Progressive Christian theology

Reading through the various posts, I get the impression that there are two takes on Christianity: the traditional "the Bible is the inerrant word of God" and "God so loved the world that He sent His son, born of a virgin, to be sacrificed on the cross for our sins, and rose from the dead on the third day, etc." And the atheists who say it's all a bunch of nonsense. I go to a Sunday School where folks believe in a third alternative: the historical-metaphorical approach of Borg theology (not the dudes on Startrek who want to assimilate everybody, but the theologian, Marcus Borg). So, for example, when the Bible says the earth was created by God in seven days, we ask "What was the historical context of that idea?" What was the author trying to convey by that statement? How did people come to think of Jesus as the "Son of God", "born of a virgin", "risen from the dead", etc. What did those expressions mean, when did the notions develop, etc. Does it make sense to take that approach to Christianity?

 

I'd add to this an evolutionary perspective. I think religion developed and evolved to meet human needs--several of them. In fact, I think it's multi-functional, performing functions for individuals and societies and their elites. For individuals, it performs cognitive mapping functions, alleviates existential anxieties, and is a product of social learning or behavioral conditioning. For societies,it provides solidarity and a means of social control, while serving to legitimate governments, religious leaders, and ruling elites. Sociologist Robert Bellah covers this thoroughly in Religion in Human Evolution, as does Robert Wright in The Evolution of God. Following evolutionary biologist and militant Atheist, Richard Dawkins, I find it useful to think of religions as collections of memes or transmissible units of culture. Memes participate in the evolution of culture just genes participate in human evolution, and like genes, memes tend to be out for themselves, , sometimes at the expense of the host organism. And the most successful memes from an evolutionary standpoint are not necessarily the nicest. In evolution, nice guys soemtimes finish last. For example intolerance can have survival value for memes., which may be why Christianity and Islam have done so well as world religions.

 

I feel like it does.

Much of what the church (I'm from a background of devout Catholic parents) is at least a little lacking of is science. Are we to be discouraged about discrepancies?

Perhaps if theologians were embracing the attitude that some of this - 7 days for example, may be metaphorical but nonetheless still extremely meaningful we would be better for it.

Does it make sense? Absolutely, it makes sense.

 

Life is full of dangers from just about anything we do or don't do. We have the choice of simply rejecting religion, interpreting it"any way we want", or using rational methods to try to figure it out as scientifically as possible. What's the alternative?

 

By way of illustrating how this might work, take the Bible. Fundamentalists tend to treat this as our owners manual guide to reality, but I think they expect more from it than it can deliver: a consistent, self-evident worldview with consistent answers to life's fundamental questions. There is one guy who posts on HF who used to say God wrote it, although when pressed he'd concede that God gave dictation. Actually, I think instead of being the Word of God, it's the words of men seeking God--lots of them, writing at different times with different agendas. No one has the originals. And rather than being a book, it's more of an anthology or library, which was still under construction for Jews as well as Christians after Jesus died on the cross. The sequence of writings is not necessarily chronological: Genesis I, the first book, actually seems to have been written relatively late, after Exodus, probably during or shortly after the Babylonian exile. Why was it written? probably not as a science manual to tell us about how long it took God to create the earth or what sequence He followed. It seems to have been a response to one of the greatest crises in Jewish history. The Babylonians had destroyed the Temple of Yahweh and sent the elite of Judea into exile. In the ancient Near East, when henotheism was the norm, destruction of a god's temple and removal of His people to another country would mean the god was through. However, Yahweh and the His people didn't give up easily. Gen. I asserts that in fact He was the God who created the earth and all peoples. Genesis is attributed to P, the "priestly source in Welhausen's documentary hypothesis--an Aaronite priest or school. We can quibble about details of the hyptothesis, but there seems to be general agreement about P and his (or their) authorship of Gen. 1. Genesis seems to take particular aim at the Babylonian creation story presented in the Enumah Elish, in which the earth was created after a battle between Marduk and Tiamat, the dragon goddesss of the deep and chaos, whose carcass became the earth. Unlike Marduk, Yahweh created in the fashion of the Memphite Egyptian god Ptah, by simply uttering commands. Tiamat appears as tehom (the deep), but without personality. And the created entities, vegetation and heavenly bodies that were worshiped as deities by the Babylonians, are described as mere objects. Saint Augustine even insisted, as do Christians, that the world was created ex nihlo (from nothing), although my Bible says "the spirit of God was moving over the waters', suggesting that at least the waters, the deep, was there already.

