BoundSacrifice

In a conversation with a conservative Christian about my progressive (heard by them as "heretical", I'm sure) views, the best answer I could give for the reason I was a Progressive Christian as opposed to a Conservative one was this; "The point of religion is not to achieve an 'us-vs.-them' mentality in which we're always on the winning side, but to guide us through life so that we might be better people, and aiding in bringing a better time on Earth not just for our particular group of people, but for everyone. What God wants for this Earth is not for humans to fight each other to extinction over the issue of who has the right theology about Him (or her, whatever, I think God is genderless anyway), but to find common ground and to love each other. God loves us all, regardless of what we think about God. Why can't we give ourselves the same?"

BoundSacrifice, if you haven't read it, Diana Butler-Bass has a book that addresses this trend, called "Christianity for the Rest of Us". It's been a while since I've read it, but she notes two main reasons that she feels contribute to many mainline churchs losing their membership versus the growth of the more conservative branches of Christianity.

 

1. The reality of God - Diana thinks that many mainlines are either unsure of or unaffirming of the reality of God. Perhaps this is due to how "small" God has become in our post-Enlightenment culture, or due to the liturgy of traditions, but she feels that mainlines do not go to church to encounter God. When I was younger and a Pentecostal, I loved that faith because God did seem so real, so tangible in our worship services. Their theology aside, they affirmed that God was real and that he could be known and experienced in a very personal way. Diana feels that we, as human beings, long for this, to know God personally. The position of many mainlines, IMO (not Diana's) is that we know decent theology, but the experience side of it is played down. Even in my own life, I do not go to church to encounter God. My more liberal or progressive theology tells me that God is everywhere. So I go to church to be with my friends, not to worship God. For many conversatives, though, worshipping God is the main focus of the church service. You go there to experience God.

 

2. The nature of epistomology - In this crazy, mixed up, confusiong world, we want answers to life's problems and challenges. For many mainlines and progressives, we know that there are no magic bullets, no "one-size-fits-all" answers to life. For many of us, life is not about finding unassailable answers, but about a journey, about experience and growth. Many of us are able to hold to questions that seem to have no resolution and even to appreciate and hold in tension different so-called answers because we are aware of and know the importance of context. In contrast, the more conservative branches of Christianity offer people solid answers via proof-texting the Bible or presenting systematic theologies that attempt to help people prioritize their beliefs in order to resolve tensions. This is, I admit, an attractive method. Who would not want the Bible to be an "answer book" that would give us infallible and inerrant answers to all of life's questions and problems? But we progressives know that the Bible and Christianity itself doesn't really work that way. The Bible is filled with a plethora of questions and different answers, all part of the faith of the Jews or of the early church. And Christianity is so splintered that it, too, presents many different viewpoints to those who are honest seekers.

 

Nevertheless, Diana's book highlights a few mainline churches that are growing, and growing well. She does think that they are doing so because 1) they affirm that God is real and can be experienced personally and 2) religious education in these churches focuses on asking the right questions, especially regarding the role of the Church i.e. should the Church's main function be to worship God corporately or to be an agent for good transformation in the location that it exists?

 

Me, I'm torn. I love my church (a local UMC) for its loving people and the work it does in our community. But I don't go there to "feel" God (though I sometimes think it happens anyway). And my UMC is still high-church enough that it doesn't really deal with post-modern questions. It recites the Creeds and thinks those should answer any questions seekers may have.

 

Will our mainline churches address these issues? Can or should they? We'll see, I suppose.

Wow. That elegantly expressed exactly (tongue twister) what I've been thinking for months.

I would be interested in where you are getting your information. I wouldn't say that conservative churches are "flourishing." I think all Christian organizations are shrinking.

 

Perhaps conservative Christian churches are shrinking at a slower rate than "traditional" liberal (as opposed to progressive - there is a difference) congregations. I think the reason is - reason! Liberal leaning churches embrace science in greater numbers than do conservative churches. In the more traditional, conservative churches, the focus is on the miracles, mysteries and ancient promises of eternal life, gold-plated streets in heaven, etc..

 

The conservative church has also remained the last bastion of long-held belief in the "sin" of homosexuality and the wrongness of equality among the sexes - one of the few places on earth left to seek validation of these old stereotypes. You know; where s*x is a dirty word. Perhaps the bump in attendance is the sound of folks hanging on to their prejudices?

 

I think that the only hope for Christianity today is to embrace a non-theistic, love-centered philosophy based on the teachings of Jesus.

 

Welcome to the Forum, BoundSacrifice.

