What better time than February 12th and Charles Darwin’s birthday (by rights, one of the most important days on your Liturgical Calendar) to turn our thoughts once again to the critical role Progressive Christians have as a defense against those who think subverting science somehow promotes their religion.
Granted, some denominations have published “supplements” with more modern music, but way too many have also bent to internal denominational pressure and included a plethora of hopelessly counter-productive praise choruses.
Hooray! Yet another Christian Nationalist effort to strangle American values has gone out with a whimper. This time, it was a Texas Senate Bill that, if passed, would have required the 10 Commandments to be displayed prominently in every classroom in the state.
Christianity is the only major religion where many followers believe the death of their founder is more important than his life.
Earlier this summer, I was called out as a heretic and accused of “sitting on Satan’s lap” courtesy of the Institute for Religion and Democracy (the fundamentalist think tank behind the schisms of many of our mainline denominations).
As if we don’t already have enough problems in this country, the last few years have seen us slipping closer and closer to becoming a “post-truth society.” Facts just don’t seem to matter anymore.
The following is Part 1 of a series drawn from an interview with Robert P. Jones, author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity on September 9th, 2021. It has been edited for length and focus.
So, what’s the measure of a “genuine” progressive Christian? For some, it’s proficiency in some obscure spiritual discipline. For others, it’s engagement in the work of social justice. Whatever we are, the media seems to believe the 2020s may provide a leg-up for those who are advocates and practitioners of a post-modern, post-evangelical, post-liberal, post-Christian approach to Jesus following.
As one who’s had to endure a career in a denomination whose global trademark is a burning cross, it once again raised the question in my mind of how the cross, burning or otherwise, had become a symbol of hate and White Supremacy.
Recently, a half-dozen young people in our small town organized a peaceful Black Lives Matter demonstration. The march was seen by some as an intrusion of threatening other-worldly politics into our predominantly (99.8%) white town and riled up a lot of emotional responses on social media.