Progressive Christianity Tries for a Comeback

State senator and seminarian James Talarico has won the Democratic nomination for Senator in Texas.  Some pundits are thinking that his overt piety and “faith-forward” campaign can win over religious Texans.  Nation-wide, many liberal Democrats are marveling to learn what they now think Christianity actually teaches.

David French, who used to identify as an evangelical until so many of them became Trump supporters, said in the New York Times,

“Talarico is one of the few openly Christian politicians in the United States who acts like a Christian, and by acting like a Christian he reveals a profound contrast with so many members of the MAGA Christian movement that’s dominated American political life for 10 years.”

Acting like a Christian, by this definition, means supporting transgenderism because, as Talarico said, “God is non-binary.” (So why don’t we ask Him about His pronouns?) And supporting abortion because Mary had to give her consent before getting pregnant with Jesus.  (So it would have been fine if Mary had gotten an abortion?)

Talarico claims to be practicing “a politics of love,” which just so happens to include every tenet of the far-left agenda.  But he does not love conservative Christians, whom he groups together as “Christian nationalists” and denies that they follow Jesus. “Christian nationalism controls.” he said. “Jesus saves. Christian nationalism kills. Jesus started a universal movement based on mutual love. Christian nationalism is a sectarian movement based on mutual hate.”  Al Mohler comments in World:

Listening to Talarico, it’s clear he refers to any Christian citizen who believes, for example, that unborn human life should be protected and who does so based in Christian conviction as a Christian nationalist. He constantly refers to conservative Christians trying to impose their values on the nation, which he declares is a threat to the republic, while peddling his own version of liberal Christianity that allows him to be enthusiastically pro-abortion and all in on the LGBTQ revolution.

He’s not the only liberal Christian who wants to impose his faith politically, while denouncing conservative Christians for trying to do that.  No less than three progressive ministers are running for congressional seats in Iowa, including ELCA pastor Sarah Trone Garriott.  Also, Kentucky governor Andy Beshear, a deacon in the Disciples of Christ (the denomination that I grew up in), whom some Democrats think might run for President, has a book coming out on faith and politics.

Dale Coulter has written a fascinating article on the phenomenon for the First Things newsletter The Protestant Mind entitled James Talarico and Progressive Protestantism with the deck, “The Texas Democratic Senate nominee has made some eye-popping claims about the Christian faith he professes. What kind of formation could have led him to such conclusions?”  He surveys the key theologians of this version of Christianity and outlines their thought, particularly the way they use Christian-sounding language to express leftwing ideas.

I would add that what we are seeing today is not the same as the old liberalism of theological “modernism,” with its attempt to revise Christianity in light of scientific rationalism and New Deal politics. This is postmodern theological liberalism, which is fine with irrationalism and being “spiritual without being religious.”  Coulter describes it like this:

This is not your momma’s social-gospel liberalism. It’s a newer version that has emerged primarily in the western United States over the past five decades. It’s a riff on the Western progressivism that combined environmentalism, radical individualism, identity politics, and a kind of vision-quest pagan spirituality. In many ways, this new progressive Protestantism is Burning Man meets Jesus, or, better, Jesus is Burning Man.

Coulter references the statement of faith at Talarico’s PCUSA congregation in Austin.  Old-school Presbyterians have the Five Points of Calvinism. Progressive Presbyterians have the Five Points of Progressive Christianity. I looked them up.  From the website of St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin, Texas (which calls them “The Five Points of Progressive Christianity“):

The Core Values of Progressive Christianity

By calling ourselves progressive Christians, we mean that we are Christians who…

1. Believe that following the way and teachings of Jesus can lead to experiencing sacredness, wholeness, and unity of all life, even as we recognize that the Spirit moves in beneficial ways in many faith traditions.
2. Seek community that is inclusive of all people, honoring differences in theological perspective, age, race, sexual orientation, gender identity/expression, class, or ability.
3.  Strive for peace and justice among all people, knowing that behaving with compassion and selfless love towards one another is the fullest expression of what we believe.
4. Embrace the insights of contemporary science and strive to protect the Earth and ensure its integrity and sustainability.
5. Commit to a path of life-long learning, believing there is more value in questioning than in absolutes.

Coulter shows the origins of these ideas in various contemporary theologians and sums up their theology, which today dominates mainline Protestant churches:

Let me add a few more, based on my experience and observations:  The gospel is all about “radical inclusion.”  St. Paul’s epistles are interpreted as being all about including gentiles, women, slaves, and everyone.  While the apostle does proclaim that the good news of Christ is for everyone, today’s progressives stop at inclusion, from which they insist on the acceptance of gays, transgenders, and the whole diversity pantheon, all brought into a common community (as in St. Andrew’s Point #2).

Also, all religions are equally valid.  Old-style liberal theologians sought to unite all Christian denominations in an ecumenism that set aside traditional theological distinctives.  The new progressives practice an ecumenism of all religions.  Thus, St. Andrews Presbyterian says, “we recognize that the Spirit moves in beneficial ways in many faith traditions” (Point #1).

These folks speak about the “Spirit” quite a bit, by which they mean not so much the Holy Spirit, which works through Word and Sacrament, but rather something closer to Hegel’s “the Spirit of the Age.”  Thus, they will talk about “the Spirit doing something new,” as a reason to accept whatever comes into vogue.

Coulter tells about one of these theologians, Marcus Borg, being interviewed by CNN in 2011 about what Christianity means.   This was then posted on CNN’s home page as an explanation of Christianity.  Coulter quotes Lutheran writer Anthony Sacramone’s response in First Things:

Did you know that to “believe” in a biblical context means primarily to “belove” and has little to do with embracing specific doctrines? Did you know that “salvation” is primarily, if not exclusively, about the here and now and not about eternal life with God, and that it can be worked for? Did you know that if you really understood the Bible in its original context and came to terms with the philology and lexicology of biblical language, you’d be a mainline Protestant or a unitarian?

Sacramone further says in his article that the interview “does nothing but reconfirm the media’s already daft preconceptions about Christians’ — make that conservative or orthodox and certainly evangelical Christians’ — beliefs, which is to say, that even they are too ignorant to understand what their own faith really teaches.”

Photo:  James Talarico by Antonioaesparza, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons