Conservative Christians and Progressive Christians

So what is the difference between a Conservative Christian and a Progressive Christian? Quite a lot! Original Article From the April-May Issue of the CrossLeft webzine.  Click here for more webzine content. By Linda Hodges All of us are capable of cruelty, hatred, brutality…all of us…all of us have that in us. But I would ask, “What ideology would make us most capable of actually living that out?” Or what belief system would lead us to try to walk a path of goodness, justice and love as much as possible?                From a sermon by the  Reverend Penny Nixon Two Christianities As the winds and rain of hurricane Katrina laid bare the facts of poverty and racial injustice in America, so the Presidential elections of 2000 and 2004 laid bare the rising tide of fundamentalist Christianity and its involvement with the Republican party and neo-conservatism. Through a campaign that lifted up fear of gays and the demise of “family values,” leaders in the fundamentalist conservative movement were able to secure a margin of voter turnout that helped the Republicans win the White House. Progressive Christians, who found themselves on the opposite side of the electoral fence, heard the fundamentalist “family values” rhetoric and cried, “foul.” They felt that Christians on the far right were espousing a message and a manner that they did not recognize as being faithful to the gospel of Jesus. But fundamentalists could not be clearer that they were the ones who were following a biblical mandate. As David Batstone of Sojourner’s Magazine recently lamented, “…Christians in the U.S. today do not simply disagree on a hierarchy of values. They read the Bible quite differently and express their faith in Jesus in radically distinct ways.” Christians on both sides of the conservative/liberal divide claim “true Christianity” for themselves and deride the other side as “anti-Christian.” “How can they think that Jesus would ever bomb anybody?” ask the liberals shaking their heads incredulously. Only to be countered by shocked conservative Christians saying to themselves, “Don’t they know that we are in a great spiritual battle against the principles of darkness?”  What most conservative and libreal Christians many not realize is that both of their worldviews are given voice and can be found bound together in the book they both call hte Bible.  Further, those parts of the Bible that do not conform to their own worldview are not privileged  with the same  importance as other parts or passages. Some Background on the Compilation of the Bible To back up a little bit, biblical scholarship tells us that many different people wrote the various books that make up the Bible and that this process took many thousands of years. Like a family album, the Bible is a compilation of the sacred stories of our religious ancestors. It documents their lives and their experiences with and toward God. Often the ways that these various ancestral groups and individuals-- separated by time and experience--understood their relationships with God were at odds with one another. But nevertheless, both majority and dissenting voices that helped to shape but never to define what it meant to experience God are found intertwined within the pages of the Bible. As in families today, these stories were first handed down by oral tradition. Much later, they were written down then copied and recopied over the centuries. Stories of ancient battles and how the families or tribes persevered against enemies; how to live a good life and to be in harmony with God; how the world began and how to have hope against the travails of life – all of these and many more were circulated by our religious ancestors. The stories grew and were changed and adapted to the needs of each new generation. Sometimes ancient scribes wrote the present into the past. This was a way of showing cohesiveness with the generations that went before. Often, in reading over the various stories, scribes would attempt to reconcile them, taking out parts and adding in others. Over a long period of time these stories were compiled and placed into a cannon of books that were considered the authoritative and official stories. For Judaism, the canon closed sometime around the 2nd century of the Common Era. For the Christian testament it was somewhere in the 4th century C.E. This very short description of the how the Bible came about may seem strange to people who think of the Bible as one cohesive story and not a compilation of stories with lots of different viewpoints represented. But think for a moment. If we were to compile the writings of some prominent Christian leaders today wouldn’t there be a huge variety of Christian thoughts and ideas? This book would include essays, articles, prayers and sermons by Jerry Falwell, Marcus Borg, Elaine Pagels, Billy Graham, John Shelby Spong, Rick Warren, Jim Wallis, and Karen Armstrong to name just a few. Imagine if someone tried to compile them into one book and pronounce them all to encompass the word of God for our generation. It would make for some difficult reading, yet all of these writers represent strands of Christianity that are lived and experienced by millions of Christians today. Christians reading such a book today might find themselves skipping over certain authors in favor of others that are more in line with their own way of thinking. An Evangelical Christian would more than likely read Falwell, Warren and Graham and completely skip over Borg, Pagels, Spong, Wallis and Armstrong whereas a progressive Christian would probably read only the latter authors. What rings true for one reader sounds hollow to another and visa versa. So it is with the Bible. Though we may not realize it, we practice selective reading, paying less attention to the verses, chapters, books or ideas that do not fit into our personal worldview and privileging those portions that do. I want to emphasize that this is typically a subconscious process. Generally speaking most Christians feel that they are being faithful to the entire text but the fact remains that selective reading is the rule rather than the exception. The question we need to explore is, by what criteria do we as readers make these selective reading choices? The answer lies in our worldview. Two Predominant Worldviews There are many strands of thought running through both books of the Bible but two basic worldviews serve as umbrellas under which most strands can be grouped. The first worldview is Conservatism and the second is Liberalism. Although these terms were not in use when the Bible’s various books were written they are terms we are familiar with today and we shall see that they can be applied to the Bible. Let’s take Conservatism first. In it’s biblical form it can be described as authoritative, patriarchal and absolutist. Unquestioned obedience to God and to doctrine is the primary component of biblical conservatism. The second worldview is Liberalism. It is characterized by compassion, non-violence and a non-judgmental attitude. Freedom, love and justice are its primary components. In his book Moral Politics, George Lakoff posits two metaphors for the family that provide the basis for a conservative or liberal worldview. Conservatives follow a “strict father” family model while liberals follow a “nurturant parent” model. He makes clear that there are many variations on these models but these are the two overarching metaphors. Biblically we can say that fundamentalist conservatives look to an authoritative strict father who loves them as a reward for their obedience and moral piety while liberal faith leans toward that of a loving and nurturant father who is gently guiding and leading the very human followers. Here are a few examples from the Hebrew Bible[1] that demonstrate these two worldviews side by side.     More HERE Tags: Conservative Christians Progressive Christians Christianity