There is a post relating to Greta Vosper and her recent book on Andrew Krystal’s blog. I have yet to read Vosper’s book, but it is clear that the most fundamental disagreement between progressive Christians and fundamentalist ones is on the human character of the Bible and the church. That’s why I decided to have a little fun with the Church sign generator (as you’ll see on the right). This is how a fundamentalist would see the claims of progressive Christianity – it is taking something of God’s and putting it into the hands of mere human beings.
For progressive Christians, however, the church has always been under human control. Even if one believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures, if one has studied them in any sort of serious way, it becomes clear that whatever inspiration means, it doesn’t eliminate the human viewpoint and horizon of the authors, nor does it make them all agree. No wonder Christians have failed to agree even when they share in common a committment to the Bible’s infallibility.
Is it fair to say that Christianity has always been what Christians have made it? Dare we who are Christians take such full responsability for what Christianity is in our time, and what it will become in the future?
Some will regard acknowledging that we are such a human enterprise as bad marketing. Then again, honesty in our claims has not always been our strong point as Christians. Here’s a cartoon I didn’t create:
[From http://www.cartoonchurch.com/content/cc/church-marketing/]
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