For some reason two of my lengthy posts copied from https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/ would not format correctly for Blogger. I thought I had fixed the problem, but clearly the formatting changes would not take. While I try to fix the text, I'll post the links as a substitute.
https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/no-hope/
https://progressivechristianity.org/resource/the-promise-of-the-interspiritual-movement/
Please accept my deepest apologies.
Human beings want to believe in God
Since the birth of self-consciousness, human beings have been part of an ongoing process of imagining and creating new conceptions of God. In a very real sense, it is natural to our human situation. More directly, it is what we human beings do. Without exaggerating, it can be said that we human beings (the vast majority of us) like believing in God. We want there to be a God, and we want to believe in this God.
However, to believe in God with integrity, conceptions of God have to be adequate to our modern experience. They have to be believable. They have to make sense. As evolving human beings, we cannot be expected to embrace the God of traditional Christianity, the God of supernatural theism (sometimes referred to as the God of theism). This “God in the sky” is thought to be external to the universe, independent of human beings, and a God who intervenes in human affairs only at times of God’s own choosing. Imagine the problem this poses for the timeless problem of human suffering. If God is viewed as all-loving, how can God intervene in one situation of human suffering or deprivation and not in every situation?
Having said this, we humans are desperate for a new conception of God, a conception we can believe in, but also a conception of God that has some accounting for the reality of human suffering.
God as the great MORE of the universe
When I think of God, I think of God as mostly Spirit (thus the capitalizing of “s”). I also think of God as infinite energy and love, and as abiding presence and endless mystery. Always, there is a mysterious element to God, to God as MORE. God is always more than our ability to describe God, more than our ability to measure God, define God, conceive of God, or imagine God. It is in this sense that God is the great MORE of the universe.
What I like about this notion of God is the more aspects. Forever, people have tried to define God or prove God’s existence. In both cases, this is a hopeless task. And what makes this the case is the more attributes of God. With God, it is always useful to be reminded that no matter how much we think we know about God, no matter how well developed and enlightened our theology, God is always more. In every way, this is a humbling experience, as well it should be.
Every generation has to create images of God that work for it
One of the many points British author Karen Armstrong makes in her impressive book, A
History of God,
is that every generation has the responsibility to work out its own
understanding of God. In other words, every generation owes it to future
generations to re-imagine God consistent with its own understanding of
life and in accord with the most recent advances in scholarship. I like
to talk about this in terms of adequacy, as opposed to whether it is
right or wrong. In other words, given all the advancements made in
science, for example, how adequate is our understanding of God to our
modern experience? And if our answer is “not very adequate,” then
perhaps it’s time, in our generation, to start imagining a new
conception of God.
To make my point, indeed, how adequate is the idea of the God of supernatural theism to our modern experience? Seriously, does anybody still believe in the three-tiered universe– with God (an actual being) up in heaven (wherever that is), hell down below, and earth in between? No doubt some people still believe in this “dated” view of the world. But the vast majority–some of whom might think they’re supposed to believe this, no longer do.
The mystery of it all
As believers in God and persons who want to believe in God, we cannot help but be drawn into the endless mystery of the great MORE. Indeed, the mystery of God is both fascinating and ineffable. In trying to grasp the essence of God–the Holy One in our midst–thought and reason have their place, but they can only take us so far. Our feelings and intuition are more concrete. They open the door to our imagination and nudge us more deeply into the mystery and wonder of God.
When we enter this realm, we enter into the world of the poet and the mystic. Jesus was a mystic; so was Paul, as were many of the prophets, like First Isaiah (in the call to Isaiah from Isaiah 6:1-8). For the mystic, there is a new way of knowing and a new way of seeing. All of this is important in our human effort to embrace God as the great more of the universe.
As human beings, along with the mystic, we hunger for more of God, for deeper revelations of God’s truth and love. Indeed, we yearn for a deeper experience of the profound mystery of God.
~ Rev. Dr. Jeffrey Frantz
Thankfully the Mexican government removed a truly vile, depraved, and evil human from the face of the earth. The response to that has been, essentially, limited yet open war.
Fortunately, here are a few suggestions to help the Mexican people make it through.
"It’s so simple. To stop the harassment of Americans in Mexico, the expats should band together and track down and follow cartel vehicles and blow whistles at the gang members when they try to cause problems!"
