The title of this post is tongue-in-cheek, of course, with a tip of the hat to Bertrand Russell’s 1927 lecture “Why I am not a Christian.” I don’t intend my own reflection here as an argument for or against a position; instead, I intend it to elicit a curious (and accidental) lesson from Russell, a lesson which is lost on most proponents of Progressive Christianity.
Russell was a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and was a renowned atheist at a time when it was assumed that all British academics were Christian. He is famous for stating that the claim for the existence of God is analogous to the claim that there is a teapot orbiting the sun somewhere between Earth and Mars; and the justification of God’s existence by reference to the impossibility of proving God’s non-existence is no more reasonable than suggesting that an orbiting teapot must exist because we can’t prove that it doesn’t. Russell’s ability to savage both Christian and non-Christian theistic claims has made him an enduring hero of the not-so-new New Atheists.
The problem with Russell is that he violates what I regard as a fundamental principle of civil discourse: if you are going to criticize a school of thought, look to its highest expression and criticize that. What Russell takes as Christian claims are propositions that have a comic book ring to them. Here are the claims he seeks to refute:
• there is a God
• humans have an essential part which survives death
• Jesus was, at the very least, the best and wisest of men
If we were to imagine a conversation between Russell and one of his contemporary Christian theologians, say, Paul Tillich, in which Russell presented his answers to these claims, Tillich would be justified in ignoring him on the grounds that Russell simply wasn’t listening. If you intend to refute something, you must first interpret it. The claims you make in your refutation will only be as nuanced as your interpretation. If you have begun from a comic book account of Christianity, then your answer in atheism never produces anything more than a comic book atheism. The New Atheists stand as ample evidence of this fact. Bertrand Russell and Paul Tillich, and people of their ilk, deserve to be in serious conversation with each other.
Apologists of Progressive Christianity should heed the lesson.
As I view it, there are at least two (and maybe more than two) major strands of Progressive Christianity. One of these strands takes the word “progressive” to denote a socially progressive identity. I call these “Ethical Progressive Christians” because they focus upon doing. They invest most of their energy in social causes. To the extent that they offer theological support for their action, they look to the social gospel of theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch. We find an expression of this strand in John Cobb Jr.’s Progressive Christians Speak.
I call members of the other strand “Pastoral Progressive Christians.” This is not to say that such people are less ethical than their brothers and sisters. I draw the distinction merely to acknowledge that, here, ethical action is a consequence of the progressive perspective rather than its motivation. For Pastoral Progressive Christians, the motivation can be found within their constituting narrative:
People seek out Progressive Christian communities for pastoral support after experiencing feelings of ecclesiastical betrayal. For years, they entertained doubts but agonized in silence, believing they doubted alone in a sea of certainty. It is a queer narrative, complete with a coming out story. When they come out, they discover that, far from agonizing alone, they swim in a crowded pool. More disconcerting is the discovery that their clergy share their doubts but have kept silent for fear of making waves. In fact, they learn that doubt has been mainstream in reputable seminaries for at least two generations, but fear has kept the modern discipline of doubt from reaching ordinary believers.
Both strands of Progressive Christianity represent critiques of authority. Ethical Progressive Christians challenge social and political authority. Pastoral Progressive Christians challenge ecclesiastical and scriptural authority. And it’s plausible that a single person can identify as both simultaneously. Nevertheless, it is the Pastoral Progressive Christians whom I address here because implicit in their narrative is the rejection of something that went before. They were Southern Baptist or Seventh Day Adventist or Roman Catholic or Presbyterian. It becomes necessary to offer a justification for the departure from what went before and so the narrative develops a second chapter: the resort to an apologetic in the style suggested by Bertrand Russell: a reductio ad absurdum of one’s former religion and its replacement by something new and superior.
However, the apologetic becomes susceptible to the critique I leveled at Russell. If it does not strive to frame itself in terms of the most nuanced expressions of Christian theology, it risks devolution into a simple answer for simple believers and merely replicates the betrayal it sought to answer.
Given the cautionary example provided by Russell’s “Why I am not a Christian,” I think the following concerns cannot have traction in any successful articulation of a Progressive Christian theology because they act as distractions from higher expressions of those theological forms to which Progressive Christianity seeks to stand as an answer:
1. Personal accounts of abuse.
With the recent revelations of sexual misconduct by priests, abuse has leaped to the top spot on the list of reasons critics cite as to why religion has no place in the modern world. Abuse also figures strongly in motivating people to leave traditional religious environments in favour of Progressive Christian communities. However, the existence of abuse does not speak to the truth or falsehood of religious claims; it speaks only to the truth or falsehood of particular religious people.
