Image Created by Canva Magic Studio
One of the most disappointing and frustrating points of tension I've experienced is the false dichotomy that exists among the majority of Christians I interact with. The majority and I mean the vast majority, view what a Christian is through a narrow and exclusively evangelical/fundamentalist lens.
One of the most disappointing and frustrating points of tension I've experienced is the false dichotomy that exists among the majority of Christians I interact with. The majority and I mean the vast majority, view what a Christian is through a narrow and exclusively evangelical/fundamentalist lens.
The false dichotomy is that a Christian is either an evangelical/fundamentalist or a non-believer. As someone who is neither of these options, when I write on Christianity from my perspective, I tend to get the most pushback from other Christians. This is because I, along with others who believe like me, don't fit this either/or narrative. As a result, we are often seen as not only non-believers but as antagonistic toward Christianity.
Because of the false belief that Christian and evangelical/fundamentalist are synonymous, people implicitly assume there are beliefs everyone who claims to be a Christian accepts. Some of these beliefs are:
- The Bible has no errors and cannot contain any mistakes because it is the divine word of God.
- Related to this, the Bible is a historical document that tells us the literal truth about actual historical events.
- Jesus is a sacrifice for my sin and was punished by God because of my mistakes.
- Jesus died and literally (read physically/bodily) rose again from the dead after three days.
- God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present being ruling over the cosmos from his (God is always a male in this view) throne in heaven.
- For those who do not believe they are sinners and need to be saved by Jesus's death, they are doomed to hell. Whether that torment is eternal or there comes a point of annihilation is up for debate, but it is clear not believing in Jesus means you go to hell.
I've also experienced this assumption as part of a mainline denomination. Maybe it's because I live in the U.S. South, and my priest is right that "regardless of your denomination, everyone here is at least a little Baptist." Regardless of why the reality remains, even many mainline Christians in my neck of the woods are mainline in name only; functionally, their theology is evangelical.
Progressive Christians Do Exist, I Promise
Because a Christian is so narrowly defined, most people, Christian or not, have no idea that progressive Christians exist. Mind you, 'progressive Christian' is a tradition that I most identify with but there are a number of groups whose beliefs align closely to mine but go by a different name. Some prefer to call themselves 'post Evangelicals' while some prefer 'Ex-Evangelicals,' and yet still some simply prefer to be identified as 'Mainliners.'
Our group tends to consist of folks who have been part of evangelical/fundamentalist circles but found those spaces too rigid and dogmatic socially and theologically. What distinguishes the groups I've mentioned above from Exvangelicals, based on my understanding, is that Exvangelicals are former evangelicals who have walked away from Christianity entirely.
As a progressive Christian, I have abandoned a specific version of Christianity but not Christianity as a whole. Because I do not adhere to an evangelical/fundamentalist brand of Christianity, it's become fairly common for Christians to respond to my writing by calling me a heretic, demon-possessed, a twister of truth, a false prophet, leading people astray, and my personal favorite a confirmation that the end times are upon us.
The Need for More Progressive Voices
It's because of this false dichotomy and the monopoly evangelicals/fundamentalists have on Christianity that I started writing. As someone who takes modern scholarship seriously, has a desire to see the world experience the type of compassion and justice Jesus talks about, and yearns for a deep spiritual life, for years I have felt alone.
The more I write and speak openly the more I have found kindred spirits who share similar stories and experiences. We exist, we're out there, but our voices are often muted by all the noise our evangelical counterparts are able to make.
Having journeyed alone for years, still believing in Jesus but being viewed as dangerous or an outcast to Christians, I struggled deeply, spiritually, and emotionally, wrestling with how my faith could be practiced and lived out in a healthy community. What I've found is most people like me have an emotional and spiritual pull toward a more progressive faith, but they are unable to articulate theologically how their belief is different than evangelical/fundamentalists.
