How To Know You are a “Progressive” Christian
A Lutheran congregation in California explains on its blog site why it regards itself as a “progressive” congregation. Here are the standards they strive to uphold:
By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who:
1. Proclaim Jesus Christ as our Gate to the realm of God.
2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway to God’s realm.
3. Understand our sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a representation of God’s feast for all peoples.
4. Invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in our worship and in our common life as full partners, including (but not limited to): believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, homosexuals and heterosexuals, females and males, the despairing and the hopeful, those of all races and cultures, and those of all classes and abilities, without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us.
5. Think that the way we treat one another and other people is more important than the way we express our beliefs.
6. Find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers.
7. See ourselves as a spiritual community in which we discover the resources required for our work in the world: striving for justice and peace among all people; bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers
8. Recognize that our faith entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and conscientious resistance to evil–as has always been the tradition of the church
Sounds sort of like ecclesiastical Babylon , the church of Babylon in Revelation chapter 17
Actually, it’s kind of nice to have them come right out and state in black and white, rather than misappropriating the terminology of real Lutheranism.
This is Lutheran? This is 2010? Sounds like the liberal Catholicism I heard in the 1960s.
“Our Gate to the Realm of God”? Sheeeeeeessh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Luther would have a fit.
The first thought that came to me after reading this is what our Lord says in Luke 18:8,
“When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?”
Please note the folks this congregation will welcome- http://www.hrlcsj.com/welcome/welcome.htm-everyone except an orthodox, conservative or traditionalist Christian (rereading the list they did exclude others such as the mentally challenged, abortionists, bestialists, etc: how narrow! Excuse my sarcasm).
So what else is new? Maybe the best thing that has come out of the year-ago decision of the ELCA to bless same-sex marriage (and bless inclusive language in their hymnbook, sundry ecumaniacal agreements etc) is seen in this congrgation’s web-site: Liberal Protestantism is now established and literally out of the closet. The struggle with the powers and principalities, I think, are no longer Lutheran vs. Roman, Lutheran vs. Reformed, etc. but primarily, orthodox Christianity vs. Liberal Protestantism (and yes, Liberal Romanism and Orthodoxy).
I am just finishing reading “Fundamentalism” and the Word of God by J. I. Packer, published in 1958, and I emphasize, 1958. In it he contrasts Liberal Protestantism and orthodox Christianity and lists the creed of Liberalism. What Packer describes below is in this web-site so that we may approach those lost or being lost. And yes this causes anger but also grief that so many are departing from the Lord:
“The characteristic tenets of liberal faith in America in the early years of this century may be, summarized as follows:’
1. God’s character is one of pure benevolence—benevolence, that is, without standards. All men are His children, and sin separates no one from His love. The Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man are alike universal.
2. There is a divine spark in every man. All men, therefore, are good at heart, and need nothing more than encouragement to allow their natural goodness to express itself.
3. Jesus Christ is man’s Saviour only in the sense that He is man’s perfect Teacher and Example. We should regard Him simply as the first Christian, our elder brother in the world-wide family of God. He was not divine in any unique sense. He was God only in the sense that He was a perfectly God-conscious and God-guided man. He was not born of a virgin; He did not work miracles, in the sense of ‘mighty works’ of divine creative power; and He did not rise from the dead.
Just as Christ differs from other men only comparatively, not absolutely, so Christianity differs from other religions not generically, but merely as the best and highest type of religion that has yet appeared. All religions are forms of the same religion, just as all men are members of the same divine family. It follows, of course, that Foreign Missions should not aim to convert from one fiath to another, but rather to promote a cross-fertilizer interchange whereby each religion may be enriched through the contribution of all others.
5. The Bible is not a divine recored of revelation, but human testament of religion; and Christian doctrine is not he God-given word whichmust create and control Christian experience.”
I’m most certainly not progressive. I’m vintage.
@Jen
That’s VintageTM to you! XD
Find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers.
That is like saying the search for food is more important than finding it and eating.
At any rate, all you have to do is just hint that you disagree with them on the Iraq War, or affirmative action, or amnesty for illegal aliens, or having the church bless gay/lesbian “marriages” and watch how fast and furiously you are denounced. There is no hint of uncertainty on their secular political positions, which they regard as absolute moral truths beyond criticism from the reactionary bigoted heathens such as myself.
Finding their glossary of terms rather sad/humorous. They include “androcentric” – that society is centered on the male, but omit “gynocentric” – the adjective that describes societies that are centered on the female.
Conversion and metanoia are two different things. And then there is a new term for me – Eco-kashrut, defined as “Ethical consumption of goods.”
Amazing the things that become important when you abandon the primacy of the Word of God as found in Holy Scripture.
This is on a slightly different note, but googling the phrase, Simul Iustus et Peccator I found this blog of the “Pastor” who preached the sermon at the re-installation of the homosexual pastors in San Francisco.
http://sarcasticlutheran.typepad.com/sarcastic_lutheran/2010/07/no-longer-gay-nor-straight.html
Check out the shoes she is wearing under her alb.