Study Guide for the 8 Points of Progressive Christianity 2012
This Study Guide has been re-edited and re-printed.
This edition is the second printing.
Introduction to the Study Guide
By: Fred Plumer, Author and President
This Study Guide is for the third edition (2011) of the “8 Points” that have both identified and guided ProgressiveChristianity.org (formerly The Center for Progressive Christianity) since the organization’s founding in 1994. We have been asked numerous times why we find it necessary to change or update the “8 Points.” There are three primary answers to that question. First, we change the wording because we often get comments and suggestions from our readers and supporters that make sense to us. Some of these are theological comments and some are simply seeking greater clarity demonstrating that we were not as clear as we should have been. We try and take those comments into consideration every time we make a change.
Secondly, as people with open minds and soft hearts, we continue to evolve and change. That is what “progressive” is all about. New scholarship, conversations and even detractors challenge us to rethink what we have been positing, and at some point, after much discussion and conversation with our advisors, we may decide that we should change the way that we have written that last edition or emphasize new points. This seems to happen, although not by design, about every five years or so.
Thirdly, we never want the “8 Points” document to become something sacred in itself, beyond testing and questioning. In another words, we are not trying to challenge creedal thinking and outdated dogma with a new creed.
These are fascinating times for people of faith and for Christians. More than one scholar has compared these times to the chaotic years of the late first and second century church. According to some scholars, people in the streets were literally fighting over who and what Jesus was and what he was teaching. At the same time, the vast majority of the Roman population could have cared less about Christianity and often saw the minority of Christian advocates as trouble makers and fools.
Aside from the 1800 years of history, today we have a lot more data and information about the times of Jesus than was available to those early Roman citizens or anytime in modern history. Over the last fifty years, there has been a virtual explosion of information, not only about the historical Jesus but about the times in which he lived and died, that was not available to early Christians. This information has changed the perspective of many thinking people.
It is impossible to pinpoint the actual beginning of Progressive Christianity as we describe it today. There have always been those brave enough to challenge the prominent views of the official church, going back to Origen in the third century. As a modern movement, we can certainly give credit to a group of clergy and scholars like Lyman Abbot, William Jewett Tucker, Horace Bushnell, George Gordon, Walter Rauschenbusch and Henry Emerson Fosdick who mounted a powerful attempt to change the way we view Christianity in the last years of the 19th century and the early years of the 20th century. This courageous group of scholars, clergy, and administrators went against the grain in their belief that doing anything else would doom the future of Christianity. They used terms like Progressive Theology, Progressive Orthodoxy, Modern Theology and something called New Theology.
In 1892 Lyman Abbot suggested that it was time to “Put the new wine into new bottles, that both may be preserved. Spiritual experience is always new. It must therefore find a new expression in each age.” Walter Rauschenbusch warned in 1917 that by striving vainly “to keep Christian doctrine unchanged, we shall ensure its abandonment.”
Scholar, Richard M. Gamble writes on this era in his book, The War for Righteousness, “Progressive Christianity…was to be intellectually respectable, credible, relevant and liberating.” Unfortunately these scholars and well known clergy confronted a fire storm from what came to be called the fundamentalist movement.
Some would argue that because of their support and alignment with progressive politics and President Wilson’s dream of a League of Nations, this brave and inspired group of religious leaders lost credibility. I would suggest that their lack of success only demonstrates the fact that religious convictions change very, very slowly. It is possible that the eminent theologian, Walter Rauschenbusch, was right nearly one hundred years ago when he wrote “to keep Christian doctrine unchanged, we shall ensure its abandonment.”
And that is why many of us work so tirelessly to foster a new Christianity.
The background material and the questions of this Study Guide were designed to stimulate conversation and to raise issues that might not otherwise come up. None of these materials are intended to make a final theological, Christological, or canonical argument. The last thing we would want to do is to tell anyone how he or she should believe or approach their faith. Most of these materials and study questions are drawn from real, ongoing discussions in churches, seminaries and universities. They are also drawn from the input we had from church groups that wrestled with the earlier versions of the “8 Points” in their own settings. We look forward to this continued input and dialogue.
