The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity - Living the Questions

A great book for those on their path to discovering their relationship with their God. It opens new doors of thought for anyone who is struggling with the tenents of organized religion. This is where Christianity must go and explore or die. Well written and researched.. Bishop Spong lead me to this book and as always he is right on. Always question absolute truths.

My book study group is reading the book together. So far we have covered only 2 chapters because there is so much to discuss. We like the book so well that several of us have been reading ahead and underlining places we find interesting. The authors have done a good job. We each purchased copies from the store.

This book covers an important topic in today's religious community - the need for organized and clear material that provides mainline/progressive churches a base from which to discuss theology. After reading this book I was a bit disappointed in the content - it is not all that progressive and although the authors put in illustrations and anecdotes, it reads slower than I would have hoped. For people wanting to engage this topic at some level, this book will get them started and is worth reading but it is not a must read, nor does it contribute much new thought to the topic.

A sophisticated, adult discussion of issues that most people think about. You do not need to agree with everything the authors put forward, but they will educate you about Christianity: its origins, context and practice.

This is an accompaniment to a DVD series called "Saving Jesus." It's a wake-up call to creedal Christians, even though the sound of many axes being ground can be distracting. Lots of good points, though. Food for thought by people who genuinely love Christ.

This is probably a well done popular review of the belief system known as Progressive Christianity. However, I was greatly disappointed first in the fact that the document makes extensive claims concerning the difference in "ancient" interpretations of Biblical and Christian sources and "modern" interpretation of the same without sufficient documentation. There are nor references, footnotes, or any other device to help one understand the relationship of "ancient" to "modern." Consequently one is expected to take the author's word as sufficient. In addition to this expectation being very poor academically, it is dangerous. I am not willing to follow any author blindly. My judgement is that in the end readers are expected to simply accept the word of the author and be content. Secondly, there is no serious attempt to deal with Biblical problems, Everything is reduced to "metaphor." I seriously doubt that the authors of either the Tenakh (Old Testament) or the New Testament considered themselves to be writing metaphor. I am not content with simply dismissing everything as metaphor or symbol without some serious effort being given to a genuine understanding of the piece whether it comes from the Bible or any other literature.
There are some passages that seem so difficult to accept on the author's word that I felt I was being given the "party line"; being fed some propaganda for Progressive Christianity. (Somehow reminds me of the Nazi creation of Positive Christianity during Hitler's tenure in Germany.)
I purchased this book after making contact with Progressive Christianity online and reading some of their materials and ideas there. I read some books by proponents of the movement and found them a bit suspect but decided to give the movement some time and space to express itself. When I found this volume I though I'd hit the mother lode but came away very disappointed. In the end, I judge documents such a this by their academic adequacy. If I were grading it on my college classroom I'd give it a C minus.

Latin re-ligio: To relink, to reconnect.

Buy this book! If I do a "best of 2012" summary this January, I guarantee this one will be near the top. Heart and head both feel satisfied as I turn the last page.

This is what progressive Christianity is all about. It will toy with your emotions, lift you to the heights of compassion, and fill your soul with awe for the beauty and mystery of life we share. God is in this book, until you set the book down and discover He has wiggled out of its pages and into your soul. Perhaps God was inside you all along, waiting to be reawakened?

Many of us do need reawakening; religion has become a turn-off for many. In no other area of life is the denial of progress held up as a virtue. But according to Felten and Procter-Murphy, stagnation, not change, is Christianity's deadliest enemy. Vital faith is dynamic, flowing, and moving. Progressive Christianity, by its very name, is about progress. Rethinking the meaning of Christology, atonement, and the Incarnation is part of the journey. Losing interest in the Rapture is a necessary side effect.

"Living the Questions" is an enigmatic title, and the book begins with this insight: "To not ask questions is tantamount to forfeiting one's own spiritual birthright and allowing other people's experience of the Divine to define your experience." It ends with the reminder that "those who embrace mystery are free to interpret the Divine in new and fresh ways." In the pages between, however, we travel back in time to the Jesus of history, a man of vision and compassion, and a this-worldly concern largely ignored by the creeds of the religion that sprouted in his name. The essence of Jesus' ministry might be distilled down into one word: compassion.

