Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Progressive Christianity or Progressive Christianity?
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Mudfrog
Shipmate
# 8116
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Posted
The thing is that most evangelicals in the UK don't hitch their evangelicalism to a political wagon.
In a congregation you can have two evangelicals - one who will vote labour and the other will vote Tory; but they will both subscribe to the same doctrine and the same ethical view.
In the UK it's not usually the done thing to mix faith with party politics - which is not to say that we don't talk about individual issues.
-------------------- "The point of having an open mind, like having an open mouth, is to close it on something solid." G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 8237 | From: North Yorkshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2004
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: The thing is that most evangelicals in the UK don't hitch their evangelicalism to a political wagon.
In a congregation you can have two evangelicals - one who will vote labour and the other will vote Tory; but they will both subscribe to the same doctrine and the same ethical view.
In the UK it's not usually the done thing to mix faith with party politics - which is not to say that we don't talk about individual issues.
This is 100% true as a general rule, although I think that any given individual church, by dint of where it is and the lifestyles and class backgrounds of its congregants will be more welcoming to a point on the political spectrum (ie. you'd be hard pressed to find an evangelical church here in central Swansea where anti-Tory views on poverty and that are not a given, and maybe even preached from the pulpit, which has more to do with Swansea than evangelicalism).
-------------------- Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote: Mudfrog: The thing is that most evangelicals in the UK don't hitch their evangelicalism to a political wagon.
In a congregation you can have two evangelicals - one who will vote labour and the other will vote Tory; but they will both subscribe to the same doctrine and the same ethical view.
The same is true in Brazil. The fact that statistically, (white) Evangelicals overwhelmingly vote for a single political party seems to be a US thing.
-------------------- I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
Posts: 9474 | From: Brazil / Africa | Registered: Aug 2002
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Sipech
Shipmate
# 16870
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Posted
In my parents' old church, my dad had a particularly close friendship with a chap called Maurice (who used to be a champion sprout-picker) where basis for their closeness was that they were the only 2 Labour voters in the church in a constituency my dad described as "blue-ribbon-on-a-pig country".
-------------------- I try to be self-deprecating; I'm just not very good at it. Twitter: http://twitter.com/TheAlethiophile
Posts: 3791 | From: On the corporate ladder | Registered: Jan 2012
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Arethosemyfeet: I imagine that progressive, much like liberal, means different things to different people.
Yes, I would definitely describe myself as politically progressive/liberal, but not at all theologically so. Though I find the word "conservative" not the right one at all. I would normally say "orthodox" (and I think that is technically correct) but unfortunately every word like conservative, traditional, old-fashioned, orthodox, etc. seems to be pressed into service by groups I would consider to be Pharisaical, so every time this happens I have to give qualifiers about what I don't mean.
-------------------- My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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ChastMastr
Shipmate
# 716
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Mudfrog: On these pages I have seen constant reference to evangelical theology being reductionist in the extreme - ie just repeat the words of the sinners' prayer and you'll get to heaven - and yet that is far, far from the truth of what evangelical churches believe.
It should be, but if this is about stuff from my Fundamentalism vs Evangelicalism thread, I really did encounter attitudes of that nature back in college.
Mind you, this was in the same sort of crowd in which I had to explain the difference between devotion to saints and, um, necromancy, even though they both involve, and I quote, "talking to dead people." And it was, as I look back, a college-age crowd, firm devotees of the Four Spiritual Laws booklet, not a group of necessarily well-educated people. I remember the concern some of them showed about the fact that I believed in evolution, and so on. Some of them wound up involved with the Lingoniers, but these were the more erudite ones, and again these were people between the ages of 18-21 with a few older ones back at the University of Florida circa the mid-late 1980s.
There is still a scary, scary kind of fundamentalism here in the US which really is like the stereotype, alas, though it's arguably less about whether you've said the Sinner's Prayer right and more, well, extreme right-wing political, with a big dollop of assumed dominionism. The evos in the UK seem like a wholly different, and nicer, group of folks.
-------------------- My essays on comics continuity: http://chastmastr.tumblr.com/tagged/continuity
Posts: 14068 | From: Clearwater, Florida | Registered: Jul 2001
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Wood
The Milkman of Human Kindness
# 7
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Posted
IME I think the issue is that the reductionist tendency of evangelicalism is, as often happens with any off-centre ideological position, a product of people who want to help people "get it".
Say the Sinner's Prayer and you're OK, they say, because they don't want to go into the minutiae, which is actually not always a bad position to take, because that minutiae can be really confusing. And when you're new, you want to know you are loved, and you are in the family.
The problem comes when there are people, and there really truly are, who, for a bunch of reasons, never get past it.
I don't think that is uniquely evangelicalism's problem. You find Catholics like that, and socialists, and Tories.
-------------------- Narcissism.
Posts: 7842 | From: Wood Towers | Registered: Apr 2001
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
This has been an interesting excursion into the wider reaches of Progressive land. I don’t go along with Don Cupitt – who writes ‘Life’ in place of ‘God’ – or with Gretta Vosper – in whose church the word ‘God’ is not used. I and the people I share my interests with spent too long with Borg, Crossan, Rex Hunt, Fred Plumer and others to be interested in theological concepts formulated in the early centuries of the faith by people of a strange and foreign worldview, elaborated over the centuries, and bit-by-bit carved in stone. I respect my shipmates’ points of view and concerns, and am grateful to them for sharing their insights. I’ve thought of starting a thread on ‘How do you pray to a God who is not an Old Testament patriarch, nor a micro-organiser, nor anything but a great and wonderful and loving Mystery?’ but I don’t know how many takers there would be. Got my copy today of Robin Meyers’ ‘Saving Jesus from the Church’ and that will be my reading for a while. And may God bless us every one.
GG
-------------------- The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
I'd buy that for a dollar GG. The thread, not the book. Well that too. Eighth Day explores this.
-------------------- Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Galloping Granny
Shipmate
# 13814
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Martin60: I'd buy that for a dollar GG. The thread, not the book. Well that too. Eighth Day explores this.
Eighth Day?
GG
-------------------- The Kingdom of Heaven is spread upon the earth, and men do not see it. Gospel of Thomas, 113
Posts: 2629 | From: Matarangi | Registered: Jun 2008
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
This post of Slacktivist sums up the political problem that has poisoned evangelicalism in the US.
Salvaation depends on "environmentalism" being a farce, and evolution being false. Oh, and true Christians vote GOP. Full stop.
-------------------- It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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