"It’s not enough to separate ourselves out into categories of 'good' and 'bad,'” Mychal Denzel Smith warns, "because too often the assigning of the label is mistaken for the work." And that work is required of all of us -- "progressive" and "conservative" alike. As Scott Woods says, "It is a thing you have to keep scooping out of the boat of your life to keep from drowning in it." Read more

Should we imagine it's possible to have anything like an accurate appreciation for the meaning of "enslavement to dark spiritual powers" without understanding the role of powers and principalities like racism, patriarchy, class, privilege, violence, nationalism, etc.? Does anyone really believe that conservative white, male, American evangelical theology offers an adequate understanding of any of those things? No, if you're looking for "a robust vision of spiritual slavery and bondage," you're better off turning to progressive Christianity than to its conservative counterpart. Read more