What Does "Progressive" Mean?


A new project called "Transforming Theology" is being organized by Tripp Fuller, a grad student at Claremont School of Theology under the direction of Professor Philip Clayton. I'm going to be joining in as a blogger -- but what I'm enjoying so far is Clayton's setting out of definitions.

Here you can hear him define Progressive. I appreciate it because he makes it clear that progressive isn't simply a more appealing synonym for liberal or that it denotes the fact that the person holding this position doesn't believe in certain things. Instead, he suggests that progressive has everything to do with transformation. Not only that, he insists that we can center the progressive movement directly into the Christian tradition.

So, take a look -- offer your thoughts.


Comments

Danny Bradfield said…
Bob, this is interesting. I've been reading Brian McLaren lately, who challenges my idea of what an evangelical is (since he boldly considers himself evangelical). So now I'm wondering, what is an evangelical? And is it possible to be both evangelical AND progressive? I guess it all depends on how one defines these terms.

As my theology professor Joe Jones always said, words like these tend to get up and walk around on you.
Robert Cornwall said…
Danny,

You raise an interesting question. Clayton is a Process Theologian -- John Cobb's successor. The project is being produced and encouraged by folks like Tony Jones, who is a more progressive Evangelical (and like me a Fuller graduate).

I think that our attempt to put labels on things often turns things upside down!
John said…
Bob,

I look at the label (and claim it) "progressive" on several levels. Definitionally, I see progressive as opposed to static or to its polar opposite, retrogressive - going backward. To me static implies not only being rooted in the past but chained by it. Progressive implies growth and development, rooted and supported by the past and fed and fueled by new information and new circumstances.

A static faith denies value to new information and ignores the moral, social, and human imprecations of the contemporary social milieu.

On a crude level those with a firm hold onto a static form of Christianity are looking for lepers, tax collectors and reformed prostitutes to share their faith with, while progressive Christians are looking for sufferers of aids and malnutrition, democrats and homosexuals to share their faith with. The result is that those with a static faith, finding no lepers, tax collectors and reformed prostitutes to share their faith with, tend to share their faith with one another. Progressives are able to go to the ends of the earth in search of opportunities to serve and witness.

To be fair, I also know of many fundamentalists who have dedicated their lives to lovingly serving the needy at home and throughout the world and I also know of many professed progressives who would blanch at the notion of personally serving the poor - anywhere - except by cutting a check, so I am aware of the real world shortcomings of my description. So I want to be careful, definitions are tools of limited value; they are not truth.

But my experiences with fundamentalists (static Christians), confirms my perception that static Christians suffer from the same limitations as the biblical Judiazers and Pharisees - they are overly concerned with form over content and with their own and with their neighbor's ritual observance over loving engagement between themselves and their neighbors. They cannot escape the fear that God continues to be more concerned with ritual purity than with purity of heart. They live in fear of perceived limits on God's loving kindness and on the magnanimity of God's forgiveness.

John
roy said…
his definition works for me...

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