#progGOD Is Live!!!

Last month, I posted something out of frustration. I’d been reading lots of blogs written by progressive Christians. They were quick to criticize their more conservative brothers and sisters, but it seemed to me that they almost never said anything substantive about God. So I started to wonder, What do progressive Christians think about God? I mean, I know what I think. I just didn’t know what my compatriots think.

So I asked. Say something about God, I said, Something substantive — not about Jesus or the Bible, but about God. Some started by clearing their throats, talking about why it’s so hard to write something about God, about how God can’t be summed up in a blog post, etc. I called BS and reaffirmed the challenge.

Then the posts started rolling in. Dozens of them were submitted. And that has filled me with hope — progressive Christians do have substantive things to say about God.

Deb Arca, my awesome editor at Patheos, has now helped me collects all of those posts and list them on a dedicated page on Patheos. It’s called #progGOD: An Open-Source Theological Conversation. Many of you who read this blog have posts there, and I hope you’re as gratified as I am to see the abundance of good and interesting theology in the list.

I think that #progGOD deserves to be broadcasted far and wide. I really hope that you will post the link on Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and, of course, on your own blog. Progressive Christians take some deserved grief for being cagey about saying constructive things theologically; we seem to be more inclined toward deconstruction. But #progGOD shows another side, a constructive side, and the world should see that.

We’re going to have more challenges for progressive theo-bloggers, probably about one per quarter. So, watch this space for your next challenge. In the meantime, enjoy reading all of the great posts at #progGOD.