A summation of "Progressive" Christianity beliefs.

[Rose_bud]

I agree that "justice" can be a hard term to define. Professional philosophers don't even agree with each other about the definition, and I am not a professional philosopher. If "justice" is everyone getting exactly what they have earned, then I am willing to use a phrase different from "social justice" to refer to how we should treat each other in a society.

Hey Ploverwing

Im not a philosopher either, so the alternative term Ive been taught is Biblical Justice.

 

[The Liturgist]

I would say, rather, that the councils had very high confidence that their decisions were correct. "Absolute certainty" is extremely rare.

That’s an incorrect assessment. The Council Fathers and the Early Church had, or in the case of Eusebius of Caesarea, who initially had doubts, came to have, an absolute confidence in their decisions at the first three Ecumenical Synods in Nicaea, Constantinople and Ephesus, and the Sixth Ecumenical Synod against Monothelitism and the Second Council of Nicaea concerning Iconoclasm, since these were anathematized even by the Oriental Orthodox who were not participating in those councils. Chalcedon is the one exception to this: among attendees to the council many Eastern bishops had doubts about the Tome of Leo, some of whom were resolved, and others were left disastisfied, and this latter group combined with those upset about the deposition of Pope DIoscorus of Alexandria to form the Oriental Orthodox. However, the anathema against Eutyches and the rejection of Monophysitism was made by both the Oriental Orthodox and the Chalcedonians.

 

[PloverWing]

That’s an incorrect assessment. The Council Fathers and the Early Church had, or in the case of Eusebius of Caesarea, who initially had doubts, came to have, an absolute confidence in their decisions ...

Perhaps I should revise my assessment, then. I can't imagine having absolute confidence or absolute certainty in any matter of religion. (I reserve terms like that for mathematically proven theorems, and even then my certainty is conditioned on the assumption that I have understood the proof correctly. Something like religious belief? No way.) But I can imagine the early church viewing "certainty" differently than I do.

 

[PloverWing]

Hey Ploverwing

Im not a philosopher either, so the alternative term Ive been taught is Biblical Justice.

Interesting. I have so many negative associations with the word "Biblical", having heard it used to mean things like "sexist" -- essentially, the desire to replicate the cultures of the Bronze Age and the Roman Empire. But Jesus and the prophets are in the Bible too, so maybe we should reclaim the word. The term "Biblical Justice" could work.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Perhaps I should revise my assessment, then. I can't imagine having absolute confidence or absolute certainty in any matter of religion. (I reserve terms like that for mathematically proven theorems, and even then my certainty is conditioned on the assumption that I have understood the proof correctly. Something like religious belief? No way.) But I can imagine the early church viewing "certainty" differently than I do.

Whether or not one has absolute certainty in theological matters does not necessarily make a doctrine true. Truth does not rely upon human faith; rather human faith relies upon divine truth.

 

[ViaCrucis]

No, it doesn't. The French Revolution saw a secular government killing priests, ransacking churches, and erecting idols to Reason. For most of the 20th century, Christianity was heavily persecuted by the secular governments in the Soviet Union, China, and everywhere else infected with Communism.

This is true, secularity does not equate to religious freedom. Religious neutrality, as far as the State is concerned, is the necessary component of religious freedom. When the State imposes something upon the public, whether it be an imposition of a particular religion or religious doctrine, or the imposition of irreligiosity; the net result is the deprivation of religious freedom.

A secular state, in and of itself, does not guarantee freedom to anyone. The guarantees of freedom must come from an agreement between government and governed that the governed shall not have their rights infringed upon by the government; such a contract often exists in the form of a constitution in which certain rights are guaranteed as the inviolable law of the land; and a system of government is in place to safeguard the liberty of the governed.

In this, the State is fulfilling its obligation of curbing social evil and providing for the general welfare of the people.

In the Theology of the Two Kingdoms, as inherited within the Lutheran tradition, the State takes on the social obligation of ruling by law to safeguard human life, property, and social welfare; to create the conditions within which people are free to flourish.

Secularity is not required in this; as secularity did not exist of course at the time of the Reformation; but secularity coupled with religious neutrality is a way in which the State may achieve its noble task of protecting and maintaining the general social welfare, wherein human flourishing may be accomplished.

