To the extent that Progressive Christians seek to reform Christianity, and to the extent that Progressive Christians seek to overturn deeply held faiths, Progressive Christians are pursuing contradictory goals. Getting someone to give up his or her foundational beliefs requires the power of persuasive facts. But there are no facts regarding the existence and nature of Divinity. Therefore, a more realistic goal is to persuade people that it is valuable to them to exchange personal testimonials to faith experiences, without judgment, and to create a reformed church where this is fostered.

There are many ways to change religious beliefs. Torture and authoritarian decrees were popular techniques for some, but not so much for Progressive Christians. Progressive Christians are way too open-ended and non-judgmental for that. However, they do set a soft boundary in that they are united by an interest in “the path and teachings of Jesus.” Within that framework, in the 8 Points and in their writings they assert some facts regarding Divinity. The fact that Divinity does exist in “the Sacred and the Oneness and Unity of all life.” The fact that a theistic God does not exist. These are not widespread beliefs in much of Christianity, so reformation is required. Old faiths must be replaced.

The problem is, there can be no facts regarding Divinity. That means there can be no factual basis for making a change. When pressed, traditionalists and progressives all fall back on the assertion that Divinity is a mysterious, inexplicable Truth. That leads to an unproductive, unresolvable stalemate: “My mysterious, inexplicable Truth is better than your mysterious, inexplicable Truth.” Trying to “fix” a person’s faith is a fool’s errand. Spiritual growth is more likely to come, not from asking someone to relinquish their faith, but from asking them to accept the value of learning about the faiths of others. Testimonials, not theology, are the non-confrontational tools for reforming Christianity. The experiences that were persuasive to us may be persuasive to others, giving them the freedom to decide if and when they need to adjust their faith. The respectful sharing of personal faith experiences is the most promising route for reform through Progressive Christianity.

Divinity

Transcendent experiences can be so real, so intense, that they seem to represent facts. And they do, for the individual who experiences them. But they do not represent facts to others. Universal, shared facts are based on physical evidence — the shape of something, the way something moves, the readings on a thermometer, the words on a page. Facts require an agreed-upon framework. They require definitions spelled out in human language. They require the theoretical possibility of testing and verification. Spiritual experience offers none of these. Spiritual experience cannot be defined and tested; it can only be hinted at through poetic language, through metaphor. “Blue” is a common word for light waves of a certain frequency, but there are no words for what blue looks like. There are no words to explain the experience of “blue” to a person blind since birth. Similarly, there are no words to recreate the experience of transcendence. We struggle with metaphors (“It was as if. . .” or “It was like. .”) before we concede that “It was beyond words.” It is impossible to determine if your experience of a beautiful sunset was identical to the emotional experience of the person watching next to you. You both may have been moved, and may use metaphorical words to describe your experience, but there is no way to measure and compare the intensity of each persons’s experience. Spiritual experience is private, unique to each person.

If Divinity is more than a synonym for nature, if Divinity is more than natural law, then Divinity is beyond the physical realm. Since facts can exist only in the physical realm, there can be no facts regarding spiritual reality. That does not mean that a person did not experience transcendence. It does not mean that one’s concept of Divinity is wrong. It does mean that there is no way one can prove that one’s Divinity applies to another, even if one’s concept of Divinity is that it is universally true. Without facts, without the ability to define and test spiritual beliefs, there is no way to win a spiritual argument. A person may have faith that God dictated every word in the Bible, but there is no way to prove it to a skeptic. A person may have faith that God inspired those who wrote the Bible, but there are no facts to prove that God was the source of that inspiration. If a person had faith that the Bible is the result of a shared ultimate revelation expressed by countless authors, how could that person confirm it factually? On the other hand, belief that the Bible is a human document in which God played no role is a faith that cannot be proven, either.

The fact that faith is private and unique to each person does not mean that faith is without value. It just means that one’s faith should be presented as a testimonial to personal experience, not as an argument to win a debate. Testimonials can be accepted as honest attempts to articulate profound personal truths. Respectful exchanging of testimonials can lead to insights into both participant’s spiritual life. So long as there is no assumption that one person’s testimonials are more accurate or more profound than another’s, being open to testimonials is a way to build a stronger Christian community.

Jesus

Unlike the claims of a diffuse Divinity that is present throughout time and space, claims about Jesus are focused on a specific time and space — and on a specific person. Because it is a physical person and not a spiritual concept, we can search for facts regarding Jesus. We have no videos or government documents or signed memoirs to establish the fact of Jesus’s existence. But we do have facts that point to the life of a specific person, and the impact that life had on others. These available facts are open to different interpretations, and they are often not in agreement. But they are facts — documentary and archeological evidence.