Then we're reintroduced to God who, through the scriptures, is Mother, Father, the Wind, a Rock, and finally just Love. God, says John Shelby Spong (who along with Fox and Crossan is quoted liberally in these pages) is the life power itself, the power of love itself, the "Ground of Being."

One final note: I'm not a poetry reader, but the occasional sprinkling of poetry by Cynthia Langston Kirk was mesmerizing ... I suspect in part because the atmosphere of the book primed me to appreciate the poetic.

Although I cannot agree with many of the conclusions and theological positions detailed in Living the Questions, I found the book well worth my reading time. Authors David Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy tackle a large number of very complex doctrinal positions from Christianity and present a "progressive" perspective on them. This was very educational for me and helped me to understand how many of these progressive views are formed and from where and whom they have been influenced.

"Religion has always been about honoring mystery. [But] we have created people who've been afraid of ambiguity, mystery." -Richard Rohr (p.220)

As I have already pointed out in my opening statement, I find disagreement with many of the interpretations in this book; however, my disagreements do not overshadow the brilliance that I also found during my reading. Generally speaking, I have an overall appreciation for the simple openness with which "progressives" approach Scripture, recognizing the incomparable nature and mystery of God. This approach leaves many positions in flux and lacking definitive interpretation, meaning there are possibilities for multiple interpretations since we are not given enough information to form absolute understanding. I think most of the questions posed within these pages attempt to be answered with an openness toward God and that means they are not definitive, but possible...and worthy of consideration and useful in examining my own doctrines.

The format of Living the Questions is in three sections of seven chapters each for a total of twenty-one "questions" or chapters. The first two sections deal with doctrinal details that most fundamentalists and literalists would approach as sacred inarguable truths. Some of these questions discussed are the creation story, the historical Jesus, atonement theories, the resurrection, and rapture theories. I have no doubt that some people will find the content in these chapters offensive, but I found the conversation stimulating, pushing the understanding and my ability to defend my personal positions.

My favorite section was part three, Transformation, which included chapters related more to the ideas of praxis or living out the Christian faith daily. Examples of this section are found in chapters about the Kingdom of God (who belongs and where are its borders), social justice, incarnational living, and likely my favorite chapter of all, prayer.

The appendices provide the inquisitive reader with a number of resources for further study and opportunities to wrestle with content from the book. There is a reader's guide, an excellent resource for group study. There is also a well-documented notes section, index, and bibliography.

As I have mentioned, I lean more toward traditional interpretations of Scripture, siding with church fathers. I found this book challenging and stimulating; it has given me much to consider and prompted me to study some of my positions as well as help me to remain open to the ideas of others.

Some folks come from a world where questions aren't allowed, but I'm not one of them. In the world I'm from, questions are allowed, but only sanctioned questions, and only as long as you come up with the right answers.

Acceptable questions include:

• How is it right for God to harden Pharaoh's heart, love Jacob, and hate Esau (Romans 9)?
• How can we prove 6 literal 24-hour-day creationism?
• How can God be eternal?
• What about the parts of the Bible that seem to contradict each other?
• How can God send some of his creations that he formed in their mother's wombs to eternal conscious torment?

Those questions are fine as long as you come up with the right answers:

• Any answer that explains how it's right
• Any answer that explains how we can prove that
• Any answer that explains how God can be eternal
• Any answer that shows that they don't really contradict each other.
• It's right for God to do whatever God wants.

Where I come from, it's okay to ask the acceptable questions as long as you either (a) come up with the right answers or (b) admit that you don't have them. Unacceptable answers would be:

• It's not right, or God doesn't do it
• We can't
• Maybe God isn't
• They do, and that doesn't threaten our faith
• Maybe God doesn't do that.

Of course, there are other questions that are not allowed. Those questions might lead people to come to the wrong conclusions. Rob Bell asked a whole slew of them in Love Wins and got in big trouble for it. He had the nerve to ask questions like:

• Ghandi's in hell? And someone knows this for sure?
• Has God created millions of people over tens of thousands of years who are going to spend eternity in anguish?
• [H]ow do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe or what you say or what you do or who you know or something that happens in your heart? Or do you need to be initiated or baptized or take a class or converted or being born again? How does one become one of these few?

The problem with Bell was that he asked questions that pointed in the wrong direction. He rarely had the nerve to give definitive answers; he just asked questions that made folks wonder. I loved Love Wins, for the record, and I really struggled when it felt like people were telling me that I wasn't allowed to ask those questions.