This is the reason why I, personally, support constitutional democracy, religious neutrality (i.e. Separation of Church and State in an American context), and the secularity of the State (the absence of a State church or State religion). That the State may exist neither as an instrument of the Church (wherein the Church conflates her Spiritual authority with the temporal authority of the world), nor the Church becomes the lackey of the State (wherein the Church loses her Spiritual authority and becomes a mere instrument of temporal authority of the world). So that the State stays in its own lane, and the Church may flourish in her sacred duty and obligation as the Body of Christ, which proclaims the life-giving Gospel of Jesus. The Church neither needs, nor benefits, from the State trying to act like the Church's babysitter, guide, or slave-driver. It is not the Church that needs the State, it is the State that needs the Church.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[bbbbbbb]

This is true, secularity does not equate to religious freedom. Religious neutrality, as far as the State is concerned, is the necessary component of religious freedom. When the State imposes something upon the public, whether it be an imposition of a particular religion or religious doctrine, or the imposition of irreligiosity; the net result is the deprivation of religious freedom.

A secular state, in and of itself, does not guarantee freedom to anyone. The guarantees of freedom must come from an agreement between government and governed that the governed shall not have their rights infringed upon by the government; such a contract often exists in the form of a constitution in which certain rights are guaranteed as the inviolable law of the land; and a system of government is in place to safeguard the liberty of the governed.

In this, the State is fulfilling its obligation of curbing social evil and providing for the general welfare of the people.

In the Theology of the Two Kingdoms, as inherited within the Lutheran tradition, the State takes on the social obligation of ruling by law to safeguard human life, property, and social welfare; to create the conditions within which people are free to flourish.

Secularity is not required in this; as secularity did not exist of course at the time of the Reformation; but secularity coupled with religious neutrality is a way in which the State may achieve its noble task of protecting and maintaining the general social welfare, wherein human flourishing may be accomplished.

This is the reason why I, personally, support constitutional democracy, religious neutrality (i.e. Separation of Church and State in an American context), and the secularity of the State (the absence of a State church or State religion). That the State may exist neither as an instrument of the Church (wherein the Church conflates her Spiritual authority with the temporal authority of the world), nor the Church becomes the lackey of the State (wherein the Church loses her Spiritual authority and becomes a mere instrument of temporal authority of the world). So that the State stays in its own lane, and the Church may flourish in her sacred duty and obligation as the Body of Christ, which proclaims the life-giving Gospel of Jesus. The Church neither needs, nor benefits, from the State trying to act like the Church's babysitter, guide, or slave-driver. It is not the Church that needs the State, it is the State that needs the Church.

-CryptoLutheran

I agree with you entirely. This is the reason that at least two strands of my ancestors migrated to America (there was no United States at that time) in order to escape state-sponsored religious persecution - one being the Church of England and the other being the Evangelical German Lutheran Church.

 

[PloverWing]

Whether or not one has absolute certainty in theological matters does not necessarily make a doctrine true.

I agree. Many many things are true, without us having certain knowledge of whether they are true.

 

[Rose_bud]

Interesting. I have so many negative associations with the word "Biblical", having heard it used to mean things like "sexist" -- essentially, the desire to replicate the cultures of the Bronze Age and the Roman Empire. But Jesus and the prophets are in the Bible too, so maybe we should reclaim the word. The term "Biblical Justice" could work.

The way I see it, the very first act of injustice is against God. When the two, disobeyed and took what they shouldn't have.

 

[hedrick]

Perhaps I should revise my assessment, then. I can't imagine having absolute confidence or absolute certainty in any matter of religion. (I reserve terms like that for mathematically proven theorems, and even then my certainty is conditioned on the assumption that I have understood the proof correctly. Something like religious belief? No way.) But I can imagine the early church viewing "certainty" differently than I do.

My impression of church history is that a lot of people had a lot more confidence in their beliefs than we would consider justified. The concept of doctrinal humility, that this is our best attempt at being true to Scripture but like any human attempt it's likely to be imperfect, seems to be based on a crticial consciousness that was largely absent from many early writers.

 

[jas3]

My impression of church history is that a lot of people had a lot more confidence in their beliefs than we would consider justified. The concept of doctrinal humility, that this is our best attempt at being true to Scripture but like any human attempt it's likely to be imperfect, seems to be based on a crticial consciousness that was largely absent from many early writers.

