A Christian Liberal is NOT an oxymoron.

Posted by XT on March 8th, 2008 in Progressive Faith

I don’t think I’m going to wrap this one up in a neat package. If you come here often, you may be used to that.

One of the phrases I keep track of vie Google Alerts is “Progressive Faith” (I also track “Faithful Left”, the term I prefer, but I tend to get a lot of stories about how the fans of various sportsteams were disappointed, but stayed at the event to the end). I’ve found quite a few interesting corners of the internet that way. Today I found Find and Ye Shall Seek and a discussion referring to yet another interesting corner called Hallowed Secularism.

The question to be debated between them appears to be “What is Progressive Faith?” And, right away, we get into the territory that shows the weakness of that term.

From HS:

There are two kinds of “progressive religion” in our cultural terms. One type is theologically conservative but politically liberal. In this category you can put people like Jim Wallis, Stanley Hauerwas, John Milbank and Pope Benedict. On some cultural issues, such as abortion and gay marriage, such persons may not be progressive at all. But on core economic issues, international affairs, militarism and the environment, such persons are likely to be more radical—because their thinking is grounded in the Kingdom of God—than any merely political alternative can be.

The other kind of progressive religion is both theologically and politically liberal. Obviously, I am painting with a very broad brush, since new theological thinking may not fit into these categories. But the critic had in mind liberal theology of a certain kind—skeptical of any supernatural concepts. For that is true of Hallowed Secularism as well and the point the critic was making was that Hallowed Secularism is not breaking any new ground.

I think this distinction is both important, and helpful in many ways. It explains why Pastor Dan gets apoplectic when he talks about Jim Wallis and it explains why, from the media’s point of view, PD would likely get lumped in with Wallis as “the Religious Left”.

It also shows why the word “Progressive” is deceptive in this sense. Ultimately, “Progressive” was taken by some believers to describe a faith that corresponded with certain political positions. “Progressivism” is a particular brand of political liberalism. Progressivism arose as part of what John Kenneth Galbraith would call “countervailing power”. Its purpose was to reclaim democracy for the people – against the political machinery and corporatism that rode roughshod over anyone and everyone in their path. Progressives, at least during that period, were of either party, depending on local circumstances.

Political Progressivism sees governmental power as one means of achieving a better society. Rather than the laissez faire stand-on-the-edge-and-watch government, Progressives saw the job of government as being the means of the people to impose democratic will upon its most powerful members. They didn’t hate the rich and powerful, but they did hate the way that wealth and power skewed democracy and slanted policies against the common man. In Christian terms, they taught that the purpose of government was to “care for the least among you”.

Find & Seek has problems with HS’s definition, but explains it thusly:

Naturally, he is just taking for granted the definition of “Christian” faith that certain defenders of orthodoxy proclaim. In particular, in parroting the notion that a Christian faith cannot exist, or cannot somehow be legitimate, without a literal resurrection of Jesus, he seems to have let orthodox Christianity decide for him and the rest of us what kind of religious faith we are allowed to have.

Well, F&S is right that it is the adherents of a religion that define what beliefs endure and which perish or are altered. But I’m not sure if he (somehow I get the idea that all bloggers are male until I know otherwise – a remnant of my sexist upbringing) does HS justice here. For example, in his post about Anne Lamott HS describes what he finds unsettling:

In the book, the phrase is repeated, I’m spiritual, not religious. Lamott is sort of like that.

I find myself oddly uncomfortable with this trend, which is surprising since some would say my work is a part of it. But I think it misses the God of History and also misses some of the most important aspects of the biblical witness. For example, Lamott wrote in Salon back in 2005 that she had a “core belief that all people are good, and precious to God, and that everyone deserves to be cared for.” But are all people good? The evidence is sort of to the contrary. And God loves people, if I understand the Christian message, despite the fact that people do not deserve God’s love. This may seem a small point, but it is the difference between religion and pablum.

“Spiritual, not religious” generally means, in my experience, “I don’t go to church, and I reject the dogmatic beliefs of the denomination in which I was raised, but I can’t really explain how – or why – my beliefs have changed.” I believe this is more the former definition – and more correct usage – of “Progressive Faith”, since it generally reflects a rejection of conservative social dogma but still adheres to the basic tenets of a conservative faith (divinity of Jesus, literal interpretation of the Bible, etc.). So “spiritual, ,not religious” former Catholics can say “I don’t believe the priesthood should have to remain celebate,” but they don’t really have any justification for that beyond “I think it’s wrong.”

