The Practicing Progressive

Issue 20
May 1, 2007

If I was concerned about the future unity of Christianity, I would be particularly worked-up over what is going on in the church of the Third World, especially in Africa.

It is ironic that it was to the Third World that my fellow seminarians and I turned, some thirty plus years ago, to discover a theology that resonated for many of us with the authentic teachings of Jesus. Liberation Theology with its keen minds and brave hearts shaped our theological formation in ways that continue to this very day. Although the remnants remain, Liberation Theology, punished and persecuted by Rome, is now relegated to historical textbooks and the occasional obscure treatise.

The irony, of course, lies in the fact that Third World Christianity, now dominated by the mega-churches of Africa rather than the mini-movements in Latin America, is shaping a future fraught with thinking vastly removed from the life and teachings of Jesus. It is out of Africa that we hear demands for the continuing bigotry against homosexuals including suggestions from church leaders to reinstate barbaric punishments against practicing gays and lesbians.

African Christianity also includes a plethora of pejoratives against women, particularly as church leaders. The stereotypical gang of old, white males running ecclesiastical institutions in America continues down south with one significant descriptive change.

Much of African Christianity now is a replay of some of the worst of 19th century Protestant piety complete with scriptural literalism and cultural conditioning. I remember how disappointed I was some years ago attending a large gathering of African Lutherans outside Arusha, Tanzania for Sunday worship. I expected to be regaled with the rhythms of native African themes and was surprised to hear the congregation sing all of their hymns straight out of the European colonial world. Progressive theological movements have been thwarted in Africa by the institutional church just as they have been in America. Those in power desperately seek to keep their authority by relying on practices and perspectives that have little in common with the life and teachings of Jesus. The difference being the African church is growing by millions while the American church is dying by the thousands. So if we want to see what Christianity will be looking like in the not too distant future, turn south.

As I say, if I was worried about Christian unity this demographical as well as theological surge would be highly problematic for me as a Progressive Christian. But rather than fret, I welcome the onslaught as I believe it will more than likely serve as a catalyst for a clear delineation within Christianity, dividing those who are drawn to a progressive understanding of the faith based on the teachings of Jesus from those who wish to remain locked in an orthodoxy molded by the traditional teachings about Jesus.

Such a division is being played out right now. The Anglican Communion is agonizing over the actions of the American Episcopal Church and the threat of a schism is very real indeed. Representatives of African Anglicanism are staking their claim on American soil, ordaining Episcopalian traditionalists as bishops and advocating congregations to leave the Episcopal Church en masse. Surprisingly to some, many Episcopalians are digging in their heels and declaring their conviction in the legitimacy of women and gay priests and bishops. Anglicanism is in an uproar and the result, I believe, will be an ecclesiastical split that will be seen by the traditionalists as justified punishment but by the progressives as liberation. The Episcopal Church of America will emerge as a leader in Progressive Christianity and as a shining beacon to those who worry about the growing influence of a restrictive Third World Christianity on the church.