On the contrary, when writing as individuals, the Church Fathers acknowledged that they could be wrong. St. Augustine, for example, wrote in the introduction to his book On the Trinity that he was rushed in publishing it because someone had stolen an incomplete manuscript of his that he knew contained errors and began publishing it before he was ready, and he apologized for any errors that might be present in his official version, but published it anyway to correct the errors of the earlier manuscript. He also published another book, Retractations, where he reexamined some of his theological writings and noted where alternate understandings were permissible.

It was only in cases where they were certain that they were delivering a judgment guided by the Holy Spirit, as in an ecumenical council, that they would speak with absolute certainty.

 

[The Liturgist]

On the contrary, when writing as individuals, the Church Fathers acknowledged that they could be wrong. St. Augustine, for example, wrote in the introduction to his book On the Trinity that he was rushed in publishing it because someone had stolen an incomplete manuscript of his that he knew contained errors and began publishing it before he was ready, and he apologized for any errors that might be present in his official version, but published it anyway to correct the errors of the earlier manuscript. He also published another book, Retractations, where he reexamined some of his theological writings and noted where alternate understandings were permissible.

It was only in cases where they were certain that they were delivering a judgment guided by the Holy Spirit, as in an ecumenical council, that they would speak with absolute certainty.

This is entirely correct. And is is also worth noting that no one advocating for these non-scriptural beliefs contrary to those of the Orthodox Church is in a position to convene any kind of synod with the authority of the ecumenical councils, and indeed no one alive has that authority; had as some members of GoArch seemed to think the Council of Crete done anything radical and sought ecumenical status it would have likely been numbered by most Orthodox among the latrocinia, which is how we tend to view, for instance, the anti-Photian synod and the Council of Florence. Whereas conversely most of the councils declared by Roman Catholics as ecumenical, since we weren’t present, are viewed as the local councils of a church that is not in communion with us.

But since the Orthodox, whether Eastern or Oriental, regard themselves as the Conciliar churches par excellence, and even coin or promote words to describe the concept of comciliarity, such as Sobornost In the Slavonic languages, the attacks on the doctrines of the ecumenical councils and on the character of the Fathers by some progressive Christians is greatly offensive, even to those Orthodox clergy I know of who make a career of not allowing secular affairs to trouble or offend them.

 

[FireDragon76]

As with so many of these they present a distorted strawman sort of view. The gospel is still "seen primarily as the good news of God saving sinners and reconciling them to Himself". But the Gospel also reacquires our own good faith response. The Gospel of Christ is not a passive Gospel.

Matthew 5:23-24 Therefore if thou bring thy gift to the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.

That is Gospel.

"How are we healed of our wounding memories? We are healed first of all by letting them be available, by letting them our of the corner of forgetfulness and by leading them out of the corner of forgetfulness and by remembering them as part of our life stories. What is forgotten is unavailable, and what is unavailable cannot be healed." Henri Nouwen

Most Progressive Christians are still Protestants, so the emphasis is still on what God has done (or does).

I tend to agree with Randal Rauser's critique of Alisa Childers, but I agree with @PloverWing that in this case, the faults in Childer's theses are more in the realm of what she doesn't say about Progressive Christians, and the omission of a wider context.

 

[FireDragon76]

The Deity of Jesus
Certainly not all progressive Christians will deny Jesus’ deity, but this doctrine tends to be downplayed. The concept of “Cosmic Christ” is sometimes presented as our ultimate goal…that Jesus is a model and exemplar of someone who was christened as both human and divine, and we can follow his example by finding the divine within ourselves.

The Cosmic Christ is more than a moral example, it is a mystical concept from the French Jesuit priest and scientist, Pierre Teillhard de Chardin, which implies that God is embodied in the process of cosmic evolution itself, and through the sacramental life of the Church, we participate in a small and partial way in this cosmogenesis. However, this kind of mysticism has a long history in Christian thought, largely absent in the West for many centuries (owing to Scholastic theology, narrow and obscure metaphysics), starting with the Epistle to the Colossians (Colossians 1:15-20).