 

I might mention the seven days. Seven is considered a lucky number, the fourth prime number and the only prime number preceding a cube (8, the cube of 2). It is used 735 times in the Bible--860 times if we count the word "sevenfold. It is the number of completeness and perfection. It is also the number of the sabbath. The Jews in Babylonian exile faced the challenge of maintaining their identity in the midst of an alien population. To accomplish this, they developed and emphasized distinctive customs, one of which was the sabbath. Gen.1 provides and explanation of how the sabbath originated, and makes clear that even God keeps it.

I might also mention Gen. 1:26, where God creates on the sixth day, as the pinnacle of creation, "man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." This was the passage that triggered the series of thoughts that led to my embrace of Christianity. It is interesting to contrast it with the Babylonian account. After Marduk disposed of Tiamat, the gods faced the task of making it on their own. Ea (in Summerian, Enki, the water god and mad scientist of the Anunaki or Mesopotamian pantheon was awakened from sleep by his mother Nammu, who said "I can't believe you're in bed when your brother and sister gods are busting their **** Thus aroused, Ea and his girfriend the goddess Ninmah fashioned humans out of clay. But they needed a special ingredient: god's blood. Fortunately, one of the defeated allies of Tiamat, Qingman, was still around, so they sacrificed him and voila--a race of human slaves. Enki and Ninmah - www.GatewaysToBabylon.com
Enki and Ninmah and The Creation of Man
Genesis differs from the Babylonian account in several respects: no nagging mother, no gods blood, and most important of all, no slaves. Instead, humans were made in the image and likeness of Elohim and given dominion over the earth. I prefer the OT version. It makes going to WalMart a religious experience.

 

I would say that these are all metaphors which should not be taken literally.

I know of a christian lady who had to be admitted to a mental hospital due to excessive paranoia of the devil.And I know of similar other unfortunate cases as well.

And there are bound to be more such cases unless we start realizing that these are just metaphorical statements which ought to be understood with the dawning of the 'kingdom of heaven within you'. which I consider equivalent to enlightenment in the eastern context.

I would say to just live the life of a christian through the teachings of love, compassion, mindfulness and virtuous conduct as Christ taught.

If the process is right, results in the form of heaven is assured in the end. However if you start worrying of the devil and eternal hell, you will start living in hell now itself and forego the process.

 

What is progressive Christianity? Let's take a look at what it's defenders and critics say about it. There is a 501c3 non-profit organization called Progressive Christianity.org out of Washington state that identifies eight points of progressive Christianity:


Sounds pretty vague and general, but who could object? Well Evangelical Baptist theologian Roger Olsen, for one. In an article entitled "What Is "Progressive Christianity" and why Sould you Beware of It? What Is “Progressive Christianity” and Why Should You Beware of It? Olsen identifies nine "signals" that progressive Christianity is Liberal Christianity in disguise. (Actually, if he really understood Progressive Christianity, he'd probably find it much worse than liberal Christianity). Liberal" Christians generally follow some traditional practices and morals of Christianity, but reject the notion of the inerrancy of Scripture. "Progressive Christianity is characterized by a willingness to question tradition, acceptance of human diversity, a strong emphasis on social justice and care for the poor and the oppressed, and environmental stewardship of the earth. Progressive Christians have a deep belief in the centrality of the instruction to "love one another" (John 15:17) within the teachings of Jesus Christ. This leads to a focus on promoting values such as compassion, justice, mercy, and tolerance, often through political activism." Progressive Christianity - Wikipedia

