Understanding The Span Of The Progressive Christian Label

Last week I wrote two back-to-back posts dealing with Christian labels, and how there are things about both the Evangelical and Progressive Christian label that I have a hard time with (I guess this post makes it a series on labels), though I love and identify with much from both groups. Both articles generated good discussions on multiple levels, as it seems I’m not alone in feeling like today’s Christian labels are inadequate in capturing my faith in a word or two.

There was particularly interesting (good) discussion surrounding the Progressive Christian label– though there was a lot of discussion of who is in and who is out. This brought to mind how broad the label actually is, with different groups defining the boundaries differently from their individual perspectives.

When I take into consideration all the discussion and step back to look at the label from 50,000 feet, I see a label that has grown and morphed into something that encompasses several different groups of people- thus the rub between folks who are trying to decide who is, and who is not, a Progressive Christian. As a result, I wanted to do a follow-up post on how I see this label currently functioning within American Christian culture, to help folks understand how broad of a category “Progressive Christian” actually is. (This is all based simply on my own observations, so if I’m wrong on any count, I’m fine with that.)

First, an incredibly reduced and over-simplified view of American Christian history.

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