The Mystic Teilhard de Chardin and the Heart of Jesus — Integral Christian Network

(Parts of this article appeared previously on Ilia Delio’s Omega Center’s website) https://omegacenter.info/teilhard-three-faces-of-god/

www.integralchristiannetwork.org

 

[The Liturgist]

The Cosmic Christ is more than a moral example, it is a mystical concept from the French Jesuit priest and scientist, Pierre Teillhard de Chardin, which implies that God is embodied in the process of cosmic evolution itself, and through the sacramental life of the Church, we participate in a small and partial way in this cosmogenesis. However, this kind of mysticism has a long history in Christian thought, largely absent in the West for many centuries (owing to Scholastic theology, narrow and obscure metaphysics), starting with the Epistle to the Colossians (Colossians 1:15-20).

The Mystic Teilhard de Chardin and the Heart of Jesus — Integral Christian Network

(Parts of this article appeared previously on Ilia Delio’s Omega Center’s website) https://omegacenter.info/teilhard-three-faces-of-god/

www.integralchristiannetwork.org

If you’re trying to liken the “Cosmic Christ” idea, which is heterodox, to the Orthodox concept of Theosis, that is not going to fly. Orthodoxy stresses that it is by divine grace that we experience theosis, and under theosis, we do not become part of the uncreated Trinity, but rather to quote St. Athanasius, “God became man so that man could become god” that is to say, that we are made godly - in that in our salvation, we cease to sin, we are granted eternal life, and we participate in the uncreated energies of God.

But this is not accomplished through any human action by itself. We do not attain theosis as a result of “finding the divine within ourselves” which sounds like Hinduism, and implies a pantheistic construct, and what is more, would lead to Pelagianism. Rather, in Orthodoxy, theosis is the fruit of cooperation with God, that is to say, God loves us, and we love Him, but it must be stressed that it is the grace of the Holy Spirit that gives us the ability to love Him. So while the Orthodox reject monergism, we also emphatically reject Pelagianism. What is more, the synergy largely occurs between the Church and God, although it does involve individuals, but it is the Church which is saved, and we in turn our saved through being grafted onto the Body of Christ, the Church.

The individualistic Western idea of anti-ecclesiology which I see from some members in this forum (not yourself by the way - please do not regard this as personal criticism) wherein they criticize the very idea of the Church, runs contrary to the plain meaning of the New Testament and also the early Church Fathers.

Thus, I would say our mutual friend @Ain't Zwinglian was right to be concerned with the “Cosmic Christ” idea.

It is also what Oskar Werner’s character, which was based on Pierre Teillhard de Chardin, rambles about ad nauseum in the otherwise interesting 1968 Michael Anderson film “The Shoes of the Fisherman.”

 

[The Liturgist]

As stated above, many progressive Christians affirm pantheism or panentheism. Another view that is promoted in the progressive church is perennialism, the idea that although different religions look different on the outside, at their core they share the same truth. In other words, they share the same source and come from the same ultimate or divine reality. This divine reality can be discovered through mysticism and contemplative practices.

In the case of Panentheism, and also mysticism and contemplative practices, this is the result of progressive Christians who might have read Metropolitan Kallistos Ware’s books such as The Orthodox Church or The Orthodox Way, or who might have read Thomas Merton, but who are unwilling to join the Orthodox Church because of our perceived backwardness, our Patriarchy (as if that is a bad thing), our refusal to ordain homosexuals or perform homosexual marriages, our refusal to capitulate to the world on abortion and Euthanasia et cetera, trying to copy what they perceive to be the exciting and mystical elements of Orthodoxy outside of the realm of the Orthodox Church or the Roman Catholic Church.

But this is extremely dangerous. While Thomas Merton did a poor job warning of the dangers and rather glamorized monastic life, only to have a crisis when making a very ill-advised trip to Southeast Asia and encountering idols of the Buddha, which somehow caused a crisis of faith, and he may have committed suicide as a result, although we don’t know if the appliance falling into his bathtub was the result of an accident or was intentional - alas, in the 1960s electrical outlets were not routinely fitted with Ground Fault Circuit Interrupters (also known as Residual Current Devices).

But as the tragedy of Thomas Merton, who was definitely a “progressive Catholic” insofar as this is possible, shows, there is a strong need for supervision of monks to protect them from the spiritual crisis he experienced shortly before his death. In Orthodoxy, a monastic hegumen will evaluate his monks. And the books of Metropolitan Kallistos Ware contain explicit warnings about trying to engage in Hesychasm and certain other activities on your own. Everything that is done in the Orthodox monastery is done under obedience to an experienced elder, who assumes responsibility for your safety, in and with and for the Church as a whole. It is unsafe to engage in Hesychasm or other Orthodox practices outside of the Orthodox Church.

