progressing together

I’ve spent a good amount of time this past year in the internet subculture known to some as “progressive Christianity.” I’ve learned a lot from the writers, bloggers, and tweeters that occupy this virtual space, but one of the primary things I’ve learned is that, as with any group, the boundaries we so easily draw from a distance fade when seen from within. The voices included under this name are as diverse as the rest of the church and often just as divided.

From my close proximity, I have noticed one division in particular that has become more visible nationwide as well: the division over race. It’s important to note that in pointing out this distinction, I’m also making generalizations. But these generalizations are indicative of patters myself and others have noticed and experienced.

The voices I first encountered are primarily white people who grew up in evangelical youth groups and encountered doubt in college. I was attracted to them because their journeys and circumstances often mirrored my own. But following the death of Michael Brown in August, I began paying attention to voices whose journeys and circumstances differed from mine in ways that gave depth and meaning to the protests and riots that were caricaturized by the media. And it was through those stories, the ones I didn’t share, that I was able to see the Spirit of God moving in our world.

It was the largely white doubters who gave my faith a steady stream of nourishment even as it lay dormant, and it was the bloggers of color and their allies advocating for justice who resurrected it.

One group created safe spaces for me to sit with my uncertainty without feeling ashamed or attacked, and one group showed me that the world is not nearly as safe as I had once believed.

One group gave comfort as I waited in the mist, and one group pointed out the enemies that were covered by it.

Both groups pointed me more and more to the Savior.

In one I see Jesus’ promise of rest, and in one I see his promise of transformation. In one I see Jesus’ freely-given grace, in one I see his call for a costly response. In one I see individual assurance and peace, in one I see a collective movement to make peace an external reality.

Jesus is big enough for both of these groups. But are these groups big enough for each other?

In their book Reconciling All Things, Emmanuel Katongole and Chris Rice speak of the universal story of reconciliation: “This story is about both the interior and the exterior, contemplation and action, sanctuary and streets, heart and body, worship and activism, theory and practice, desires and deeds, preaching and living, individual and community, baptism and politics, praying and prophesying, church and world. God’s mission of reconciling challenges, moves beyond, even explodes these conventional distinctions.”

While there are distinctions, this label of “progressive Christianity” isn’t entirely arbitrary. Both of these groups have been disillusioned with the church’s fixation on ideals rather than on people’s embodied experiences. Both of these groups are passionate to see change in the church and in the world. Both of these groups long for the world to know that we follow Jesus because of our love for one another as he promised in John 13:35.

But I can only pretend to be neutral in this division for so long. 

It’s become more and more clear to me that progressive/post-evangelical/liberal spaces (whatever label you choose) are dominated by white people who make this distinction necessary by their apathetic exclusion. 

White bloggers and writers and tweeters can’t wait for conversations on race to include diverse voices. We need to intentionally include people of color in our conversations on every area of faith. Our black and brown brothers and sisters have more than helpful tips on how to engage in conversations on race. They also have valuable insights on wrestling with scripture, loving and forgiving our enemies and oppressors, healing our warped views of God and of ourselves, and every other aspect of faith.

In John 17:11, within the same exchange and his command to love in John 13:35, Jesus says this while praying for his disciples: "Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one."

I hope this is our prayer as well, that we will be one. Our unity should not be in the name of “progressive Christianity” or any other trendy label we find given to us, but in the power of the name of Jesus that he has given to us. Whether or not we embrace the label of “progressive,” we are a group of people committed to progressing towards the elusive and ever-present Kingdom of God.

As we progress, let’s progress together.