progressive christianity part 2

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here is another article (also posted below) that gives some self definition to progressive christianity. notice that it gives as three of the four primary sources white, american and european theological movements. also i would love to be corrected but to the best of my knowledge all of the primary theologians associated with the movements are men, though in the case of the evangelicals certainly not all the activists. i pray that this is a mistake on my part that just shows the depth to which my own theological education has been skewed.

liberation theologies are also seen as a necessary source, but all lumped into one. It is made clear that christianity is to be transformed by these voices, but that transformation is again framed as service to “the least of these”. it seems that progressive christianity is supposed to be the realm of those inheritors of the previously mentioned (white, male dominated) traditions who are now willing to listen to “the previously voiceless people” and take on/co-opt? their insights. missing, at least in this article, is a clear recognition that all of these liberation forms of christianity are critiques of traditional/ white male theology. without that recognition it remains possible for progressive christianity to be focused on white men and congratulate itself on evolving and learning from the majority of the world that has been/ is oppressed by white, christian men.

i would like to see a recognition of the reality that christianity has been a powerfully oppressive force and that many forms of it still are. i feel like the 8 points in the previous post came a bit closer in the recognition of privilege, but did so in a way that centered those people who have privilege to renounce. as i try to imagine a christianity that i would want to claim, it would center the destruction of domination systems “casting down the mighty from their thrones and lifting up the lowly” while recognizing that depending on our personal histories, identities and social locations we all have different roles in that process. different places in the struggle and different ways that we need to cooperate in our own lifting up and casting down.

September 4, 2006
By Dr. Delwin Brown
Dean Emeritus, Pacific School of Religion

Our Progressive Christian Heritage

Progressive Christianity today is not a single party line; it is a family of perspectives and practices that seek to be faithful to Christ. It is diverse because it draws from a variety of Christian expressions rooted in the biblical witness.

Progressive Christianity draws from the witness of evangelical Christians in the middle of the 19th century. These first American evangelicals were on the front lines of the movements to abolish slavery, to give women the right to vote, to mitigate poverty and overcome sharp class divisions. What can we take from their example?

• They understood that their progressive, even revolutionary, stances were required of them as Christians. They were not progressives who also happened to be Christians. They were progressives because they were Christians, in order to be faithful to the gospel.

• Their pursuit of justice was a spiritual discipline. Their efforts were not dependent on the likelihood of success. They were not based on calculations; they sprang from the conviction that Jesus came to overcome socially and culturally created injustices.

• They were united in Christian spirit rather than Christian beliefs. They understood that Christians could disagree on matters of theology and still be united in service to God and neighbor.

Progressive Christianity also draws from the witness of the liberal Christian movement around the turn of the 20th century. The liberals welcomed progress as a gift of God. They supported the advance of the physical sciences and democratic practices. They led in the analysis and critique of structural injustices in society. They were intellectuals and reformers. What should we honor in their example?

• They took seriously the doctrine of the incarnation, the Christian claim that God is in and with this world, so they, too, made their home in the world without reserve.

• They saw sin and salvation to be structural as well as personal. For them, sinful relations had to be addressed through collective action and public policy as well as through personal spiritual discipline.

• They believed that Christian faith requires, not repetition of the past, but the obligation to re-think the meaning of discipleship in each age.

Progressive Christianity learns from the neo-orthodox Christians of the mid-20th century who openly opposed the equation of Christian faith with the political ideology of the Third Reich. They insisted on the distinctiveness of Christian identity. What can we take from them?

• They proclaimed the otherness of the incarnate God. They insisted that God is always with us, but God is never reducible to our cultural practices, our political convictions, even to our religious beliefs.

• They understood the centrality of Christ as the source of Christian identity. The Bible is the primary source for knowing God’s revelation in Christ, but that revelation is Christ, not the Bible. From modern knowledge we have much to learn and nothing to fear, but our best knowledge does not displace the Christ of the biblical witness.

• Being Christian means being something in particular, so the purpose of Christian community is to explore, develop, and sustain Christian identity through preaching, liturgy, and education.

Finally, progressive Christianity must hear and be transformed by the manifold witnesses of the liberation forms of Christian faith that emerged in the last part of the 20th century and continue with force today. These include the voices of the racial/ethnic communities, the feminists and womanists, those who have suffered from colonialism, the poor and other previously voiceless people, and indeed the silent cries of the earth itself! From them, to be authentic, progressive Christianity must learn that:

• God is on the side of the powerless, human and non-human. God loves all equally, but to overcome injustice God joins with those who are its victims. Those who would follow God in Christ are called to serve “the least of these” among us.

• The search for truth must be undertaken in the company of the powerless. Wisdom and virtue is to be found in all people, in all classes, in all races and ethnic groups. But the persistent habit of humanity is to demean and ignore what the “least ones” have to say, their insights into the gospel, their voices as vehicles of judgment and grace.

• Salvation, in the biblical view, is the promise for all dimensions of human life and for all creation. To be sure, salvation is the promise for individuals, too, but as St. Paul insists, salvation is also for “the entire creation”–as unbelievable as it seems, for individuals, communities, and even the earth.