One could also argue that it represents a disrespectful form of cultural appropriation. Certainly I would say this is the case with the bizarre eclectic liturgy at the St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. On the other hand, those Episcopalians who celebrate the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom I cannot object to, because on the basis of lex orandi, lex credendi, if they keep doing that they will become more Orthodox.

The Orthodox view which some people assert is panentheism is really that God exists throughout His creation and sustains it. It is best summed up with our prayer to the Holy Spirit:

“O Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of good things and Giver of life: Come and dwell in us, and cleanse us of all impurity, and save our souls, O Good One. O Most Holy Trinity, have mercy on us. O Lord, blot out our sins.”

If that’s panentheism, well, I guess its panentheism. Although I am not sure about that. It seems to be a basic article of faith in Christianity that the Holy Spirit is our omnipresent comforter and life-giving Paraclete. Orthodoxy draws a firm distinction between God and His creation, to the extent that we say the essence of God is beyond the ability of humans to comprehend.

 

[FireDragon76]

Some of Teillhard's ideas were condemned by certain Jesuit superiors at a time because the world was not ready to hear them.

Henri de Lubac, Pope Benedict XVII, and Pope Francis have written appreciatively of the thought of Teillhard de Chardin.

 

[The Liturgist]

Some of Teillhard's ideas were condemned by certain Jesuit superiors at a time because the world was not ready to hear them.

Or, alternately, because they are blatantly wrong.

Henri de Lubac, Pope Benedict XVII, and Pope Francis have written appreciatively of the thought of Teillhard de Chardin.

And what these men have in common is that none of them are Eastern Orthodox or traditional Anglicans, Methodists, Lutherans or Congregationalists.

Frankly de Chardin looks a bit like Thomas Merton when he visited Mount Athos - a Roman Catholic trying to do Orthodox or Eastern Catholic thought without assistance from Orthodox or Eastern Catholic clergy.

 

[Akita Suggagaki]

I was listening to Issue, etc. today and heard Alisa Childers give a summary of the Progressive movement. I looked her up on the internet and found her summation of progressive beliefs posted on the White Horse Inn archives.

**************

The Atonement
Often, progressive Christians will refer to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as horrific or unnecessary. The idea that God the Father would require the blood sacrifice of his Son is perceived to be an indictment on God’s character, turning him into a divine abuser. This is sometimes referred to as “Cosmic Child Abuse.”


Biblical Authority or Inspiration
In the progressive church, the Bible is viewed more like an ancient spiritual travel journal than the inspired, inerrant, and authoritative Word of God. The Biblical writers are viewed as well-meaning ancient people who were doing their best to understand God in the times and places in which they lived, but they were not necessarily speaking for God. Scripture is also seen as contradictory, not internally coherent, and not authoritative for Christians.


Original Sin
The doctrine of Original Sin is roundly rejected in progressive Christianity, with the idea of Original Blessing put in its place. Progressive Christians don’t typically deny that sin exists or that it is a bad thing. But they often deny the idea that we have some sort of a sin nature that was passed down to us from Adam and Eve. Instead, progressive Christians often teach that sin isn’t what separates us from God, but our own self-imposed shame. In the progressive view, it’s often taught that we simply need to realize that we were never separated in the first place…that we are beloved and accepted by God just as we are.


The Deity of Jesus
Certainly not all progressive Christians will deny Jesus’ deity, but this doctrine tends to be downplayed. The concept of “Cosmic Christ” is sometimes presented as our ultimate goal…that Jesus is a model and exemplar of someone who was christened as both human and divine, and we can follow his example by finding the divine within ourselves.


The Physical Resurrection of Jesus
Again, not every progressive denies the physical resurrection, but the idea that Jesus was bodily raised back to life is often deemed less important or significant than the meaning we can draw from the idea of resurrection.


The Virgin Birth
In the progressive church, the virgin birth and other miraculous events can be downplayed, ignored—or like the resurrection—viewed as less important than the life-lessons we can learn from these stories.


