Not Truly Progressive Enough

In the 90s I went into about 5 denominations (Evangelical Free, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Charismatic Catholic)  for a couple years at a time to try and understand them and myself (where I could fit and help). I made friends with the pastors and people there, asked probing questions into their particular approach to faith and the world.  I will also say before that I'd spent a couple years in my teens in the Baptist church, and the rest in the Pentecostal as well. Between those times I spent about 5 years in a couple of home churches, so I guess you could say I've tried quite a bit.  By the early Noughties (2000's) I was tired and it seriously didn't look like religion was going to work for me, although there was some appeal to Christian mysticism and some thoughts on the faith by thinkers in the earlier part of the previous century like George MacDonald and GK Chesterton. For about the next decade or so though I pretty much left the formal faith and tried looking into other things like Eastern spirituality but in many ways I'd become pretty hedonistic too.  Then the Twenty Teens hit and it was a very bumpy ride heading deep into my forties. Progressive Christianity appealed to me at this time and 3 main personalities within it struck me as paving the way for something more, fresh, better.   They came from different disciplines, Brian MaClaren a more mainstream church kinda guy, Richard Rohr a Catholic Franciscan, and Brad Jersek coming from my old world of Pentecostalism.

  All distinct personalities with points to be made but in time I found sorely lacking in other ways.  The best part of these guys is their ability to reach across party lines as it were within Churchianity, especially Rohr.  All three concerned with doctrinal issues, less so Rohr... so having a prominent mental approach to the gospel. MClaren in my estimation was the most ambitious here, and so come up with some provoking thoughts, this is why I think there has been in infiltration of them into main line denominations. 

Jersek started off from a crisis of faith he claims, but i'm sure coming to direct a mainline xian publication also helped flesh his version of progressive faith further, and I will say he was able to describe a more humane xian spirituality with doctrinal accompaniment, where Rohr has addressed the Social Gospel side of things.   

The main issue I now see with these guys and their approach was most evident as much was, during COVID.  If you read Nadia Bolz (another prominent figure in the movement) Shameless as with her other seminal work Accidental Saints, there is an extreme sensitivity and compassion to the LGBT+ community, but no real direction though. I guess this is why she left her parish and went out on her own. I visited her church a couple times a few years ago and felt this same contrast in the service.

 Rohr has been on Oprah and has been to Science of Mind off shoot Michael Bickwiths church in LA, the latter I also spent some time at that churches outreach crew and found there was much consternation about their leader's ego getting in the way of efforts.  Which brings to Jersak's recent going down the Deconstruction path in Up from the Embers. This book I found was littered with academic claims to religious phenomenon that felt like a poor man's William James Variety of Religious Experience. Since I'd spent a little time looking into Brad's friend Brian Zahnd, it made some sense because of his seeming justified rant against the church in general.  My conclusion though is why rail against the religious machine and still be so heavily in it, why not go as Bart Campolo went after 30 years of banging his head against the wall in ministry, Deconvert and just step over to a kinder humanism informed a bit more.  

 Now I had mentioned that the Progressive church got stuck in COVID, this I felt was because they were overly sympathetic and at points became ripe for the weird woke logic.   Is it because although there is more compassion in their initial approach, there is a lack of leadership, or grandfatherly/elder wisdom to draw from?.. Brad has gotten more into Easter Orthodoxy these last years, which seems to provide this for him, as Rohr is a Franciscan.. albeit on the heavy liberal side of that.  Which leaves MClaren who seems to satisfy himself in being somewhat lodged in mainline Christianity somehow.. even though much to it's chagrin. Now it is this lack of vision within this cohort that I find the most alarming also. 

There is a lot of effort to be creative and understanding initially, but it still feels like they are not  liberal enough to challenge things say like the Bad Atonement very forcefully, trying to make excuses for attributes, even using very old arguments from certain church fathers.   They would never even entertain something like reincarnation, but feel at home with Universalism, my thoughts are because this fits with a widespread reductivism in general culture that is also prominent under the surface in Churchianity.  It's seen mostly in the mega-churches, which is why it didn't surprise me someone like Rob Bell got on board.  

For Bart Campolo although not being a Progressive anymore himself, feels the most ripe for a more genuine look at something more formidable there. He probably wouldn't consider Reincarnation either, but he is more rigorous and open when it comes to connecting reason and science to everyday psychological needs.   My chief complaint though from Bart to the Progressives is their lack of addressing the more transcendent qualities of faith, what they might consider Phenomenon.  Bart's father the famous Anthony Campolo was at least open to those "crazy" charismatics as he stated on one very memorable talk he gave, and was asked to actually pray for a healing of a young man in the audience.  He also showed the same great sense of humanity that Bart obviously took from him, in his book the Kingdom of God is a Party, and his Party for the Prostitute bit you can still catch on YouTube.

  My feeling these days and was the cause of my starting writing the book 8th Inning, was in the West we are something like Babylon, and that is why our churches are so anemic and heretic, that we could actually get behind someone like Trump.   I say the West because of a book I read a couple years ago now, but was written bout 20 years ago called Global Pentecostalism. I've seen evidence too, here and there that there are places "out there" that don't have as much of the trappings of the West. The Spirit of God is given more reign, and there is a more values centric ministerial approach.  IN the book they cite how that there is still the clashes with "fundamentalism," but because of the stark conditions of many of these places it frankly dies out pretty quickly.  Is that what it will take for the West with this balls to the wall corporate infestation of economy's and mass predatorial extractiveness with individuals in the workplace etc..    Now I know there is much Western funding of shoddy and poorly run fundamentalist organizations overseas, but they seem to also have quite a lot of issues surviving thankfully.  

So where is the invisible church these days then?  That's my question.  Jordan Hall in his interview by Aubrey Marcus states that he sees it within what could be called a movement of wholesomeness. That sounds good to me, and I've seen very small pockets in certain places, mainly though i see people doubling down on religion and numbing out.. hoping soon though to see more, maybe I need to get out of the West to really believe again though.