Progressive Christianity draws from each of these traditions in its distinctiveness. But it must share, too, the one belief that adherents of these traditions held in common, namely, their Christian hope. They believed that a radically better day is possible, by God’s grace and through human faithfulness, and so they each sought, in their own ways, to serve its coming.

progressive christianity part 1

i’ve been reading a bit recently about how “progressive
christians” define themselves. partly trying to figure out if i
am one, partly looking for the roots of why the christian social
justice organizations that i hae worked for have been so self
congratulatory in their work and white in their makeup.

the center for progressive christianity has 8 points that they
give as defining progressive christianity.  my first reaction
looking at them is that they are quite close to my approach to
keeping the faith and at the same time are clearly articulated
assuming that progressive christianity is a white/ privileged
movement.

the 8 points:

By calling ourselves progressive,
we mean we are Christians who…
1.Have
found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.

2.
Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for
the way to God’s realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for
them, as our ways are true for us.

3.
Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus’s name to be a
representation of an ancient vision of God’s feast for all peoples

4.Invite
all people to participate in our community and worship life without
insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable
(including but not limited to):

believers
and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning
skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and
gender identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of
all classes and abilities,
those who hope for a better world and
those who have lost hope

5.
Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other
people is the fullest expression of what we believe.

6.
Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in
dogmatic certainty – more value in questioning than in absolutes.

7.
Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another
for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice
among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God’s
creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his
sisters and brothers

8.
Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails
selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of
privilege.

it
is points 4, 7, and 8 that i am thinking of specifically when i say
that these are articulated in a way that assume and centers whiteness
and privilege.

4
talks about inviting all, but without insisting that they will be
like us. whenever there is an us, even if you don’t have to become
like it, that us is the center and others may be invited but they
will always be others. From the work I have done in progressive
christian organizations i would say that the center is: white, upper
middle class to wealthy (possibly downwardly mobile), peace movement
liberal, middle aged, college educated, mainline protestant.

7
progressive christians are the ones who bring hope to the least of
these, not themselves the least of these. i fear that matthew 25 may
have been one of jesus’ most unfortunate teachings at least as i have
seen it play out in the lives of white, liberal christians (an
accusation, but also a confession), who are always serving people who
are less than themselves.

8
centers privilege by centering it’s renunciation. it is true that
everyone is privileged in some ways and oppressed in others,
but centering how you deal with privilege means centering people for
whom privilege is a primary experience of life. means maintaining the
margins and center of the wider culture.  went to the link to the
study guide for this point hoping that it would be expanded in a way
that the resistance to evil took precedence and muted this focus on
the privileged. certainly if a struggle for justice and against evil
was central, could be a sidenote that just received overemphasis here
. unfortunately giving up the idea that we are special becomes the
meaning of this point, which is not even a good definition of privilege.

i do think that a central task for christians is to deal with and let go of christian privilege, but to assume that all christians share a primary experience of privilege in their other identities

i do appreciate how these eight points are very concerned with focusing christian identity in action for justice and the questions and process of questioning instead of acceptance of a set of doctrinal assertions.

christian zionist radio

running some errands this afternoon, i was listening to christian talk radio (slightly masoschistic).  the guest for the hour was a representative of the alcj, supposedly a constitutional law group, who was there to tell us all to call in and register that we stand with israel before international pressure  gets in their way in gaza.

wow

there was a constant repitition throughout the interview of the theme that the medioa carries an incredible pro-palestinian bias. in my opinion the coverage in the us media has been, as usual, basically israeli pr. these folks did manage to make it all look terribly fair in comparison though.

the scariest thing was the refrain of god’s blessing to abram from genisis 12 ” i will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you” applied directly to the state of israel.

it is incredible what christians will do with the idea of chosenness crusades, manifest destiny, missionary conquests. should we be greatful that these particular christians are willing to believe that the jewish people are still chosen and not just brushed aside in favor of christians like so many other christians believe? even if they associate the blessing primarily with israels military and it’s colonial project to carve out a western bulwark in the middle east?

i think no

if god is a blesser of genocide as long as it is carried out by the right people against the wrong may we all be blessed to burn eternally for our rebellion

playing in the dark

just borrowed playing in the dark by Toni Morrison from Maia. fascinating enough that it will require a reread in the near future. she writes about how american literature has required the backdrop of the unfree and unenlightened other in black people to define and create the free and independent (white) individual.

thinking about how this same structure works in relation to the missionary enterprise and the pure chosen people of the church. how necessary it is to have the heathen and the damned to define the godly and saved and how racially linked they are in white american christianity. I remember growing up with stories of africfan missionaries and the imagination of them spreading the light of the gospel in the darkness of africa, racially loaded terms for sure and I definatly remember them being passed on exactly as such. remembering too the way that judgement was passed on people who made survival decisions outside of middle class morality that was so clearly equated with christianity. morality that allows for damage done to others at a distance where there is no face allowed to those who are hurt for your benefit, but not for more immediate, and less consequential, slights like shoplifting or fudging an application for assistance.

ave maria

Ave Maria, of the third world, full of grace, all you who know pain, know the anxieties and the subhuman condition of your people, the Lord is with you, with all who suffer, who hunger and thirst for justice, who know neither letters nor figures.

