I want to state right now that as a 'liberal' or 'progressive' or even 'inclusive' Christian, I developed my passion for social and spiritual justice as a direct response to prayer and reading the word of God.
In my youth I was an ex-gay fundamentalist who knew he would be caught up to be with Christ in the rapture and that the rest of the world was going to hell in a handbasket on the wings of some vast liberal-secular conspiracy. I was one of the righteous and would be saved by faith while God destroyed the rest of the world in his wrath. Anybody who supported legal abortion or gay rights or evolution or denied the literal truth of every word in the Bible was doomed to an eternity in hell.
But the Bible can only be read this way if I have already deceived myself that the vast number of its prophetic texts condemning violence, lust, hypocrisy, greed, oppression, legalism, apathy and unconcern do not apply to me because I am one of the righteous. Of course, if I am righteous there is no need for repentance is there? But once I began to read the bible without reference to Scofield's notes or some other man-made blueprint, the sheer power of those prophetic voices began to work their way in my life and heart.
Commenters to my last post asserted or presupposed two notions that are frequently used to lull Christians into non-critical acceptance of received truth. Firstly, Jacke's notion that Christian faith must be apolitical:
You know, I really feel sorry for Christians of any political bent who cannot put God and his or her brothers and sisters in Christ before their political agendas and biases.
This completely misses the mark. Advocating for peace, compassion for the imprisoned, food for the hungry, health care for the sick, etc. and resisting political oppression and torture are biblical imperatives emphasized throughout the Old and New Testaments, particularly in the psalms, prophets and gospels. For examples of great Christian leaders who have held to these imperatives one need look no further than Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Martin Luther King or for that matter Pope John Paul II (in his finer moments). Obedience to the gospel has always required taking a personal, political stand against injustice and oppression in favor of the radical, inclusive and expansive love of God. Those who have taken such a stand have always been accused by the political and religious contemporaries of being biased or heretical or both.
Secondly, Dave's notion that anger is not Christian:
I'm glad I'm not a progressive Christian. It sounds like there is just as much anger there as there is in the conservative realm just pointed in the other direction instead of at the real problems of the world.
If theocracy, fundamentalism, torture, false imprisonment, hunger, abuse of military power and so on are not 'real problems' I would love to be enlightened as to what sort of things might be.
Jesus consistently opposed the religious conservatives of his day for colluding with the political establishment and for wielding man-made religiosity as means of social control and spiritual abuse. A 'Christian' faith which focuses only on personal salvation and moral purity, which accepts the political status quo and attendant injustice as 'God's will', and which supports the institutional oppression and vilification of non-believers and non-conformists, has little to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ or the grace and love of the God whom Jesus called 'Father'.
Or to put it another way, there can be no salvation without an ackowledgement of sin and genuine repentance. As Christians we are called to name sin and to summon the world to repentance and to the righteousness of God. Where I differ from my fundamentalist friends (yes, I still have some) is that I have a far broader sense of sin, righteousness and salvation. Moreover, it is demonstrable that such a perspective is far more biblically based than the narrow, private and pietistic version so popular with religious 'conservatives' and the political establishment today.
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