Five Ways My Beliefs Differ from Evangelicals
To help give language to others on a similar journey as me and to clearly explain to my evangelical counterparts how our perspectives differ. Within each section I'm going to share an excerpt from articles I've written on the topic and link the original article at the bottom of each section. Without further ado, here are 5 ways my progressive beliefs differ from evangelicals:
The Bible
The view of the Bible I adhere to embraces and welcomes dialogue with modern scientific and historical scholarship to deepen our critical thinking and experience of God. This is in contrast to an evangelical/fundamentalist view, which assumes a closed system where what has been determined as orthodox (right belief) are closed issues, not open for discussion. My view has been known by many names over the last century, such as emerging paradigm, mainline, liberal, progressive, unbiblical, unorthodox, and my favorite heresy.
There are four features of the Christian life:
- The Bible is a human product: As a human product, the Bible is the result of two ancient communities: ancient Israel and the early Christian movement. As a human product, this view does not deny the reality of God. Instead, it sees the Bible as a response to how these two ancient communities responded to God.
- Faith is an all-encompassing experience of the Sacred: Faith, as all-encompassing, takes seriously the reality that faith is primarily experiential and not intellectual. This is not to say there is no place for knowledge; quite the contrary, the emerging paradigm often takes more serious historical scholarship in understanding the world in which the Bible was written.
- The Christian life is about this life, not the afterlife: The emerging paradigm places a premium on understanding “the way” of Jesus as pertinent to this life. Jesus is offering us new life through death to our old ways and rebirth to the new ways of Jesus today, not in some future afterlife.
- The grace of God is freely given: Likely, the most scandalous statement of this view is that not even faith is a prerequisite to a relationship with God. As discussed above, faith, often defined as agreeing to a set of beliefs, is viewed as another work. God’s love for us on the cross was so grand and radical that it completely conquered all systems of requirements. God’s love for us comes before our worthiness, whether that worth is defined by correct belief or right actions; neither matters, as God already removed any barrier to a relationship.
You can read my full article comparing evangelical and progressive views of the Bible below:
Jesus
I believe Jesus was the most exceptional human being to ever walk the face of the earth. Jesus is one of a handful of 'spirit people' who clearly had a unique connection and experience with God. Jesus is clearly in the pantheon of the greatest human beings, along with Confuscious, the Buddha, Moses, and Muhammad (PBUH). I believe what distinguishes Jesus from this group of religious leaders is Jesus is the perfect embodiment of what God would be like if God were a human being.
Was Jesus literally the son of God? Personally, no, I don’t think so. I’ll go even further and share that not only do I not think Jesus was the literal son of God, but I don’t think he thought of himself this way.
For Jesus to do all that he did in 33 years as a human like you and me makes Jesus an exceptional human being worthy of following. To say Jesus is God, then even his greatest miracles aren’t much more than circus tricks if he possesses the power of God.
You can read my full article on Jesus below:
Atonement
Admittedly, my views of the atonement have shifted even since I last wrote on the topic about a year ago. What has not changed is I do not hold to any view of substitutionary atonement. This is because of the many atonement theories that exist. This is one of the most recent to have developed. The first person to come up with substitutionary atonement is Anselm of Canterbury in 1047 A.D. The other reason I do not hold to this view is because I do not see or know a God who is so bloodthirsty and vengeful that they would beat their own child as punishment for my sin.
Applying this to a real-world context, if I, as a father, decided because 3 of my children rebelled against me, I'm going to punish my 4th child, who obeyed, to pay for the punishment my other children 'deserved,' what would that make me? It's not a trick question; I would be a child abuser who is clearly mentally unstable and in need of mental healthcare and rehabilitation. Yet, when the same idea is applied to God, we call God-loving, just, forgiving, etc.
It's more than a bit terrifying how quickly we're willing to justify abuse if it's in the name of God.
My current position is one known as participatory atonement. Participatory atonement doesn't mean that Christ dies for us. Rather, we die and rise with Christ. It is metaphorical language that describes the internal process of radical change.