The multiple facts available to us point to some underlying themes in the ministry of an itinerant teacher, themes that would have been understandable and empowering to many who heard him: The affirmation of internal spiritual freedom that lifts the burden of rigid political and religious laws. The existence of spiritual equality that overcomes the layers of cultural or religious status. The presence of inner spiritual strength that can overcome physical temptations and fears. The shared blessing of spiritual life that promotes concerns for the needs of others. These common themes, supported by factual evidence in documents, explain the impact that Jesus had on some of those who encountered him

Less certain is the theology that lay behind these teachings. The available facts show no evidence that Jesus ever delivered a theological treatise. The evidence points to an approach couched in testimonial language, in parables, in similes, in aphorisms. Whatever was Jesus’s experience of Divinity, he was limited in expressing it by the language and culture of his time. The theological understanding of his largely uneducated hearers was similarly limited. The many words that Jesus spoke were filtered by what his listeners found to be striking. They were also selected and even altered by those who committed them to writing, and by those who decided which writings were to be included in the canon.

The problems with the documentary record leave room for many false claims that there are authentic facts regarding Jesus‘s relationship with Divinity. For example, the claim that Jesus is the transmitter of God’s voice and guidance with us today. Or the insistence that Jesus was God born into human form and later departed from human form. Or that Jesus was a human distinguished only by a unique relationship with God. Or that Jesus was simply fully wise and fully human with no help from God. Or that Jesus shared with all humans the inner presence of the Ground of Our Being, but it an especially vivid way. None of these are factual claims that can be defined and verified. But they are all testimonials to personal faith, and thereby valuable to exchange and discuss. But not debate, because a winner can never be established.

Bible

If nothing else, the Bible is a collection of testimonials, testimonials to faith, not to journalism. Some testimonials are first-hand, others are passed along through cultures. Scholars have discovered facts about roughly when and where the testimonials were written, and occasionally even corroboration of events reported in the testimonials. So, it is is factual to observe that certain concepts or sayings or events appear in documents from one time or place, and not in documents in another time or place. What these differences mean is a matter of interpretation, which can vary widely. It is reasonable, however, to insist that one’s interpretation is supported by known facts, and not contradicted by known facts.

The Bible contains no facts about the nature and existence of Divinity itself. There is no way to validate that a man named Moses confronted God in a burning bush. Even if Noah’s Ark is found, there is no way to validate that its construction was directed by God. There is no way to validate that God had a hand in the defeat of Jericho. These are all testimonials to faith, not to facts.

So long as one keeps in mind the distinction between facts and testimonials, the Bible can be a great resource — an essential resource if one seeks to follow “the way of Jesus.” Everyone can learn from the experiences of others, and the experiences that inspired much that is written in the Bible were profound accounts of the inner truths of people with unusual spiritual sensitivity. Fundamentalists err in treating the Bible as a referee’s rule book in debates about God, but Progressive Christians err when they obsess over the factual inadequacy of Biblical testimonials. Instead, everyone would do better to concentrate on discerning the personal faiths that the authors are trying to communicate.

Summary

Progressive Christians who want to reform churches and denominations should move away from judgments about the validity of spiritual theories and toward testimonials to the impact of spiritual experiences. They should take care not to leave the impression that their aim is to replace “incorrect” concepts of Divinity with “correct” concepts. This approach is intellectually dishonest, since there is no way to compare the factual validity of spiritual claims. And it is bad strategy, because, when a person has experienced a profound encounter with “the living Jesus,” it is more likely to produce resistance than acceptance if the person is told that he or she couldn’t possibly have had that experience, because there is no theistic God.

Progressives can reasonably uphold the principle that facts matter when discussing factual matters. The time and place where Biblical passages were written can potentially be determined factually. The historic patterns of changes in temperature and ice caps can potentially be determined factually. The patterns of changes in fossils in different layers of sediment can potentially be determined factually. Spiritual theories cannot trump these facts. On the other hand, the facts cannot be used to validate a claim of spiritual purpose behind those facts, of why things were created, or whether intention guides the path, or what the ultimate goal is.

The effort to reform Christian churches and denominations needs to have a less ambitious, but still difficult, approach. Instead of seeking to displace theism, Progressive Christians could try to get Christians to accept the individual validity of all personal religious experience. This means getting them to accept that their personal faith is valid for them, but perhaps may not be valid for someone else. It means getting them to accept the benefit of sharing personal testimonials openly, without pre-con
 ditions, without judgment. It can be difficult to crack the veneer of their certainty, but more likely to succeed than requiring rejection of the fundamentals of their faith.

Jewish leaders in Jesus’s day were dedicated to protecting the purity of religious doctrine, of using religious rules to define outsiders and keep them out. Jesus wanted to remove such barriers, to be more inclusive, at least within Judaism, and, perhaps, more universally. Institutional Christianity has fallen into the same trap, elevating doctrine over experience, faith over facts. Replacing the doctrinal Christian church with a testimonial Christian church follows Jesus’s example. It widens the church’s arms to create an inclusive community of seekers with all manner of spiritual experiences. And, who knows? If the flaws in theism are as real as we think they are, others exposed to exchanging testimonials may come to recognize those flaws on their own, and theism may fade away without a direct assault. That would be Christianity reformed.
 
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