Perhaps they had misunderstood this quote from Eliot's Four Quartets:
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
Can you define "progressive" as you understand it. From your excerpts, that is not progressive, it is as you describe it. I far more often agree with you than not but many would call me progressive. I do not like the term progressive as it has lost meaning. I am a follower of Jesus and, from there I function as a social justice activist. I think many so-called progressives that I know would articulate their position in the same way.
That’s a fair question. When I use progressive Christianity, I’m speaking broadly about a posture where moral and theological conclusions are often shaped more by secular ideology than by Christian theology itself. Scripture and tradition are still present, but they tend to function as supporting resources rather than formative authorities. I’m not denying the real failures it often names (abuse, exclusion, injustice), but I’m concerned about what happens when ideology becomes primary and theology secondary. I may write a longer post to flesh this out more.
If you flesh this out, would you articulate how you determine that something is grounded on secular versus theological principles. After all, Micah writes thousands of years ago that all God desires is for us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
"governed by secular critical tools rather than received as revelation"
Scripture is, at times, human beings writing about what has been directly revealed to them by God. At other times it is straight-up just humans advising other humans. I know plenty of people claim it is more than that, but that seems to me to verge into the territory of idolatry. Can we not revere it as the record of the experiences and beliefs of the earliest Christians, invaluable and utterly "inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" while still applying our critical tools and regarding it as fallible and imperfect (as all words expressed by humans are fallible and imperfect?)
God speaks in our hearts, but we can and must use all that we have to discern God's voice from our own human desires that inevitably shape what we hear, in full knowledge that we have heard God imperfectly. How does this not also apply to the heavily translated accounts of what God said to people that have been in heaven for going on a couple millennia or more?
I mean, I think you're completely right about progressive Christianity not taking Scripture or moral formation seriously enough. But I also think it's important to distinguish Scripture from revelation, and apply all our critical faculties when we read it, under guidance the Spirit--that is to say, under guidance from actual revelation.
Yes, Evangelicalism absolutely has its own version of this. A recent podcast by Andrew Root said it well. They can say "thoughts and prayers" so easily because they don't actually expect that God might have something to say to them after they pray.
Perhaps they had misunderstood this quote from Eliot's Four Quartets:
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.
T.S. Eliot
Can you define "progressive" as you understand it. From your excerpts, that is not progressive, it is as you describe it. I far more often agree with you than not but many would call me progressive. I do not like the term progressive as it has lost meaning. I am a follower of Jesus and, from there I function as a social justice activist. I think many so-called progressives that I know would articulate their position in the same way.
That’s a fair question. When I use progressive Christianity, I’m speaking broadly about a posture where moral and theological conclusions are often shaped more by secular ideology than by Christian theology itself. Scripture and tradition are still present, but they tend to function as supporting resources rather than formative authorities. I’m not denying the real failures it often names (abuse, exclusion, injustice), but I’m concerned about what happens when ideology becomes primary and theology secondary. I may write a longer post to flesh this out more.
If you flesh this out, would you articulate how you determine that something is grounded on secular versus theological principles. After all, Micah writes thousands of years ago that all God desires is for us to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God.
"governed by secular critical tools rather than received as revelation"
Scripture is, at times, human beings writing about what has been directly revealed to them by God. At other times it is straight-up just humans advising other humans. I know plenty of people claim it is more than that, but that seems to me to verge into the territory of idolatry. Can we not revere it as the record of the experiences and beliefs of the earliest Christians, invaluable and utterly "inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness" while still applying our critical tools and regarding it as fallible and imperfect (as all words expressed by humans are fallible and imperfect?)
God speaks in our hearts, but we can and must use all that we have to discern God's voice from our own human desires that inevitably shape what we hear, in full knowledge that we have heard God imperfectly. How does this not also apply to the heavily translated accounts of what God said to people that have been in heaven for going on a couple millennia or more?
I mean, I think you're completely right about progressive Christianity not taking Scripture or moral formation seriously enough. But I also think it's important to distinguish Scripture from revelation, and apply all our critical faculties when we read it, under guidance the Spirit--that is to say, under guidance from actual revelation.
I agree. I see a lot of God and Scripture as mascot in evangelical Christianity as well. It seems like the hope is at the edges.
Yes, Evangelicalism absolutely has its own version of this. A recent podcast by Andrew Root said it well. They can say "thoughts and prayers" so easily because they don't actually expect that God might have something to say to them after they pray.
Those quotes are wild.
You’re telling me!