So what features of progressive Christianity does Olsen find a need to warn us about? 1. Progressive Christians are disinterested in doctrine; 2. they have a tendency to replace doctrines with kindness and inclusion, as well as "social justice--usually for some newly discovered "oppressed group."3. they are determined to accommodate trends within academic culture, valuing reason and experience over scripture and tradition.(Something to listen for: "Who cares what Paul said? I follow Jesus! 4.elevation of inclusiveness to a virtue bar nonethose who discriminate, except for these who discriminate.5. abandonment of th "language of Zion"--sin, repentence, salvation,return of Christ, and Judgment of God; 6. universalism--a complete abandonment of any mention of hell; 7. treatment of the Bible not as a supernaturally inspired message from God but as "our sacred stories"--diffefrent in degeee but not in kind from other great and inspired writings: *. complete abansonment of belief in the supernatural, together with a strong immanence of God in all people; and 9. use of hostile language against groups who defend traditional values--fundamentalists, etc.

 

Progressive Christians are a rather loose collection of individuals who don't ordinarily have collective views on every Bible passage. I can tell you what I think, and what I guess other Progressive Christians might think.

 

I have often asked myself this same question. It could be that sayings attributed to Jesus were not what He actually said. We have no way of knowing this, or if this is all He said. Which I doubt. The Gospels were written many years after Jesus' death. Also scripture could have been altered by church leaders to promote their doctrine. When reading His sayings I know He taught Forgiveness and Unconditional Love. That I believe, and try to follow. Where the message deviates from this core theme I just believe it does not sound like His teachings and ignore. No, I don't believe the Bible is the "Word of God" true in every word.

 

Who knows. I think we're doing well to establish He existed. I think He probably did, cuz probably no group at the time, least of all Jews, would make up a Messiah who was crucified like a common criminal, or was baptized by his inferior to remove His non-existent sins, etc.

As for your particular passages, the best I can do is tell you what one group of Progressive Christian scholars, the Jesus Seminar, think. Let's take the first (Luke 12:51-53. (Interesting you left out the first sentence of the paragraph (12 Lk. 49)which is even more "inflammatory" : "I came to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already ablaze." Lk 12:49 The Jesus seminarians give it a gray: Jesus probably did not say this It seems to come from a later tradition. There seems to be no parallel saying in Mark and John, although there is one is in Matthew 10:34-36 "Don't get the idea that I came to bring peace on earth. I came not to bring peace but a sword." Jesus rarely refers to himself in the first person in the synoptic gospels. The part against setting family members against each other paraphrases Micah (7:5-6) and may have been stuck in to show continuity with OT prophecy. The Seminarians seem to be troubled by the inconsistency between this Jesus and the goody two shoes one presented elsewhere in Luke and Matthew. It is Luke's gospel that gives us the famous and hopeful lines during Jesus' advent concerning "peace on earth..." (Luke 2:14) If He did speak those words, He was a prophet ahead of his time, since subsequent history shows that he caused no end of division, although that might not have been his fault or intention. His mission was to call people to Peace, Love, Understanding, and Social Justice, but even in our own time there are those who would take up arms when they hear that call.

 

On to the second passage: "He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me." Sic. Matthew 10:34-39 Actually, that's Matthew 10: 37-38 (I already dealt with Mat. 10:34 supra). Here Matthew clusters sayings that once circulated separately. Hating one's family: (Q Gospel; Thomas ). The Jesus Seminarians reject the part about taking up one's cross as something Jesus didn't say. It comes from a different time or tradition. The saying about hating one's family may be authentic, and "probably originated as a retort to people who used family ties as an excuse not to become a follower."