Which is why I was incredibly excited to get a copy of Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity, by David Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy. They asked a lot of questions - and they treated those questions like they were perfectly normal and healthy to have. Also, they refused the standard stock answers and, when they gave answers, gave answers that were outside of the "allowed" domain.

Felten and Procter-Murphy begin their book with a challenge to certainty. They argue that maybe we shouldn't have the answers to the hard questions, but that we should definitely ask them. They note that the Bible gets treated differently by different people, and are quite comfortable with Genesis 1 and 2 being completely different creation narratives.

They question the Bible, explicate the Bible's multiple creation narratives (arguing that Psalm 104 is the earliest one), and show how the authors of the gospels each portray a different Jesus. They have a fabulous chapter on the Myth of Redemptive Violence, and I absolutely love that they put Penal Substitutionary Atonement right in the middle of that chapter. Even when they question the bodily resurrection of Jesus, it's in a chapter called "Practicing Resurrection." They dedicate a chapter to debunking the rapture (which isn't even in the Bible to begin with), and follow it up with a beautiful chapter on honoring creation. Living the Questions is, in my opinion, a terrific book.

A warning, though: they shake things up, and they question everything. I should warn you - when I say "everything," I mean everything. Their scary questions run along these lines:

• Does it really matter if Jesus physically rose from the dead? (Probably not)
• Was Jesus really born of a virgin? Does it even matter? (Probably not)
• Does God answer prayers by intervening? (It makes better sense if God doesn't)
• Is Jesus God? (Jesus probably wouldn't have agreed).
• Are the creeds good sources for right belief? (No, they came from Constantine)
• Does what we believe matter as much as what we do? (The early church would have disagreed strongly)

Their answers are not comforting. I've had my share of bouts of curiosity about these questions, and had my suspicions about them, but Felten and Procter-Murphy's answers are outside the realms of what I consider orthodoxy, or maybe even outside of Christianity. For me, the virgin birth is a big deal. The resurrection of the body is a big deal. The creeds are a big deal. What we believe is a big deal. Jesus being God is a big deal. Still, it's comforting to know that even people who have come to (what I consider to be) the "wrong" conclusions still consider themselves Christians.

In spite of my disagreement with some of these premises found in their later chapters, I agree wholeheartedly with about 85% of their content, and the content with which I did not agree challenged me. I think LTQ is an important book, and I think that most Christians should probably read it.

The gatekeepers will probably warn their constituents not to read this book (if their constituents somehow manage to hear about it), but I think that people should. My one concern with this book is this: I fear that it may be erasing the impossible from Christianity. What if we need to believe in the resurrection of the body to gain the nerve to risk our lives for the foolishness of obedience to Christ?

Still, I think this book is important because there will be some who simply cannot believe in the things they question. I think it's good for those people to know that there is space even for them under the tent of Christianity, even if my hyper-conservative brethren think that they're not Christians.

It's a funny thing how we tend to be suspicious that anyone with views to the left of our own are not Christianity. I'm suspicious because I've gone as far to the left as I think is still within Christianity, so it's odd for me, seeing myself as being "on the fringe," to look to my left and see others hanging on to the faith, even further out on the fringe than I am. It's even more odd to realize that those folks to my left are folks that I respect.

I've considered myself a "liberal" Christian for some time now, but I've been forced to rethink that position in light of meeting real liberal Christians. Apparently, I'm a moderate.

_________________________________________
I got this book as a gift from The Speakeasy in exchange for writing this review. They're super-cool. Also, they seem to think that it's important that I put this section somewhere in my post, so here it is:

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR,Part 255.

Living the Questions: The Wisdom of Progressive Christianity by David M. Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy

What is Progressive Christianity and what are its major tenets? Pastors and teachers David Felten and Jeff Procter-Murphy seek to answer these questions in their book entitled Living the Questions. They do a very good job at elucidating the beliefs and practices of progressive Christianity, not necessarily following into the trap of making distinctions between evangelical thought at every point. The book here is based upon the bestselling DVD course of the same name. With a whole host of authors being referenced, the authors do an excellent job at bringing to the surface the main issues that concern a liberal or progressive Christianity.

