The Progressive Christian

[Jamie McDaniel]

Coming in December will be a new magazine called The Progressive Christian.



Actually, it is not a new magazine but rather the rebranded Zion's Herald, which ceased publication this summer in order to prepare for the new launch. This magazine has been very supportive of LGBT people and other justice issues. This high quality, bimonthly publication has largely flown under the radar as Zion's Herald, but hopefully as The Progressive Christian it will gather the attention it deserves.

If your faith is Christian or if you are interested in the writings of people who identify as progressive Christians, consider subscribing!

www.zhonline.org/subscription.html

[Steven E. Webster]

Jamie,
Thanks for bringing this to folk's attention. It was a good idea for "Zion's Herald" to change its name to one that better communicates to the audience they seek to reach. The old name had a long and honorable history going back to the days of the movement to abolish slavery--that's almost two centuries ago, and we are losing touch with the language of those days.

As "Zion's Herald" they did a lot of work to expose the right-wing Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

Steven Webster

[Lydia]

Thanks for telling us about this.

Maybe I'll subscribe after I find a job?

[keltic63]

Hey, I looked around the site and found an introductory offer for $19.95 for one year. I signed up for it!

Thanks Jamie

[BruceChris]

But I'm with Steven, in the impression that the name "Zion's Herald" screams Un-progressive Christian at me. Glad of the name change. And, I'm with Lydia, in that I'm going to get a job first.

Edit: If you go to their website, and then click on ZHonline, you can get to a page with links to articles in the current issue, like this one:

http://www.zhonline.org/analysis_906.html -- -- Enjoy!

Peace and Love, Bruce Chris

[rainbowdog]

What is actually Progressive Christian? it sounds good to me. i am all about GBLT rights and human rights.

God Bless,
Christy

[NathanATX]

The original version of the "8 Points of Progressive Christianity" from The Center for Progressive Chrisitianity at www.tcpc.org.

1. Proclaim Jesus Christ as our Gate to the realm of God

2. Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway to God's realm

3. Understand our sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name to be a representation of God's feast for all peoples

4. Invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in our worship and in our common life as full partners, including (but not limited to):

believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
homosexuals and heterosexuals,
females and males,
the despairing and the hopeful,
those of all races and cultures, and
those of all classes and abilities,

without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us.

5. Think that the way we treat one another and other people is more important than the way we express our beliefs.

6. Find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers.

7. See ourselves as a spiritual community in which we discover the resources required for our work in the world: striving for justice and peace among all people; bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers.

8. Recognize that our faith entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and conscientious resistance to evil--as has always been the tradition of the church

[andrewlittle]

Progressive, as a descriptor of either religious or political ideology, has taken on a lot of different meanings. It is, simply, a word that can be co-opted as much as "liberal" or "conservative". It does, however, tend to mean or indicate an ideology or theology that is dissatisfied with either of the two more long standing extremes.

Progressive Christianity, then, can mean many different things.

There are PCs who believe that Liberal Christianity became too organized - hierarchical and based on a more humanist or mechanist approaches - and sought to reclaim some of the concepts abandoned to Conservativitism, like the mystery of God, authority of scripture by reinterpretation, etc. An example, Jim Adams who started The Center for Progressive Christianity.

Some people, previously described as conservatives, became disenchanted with the way that evangelical Christianity became so dogmatic and rule based, as opposed to being about spreading the love of God and combatting civil and societal problems. Jim Wallis and Sojourners are a good example here. They consider themselves evangelical, but neither cons. or lib., hence progressive.

Apart from these, are those that assert the value of orthopraxis over orthodoxy. The first is way of basing some claim to be Christian on how that faith is lived out, praxis, as opposed to thought out, doxology. This includes many of the developing liberation theologies - Black, Asian, feminist, etc. These also include many non-denominational Christians who span a spectrum form ultra-"liberal" to evangelical, but don't want to be tied to or restricted by denominational doctrine.

Whatever their particular definition, there is an interesting commonality - they generally like to dialogue. They like to discuss and learn from other people, including sometimes other faith traditions, and lean more to placing importance on "what we do" and "how we do it", as opposed to "what we think" and "how we express it".

Even wthin the staunchly "conservative" Southern Baptist and Pentecostal Christians, there has developed a strong "Open Theology" camp. These people believe that scripture, while being the authority, is OPEN to new revelation and interpretation from diverse sources. For example, they question the concept of an omniscient, omnipotent, almighty God who controls everything, as coming from an antiquated church structure that wanted to claim these concepts for their own power and position in society.

[Jamie McDaniel]

I received my copy of the premiere issue of the Progressive Christian today.

I noticed HRC took out a full page ad, inside back cover no less!

Originally Posted by Steven E. Webster

As "Zion's Herald" they did a lot of work to expose the right-wing Institute on Religion and Democracy (IRD).

In this issue they have an article titled "Why Are Neoconservative Catholics Supporting the IRD?"