"May I suggest celebrities banding together and singing a song as well? Perhaps we should translate “Imagine” to Spanish, so the cartels understand it."
"Yes! Maybe George Soros and Susan Rice and the Clinton Foundation can fund some protests. A quick trip from Minneapolis to Mexico might be nice for their employees. At least it’ll be warmer."
Tyson Zahner
My last post about James Talarico's progressive Christian theology generated hundreds of conversations. The most interesting ones were with progressive Christians themselves… sincere, thoughtful people who love Jesus and genuinely believe they're following Him more faithfully than the traditional church has.
After engaging in several of these conversations, I noticed a pattern underneath every progressive argument… a shared worldview that produces them. And I think understanding that worldview is more important than debating any single issue, because until you see the operating system, you'll keep getting lost in the apps.
So this isn't an attack on progressive Christians. It's an honest attempt to describe what I think their worldview gets wrong.
I'll start with their core move…
Every conversation came back to some version of this: "Jesus summarized everything as love God and love your neighbor, and that overrides the harder moral teachings."
But I see two problems here.
One is simply a breakdown in what we mean by "love".
Progressive Christians tend to hear that word and translate it into merely compassion, empathy, and understanding… which then becomes affirmation, tolerance, and acceptance. By that definition, any moral boundary starts to feel unloving.
But that's not the biblical definition. Thomas Aquinas defined love (agape) not as mere emotion, but as a conscious decision to "will the good of the other" which sometimes means saying the hard thing, not the comfortable thing.
For example, no one would look at an 80-pound anorexic girl who believes she's overweight and say the loving thing is to affirm her. We all understand that sometimes the most loving thing you can do is refuse to affirm what someone genuinely believes about themselves because affirming it might destroy them.
Even Jesus in His most intimate, final moment demonstrated this while hanging next to two thieves in agony.
Jesus didn't remove their suffering or tell them their choices didn't matter. He offered truth. And one of the thieves accepted it, but only after saying, "we are receiving the due reward of our deeds" (Luke 23:41). Repentance came before redemption. That's what love looked like from Jesus when it mattered most.
The other problem is that this worldview ignores where Jesus said all the Law and the Prophets "hang" on these two commandments (Matthew 22:40). That word "hang" matters.
The law hangs on love the way a picture hangs on a nail. The nail holds up the picture, but it doesn't replace it. Remove the nail and the picture falls. But remove the picture and you just have a nail in the wall.
In other words, love and obedience aren't in tension. They're inseparable. Jesus Himself said: "If you love me, keep my commandments" (John 14:15).
And then there's the question no one could answer…
Several people told me their faith is grounded in experiencing Jesus in their hearts… that a personal relationship with God supersedes strict adherence to a text.
I don't dismiss that the Holy Spirit works in believers' hearts.
But here's the question I kept asking, and no one could answer:
(well, they tried, but every answer relied on the same circular reasoning the question was designed to expose)
If what you feel in your heart can override what the text says, doesn’t that make Christianity infinitely malleable? In other words, how do you ever know when you're wrong?
For example, slaveholders in the antebellum South believed God ordained their way of life. They felt it in their hearts. They were wrong even though they were sincere.
The text was the corrective that eventually dismantled their position. Abolitionists didn't win by saying "I feel in my heart that slavery is wrong." They won by showing, from Scripture, that the trajectory of the biblical narrative demanded liberation. They appealed to the text, not away from it.
If feelings had been the final authority, slavery might never have been abolished… because the slaveholders' hearts told them they were right, too.
And here's why it's so hard to argue with progressive Christianity…
In my previous post I mentioned Jonathan Haidt (a social psychologist who is not religious, not conservative, and has described his own political leanings as liberal).
Haidt wrote The Righteous Mind about why good people are divided by politics. His research isn't about theology. But it explains why progressive Christianity is so effective and so persuasive to so many.
His core finding was this: conservatives draw from a broader moral palette including care, fairness, loyalty, authority, sanctity, and liberty. Progressives weight care and fairness far above the others.