2. Institutional hypocrisy.
One of the justifications for the Protestant Reformation was that the Roman Catholic Church failed to be governed by its own teachings. It had authorized its doings by reference to both scripture and an accumulated tradition. Luther rejected tradition as a source of institutional authority and said sola scriptura — the scriptures alone. Nevertheless, as a practical matter, Protestant denominations have evolved their own accumulated traditions which function much like the Roman magisterium. We have learned with experience that all institutions sometimes fall short of their declared ideals and aspirations, just as all individuals, including those who identify as religious, are capable of great evil. Nevertheless, institutional failure does not speak to the truth or falsehood of religious claims; it speaks only to the truth or falsehood of particular religious institutions.
If Progressive Christianity chooses to distinguish itself by schism, as Protestantism did five hundred years ago, then it would be wise to accept as a certainty that it will also engage in institutional hypocrisy as it establishes its own accumulated traditions.
3. The rejection of dogmatic belief.
Progressive Christianity cannot afford to hold itself out as a haven for non-dogmatic religion. I say this for the simple reason that non-dogmatic religion is impossible. Like abuse and institutional hypocrisy, dogmatism arises from the fact of being human. Dogmatism is what people do when they are afraid of uncertainty. We are all afraid of uncertainty. From time to time, we all cling dogmatically to beliefs. Rather than claim that it is possible to reason ourselves into a non-dogmatic position, it would be more prudent to acknowledge the impulse to dogmatism which lies within each one of us; to treat dogma as a neutral fact, a condition of our shared humanity; to judge it as neither good nor bad; to hold it with compassionate self-regard. To do otherwise engages Progressive Christianity in a practice it has railed against — traditional religion’s abusive habit of creating impossible standards, then condemning believers for their failure to meet those impossible standards.
Whatever one may think of dogmatism, it cannot be cited as a motivation for a progressive theology. The flight from dogmatism reflects a pastoral rather than a theological need.
4. Literalism.
I have suggested elsewhere that the notion of literalism is incoherent. But even if we were to assume coherence, it is unhelpful to observe that some individuals and organizations engage their authoritative texts and traditions through infantile interpretive strategies. That fact may account for a person’s motivation to leave a fundamentalist community, for example, but it tells us nothing about how we ought to engage our own theological perspective.
All the complaints cited thus far as reasons for adhering to a Progressive community are pastoral reasons. While they are legitimate reasons, and the people citing them deserve care, such reasons don’t properly belong in a conversation about theological justifications. They tell us nothing about the substance of a supportable progressive believing. But the next concern is a little different.
5. Religion as epistemology.
Progressive criticism sometimes allies itself with the New Atheists and secular humanists who place themselves within the intellectual tradition of Western Rationalism. Such criticism looks with disdain upon Biblical texts as primitive attempts to explain the workings of the world. So, for example, the first chapter of the Book of Genesis is sometimes treated as if it were the Bronze Age equivalent of the Big Bang theory. While it is true that some Christian believers treat the Bible in this manner, and while it is also true that this leads some believers to conclusions which fly in the face of obvious evidence, nevertheless, I return us to Bertrand Russell’s cautionary lesson: we cannot develop answers with relevance in the real world if they are prompted by questions posed by people who subsist within a fantasy. In this case, the fantasy is that the Bible is an explanatory document whose accuracy is indisputable because it is authored by an omniscient being. To answer assertions framed in such terms is demeaning both to religion and to ourselves.
You will note that I treat as equals Rationalists who sniff with disdain at the primitive text called the Bible and fundamentalists who take that text to support untenable views. Oddly, both groups approach the Bible with the same assumption, but it is the Rationalists who commit the graver sin. They bring to their inquiry a contempt for the past, and they assume that their mode of knowing is privileged; fundamentalists do only the latter.
Moving forward
Because Progressive Christianity arises, like atheism, from the criticism of something else, it constrains itself to the limitations inherent in that something else. Ironically, that often makes Progressive Christianity look more like a regressive Christianity. The motivation for the backward glance is understandable — when people have come from abusive situations, they need time to heal. Healing follows no prescribed schedule; it can’t be forced; it takes as long as it takes. Nevertheless, this is a pastoral issue. What’s more, it is far from a universal narrative within the progressive fold. There are many who are not motivated by experiences of abuse and whose spiritual path is not reactive.
Is there such a thing as a Progressive Christian theology? Maybe Progressive Christianity’s primary function is to fulfill a pastoral role. Or maybe it serves as a demystifying tool that assists people on their way out of religion. Or maybe it is simply a practical approach, leaving theological content for individual believers to work out. But such possibilities lie beyond the scope of this post.