 

NORM

http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2012/05/02/stats-on-religion-in-the-us-mostly-depressing-declines-for-catholics-and-mainline-protestants/

As you can see, 7th day Adventists and Southern Baptists are doing fine (as well as Mormons for some reason), while the mainline denominations are shrinking. It's just really sad to me.

Has anybody seen the figures from the Episcopal Church? that membership has dropped nearly 25 percent in the past decade? How about in more conservative churches, which are flourishing? There is a serious problem within Liberal Christianity. We are losing more and more members every day, and unless we do something to stop this hemorrhaging, there will be nothing left.

What can we do? First we have to realize something. Conservative Christianity is a default for many Christians, at least in the U.S. Liberal Christianity is harder by nature. It requires the person to think, to rationalize things that many conservatives aren't willing to do. So education from non-condescending, understanding people is key.

We also need to explore religion as a valid path to a moral, fulfilling life. Many people see religion as a superfluous thing, and until we can change this, we will continue to lose members.

I love Progressive Christianity. It makes sense to me in a way nothing else does, and it allows me to be the sane, skeptical, rational human being I am without having to give up theology, my most passionate field of study. I just don't want to see it go away. I don't want Christianity to be a conservative notion only.

Hey there stopman. I'm from the Bible Belt too, so I relate to your problem. In my area nearly all Christians are conservative so the majority of my friends are Atheists. I'd be glad to talk with you about anything if you'd like You'll find no judgement here, only friendship and fellowship.

Hello everyone,

Today, I began a college-level course regarding the historical Jesus and a study of the New Testament, as well as some background information on Judah, Hebrew and Greek, and the history of the Jewish people. Being that this was the first day of class and the professor didn't want to get into any heavy material yet, she asked everyone in the room what they could name as facts about Jesus. Some of the replies I heard were humorous at best, and a little frightening at worst.

Among these "facts" were that "He is our Savior" and "He rose from the dead". The entire time I was hearing these facts, I was thinking, "Really? These are pieces of history that you take as documented fact?" Keep in mind that this is not a theological class regarding Christ - it is a historical-critical analysis of Jesus and the time in which he lived.

Anyway, I just thought that all at this forum would find that interesting. Oh, my reply was "He had a great reputation as a healer".

This is a bit of a problem for me as well. I grew up attending a church that was "Non-Denominational", but was extremely conservative in nature. I know from long talks regarding theology that the pastor at this church believed that the only way to heaven was not only from believing exclusively in Jesus, but that Baptism was absolutely necessary for salvation. He was a dispensationalist (which I was also for some time), and the overall feeling of the church was very tight-knit, and exclusivist.

There are many negative things about conservative theology, but the one thing that I truly miss is that feeling of "togetherness". The feeling that we have something wonderful that we must share, that we must tell the world. I am an ordained minister in the ULC (it takes all of 20 minutes if you're interested) and I've been trying to figure out how to recreate this feeling in Progressive Christianity. That even though we are not the only ones who have access to the knowledge and experience of God, we can still be excited, overjoyed, in sharing what we have with everyone without excluding any faith.

I've been involved with CCM for two years now, and next month I'm going into the studio to begin recording a Christian album, from the view of a Progressive Christian. I feel like if we are ever going to grow into a majority point of view among those who share our religion, we need to reach out, without over-reaching. We have to become more than a bad rip-off of secular culture.

My favorite author is by far Marcus Borg.

Thank you all so much! And Thanks soma, it's taken from Psalms.

I match up closest with Unitarian Universalism, which is what I call myself anyway (Liberal Christian Unitarian) so... Good!

Hello everybody! I'll choose to keep my state undisclosed for privacy, but I'm from the Bible Belt. I'd never heard of progressive Christianity until a few months ago during a talk with my Old Testament Prophecy professor. She referred me to Marcus J. Borg, a progressive Christian scholar whom I'm sure many of you are familiar with. I'd been a Christian for the first decade and a half of my life, but since that time was an Atheist. All of the theology I'd ever heard was the 'Believe now for the sake of heaven later" theology. I've always loved the community of Christianity, but the harsh doctrines of conservative theology were too much for me. It's a huge understatement to say that I feel like Progressive Christianity is where I was meant to be.

My beliefs about God are panentheistic and rather Buddhist in nature - I don't believe God is a humanlike being "out there", but rather that God is a state of reality that we all exist and move in, and we are shot through with God's presence. I'm not sure on where I stand about the Resurrection, but I do follow Jesus' teachings as closely as I can. I am a Universalist and my theology is rather liberal. Anyway, nice to meet you all! I'm off to work now.