~Fred C. Plumer
One version of the 8 points was “right on” for me; the latest version not so much. Who are your advisors? Are they named somewhere? All of us human beings have prejudices and perspectives, some claimed and some not recognized. That is why I would appreciate knowing who are the people who shape the points. Thanks.
Fred:
Thank you for your courage in a world of sheeple gladly following the furry little butts in front of them!
You and Bishop Spong are mavericks and pave the way for so many who won’t Wake Up, Stand Up and Snap Out of It! Thank you again!!!
Ain’t that the truth!! Let the lions emerge!
I have become acquainted with Progressive Christianity within the last four to five years and have found the information to be extremely helpful in my efforts to move from Biblical literalism to an understanding of Christianity as taught by Jesus and his apostle versus the theology of Paul of Tarus who emphasized the need for redemption from sins through the blood of Jesus as required by his Father due to the sin of Adam and his offspring.
I guess I’m way late here, but I am totally with Nancy Smith. I find there is much less to talk about in the new version of the 8 points and several of the revisions take the power out of the Jesus Way for me. Namely the removal of “the way to God’s realm” takes away, for me, the over-againstness of the Jesus community in a time when realm and empire run rampant over ordinary people and creatures. It’s important to affirm another realm. In the same way the changes in what was #4 and deleting “without insisting that they become like us” removes reference to actions that the conventional church takes all the time and we can relate to. I was really disappointed to see reference to the “costliness” of following disappear from the last point. And, finally, deletion of “conscientious resistance to evil and renunciation of privilege” really removes the sense of call to an alternative culture. It helps affirm that we can’t really be serious about doing justice unless we change our own ways. Without conscientious resistance to the frantic, consumptive, in-your-face, oppressive American sense of entitlement we have a wonderful friendly suburban manifesto of a community where people are nice to each other even with the 1%-99% chasm between Lazarus and his dominator. Without renunciation of privilege it almost makes pointless everything that comes before.
John, I too wish you had joined in the earlier conversations before we posted the last version of the 8points. It might have made a difference. In the meantime you should be able to access of the last version of the 8Points along with the Study Guide on our website. If not contact me directly and I will send you a file you can reprint.
I also want to respond to your comments. They deserve some explanation.
1) For some time now our readers have been challenging us to explain what we mean by “God.” As you may know it is a term that Biblical scholars are debating as I write. I did attempt to address this concern in the Study Guide and I hope you at least read that. Having said that if I were to rewrite the Study Guide today I would put the term God’s Realm back with a footnote explaining what we don’t mean. I assumed with help of the Study Guide most people would realize that this is what we mean when we use the terms Sacred, Oneness or Unity, all capitalized.
2) I believe you are referring to Point #3 here. We started with the goal to shorten number three since the long list seemed bulky. However although it seemed unnecessary to us, I think if you had made that point during our discussions the committee may have agreed. However the key point here was to achieve radical egalitarianism (in Crossan’s words) or complete inclusiveness. One of the members made the point that they welcomed a recovering child abuser but would insist that he acted like them while he was there.
3)”the removal of costliness” It seemed obvious at the time that to pursue a life of true and complete compassion and a willingness to seek justice for all will always be costly. However I must admit that when I read that point again through your eyes I think it might be interpreted as a little too easy. I think we will make that more clear in the next version.
4)”conscientious resistance to evil and renunciation of privilege” We had more comments, complaints from readers and debates on this one portion than any other. The first issue was what do we mean by evil and who are we to determine that? I think many of the readers were concerned that we were replicating President Bush’s comments about the evil empire. But we had far more people concerned about the word renunciation. Most people felt that if we not willing to give up our lovely homes and go live on the streets than we were being hypocritical. My vote would have been to add something like “willing to renounce our assumption of privilege.
John when I read all of your comments together I see where you might assume that we have gotten a little soft. That was not the intent but was rather to assume that any time one is led to a new experience and awareness of the utter interconnectedness of all life, call it what you want, that their lives will be radically changed and it can be dangerous to resist the norm. But anyone who follows this radical path can and will experience the Realm here and now. We take your comments seriously. Thank You.
I too had feelings of nostalgia when the 8 points underwent revision. How very human of me. But the curious part of that same humanity made me rethink the whole business… and that got me thinking things through again. When I get too comfortable with the new points I hope you’ll change things up again. Keep me thinking! Helps keep me ‘progressing.’