July 10, 2010, by Winton Boyd
Throughout the summer, we’ve been preaching on the Phoenix Affirmations, a series of affirmations for Progressive Christians articulated a few years ago by some Arizona pastors[See the sermon section of the website for more information].
The exercise has helped me clarify some of my own thoughts about living as a Christian in a climate where so much harm has been done by organized religion. An author and friend who I admire deeply has written about his own struggle with Christian language. Reflecting on a 30-year journey and his changed relationship with Christianity, he writes,
“My squeamishness(about the Christian faith today) has little to do with any fundamental change in my beliefs. I still understand myself as a Christian and many traditional Christian understandings still shape my life. But…I find it hard to name my beliefs using traditional Christian language because that vocabulary has been taken hostage by theological terrorists and tortured beyond recognition…I would be lost in the dark without the light Christianity sheds on my life, the light I find in truths like incarnation, grace, sacrament, forgiveness, blessing and the paradoxical dance of death and resurrection. But when Christians claim that their light is the only light and that anyone who does not share their understanding of it is doomed to eternal damnation, things get very dark for me. I want to run screaming out into the so called secular world, which is I believe, better named the ‘wide wild world of God’ – where I can recover my God given mind.
“Out there, I catch sight once again of the truth, goodness, and beauty that disappear when pious Christians slam the door on their musty, windowless, lifeless room. Next to a Christian eclipsed by theological arrogance, an honest atheist shines like the sun. Next to a church profaned by its exclusion of ‘otherness’ a city of true diversity is a cathedral.” (Parker Palmer, The Promise of Paradox)
I suspect his words ring true for the experience many of us have had. The quickest way to uncover that in ourselves is to gauge our reaction when we hear some traditional concepts come out of the mouths of those we find exclusionary – wonderful, useful, powerful words like ‘evangelism, salvation, grace, discipleship, and others. Words that in the context of their biblical use are NOT exclusionary, not weapons towards those who believe differently. But we live in our time and it our place and we know how these words have been co-opted.
Palmer coined another very useful phrase – “standing in the tragic gap” – or “living between reality and possibility, between what is and what could and should be…If we are willing to actively ‘hang in there’ with (others) holding unresolved tension between reality and possibility and inviting something new into being – we have a chance to participate in the evolution of a better reality.” (Promise of Paradox)
Maybe as progressive Christians, this is what we do – hold the space and live in the tension for an ever more creative understanding of faith. We bring our whole lives to bear on the universal truth of faith and the particular path called Christianity. Living as agnostics, as Zen Buddhist Christians, as Gardener Christians, as Christians in progress, lovers of culture and lovers of faith, as people of faith in a world torn apart by faith – we stand as witnesses to both reality and possibility. We hold space for ourselves and others who need space to make sense of the craziness of their lives; who need and long for the experience of grace (even if they don’t call it that); who find in our love incarnation – a concept hard to explain but easy to know when we see it; and who will benefit from our collective willingness to point to a light in the darkness.
