In two previous columns: How I Got Here and What Am I Now?, I shared a bit about my own backstory and where I am now as a progressive Christian. In this third column, I’d like to share a bit about what I see and hope for progressive Christianity looking forward.
In my previous piece, I shared a bit about my past. This piece turns to the present. I’ve just begun work on two books, the second of which is tentatively entitled, Do I Stay Christian? As I sketch out the shape and trajectory of the book, I’m thinking more deeply about why I still identify as Christian and what I think Christian can and in fact must come to mean in the decades ahead.
Suddenly, I saw in a new light the violence of the modern era, from colonialism to Stalinism to Naziism to nuclear war to the environmental crisis. Smart people, armed with excessive and un-self-critical confidence derived from their absolutized ideologies, could commit unspeakable atrocities without having second thoughts.