The Trinity
A denial of the deity of Jesus would naturally be a denial of the Trinity. But some progressive Christians take it further and affirm the view of pantheism, which states that the universe is God. Others will affirm a slightly less radical view called panentheism, which is the belief that God and the world are inter-related. God is in all and all is in God. This implies that God is somehow dependent upon creation, which casts serious aspersions on the nature of the Trinity.


The Sinlessness of Jesus
You probably won’t find many progressive Christians who outright declare that Jesus was a sinner. However, Jesus’ humanity tends to be emphasized. For example, in Matthew 15, Jesus tells the Syrophoenician woman, “It’s not good to take children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.” This is viewed as Jesus’ having racial biases that were recognized and corrected during this exchange.

Affirmations​

LGBTQ Relationships and Marriage
One of the hallmarks of progressive Christianity is the shift on issues of sexuality and gender. There is an almost universal acceptance of same-sex relationships and marriage, a belief in the validity of transgenderism, and a rejection of cisgender norms.


Universalism / Universal Reconciliation
The primary view of heaven and hell in the progressive church is Universalism, which is the idea that no one will be punished in hell, and everyone will eventually be saved and restored to right relationship with God. Some progressive Christians will still say that Jesus is the only way, but believe he will save everyone.


The Gospel of Social Justice and Critical Theory
In progressive Christianity, the gospel is not seen primarily as the good news of God saving sinners and reconciling them to Himself. Instead, social justice issues become the heart of the gospel message, with what one does being viewed as more important than what one believes. Often, the secular framework of critical theory is embraced, where the world is viewed through the lens of oppressed vs. oppressor.


Pluralism
Religious pluralism is the idea that all roads lead to God, and no one religion holds ultimate truth when it comes to who God is and how he reveals himself to the world. Often, progressive Christians will tout the mantra, “Everyone has a seat at the table,” meaning all creeds and religions are true in their own way and the people who embrace them are equally accepted by God.


Pantheism, Panentheism or Perennialism
As stated above, many progressive Christians affirm pantheism or panentheism. Another view that is promoted in the progressive church is perennialism, the idea that although different religions look different on the outside, at their core they share the same truth. In other words, they share the same source and come from the same ultimate or divine reality. This divine reality can be discovered through mysticism and contemplative practices.

*********

My additional 2cents.... All GOSPEL and no LAW.

I have been taking a deeper dive into the history of theology and will share a bit for those interested.

We have to note that Christianity itself was first a progressive form of Judaism. It fulfilled the law in a way that many Jews did not even recognize. But this took Christianity into a new identity of its own that took some time to form.

So we had to deal with basic questions related to the identity of Jesus, law, Gnosticism, and guys like Arius, Nestor and Pelagius and through several councils and creeds solidified what we thought Orthodox Theology.

But Gnosticism and other views still existed and through the centuries others came to expression like Cathars and Waldensians. The inquisition enforced Orthodox Theology with a heavy hand,

But then came the Renaissance, discovery or Aristotle, reason, science and next thing you know Martin Luther unleashes the Reformation. Imagine the Bible translated into vernacular. Imagine telling the primary authority figure (Pope) to stuff it. How liberal is that! And while we are at it let's have a closer look at the Bible with critical methods. Even the Deists who got America going were quite progressive thinking. Revolutionary, in fact. Social, liberal/progressive theology is on the move.

Ah, but it is not all it is cracked up to be. We see a reaction against critical scholarship with fundamentalism. But I left out the influence of philosophy, existentialism, dialectic thinking. All this like new tools, new ways of looking at the world and the human person for theology. All in the endeavor to have scripture make sense of our daily lives and the issues we face.

Other guys like Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Tillich add sincere contributions to this endeavor in modern language. And let's not forget the Liberation Theologians bringing the exodus to the oppressed. But they are not without reaction and resistance.

So we see a pattern of stability, challenge to stability, change, reaction to change, and reaction to reaction.

It reminds me of our own personal journey through life. I am the same person I was at birth and yet I am radically different. There is some core identity that is the same but so much that is not. When we look at Christian theology, what is the core that must not change and what are the aspects that must change to adapt to our current existence... our current understanding of the universe and human person and God?

We can hold a conservative fundamentalist theology and believe that the Earth is young and flat or we can hold a progressive Process theology and recognize the implications of which science has forced us to be more aware. Perhaps we are in between somewhere and moving around.

