Progressive Christianity and Progressive Chrisitian Churches
Recent studies indicate that the Progressive Christian movement is a "lively, open-minded, and open-hearted" form of Christianity that has emerged in recent years among more than a 1000 churches spread across many of the mainline Christian denomiations in the U.S. Progressive Christians share many of the same theological affirmations that have been part of the classical or traditional expressions of the Christian faith: (a) believing in God as Creator and as the transformative power of love working in human history, (b) using Scripture as a normative guide for Christian faith and practice, (c) affirming that Jesus is our primary window into the character and purposes of God, (d) seeing the Church as a provisional demonstration of the Gospel to the world, (e) recognizing our human tendency to try to live without God or without accountability for the well-being of our neighbors. While the churches that make up this movement may differ in many ways, the defining and distinctive characteristics for Progressive Christian congregations include:
- a renewed spirituality that values participatory worship that infuses art and reclaims many of the ancient Christian rituals along with non-Christian rituals,
- a commitment to intellectual intrigrity in our faith expressions along with an appreciation for the integration of science and religion,
- the rejection of homophrobia and the affirmation of equal rights across lines of gender and sexual orientation,
- the celebration of our Christian identity and the power of the Gospel without claiming spiritual superiority over other faith traditions,
- a commitment to the biblical prophetic tradtion of social justice and to ecological issues.
You can learn more about the Progressive Christian movement by going to www.tcpc.org , or
by reading the book- A New Spiritual Home: Progressive Christianity at the Grass Roots, by Hal Taussig, (2006, Polebrige Press).