From a faith perspective, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. In fact, it is the very heart of revealed knowledge to say, “This is self-evident and true throughout all time,” (even if it is neither). From a more logical inquisition (meant in the non-Spanish style), it will drive you crazy. “How can you know what you believe if you don’t know why you believe it? How can you reject (for example) the necessity of baptism but still observe the social custom of not eating meat on Fridays in Lent?”

Yes, people make no sense. Let me catalogue the ways…

Before I go on, let me say that I think neither F&S nor HS are entirely wrong, but neither are they entirely correct. The area of distinction would lie, I believe, in trying to get even more discerning in HS’s second definition of “Progressive Faith”. To wit, what does it mean to be “theologically progressive”?

To answer this, I would refer to the work of Gottfried Lessing entitled The Education of the Human Race (the text begins here):

That which Education is to the Individual, Revelation is to the Race. Education is Revelation coming to the Individual Man; and Revelation is Education which has come, and is yet coming, to the Human Race.Whether it can be of any advantage to the science of instruction to contemplate Education in this point of view, I will not here inquire; but in Theology it may unquestionably be of great advantage, and may remove many difficulties, if Revelation be conceived of as the Educator of Humanity.

Skipping ahead a bit:

Let it not be objected that speculations of this description upon the mysteries of religion are forbidden. The word mystery signified, in the first ages of Christianity, something quite different from what it means now: and the cultivation of revealed truths into truths of reason, is absolutely necessary, if the human race is to be assisted by them. When they were revealed they were certainly no truths of reason, but they were revealed in order to become such. They were like the “that makes – ” of the ciphering master, which he says to the boys, beforehand, in order to direct them thereby in their reckoning. If the scholars were to be satisfied with the “that makes,” they would never learn to calculate, and would frustrate the intention with which their good master gave them a guiding clue in their work. And why should not we too, by the means of a religion whose historical truth, if you will, looks dubious, be conducted in a familiar way to closer and better conceptions of the Divine Being, our own nature, our relation to God, truths at which the human reason would never have arrived of itself?

Here is the answer to F&S’s objection to the “open tomb” criticism of HS (which is, as F&S points out, a high point of criticism by conservative theologians – “If the entire Bible cannot be believed, then none of it can.” Crackers.). “Progressive Faith” is simply those of us who seek to further the tradition of revelation by reconciling it with reason and science. It does not mean, necessarily, that earlier thinkers were wrong, only that they were not entirely correct.

In theological terms, Lessing (and his mentor, Moses Mendelsohn) were not trying to destroy the works of faith for their respective religions (Lessing was Christian, Mendelsohn was Jewish). They saw themselves as carrying on the work of the original authors of the Bible. The open tomb may or may not have been intended to be a literal and historical fact by its first claimant (which, by the way, left no written record) and the written testimony we have was not put down on paper (or papyrus) by someone who saw it with their own eyes. It is, at least in theory, possible that the story is just that – a story meant to have a powerful and emotional impact upon those who hear it. It is an instructional archetype. It is a mystery as Lessing describes a mystery – something to be puzzled upon until all the truth can be wrung from it and then, if it no longer serves any purpose, it should be cast aside.

HS concludes an essay with:

Certainly religion is more than dogma and more than ideas, especially more than ideological commitments. But it does not do to say of God, “whatever we mean by that”. It is not progressive in any sense to give up the fundamental question, what is reality and what, if anything, is behind it? Yes, Hallowed Secularism takes that question with utmost seriousness. Hallowed Secularism is not content to substitute for that thinking, any form of art and liturgy.

This is similar to Richard Dawkins’ objections to any revision of religious belief, though HS is less insulting that Dawkins normally is. Religion, as well, must take seriously the fundamental question of what is and is not – otherwise it is simply what its critics want to reduce it to: superstition and the empty pomp and circumstance of emotionless ceremony. I believe that what HS wants to explore is ethics in its philosophical definition – the study and implementation of systems of morality and ethical behavior. That is a part of all religion, but it is not the sum total of religion – though Mendelsohn and Lessing attempted to bring the two a bit closer.

The ultimate problem of faith is that there is no rational proof for it. Either one believes or one doesn’t. That is the act, not of a reasoned, rational mind; but of a feeling and emotive being. This is why belief is often stated as being “with all my heart, all my mind, and all my soul”. Rationally, it is a meaningless statement because there is no “mind” or “soul” and the “heart” is just a pump for blood. But there is humanity beyond rationality, and that is what religion seeks to address. There are some who do not need it. At least, as far as we can tell from where we stand today.

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