The quote bout the white horse doesn't even purport to be anything Jesus says. It comes from Revelation, an apocalypse written by John of Patmos who seems to be a Christian exiled there by the Romans. From it, we may gather (1) they had good drugs on Patmos; (2) John was somewhat bitter about his treatment by the Romans. There was quite a lot of debate about letting it into the Bible, but the church fathers gave in in a weak moment.

 

I have no problem reconciling such passages with a message of peace. It's call hermeneutics, the branch of knowledge dealing with interpretation, especially of biblical texts. I take as my hermeneutic what I regard as Jesus' core values: peace, social justice, and unconditional love for our fellow humans, including society's rejects. He gave us as the Prime Directive love of God and Neighbor. Anything inconsistent with that is false. Two Great Commandments, Mark 12:28-31 KJV

Keep in mind that the "text" was written by anonymous biased authors who were not eyewitnesses decades after the death of Jesus on the basis of oral reports that were circulating from a wide variety of sources. If they got it right, that might be the greatest miracle of the Bible.

 

We might take a look at some of the features of Progressive Christianity Olsen regards as dangerous. First on his list is: Progressive Christians are disinterested in doctrine. I say: Good for them! Christianity stands out among the world's religions, past and present, in being the most obsessed with doctrine. The important thing about being a good Christian is not necessarily what you do, but what you believe. Paul started it off: justification by faith alone. To enjoy the advantage of Christ's sacrifice, it was only necessary to believe that he died for our sins and rose from the dead. He said that Christians were not under the law, that works added nothing to what Christ had done on the cross, that salvation was a free gift from God. All we had to do was believe and accept the gift. As the centuries passed by, the list of particulars Christians had to believe in grew: the virgin birth, the resurrection, the divinity of Jesus, the second coming, the Trinity, and the other various provisions of the Nicene Creed. Baptists would add baptism by dunking instead of sprinkling. I remember saying to my wife after a church service: "I don't believe any of this stuff". She said: "It's just a bunch of words. I don't pay attention". Hope she's right. As far as I'm concerned, the central, important doctrines of the Christian faith are the two great commandments mentioned above Mark 12:28-31. The rest is commentary. I tend to be gnostic in my belief that Jesus came mainly to enlighten us instead of die for us, although I reject the elaborate web of esoteric doctrines the Gnostics provided in His name. (You can find those on the New Age site). Olsen says we have"a tendency to replace doctrines with kindness and inclusion, as well as "social justice--usually for some newly discovered "oppressed" group. You betcha, baby! That's what it's all about.

 

Another of Olsen's beefs. Those Progressive Christians: "are determined to accommodate trends within academic culture, valuing reason and experience over scripture and tradition.(Something to listen for: "Who cares what Paul said? I follow Jesus!" You said it again! But what does it mean? That part about valuing reason and experience over scripture and tradition is a veiled reference to John Wesley's "quadrilateral', which is unusual coming from a Baptist. Ordinarily, Baptists are believers in sola scriptura (scripture alone) as a source of knowledge about God. It's refreshing to a Methodist like me to see a Baptist being so broad-minded. But Olsen is right. Progressive Christians like me tend to value reason and experience over words and tradition, and we used reason and experience to interpret the words and put them in their historical context. I could never really understand the importance of tradition as a guide to knowledge. Just because people in a community have always done it that way or thought that way doesn't make it right, although I do see value in established procedures in creating order and stability.

 

Questions perhaps best answered a posteriori. Taste and see...

"Of course you are uncertain. Of course you are in doubt. When there are reasons for doubt, uncertainty is born. So in this case, don't go by reports, by legends, by traditions, by scripture, by logical conjecture, by inference, by analogies, by agreement through pondering views, by probability, or by the thought, 'This contemplative is our teacher.' When you know for yourselves that,'These qualities are skillful; these qualities are blameless; these qualities are praised by the wise; these qualities, when adopted & carried out, lead to welfare & to happiness' — then you should enter & remain in them."
Siddhartha Gautama

Taste and see that the Lord is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Psalm 34:8