Blessed are you among women, the women of the roads and pueblos, of furrowed faces, of brawny muscles, of calloused hands of forlorn eyes, but with hope.

Blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus. Because without him, our life and the struggle for human dignity has no meaning.

Sancta Maria, all of you holy, a thousand time holy, by your lives,by the times you carry water, that you smudge your face at the hearth, trusting and hoping in God. He has made you Mother of Goid.

Pray for us sinners, for it is our fault, in one way or another by our egoism and envy, that you joined with the rest of the women and men of the poor, the third world, suffer misery, totalitarian governments,economic repression,wars and blood and hatred.

Now, so that we change, so that there will be a conversion of heart and of all men and women towards your son, our brother.

And at the hour of our death, so that the Lord have mercy on all who have offended him in our brothers and sisters, in the men and women of a world which is struggling desparately for life.

Amen

This prayer I swiped from Megan Mckenna who swiped it from the oral tradition of South America. I think maybe it shows the beginning of where a proper white theology might start in meeting god in the oppressed and being responsible and judged by god through the oppressed… or is it just more white exoticism? I believe that where i stand before god is where i stand before the oppressed, and I know that not one person oppressed by my privilege asked for the role of being the face of god to me.

chosenness and judgement

I think that part of the core of approaching theology from the perspective of privilege and taking seriously the claims of the various liberation and political theologies that god sides with the oppressed is to learn to look at the powers that be and our connection with them as a people who stand under judgement.

chosenness is a powerful biblical theme and has translated itself into the sickest expressions of genocide and history when it is taken on as a mantle by people already privileged and in power (think slavery, manifest destiny, inquisition). no doubt in the bibllical narratives the chosen are often the poor outcasts and slaves, but even there when they are not you get divine genocidal mania (the conquest narratives and the whole of the book of joshua). when white folks appropriate liberation theologies born in anticolonial struggles and say god is for the poor and so am i so i am with god we jump the necessary recognition that if god is for the poor and we benefit from their exploitation then god is necessarily against us and we stand under judgement.

the question becomes how to repent and defect completely from our privileged identities to side with god and the poor. there can be no questions of charity or somehow “pulling the rest of the world up to join us”  we are damned. in racial terms the question for me is how can a blue eyed devil be redeemed. of course oppression is not only racial and it is not only whiteness that is damned all social and identity categories that rest on oppression are damned if god stands with the oppressed.

priveleged folks talk about being allies in the struggle. i think that theologically this is inadequate there is no possibility of reaching out from a damned position (privilege) and joining the people of god. an ally gets to try to be a “good” straight, white, wealthy, western, christian…… but if god is for the oppressed those things don’t exist. can our demons be exorcised? or do we try to be allies and just do damage control?

god of the oppressed and accompaniment work

just finished rereading God of the Oppressed by James Cone. I wish that his chapter on violence and non-violence had been required reading in the trainings for the organization that I used to work for. I did international human rights accompaniment. that is when foreigners mostly white and western drop into low intensity war zones with the idea that their presence will deter violence. the problems with the theory are… well huge. I still dream that there is some possible good in an international presence if that “international” isn’t just another code word for white, but then folks like the ones I worked with would need to rethink their tactics (which mostly are being visible and flashing your white face and/or western passport about while telling oppressed people to be non-violent and morally pure in the face of their oppression) would have to be thrown out and reworked.

when asked about violence Cone’s answer was “who’s violence?” pointing out that the whole racial system (which is necessary for the tactics of the type of accompaniers I worked with) is the violence of white people. he contends that god stands with the oppressed against the oppressor and that the distinction between violence and nonviolence is irrelevant because everyone is violent.

benevolent white christians enslave blacks for their own good

Pat Buchanan’s contribution to a national dialogue on race from his blog. It’s every bit as filthy as you would guess, but also flows quite logically from an exclusive (christian supremacist) view of truth and salvation.

http://www.buchanan.org/blog/?p=969

First, America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.

A conversation

So i am involved in what i think is an interesting conversation on the blog Holy Digression

Under this sign conquer

Is it any wonder that (white, western) christianity has developed an imperial dominating identity when one of the defining moments of it’s history was the the emperor Constantine’s vision of the cross with the command to conquer under this sign.

White culture has since consistently claimed it’s inheritance of the roman civilization and of christian identity.Missionaries have gone out to conquer the world for christ arm in arm with armies who would conquer for the various white empires.

When christianity became the imperial religion it also began it’s series of ecumenical councils to explicitly define doctrinal purity, purity being a value of dominant classes who feel the need to mark the boundaries of who can claim the privileges of belonging.

I am curious in the future to research more about this shift to dominance and the various doctrinal decisions and who they were used to exclude. Particularly the council of chalcedon in 451 that cut off a variety of churches on the edge of the empire from the rest.