In chapter 12, Haidt himself wrote: "When I speak to liberal audiences about the three 'binding' foundations — Loyalty, Authority, and Sanctity — I find that many in the audience don't just fail to resonate; they actively reject these concerns as immoral. Loyalty to a group shrinks the moral circle; it is the basis of racism and exclusion, they say. Authority is oppression. Sanctity is religious mumbo-jumbo whose only function is to suppress female sexuality and justify homophobia."
Progressive Christianity does the same thing theologically. It elevates the care and fairness dimensions of Jesus's teaching above everything else… then treats anyone who draws from the other moral foundations as a Pharisee.
The result sounds like pure love. But it's a narrowed moral vision that has quietly set aside half the palette and declared the remaining half to be the whole gospel.
In one of my conversations, a self-described progressive Christian told me plainly: "The vast majority of progressive Christians aren't against border enforcement, traditional marriage, or institutional order. The difference is we don't see those as moral issues."
That's not underweighting those foundations. That's removing them from the moral category entirely which is exactly the pattern Haidt describes.
Ultimately, I don't doubt the sincerity of the progressive Christians I spoke with this week. But sincerity isn't the same as accuracy.
A worldview that makes your own heart the final authority (above the text, above 2,000 years of consistent teaching) is a worldview that can never be corrected. Every hard teaching gets replaced by "but love." Every moral boundary gets reframed as legalism.
But that's not freedom.
Anyone who's loved an addict knows that removing every boundary doesn't set someone free. It just removes the only things that might have saved them. It's a prison with no walls… a place where you can wander anywhere, but no one can ever tell you you've gone the wrong way.
The deep end of Christianity isn't the version that tells you what you want to hear. It's the one that loves you enough to tell you what you need to hear.
https://x.com/lizarosen0000/status/2024643196173631620?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Let them speak, they'll tell you who they are.
https://x.com/chico_ray/status/2024512878137487864?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
This is a great question. Why do Western leftists have such a love affair with one of the most oppressive, controlling, political/religious worldviews in existence?
https://x.com/jguandolo54271/status/2024833688601587720?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Churchill was right about this too.
https://x.com/jodambusta/status/2024789065766260858?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Why would the UN cave?
https://x.com/benonwine/status/2024754673018695706?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
MVMLTT
https://x.com/brotherrasheed/status/2024633150161227885?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
It's no wonder progressive christians don't have much of a problem with Islam as a religion.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-64989574
I'm sorry, but raping a 9 year old should NEVER result in a reduction in sentence. Dude should have been executed.
https://x.com/lizarosen0000/status/2024590581645603101?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Gaza needs a clean slate reboot.
https://x.com/samanthataghoy/status/2024569009946112127?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
How the ASPL can make common cause with one of the most illiberal worldviews in existence is beyond me.
https://x.com/lizarosen0000/status/2024543356525711446?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Allah and YHWH are not the same.
https://www.foxnews.com/video/6389749020112
This how how a guy who is the definition of white/government privilege panders to a black audience. He calls himself, and them, stupid. I'm torn. All of the DFL front runners for 2028 have given the GOP so much material for campaign ads, I'm not sure who I'd like to see.
https://x.com/wil_da_beast630/status/2025658309928456506?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
This is a great series of takes on Amy Kolbuchar's absurd response to the burning of the Renee Good "memorial". I hadn't been to that part of South to see this memorial, but if it was anything like the St Floyd memorial, it was probably not much to get excited about. Especially appreciate the BV take.
https://x.com/trobinsonnewera/status/2025551854197698890?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
https://x.com/i/status/2025304653999562833
When the RoP tells you who they are, listen. Especially when they record themselves and put it out publicly.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTYPv9BgfC0/?igsh=c2w0enppY3RxY2sx
BVMLTT, H/T KARE 11 news.
https://pix11.com/news/local-news/nyc-snow-shoveling-jobs-available-after-blizzard-how-to-apply/
Because it's much more important to have multiple forms of ID to vote, than to shovel snow. This ignores the much more obvious question though. Why in the hell is NYC unable to provide basic services to it's citizens?
