Conversations with Progressive Christians
Over the weekend, I seem to have gotten into a few conversations with various progressive Christians. These are Christians who take their faith seriously, but who tend to focus more on poverty issues than the culture war issues. They are the so called, “good cops.”
First, I got into a conversation with the progressive Christians of Sojourners. These are the followers of the Reverend Jim Wallis. If you don’t know him, he is the James Dobson of the Christian Left (although he would disagree with the analogy).
Wallis posted an article on his website talking about how he was happy to wear purple to show solidarity against gay bullying. The thing is that Wallis is against gay marriage. Ever since I read his book, “God’s Politics” I have had something of an obsession in exposing Wallis as being a not that great good cop Christian. Sure he is more liberal than Dobson, but he still supports lots of things that are immoral and wacky.
When I commented on his article on his website, many of his fellow progressive Christians started to talk about these issues. It turns out that some of the liberal Christians agreed with me and also wanted Wallis to throw his weight in support of gay marriage. Other however seemed almost indistinguishable from the Christian right.
Then I was reading an article on the FriendlyAtheist that was written by a progressive Christian. One of the arguments he made was that atheists have faith in reason. This type of view really pisses me off especially on Hemant’s website because I had seen a discussion that Hemant had at a Christian college in which they really beat him over the head with this argument. So I really had to get into it. If you are interested in defending against that argument check out THIS ARTICLE.
The Christian who wrote on FriendlyAtheist, also admitted that he thought his own beliefs were ridiculous, yet he still claimed to believe them. His view of Christianity was so vague that anyone could be considered a Christian regardless of what they believe or don’t believe.
Related articles
- A Christian Who (Almost) Gets It (friendlyatheist.com)
- Jim Wallis: Beck, Nazi’s and Civil Dialogue (huffingtonpost.com)
- Christian Right Insiders Reveal Racism, Virulent Anti-Immigrant Attitudes and Homophobia in Prominent Religious Group (alternet.org)
Filed under: conversation, culture war, discussion, good cop-bad cop, Progressive Christians, Religion