Dear Friends,

I have met a lot of people over the years who tell me that religion is keeping them away from church. They associate church and religion with a set of dogmas and restrictions that are distasteful to them. When they are attracted to the religious thinking I represent they often task me how I can be a Christian and yet not maintain those restrictive beliefs. My answer always contains information about Progressive Christianity. I carry a small card with the basic Progressive beliefs on them and I share it, often. I’m so glad to belong to a church that embraces this inclusive theology. This month I just want to publish The Eight Points of Progressive Christianity in this space.  You can learn more at The Center for Progressive Christianity. 

                                                                                                                   Much love, Joan

As Progressive Christians we are people who:

1.   Proclaim Jesus as our gateway to the realm of God

2.   Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the gateway to God's realm

3.   Understand our sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation of God's feast for all peoples

4.   Invite all sorts and conditions of people to join in our worship and in our common life as full partners, including, but not limited to: believers and agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, homosexuals and heterosexuals, females and males, the despairing and the hopeful, those of all races and cultures, and those of all classes and abilities, without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us;

5.   Think that the way we treat one another and other people is more important than the way we express our beliefs;

6.   Find more grace in the search for meaning than in absolute certainty, in the questions than in the answers;

7.   See ourselves as a spiritual community in which we discover the resources required for our work in the world: striving for justice and peace among all people; bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers;

8.   Recognize that our faith entails costly discipleship, renunciation of privilege, and conscientious resistance to evil--as has always been the tradition of the church.