Perhaps “progressive” is too loaded?

May 5, 2007

Progressive Christians « St.Mary’s-by-the-Woods

Perhaps progressive is not the best word to use since its become so loaded. Interesting what issues open-mindedness can create in terms of views that are incorrect.

For example, and for arguments sake, instead of calling ourselves Australians, Americans, Indians, etc or Hindus, Christians, Muslims, etc, let’s call ourselves a community of humans that are all racing towards the same goal which is available to everyone. So it seems that the linked blog post is saying: what then, of certain people who could possibly do things that seem morally wrong (in my opinion for this example) in their journey towards God, or whatever their aim in life might be. As said in the linked blog post, perhaps someone somewhere believes that disrimination towards a particular community would bring them closer to God (or that they believe that they must act in such a way to go to Heaven) and that it’s the right thing to do - what happens then? Is that accepted? Surely not. I can understand that’s its difficult to say what is right and what is wrong and at the same time accept all views, but surely in accepting other views (referring to the blog post on Progressive Christians) there must be an assumption of a necessary equality and indiscriminatory values – otherwise how can people accept, let alone respect, other people’s views? So, perhaps the Progressive Christian Newsletter needs to explicitly state what they accept? Perhaps they do accept everything without any sort of conditions?

I think if you say you’re “progressive,” it’s probably best to explain exactly how – that’s only if you care about what others think.