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DTtMjkXgWKA/?igsh=MTh1N3IyazFrMTh1ZQ%3D%3D
This guy is hilarious, a national treasure.
https://x.com/grey4626/status/2025206778737082733?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Good analysis of how CNN misrepresents/lies about ICE arrests.
https://x.com/thekevindalton/status/2024914058596737431?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Now it's ABC news with the misleading story.
https://x.com/kstp/status/2024730755574755369?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
This, from the local ABC affiliate (real journalism provider) official X account, outlines the newest round of fraud in MN.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/maine-shooting-survivor-confronts-city-council-over-19m-in-diverted-donations/ar-AA1WHhP1
This is becoming normal. Leftists raise money for victims of something, then fail to do what they promise with the funds.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSdnAuoj371/?igsh=Nnk3d2xpcG9zdnJ6
Good question, bad answer.
https://x.com/jihadwatchrs/status/2025076054830817363?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Good take on how disproportionately the "victims" in Gaza get international money, while the victims of other genocides get bopkess.
https://x.com/lamps_apple/status/2025099878213320917?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Good analysis of the 34 felonies narrative and why it's BS.
https://x.com/lamps_apple/status/2025099878213320917?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
I'll say this again, Bill Maher is a liberal who is opposed to what leftists have done to his political philosophy. He's not afraid to speak out against the leftist BS when appropriate. If Dan had this much intellectual consistency it would be so much easier to converse with him. It's likely that he;d write Maher off as a "right wing extremist" or some nonsense.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUD74oTiQEo/?igsh=ZmcyMnFrajAydHUy
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUHil1pjH1c/?igsh=Z3Z6MHJlc3pmN2J5
Speaking of "right wing extremists"...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUbFXmyDGoU/?igsh=MTZwNTY0bWtuMnJ1Zw%3D%3D
Remember when the ASPL actually liked Trump? Strangely enough, he was right way back then.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUn47uCABPr/?igsh=azdydmE5Y3F4cGtp
BVMLTT
https://x.com/westernlensman/status/2024661247296172486?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
To be so upfront about the coming revenge tour while simultaneously bitching about Trump is pretty tone deaf. I suspect Dan endorses this view.
https://x.com/magabarbie317/status/2024467303463575943?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
The ability of DFL politicians to blatantly lie when being interviewed by a MSM reporter, and how the MSM reporters don't hold them accountable is amazing. Fortunately the internet is undefeated on this kind of thing. Pritzker is clearly an idiot.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DU6enuXgch6/?igsh=eDk1a2tjejc5cHpx
BVMLTT
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSnHz2tCnIo/?igsh=MXA2cjY0a2NjYmhqcQ%3D%3D
BVMLTT
https://x.com/swipewright/status/2023917774993604915?s=51&t=cLq01Oy84YkmYPZ-URIMYw
Well, the mass shooting narrative takes a hit.
https://x.com/lxeagle17/status/2023746176022151623
For some reason, the DFL seems to be choosing to take the 20% side in multiple 80/20 issues. One can't help but wonder why they so aggressively choose to ignore what the vast majority of Americans want.
https://defend612.com/event/jury-nullification-training/
And the ASPL decide to go all in on undermining the US legal system. They are literally encouraging people to lie during jury selection to affect trial outcomes without regard to the evidence.
https://x.com/LeadingReport/status/2022811529523888374
The DFL internal polling must be looking disastrous. Of course the question that should be asked is why P-BO didn't do this during his 8 years in offoce.
So, Dan's got his panties in a wad about this "Board of Peace" and is convinced that it will be more corrupt then the ONGs in MN and the MN state government. Which would be quite a feat.
Strangely enough, I don't recall him getting nearly this panty wadded when the Clintons ad their cronies fleeced billions, and left Haiti worse than when they came.
FWIW, I don't see much difference in principle between this and how the US dealt with Germany, Italy, and Japan after WW2. We spend vast sums of money to rebuild the countries of the aggressors as well as their economies as well as offered them US military protection.
But somehow this plan to rebuild Gaza for the aggressor is the most corrupt, evil, plan ever.
Honestly, I'm ambivalent at best about the whole thing. The likely outcome is millions of dollars given to a terrorist organization who will spend most of it on preparations to destroy Israel.
We've god 10's of millions in fraud in MN alone, GA acknowledging voter fraud, MN state officials engaged in bribery and insurrection, NYC is imploding, and we're waiting for fraud numbers from the rest of the blue states, and this is what has Dan's panties in a twist. Because Dan has been pretty consistent in ignoring problems that aren't directly in the US.
Priorities.
