Category Archives: Progressive Christianity

A legacy of violence?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In his book Disarming Scripture: Cherry-Picking Liberals, Violence-Loving Conservatives, and Why We All Need to Learn to Read the Bible Like Jesus Did, Derek Flood claims that OT texts which represent God as encouraging, or even commanding, genocide ‘have been used repeatedly by Christians to justify genocides, beginning with the crusades and continuing up to present times.’

Flood mentions the Crusades, the killing by Oliver Cromwell of large numbers of Irish Catholics, the slaughter of many native Americans, and the killing of nearly a million Tutsies in the Rwandan genocide. …

What is ‘progressive Christianity’?

Walking With Giants Posted on by

A century ago, it was ‘liberal Christianity’ that was putting out its newer, kinder, more modern agenda for the Christian faith.  Around the time of the millenium (no, not that millenium, but the one we’ve already lived through) it was the Emerging Church that was seeking to free itself from the shackles of traditionalism.  Now, it seems, the most popular self-designation for those disenchanted with orthodoxy is ‘Progressive Christianity’ (PC).

As is the case with all these movements, PC is a bit difficult to pin down. …

‘If the church were Christian’ – 2

Walking With Giants Posted on by

Philip Gulley puts it like this:- If the church were more Christian, ‘affirming our potential would be more important than condemning our brokenness.’  (If the Church Were Christian. HarperOne)

The church’s teaching about the sinfulness of human nature, it appears, has done great harm.  It has brought the church into disrepute, and caused individuals to feel damaged and guilt-ridden.  Gulley supports this with anecdotes of horror stories from which every reasonable person would recoil with horror.…

‘If the church were Christian’ – 1

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In his 2010 book, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus, Quaker pastor Philip Gulley offers a recipe for, well, making the Church Christian.  Richard Rohr thinks that the recipe is ‘superb’.  (Actually, if these two men are on the same page about what a desirable form of Christianity would look like, then I prefer Gulley’s more straightforward approach.  Rohr’s slipperiness is reflected in this wording…

‘Jesus is a model for living more than an object of worship’ (my emphasis)

…whereas Gulley says that if the church were ‘more Christian’:-

‘Jesus would be a model for living rather than an object of worship’ (my emphasis).…

‘If the church were Christian’ – intro

Walking With Giants Posted on by

In his 2010 book, If the Church Were Christian: Rediscovering the Values of Jesus, Quaker pastor Philip Gulley offers a recipe for, well, making the Church Christian.  Richard Rohr thinks that the recipe is ‘superb’, and restates it in the following words:-

  1. Jesus is a model for living more than an object of worship.
  2. Affirming people’s potential is more important than reminding them of their brokenness.
  3. The work of reconciliation should be valued over making judgments.
…