Credo: Progressives and the Need for Robust Theological Thinking

The Apostles' Creed
13th century

Eternal Functional Subordination is an odd debate, but why does it matter? Why pay attention to Fundamentalist in-fighting?

I'm tempted to say, "Because theology matters."

But why? Why does theology matter? Who cares?

Sadly, "Who cares?" seems to be the driving force behind many Progressive Christians -- even authors, seminarians, and pastors.

Or, more accurately, we have been freed to ask the questions that matter, but we have been too apathetic to think through the answers. The result is, at best, an orthodox but incomplete answer; at worst, it's heresy.

"How do we understand the inter-relationship of the Trinity?" has become "God exists in community" sans engagement with the Creeds or the debates between the Greek East and Latin West.

"How do we think about the atonement?" has become "All the theories suck, and in the end, God is love and forgives" sans any engagement with the imagery woven into Scripture or the writings of our ancestors in the faith.

"Who may partake of Holy Communion?" has become "It's mean to exclude people" sans any sacramental theology or discussion of Holy Baptism.

In its most extreme form, Progressives have adopted Bultmann's rejection of a historical Resurrection. (And, if that's the case, let's pack it in. Without the Resurrection, our faith is in vain.)

There are, among the ranks of Progressive Christianity, those trying to take us back to the early 20th century and the days of Protestant Liberalism.

Charles Taylor traces the genealogy of this move in his masterpiece A Secular Age (or, if you don't have time for a tome of that size, James K.A. Smith provides a thorough summary in How (Not) to Be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor). In the Enlightenment, we see a shift from emphasis on the transcendent to the immanent, from things other-worldly to this-worldly. As a result, the emphasis moves from God's ability to save humanity to human ability. To quote Smith:

The result is a kind of intellectual Pelagianism: we can figure this out without assistance. Oh, God still plays a role -- as either the watchmaker who got the ball rolling, or the judge who will evaluate how well we did -- but in the long middle God plays no discernible role or function, and is uninvolved.

We are left with an emphasis on charitable action sans theology, a God who may be Alpha and Omega but is absent for the rest of the story, a God we do not need to contemplate and who doesn't care what we believe so long as we do good.

Picking up on similar themes while discussing Progressive Christianity's hesitance to think about sin and Satan, Richard Beck quotes Scot McKnight:

According to McKnight, for these "skinny jeans" Christians the kingdom of God means "good deeds done by good people (Christian or not) in the public sector for the common good." As he notes, given their focus on social justice these "skinny jeans" Christians have "turned the kingdom message of Jesus into a politically shaped message."

And sure enough, not a day goes by that I don't see seminarians posting heart-warming videos of good deeds proclaiming, "Kingdom of God is here!"

"The Kingdom of God has come near" becomes "Look at this cool non-profit" sans metanoia.

To be clear, I am not opposed to good deeds. As a Lutheran shaped by the Wesleyan tradition, I firmly believe that God's grace is at work in the world, even among those outside the Church, erupting into this world in unexpected ways. But as a Lutheran shaped by the Wesleyan tradition, I also believe that those works -- glimpses of God's grace though they may be -- are not sufficient to justify sinners.

Love and community are powerful speaking points. They are important elements of human existence and the Kingdom of God. But the very same reason these themes resonate also makes them important to define carefully. Too many Progressive Christians are unwilling to do the heavy theological lifting required to carefully define love and community.

Every human being desires love and community. It's part of the human condition. This commonality means that artists and culture makers have their own vision of human flourishing through love and community. It's why love songs and buddy adventure movies and rom-coms and dramas about human relationships (romantic and platonic) are so common.

The same can be said for charitable giving. There are a number of secular groups doing great work to alleviate human suffering across the world, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation chief among them. Countless non-profits are doing great work at the local level.

And yes, I will gladly grant that this is the Kingdom of God breaking into the world. The imago Dei didn't shatter in the Fall. Divine love is at work, even when human beings aren't aware of it.

But we must speak theologically about these things. It's not enough to look at someone feeding the hungry and say, "It's the Kingdom at work, y'all."

Such good works are like the first shoots of a crop coming up. They must be tended carefully, cultivated. For the Church, that means doing the theological heavy lifting to name the forces that defy God, to call out sin, and to name the powers and principalities for what they are. It means to speak of grace not in terms of human deeds but of God working through us.

And yes, it absolutely means feeding the hungry and clothing the naked and welcoming the refugee -- but doing so in the name of Christ. It means calling people into the Church through the Sacraments. Through our own works we might save people from the grave for a time, but by calling them into the Body of Christ by the grace of God through the waters of Baptism, they gain the assurance of salvation unto everlasting life.

Moreover, Progressive Christianity has a unique voice to contribute to the Church. Our willingness to engage with difficult questions (if we're willing to do the difficult work of seeking answers), our concern for things that happen in this life (if we're willing to care about matters transcendent), and our openness to the marginalized (if we maintain a belief in membership in the Body of Christ) can provide a powerful witness to the Kingdom of God. Affirmation of LGBT Christians, concern for the poor, and engagement with science are good; the Church should do these things. We must be aware, though, that our Fundamentalist kindred will push back against us.

Let us return to the EFS debate for a moment. Progressive Christians affirm egalitarian gender roles and the ordination of women. One of the driving forces behind EFS is precisely a rejection of these beliefs. If we want to engage our Fundamentalist friends and family, we must be well-versed in Scripture and the Tradition. We must engage with theology.

The Church is changing, especially in the US. We can no longer assume to be the norm. I for one, think this is a good thing. The Church some of its best work when it was on the outs. Justin Martyr, Iranaeus, Augustine, and Bonhoeffer wrote some of our best treatises while trying to figure out how to be the Church in the shadow of imperial oppression, the collapse of civilization, or, in Bonhoeffer's case, both.

But if we are to meet this challenge, if we are to re-discover what it means to be the Church, then we must be prepared to put forward a thought-out theology rather than a set of comforting aphorisms. If we are to continue being the Church, then it is not enough to do good deeds and think positive thoughts. To be the Church, to be the Body of Christ, to love as God loves, requires more. To be an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God means being more than Sunday morning do-gooders. I can feed the hungry and protect the environment without the Sunday morning wake up call -- and all the better, because I enjoy weekend brunch, hiking trips, and farmers' markets.  If we want to continue being the Church, we must be willing to stand before the assembly and say, "I believe...."