But one thing is for sure. At least this I believe. Theology is the driving force in our lives, though perhaps not fully acknowledged. It is like the unseen foundation of our existence, the invisible substructure that supports all our beliefs and actions. This is true even for atheists who are in a bit of a free fall.

I don't like the terms Conservative/Liberal, traditional /progressive. But we have to have something. They just seem to me to pigeonhole too neatly. Don't we all see that a bit on ourselves. Liberal in some ways and conservative in others?

Thanks for reading as I sort it out for myself.

 

[The Liturgist]

We can hold a conservative fundamentalist theology and believe that the Earth is young and flat or we can hold a progressive Process theology and recognize the implications of which science has forced us to be more aware. Perhaps we are in between somewhere and moving around.

That is alas a false dichotomy which is typical of the Western theological equation. Our main mistake in the West is to dichotomize theology: Fundementalist vs. heretical Process theology, Protestant vs. Catholic, Calvinist vs. Arminian, Nestorian vs. Eutychian, Calvinist vs. Pelagian (actually both are forms of monergism, but Pelagianism is human monergism whereas Calvinism and Universalism are divine monergism).

The problem in doing all of this is that one ignores the complexities, and one also ignores, as a rule, the important Greek and Syrian church fathers, and other Eastern churches such as the Coptic and Armenian and Ethiopian and Assyrian churches, all of which made valuable and important contributions, and more recently the Slavonic and Romanian churches, as my friends @dzheremi @FenderTL5 and @prodromos might agree.

We also manage to ignore the more sophisticated forms of traditional Western theology. For example, the Continuing Anglican and Evangelical Catholic Lutheran churches of North America, as my dear friends @Shane R and @MarkRohfrietsch will attest, are not flat Earth believing fundamentalists; indeed the fundamentalist name is hardly applicable insofar as fundamentalism historically refers to an extremist form of Calvinism and Particular Baptism. The term has been overused, and further confused with its application to the extremist Islamist groups of Wahhabi and Salafi varieties of the Hanbali fiqh, or school of jurisprudence, within Sunni Islam, and also with extremist elements in Shi’a Islam, such as the Sevener Shi’a in Yemen and the current state religion in Iran, which is nominally Jafari Shi’a, although the Iranian laity are moving in a more moderate direction.

Additionally some people confuse or conflate fundamentalism with Orthodoxy; in their eyes, the “Hyper Orthodox Jews” like the Charedim and Chassidim are fundamentalist, which is of course inapplicable to Christianity, and likewise Christian denominations which style themselves as Orthodox must be somehow old-fashioned, rigid, and unwilling to adapt to the pressures of modern society, as opposed to being the torchbearers of a timeless living tradition which continues to be renewed by the blood of its many innocent martyrs, who unlike Islamic “martyrs” have not been soldiers or terrorists committing acts of violence, but instead are people who confessed Christ before men and are confessed by Christ before the Father, glorified by the blood which they shed from the blades and bullets of the Turks, the Communists, the Islamic Fundamentalists, and in some cases unfortunately even other Christians.

don't like the terms Conservative/Liberal, traditional /progressive. But we have to have something. They just seem to me to pigeonhole too neatly. Don't we all see that a bit on ourselves. Liberal in some ways and conservative in others?

This is very wise. There are Liberalisms and Conservativisms. And there are a plethora of beliefs. Even in the Orthodox church, in areas where doctrine has not been defined by the ecumenical councils, there is room for what we call theologoumemna, or theological opinions.

However, in our proper desire to avoid these dichotomistic categories, we must not lose sight of the fact that there is a correct answer.

I have made a career in the past decade out of seeking to inject Orthodox thought into Western churches, for example, Congregationalist missions, while remaining Orthodox myself. I am gladdened by theological developments I see in Anglo Catholic churches, and in Evangelical Catholic Lutheran churches, and liturgical Methodist churches, as I see these forming these churches into a state where they can credibly assert Western Orthodoxy, which I see as being the antidote to the current problem of extreme left-wing progressive thought that has now taken over, in some cases in a manner I deem to be questionable, every single mainline Protestant church in the US (of course, the SBC and LCMS nearly became “mainline Protestant” in that there were elements in their seminaries which wanted to move them in that direction, but fortunately they were stopped).