Progressive Christianity

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This article concerns a specific movement within contemporary American Protestant Christianity. For a more general article on progressive thought within Christianity, see Liberal Christianity.

Progressive Christianity is the name given to a movement within contemporary American Protestant Christianity which promotes social justice as a Christian imperative, and opposes the notion that Christians must necessarily take a politically conservative or 'right-wing' stance on issues such as poverty, racism, and the environment. In doing this, it focuses on biblical injunctions that God's people should live correctly and fight injustice, and seeks to act on those injunctions in the public sphere.

This movement is by no means the only significant movement of progressive thought among Christians (see the 'See also' links below), but it is currently a focus of such issues within the United States.

In recent years the Progressive Christianity has been used interchangeably with the term Liberal Christianity; this has resulted in the group being associated within the United States with a political agenda. Many Progressive Christian themselves refuse to use the term “Liberal” to describe their Christian beliefs. It should be noted that even Conservative Christians will sometimes advocate a liberal social policy to help the poor, and that Progressive Christians can sometimes be found supporting aspects of Conservative political positions.

1 Origins
2 The contemporary movement
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Origins

A priority of justice and care for the down-trodden are a recurrent theme in the Hebrew prophetic tradition inherited by Christianity. This has been reflected in many later Christian traditions of service and ministry, and more recently in the United States of America through Christian involvement in political trends such as the Progressive Movement and the Social Gospel.

Throughout the 20th century, a strand of progressive or liberal Christian thought outlined the values of a 'good society'. It stresses fairness, justice, responsibility, and compassion, and condemns the forms of governance that wage unjust war, rely on corruption for continued power, deprive the poor of facilities, or exclude particular racial or sexual groups from fair participation in national liberties. It was influential in the US mainline churches, and reflected global trends in student activism. It contributed to the ecumenical movement, as represented internationally by the World Student Christian Federation and the World Council of Churches internationally, and at the national level through groups such as the National Council of Churches in the USA and Australian Student Christian Movement.

[edit] The contemporary movement

The ascendancy of Evangelicalism in the US, particularly in its more socially reactionary forms, challenged many people in mainline churches. Recently, a focus for those who wish to challenge this ascendancy has been provided by Jim Wallis of Sojourners, who described himself as a progressive evangelical Christian. This has enabled many Christians who are uncomfortable with conservative evangelicalism to identify themselves explicitly as 'Progressive Christians'. At the onset of this new movement to organize Progressive Christians, the single largest force holding together was a webring, The Progressive Christian Bloggers Network, and supporters frequently find and contact each other through dozens of online chat-rooms.

Notable initiatives within the movement for progressive Christianity include the Center for Progressive Christianity (TCPC) in Cambridge, MA, the campaigning organization CrossLeft, the technology working group Social Redemption.

CrossLeft joined with Every Voice Network and Claiming the Blessing in October 2005 to stage a major conference, Path to Action, at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. Among the speakers were E. J. Dionne, Richard Parker, Jim Wallis, Senator Danforth, and David Hollinger.

Examples of statements of contemporary Progressive Christian beliefs include:

the Eight Points produced by TCPC: a statement of agreement about Christianity as a basis for tolerance and human rights;
the Phoenix Affirmations produced by Crosswalk (Phoenix, AZ) - include twelve points defining Christian love of God, Christian love of neighbor, and Christian love of self.