The 2nd chapter on Taking the Bible Seriously is a review of some common understandings of the Bible being divine and the hesitancy of many Christians at asking tough questions. Rather, the authors propose that we look at the Bible in its different literary genres and not get caught up with the divine view of the Bible. Even more, having an evolving relationship with the Bible, asking the tough questions, and wrestling with its contradictions is what the authors have in mind (14-16). Felten and Murphy also yield a heavy hand against those who would seek to stand upon the literal truth of the stories of the Bible rather than drawing a distinction between the fact of the matter and the truth or application that the story exhibits. Although I agree with the authors that we need to be careful at taking into consideration the various genres in the Bible and the troubling passages, I think both authors have a misconception about how many evangelicals view the Bible. The supposed contradictions and tough questions don’t always have easy answers but many evangelicals are not scared of these ponderings. One of the questions these authors failed to ask in their book is ‘What do the authors of the Bible believe about the Scriptures and how should this influence our belief?’

I was disappointed on the chapter on creation. The authors came to the table with their presuppositions that the historical-critical lens of studying Scripture is the most correct lens to view the Scriptures. While affirming the resistance motif of the Genesis 1-2, the authors then go onto surmise that Genesis 1 is a product of “Priestly” writers and Genesis 2:4 is a product of “Yahwist” editors. Therefore, there are two different creation stories with two different sets of editors, one story much older than the other (33). You get no mention that many critical scholars fail to agree on what sections of the early Genesis narrative are Priestly and what are Yahwist. Secondly, we find no cogent argument as to why we need to read both Genesis 1 and 2 as separate creation stories. We find a jab at evangelicals at the end of the chapter in their failing to separate the two stories. “The names of God are different , the style is different, the cadence is different,” says Jill Levine (37), therefore, there must be two different creation narratives. The events are told in a different manner but does this necessarily imply two different stories.

Probably the best chapter was the one on social justice in which the authors put forth a view that includes both personal and systemic justice (individual and collective). They perceive that the prophets come to the people yielding judgment because the systemic weight of justice has been tipped in favor of injustice, violence, and greed. Recapturing the vision of a just and righteous society is part of the Christian’s goal.

I think people who are already progressive in their thinking will benefit from this book, but others like me who come from an evangelical perspective, will be frustrated to no end and encouraged at times with this book.

Thanks to Speak Easy and Harper One for the copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

If you have doubts, or questions, or a disaffection with the Christian faith of your childhood, or perhaps a deep concern for an aging expression of Christianity, this may be the perfect read for you. It's provocative voice is not only a window into a much wider and historically dynamic vista of Christianity than most of us have known, but a window as well into scholarship and conversation that is often inaccessible in much of traditional church life. But beyond that, this very readable work is an invitation into new exploration - or perhaps renewed and re-energized engagement - of the simple but life-altering teachings and example of this one named Jesus. It does serve as an introduction to "progressive Christianity", but it is more an invitation into a reconsidered faith walk, a journey, a Via de Cristo if you will, ... that can live and grow in partnership with a world where knowledge and circumstance are in constant flux. It's an informative and challenging read, laid down by two impatient and articulate pastors who are actively pushing back against understandings and expressions of contemporary Christianity that would in all likelihood curl the hair of the Jewish rabbi named Jesus.

Why does "Progressive Christianity" call itself Christianity at all? Strictly for marketing purposes, I propose. It's certainly not because it is Christian. Take one small point as an example: the assertion that it is better for us not to teach our children that "the human community is divided between the saved and unsaved." Jesus was the one who said he came to "seek and save those who were lost" (Luke 19:10). Jesus was the one who told the parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25). Jesus said of himself: "Those who believe in him won't be condemned. But those who don't believe are already condemned because they don't believe in God's only Son" (John 3:18). There is no question that Christ divided humanity in this way. If you wish to teach your followers otherwise because you think it will make them feel better about their religious experience, fine. But it's not Christianity, progressive or otherwise.

And perhaps the proponents of this dogma should ask themselves, what if what Christ said is actually true when he declared, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the father except by me" (John 14:6). If that's true and they are teaching otherwise, think what a horrible injustice they are perpetrating upon their followers! If you don't believe it to be true, then feel free to join the other belief systems that feel as you do -- but don't call it Christianity. As C.S. Lewis wisely said, "Let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being [just] a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to..."