{"id":1725,"date":"2012-11-18T21:20:00","date_gmt":"2012-11-18T21:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/progressive-christians-enter-the-age-of-relevancy.html"},"modified":"2012-11-18T21:20:00","modified_gmt":"2012-11-18T21:20:00","slug":"progressive-christians-enter-the-age-of-relevancy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/progressive-christians-enter-the-age-of-relevancy.html","title":{"rendered":"Progressive Christians Enter the Age of Relevancy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
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It\u2019s been a sobering few decades for Christians who work alongside the poor, claim their feminism, respect scientific discovery, care for the earth, and yearn for marriage equality. We felt like the voice of Christianity had been captured by some strange ventriloquist, and it was proclaiming things that often contradicted our faith. We became frustrated with our own irrelevance, as our speech in the public square seemed to be on permanent mute.<\/div>\n
And yet, we worked alongside the poor<\/strong>, remembering Mary, the mother of Jesus, a single woman expecting a child. Mary\u00a0magnificently proclaimed<\/a>\u00a0that God had exalted the humble, filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich empty away.<\/div>\n
But in the midst of this exaltation, we heard another voice. It was the Heritage Foundation telling us that\u00a0marriage was the best antidote to child poverty<\/a>.<\/div>\n
It made many Christian stomachs turn as we interpreted the news, \u201cYou\u2019re poor? Your children are going hungry? Then find a husband, and everything will be just fine. You don\u2019t need to fight for nutritious lunches, after-school care and medical insurance, you just need a man.\u201d<\/div>\n
We claimed our feminism<\/strong>, as we studied, heeding the voices of women in our pulpits. Clergy found great hope in academic theology, which uplifts the liberating notion that \u201cin Jesus Christ, there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free.\u201d We have drawn comfort in the fact thatJesus did not scorn the woman with the issue blood, but healed her<\/a>. We realize that our faith calls us to care about women\u2019s health and beckons us to demand an end to violence against women.<\/div>\n
We shudder as we hear leaders of the Religious Right talk about\u00a0\u201clegitimate rape\u201d<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0fight against birth control being a part of a health plan<\/a>.\u00a0Religious Right leaders maligned Sandra Fluke<\/a>\u00a0who pleaded on behalf of those who needed birth control pills for medical reasons.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a sobering few decades for Christians who work alongside the poor, claim their feminism, respect scientific discovery, care for the earth, and yearn for marriage equality. We felt like the voice of Christianity had been captured by some strange ventriloquist, and it was proclaiming things that often contradicted our faith. We became frustrated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2251,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nProgressive Christians Enter the Age of Relevancy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It's been a sobering few decades for Christians who work alongside the poor, claim their feminism, respect scientific discovery, care for the earth, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/progressive-christians-enter-the-age-of-relevancy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Progressive Christians Enter the Age of Relevancy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It's been a sobering few decades for Christians who work alongside the poor, claim their feminism, respect scientific discovery, care for the earth, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2012\/11\/progressive-christians-enter-the-age-of-relevancy.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rhetoric Race and Religion\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-11-18T21:20:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Andre E. 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