What is the goal of Progressive Christianity?

The Question of Progressive Christianity’s Ultimate Goal

That was a question that came up for me as I started looking into the progressive Christian movement, which was actually the same question that I had when I started really trying to kind of needle in on the differences between Mormons and traditional Christians.

And so my question is, what is the ultimate goal of the progressive Christian? You know, what is the ultimate goal of their religious efforts? Is it reconciliation to God through Christ? You know, salvation by grace through faith?

Or is it something else? What would you say?

Brian McLaren’s “Greco-Roman Six-Line Narrative” and the Gospel of the Kingdom

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I'll go to Brian McLaren for this answer. In his book, A New Kind of Christianity, he addresses this question fairly straight on. And so he talks about the gospel that Christians have traditionally believed.

And he believes that our whole idea of this creation, then there was a fall, the original sin was ushered into the world, and all of us received a sin nature from Adam. And then Jesus comes to live a sinless life and takes our sins upon himself, is crucified, raised from the dead, and is coming again.

He identifies this as what he calls the Greco-Roman six-line narrative. And so he believes that we interpreted the Jesus story through this false philosophical lens from the Greco-Roman culture of the first century, when in reality, he says, what Jesus preached was what he called the gospel of the kingdom.

So he separates the gospel I just talked about with what he believes Jesus's gospel is, which he very specifically says is about the here and the now. He says Jesus came to usher in a new kingdom, not just for people who would believe in him, but for people of all religions.

This was a way of not necessarily worrying about reconciliation between man and God, but reconciliation of man, God, and other people in the here and the now. That it's not really about where we go when we die, it's about ushering in God's kingdom.

And so in McLaren's view, this Jewish gospel, this more Jewish-backed gospel that Jesus was preaching, would be lived out in our day by, for example, voting for better socioeconomic reform, for bringing in good green energy policies, for standing up to systems that are set up to oppress people.

The Horizontal Gospel, Works, and the Loss of Lasting Hope

And so this is how we bring the kingdom of God to earth. So in McLaren's view, and in most progressive views that I've been able to find, it's really more about the here and now. It's not so much a vertical gospel, it's a horizontal gospel.

And that bottoms out in works, really. You're kind of trading grace for works at that point, because if you don't live up to that, then I've thought about this, how this plays out in reality, if you really follow this down the rabbit trail, and it's like, if you fail at that, where do you go?

And I think that's why the progressive gospel fails for me. If I became convinced that historic Christianity was not true, I would probably just become an agnostic. I don't think I would want to identify as a progressive Christian, because they don't really have anything to offer me that gives me any real lasting hope.

There's nothing they're giving me that's worth the cost of following Jesus. I'd rather just do my own thing if Christianity isn't true. So essentially, that's the gospel that's being preached. It's not about reconciling necessarily man to God.

Inherent Divinity, Shame, and the Reinterpretation of Eden

In fact, often in the progressive church, they'll teach that you are not separated from God. There's this idea of the inherent divinity of everyone. And even when they teach the Garden of Eden story, even if they don't take it literally, they still believe that there's a good message we can learn from it.

And they'll often teach that what separated Adam and Eve from God in the garden was not their sin. It was actually their shame. So in other words, when they stopped believing that they were beloved by God, when they stopped believing that they were cherished and that they were united with God, then they were sort of theoretically separated from God in their own minds.

But when we realize who we are, in fact, Richard Rohr talks about this, the true self, finding your true self. When you do that, that's what essentially reunites you and reconciles you to God is really realizing you were never separated in the first place.

And so you can see why, of course, the atonement would be horrific if you don't feel like you're a sinner in need of a savior. So it's like a ripple effect that starts from creation.