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A pre-eminent voice for liberal Christianity, John Shelby Spong was the Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Newark for 24 years before his retirement in 2000. His admirers acclaim his making contemporary theology accessible to the ordinary lay person—he’s considered a champion of an inclusive faith by many both inside and outside the Christian church.

Into that fraught landscape came the news earlier this week that Karen L. King, a Harvard Divinity School church historian and expert on the controversial biblical figure, Mary Magdalene, had been given access to a papyrus fragment held by a private collector.

Former fundamentalist evangelical Christian Mark Andrew Alward discusses his religious journey and wishes he was aware of Progressive Christianity before “throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

Progressive Christianity aspires toward a lively inclusiveness that transforms opposites into contrasts as it looks for holiness everywhere. The postmodern project challenged all universal narratives, philosophical systems, and theological doctrines. Postmodernism affirms the importance of personal, communal, and tribal narratives as windows into understanding the universe. No story encompasses everyone but the sharing of many stories provides great insights into the nature of the human adventure and the ambient universe.

Biblical scholarship is an academic discipline, taught and studied at universities, colleges and divinity schools all around the world. So it should be no surprise that biblical scholars run in all shapes, sizes, colors and denominations. What would surprise many people, though, is that a very large number of us love Jesus and the church, and we spend hours upon hours communicating the love and wonder we experience with the Bible.

First, read the book, the whole Bible. I quote studies that show if you actually read the Bible outside of the church it turns you liberal. Also, get a New Revised Standard version. There is a conservative Bible project that is cutting out passages considered too liberal, so get a whole Bible.

But there is another way I believe God and spirit may be experienced: kinesthetically. It is primal and pre-rational, our first encounter with something beyond ourselves. It begins in our mother’s womb, immersed in embryonic fluids, nourished and protected by our mother’s flesh. We feel the pulsing of her heart. On a men’s retreat, I heard the Franciscan Richard Rohr speculate that men’s love of drumming may come from that early memory of our mother’s heartbeat.

So in a round-about way, Gamaliel, as quoted by Luke, is giving us a powerful clue about what kind of literature the Gospels are — a unique mix of a few core historical events with lots of theological overlay, all blended with a good dose of the kinds of stories of miraculous signs that we know were common and sometimes persuasive in that day. And not surprisingly…. They still are today!

This is a 12 x 18 poster printed on card stock. Show that your congregation is a part of the growing progressive Christian community!

The back story to the Tower of Babel myth is that the orignial plans called for anything but babble. But where once humankind may have all spoken the same language with one unifying plan to build a place all could dwell and abide one another, it has long since ever been the case. “We live in a pluri-verse, not a uni-verse,” says Raimon Panikkar. Ours is a pluralistic age in which we have many different and opposing – even sometimes mutually incompatible — worldviews that threaten planetary human coexistence. In the midst of such chaos and confusion, how can we tolerate each other’s differences? Or, some might ask, should we even try? I consider myself a very tolerant person! The only people I cannot abide are ignorant and intolerant bigots! Does that make me intolerant as well, or merely principled? What would constitute a forbearance of principled intolerance, with a leniency of spirit? Here’s John Bennison’s latest Commentary from Words and Ways.

Progressive Christianity’s Eight Points attempt to provide a framework for progressive theological reflection. In the next several weeks, I will elaborate on each of the Eight Points in a way that may be helpful to pastors and congregants. I will be viewing them from the lens of process theology, which I believe is the best theological perspective for progressive Christian reflection.

We have a new 2011 updated version of our Welcome Poster and our 8 Points. Here is the text of the new 8 points.

Re-Visioning Theology proposes a contemporary mythic approach to theology that offers a way of living fully and faithfully in the midst of the tension and uncertainty of changing times.

Existentialism and Christian Zen is a book written for readers without an in depth background in philosophy, especially existentialism. Written in the style of an in-depth essay, the book is both an examination of the interface between Christian meditation and Zen Buddhism and a practical dialogue between Christian existentialism and the practice of Zen.

In this vibrant and radical book, Noel Moules offers a compelling vision of identity, community, life and faith from a Jesus perspective. By sketching a bold and colourful manifesto that teems with graciously passionate provocation, the author explores creativity, wisdom, spiritual growth, truth, ecology, values, justice, faith-dialogue and activism, all wrapped in the thrilling encompassing vision of shalom.

This is the official theatrical trailer for the documentary “Hellbound?”, which hits theaters across North America starting September 2012. For more information about the film, please visit hellboundthemovie.com.