Progressive spirituality

I have, I think, always been a progressive thinker. Progressive thinking moves us forward. It takes us beyond where we have been. It is open-minded and respectful and is willing to learn from others' experience and ideas. It is prepared to think outside the box of tradition and orthodox belief and teaching. It is committed to searching passionately and creatively for new ways of seeing and new understandings. There are progressive traditions within all of the world's major religions and spiritualities and what draws me towards them is that they all share a number of key beliefs and principles:

Firstly, they recognise that there are many spiritual paths but only one destination. Their experience of engaging in open-minded interfaith dialogue with each other has taught them that there is truth and beauty to be found in all of the world's traditions. They are genuinely willing to learn from each other and also deeply committed to searching for what unites them. Secondly, they have learnt that psychology is not the enemy of religion and that the language of psychology and the language of spirituality are not as different as they might seem. They are open to drawing not only on the wisdom to be found in their own and others' spiritual traditions, but also on modern psychological knowledge and understanding.

Thirdly, as well as drawing on their own and others' sacred texts and teachings, they acknowledge the value and importance of our personal encounters with the spiritual dimension of reality and are open to learning from such experiences. Fourthly, they have come to see the self as sacred. Rather than seeing human nature as flawed or sinful, they have come to believe that what the philosopher, William James called 'the More' is present within all of us, that it is woven into the very fabric of our being. As a result, they are radically inclusive and have a deep-seated belief in the equality of all people, irrespective of gender, race, culture, sexual orientation and spiritual tradition.

And finally, there is within progressive traditions a primary emphasis on the importance of being true to ourselves and of enhancing our human capacity for love, kindness and compassion. There is in this a recognition that how we live our lives is far more important than what we believe. Mature faith is not unquestioning faith. It is not about holding onto a set of beliefs which are set in concrete for all time. It is not a creed we have to sign up to. It is a way of life, a way of being that we aspire to.

Progressive Christianity

21st century Christians are living in a time of paradigm change and conflict. The conflict is not simply a matter of a number of specific differences in the way Christians think theologically or in the values and practices to which they adhere. The conflict is between two different ways of seeing Christianity as a whole. In his book, 'The Heart of Christianity', the progressive Christian theologian, Marcus Borg identified two key paradigms - what he calls ‘the earlier paradigm’ and ‘the emerging paradigm.’ The earlier paradigm is the one with which most of us are familiar. It is the one that most of us will have grown up with and for many of us, it may be the only one we know about.

This is the paradigm that requires us to believe that Christianity is the only true religion. It demands that we view the Bible as a divine rather than a human product, as being ‘God-breathed’ and therefore infallible. It asks us to embrace a literal rather than a historical and metaphorical understanding of its sacred texts. It rests on a particular conceptualisation of God as an ‘out there’, supernatural, person-like being who has a separate existence from the universe he created. And it sees this particular version of Christianity as the only legitimate way of being Christian. There is, however, another version of Christianity. Borg called it ‘the emerging paradigm’. Some call it ‘the new Christianity’. This new paradigm began to surface well over a hundred years ago and over the last thirty years or so, has become an increasingly important grassroots movement within mainline Christianity. More recently, it has come to be known as progressive Christianity.

If you are interested in exploring progressive Christianity further, there are a number of writers whose books might be of interest including:

Marcus Borg: The Heart of Christianity; The God We Never Knew; Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time; Reading the Bible Again for the First Time and others.

Brian McLaren: A New Kind of Christianity; Do I Stay Christian?; Faith After Doubt: The Secret Message of Jesus and others.

Richard Rohr: The Universal Christ; The Divine Dance; Falling Upward and others. See also his writings on the Center For Action and Contemplation website at www.cac.org

John Shelby Spong: A New Christianity for a New World: Why Christianity Must Change or Die; Jesus for the Non-religious; Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism and others.

Dave Tomlinson: The Post-Evangelical; How to be a Bad Christian; The Bad Christian's Manifesto; Black Sheep and Prodigals and others.

For further information about the More, click on the link in the text above or hover over 'Our spirituality' in the header and click on 'In search of the More'.

In search of soul