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Really interesting article about the difference between liberalism (here defined as someone who seeks to preserve multi-culturalism and let people do stupid and even bad stuff) and progressivism (people who seek to improve things, ark steadiers), and why progressives often leave the church while “liberals” stay and deal with things. http://www.wheatandtares.org/13509/embracing-liberalism-rejecting-progressivism/ Loved your comments, Hawkgrrrl. As I was reading, I thought I fit the definition of progressive also but then progression is what we believe in, isn’t it? Shouldn’t we be moving toward some ideal? Doing our level best to do God’s will
…on earth as it is in heaven?Fascinating, but it is a pretty black and white article and devoid of many grey areas that exist between, as well as even further classes. It has some interesting reading but suggests a very far out and dangerous idea – submission to a person. Regardless if it is a person in government, work or speaking or acting for god, the consequences are too severe to ignore — it’s just a really dangerous idea with well studied consequences.
However, reframe it to “Service to others out of love”. It’s not a service one can ask. It is born from the heart not learned or taught which can be dangerous in and of itself. Service with love involves change in many ways – sometimes to one’s self, other times to the system, depending on the harm being done by the system, a person or one’s self.
Visibly bad fruit takes a high priority over theologically bad fruit.
Theories are great to ponder, especially heavenly after life theories, but they take a back seat to the service and need of the here and now in the world. It’s great until progressive, liberal, conservative, humanitarian, etc. becomes dogma where no good fruit exists.
Interesting; I always thought liberal and progressive were just two words for the same thing: Democrat and therefore dirty words around here. I guess in theory the term “liberal” implies more of a tolerant “live and let live” mindset whereas “progressive” implies aggressively trying to solve perceived problems through legislation. However, these words have taken on added meaning and associations in American politics so that makes some of his claims confusing. For example, what he calls liberal sounds more like libertarian to me (valuing individual freedom over other considerations) but it seems like Libertarians often vote for GOP candidates basically as what they see as the lesser of two evils with a reasonable chance of winning when it comes to the dreaded “big government.” Other than liberal or left-wing church members understandably feeling marginalized in a church where the majority (in the US) are extremely conservative I’m not sure there is as much of a connection between politics and how likely people are to have problems with the Church as he claims. To me it sounds like he is basically making an exception in the case of the Church mostly because he has bought into the idea that there is special authority and divine approval involved that trumps any personal preferences. On the other hand I have very little confidence in Church leaders’ judgment and supposed divine backing and feel like many of the current policies and doctrines are already so wrong, counterproductive, and out of touch with reality that it makes perfect sense why I would like to see radical reforms made whereas with politics I worry that many changes politicians think are a good idea could easily end up being worse than whatever it is that they are trying to fix.
The author is an American who lives in the UK, so I think that’s the origin for his perspectives on the differences, and I thought that was helpful. I too have been used to thinking of the terms interchangeably.
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