At the heart of this view are New Testament themes such as crucifixion and resurrection, baptism, and an old self passing away so a new self can emerge. Biblically, texts such as Galatians 2:20 and Romains 12:1-2 seem to advocate for this view.
If you're interested in seeing the seeds of my current view based on what I advocated for a year ago, check out the article below:
God
God is fully present, even as I clickity-clack this article on my keyboard. I’m sure God is present now because God desires a relationship in this life to transform me and everyone else now, not in some distant afterlife. This implication has a massive impact on the God-world relationship.
What I’m describing about God’s presence is known as panentheism. So I don’t butcher unpacking this view; I turn things over again to Marcus Borg;
“Though the word panentheism is only about two hundred years old, the notion is very ancient. Rather than imagining God as a personlike being ‘out there,’ this concept imagines God as the encompassing Spirit in whom everything that is, is. The universe is not separate from God, but in God.” ( The Heart of Christianity, p. 77)
For example, God is in the chair I’m currently sitting in, but God is not the chair. God is present in everything while simultaneously being greater than everything. This idea is what Paul is referring to in Acts 17:28 (NRSVue),
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’
You can read my full article on understanding God as a panentheist below:
The After Life
As far back as a young child going to a Catholic church, I was terrified of hell. Interestingly, as a Protestant going through seminary and my time as an evangelical pastor, my view of hell evolved to become more terrifying. I used to hold a view that is found in largely Reformed circles called eternal conscious torment (ECT).
This view believes hell is for anyone who does not profess faith in Jesus. What separates this view from annihilationism is that, as the name suggests, God will torment those in hell for all eternity. The justification for this is sin has been committed against an eternal God; therefore, an eternal punishment is needed to appease God's wrath.
Here are two reasons why I no longer hold to this view:
- If hell has always been God’s plan for those who don’t believe in him, why is the Old Testament silent on the topic? Now stop and think about this for a second. If a lake of fire exists where human beings are tortured for all eternity (I come from a church background that taught a view of hell that is called “eternal conscious torment”), I feel like that would be a pretty significant detail God would want us to know. Interestingly, the Christian Bible is approximately 75% Old Testament, and hell is never mentioned. Yeah…I’m sorry to be the one to break this to you, but it’s not there. What is there is the word Sheol, which is used 31 times and always means “the grave,” “the temporary abode of the dead,” or “death.” In the Septuagint (meaning 70), the Greek translation of the Old Testament translates Sheol as Hades. However, hades isn’t a Jewish creation, but ancient Greeks believed in an underworld of judgment where people who displease the gods are sent. The Greek idea was read into and applied to the Jewish Scriptures but is not native to the text.
- The hell Jesus speaks on, more times than any other person in the Bible, isn’t some physical lake of fire but a very real trash heap. The word Jesus uses for hell is Gehenna, which translates to The Valley of Hinnom. Hinnom is an actual place on the East side of Jerusalem where child sacrifices took place in worship to the god Molech during the time of Isaiah the prophet and was essentially the city landfill during the time of Jesus. What both Isaiah and Jesus are doing in referencing Gehenna is not telling of a literal place where the majority of humanity is tortured but using a metaphor for the horrible consequences that await those who choose to continue to live contrary to God’s loving will in the here and now.
If you want to read my full article explaining why I said "to hell with hell," check out the article below:
These 5 areas are by no means an exhaustive list of differences between progressive and evangelical/fundamentalist Christians. The 5 areas discussed here would be what I consider the tier 1 differences that I have discussed the most with my evangelical counterparts. Even for this article, I had to remove a number of points (it was originally the 8 ways my beliefs differ from evangelicals)
Finally, if interested, I'm happy to share the books and resources that have most helped shape my progressive views. Please drop a comment, and I'll be happy to share resources on whichever topic you're interested in
_______________________
Thanks for stopping by and reading this article! If my work has served you or you want to contribute to creating authentic faith connections, consider becoming an Authentic Faith Advocate.