymnody]] - [[The Inclusive Bible]] - [[St. John's UCC Chambersburg]] - [[Caroline Saxton]] - [[Convergence Music Project]] - [[Worship Songs Evaluated]]