Just Faith

Reclaiming Progressive Christianity

Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons

• Publisher: Broadleaf Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN:
  9781506462523
• eBook ISBN:
  9781506462530
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Civics & Citizenship

According to new research from the Public Religion Research Institute, there are over 35 million consistently progressive Christians in the United States. Majorities of American Christians support reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights. Yet they're erased from our public narrative--only mentioned as outliers to the fundamentalist norm.

In Just Faith, progressive Christian activist and writer Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons explains how a strong religious left has accompanied every major progressive advance in our society, and he resurrects the long but forgotten history of progressive Christianity in the United States that can and must link arms with progressive Muslims and Jews to make the moral case for pluralism, human dignity, and the common good. Graves-Fitzsimmons provides a blueprint for this type of resurrection based on his advocacy work at the intersection of religion and American politics. Graves-Fitzsimmons creates a rallying cry for a bold progressive Christianity that unapologetically fights for its values to impact the biggest political battles of our time--from immigration and economic fairness to LGBTQ+ rights and abortion rights--so that progressive Christians will stop lowering their voices when they identify as Christians. "What kind of Christian are you?" they'll be asked. And they'll even be understood when they reply with a smile, "The good kind."

II

Reclaiming Our Tradition

The bold tradition of progressive Christianity has been erased from our public imagination. The progressive movement has been cleansed of any religious motivations and the so-called secular left is pitted against the religious right. No, this book isn’t a eulogy for the tradition we’ve lost, but a plan for how we reclaim it. Reclaiming our tradition requires believing the status quo can be changed. We can contest the meaning of “Christian” in the public square if progressive Christians in the United States come together and do what’s necessary.

While I’ve been thinking about the state of progressive Christianity much of my life, the extent to which we’ve lost our tradition was made plain for me at one particular moment on October 4, 2018. The setting was the headquarters of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland, Ohio. Waiting in the lobby of the building before my meeting, I watched as a person came into the building off the street and approached one of the staff members. He asked, “Is this a church?” The UCC national headquarters staff member responded in a hushed tone, “Yes, but not that kind of a church.”

We are followers of Jesus. And while we should approach our calling with humility, there is no call to cower under the Goliath of conservative Christianity. Just as David had his sling, we need to harness the tools at our disposal. Thank God we’re not starting from scratch!

“Is this a church?” “Do you go to church?” “What are you doing on Sunday?” We’ve all felt the tendency to say, “I’m not that kind of Christian.” The ubiquity of conservative Christians can make us feel lonely and powerless to change our cultural definitions. There’s a good chance if you’re reading this book that you feel being a part of the Jesus movement is important to you. It’s important to me. And being willing to claim that publicly is our call and challenge.

One Gospel image fits the state of progressive Christianity right now: the disciples locking themselves in a room after the crucifixion. John 20 tells us that the disciples were locked inside the room because they feared the religious authorities. Their leader had just been executed in public alongside two common criminals, by the most powerful government the world had ever seen. He said he would return, but how could the disciples trust that?

The fearful and demoralized state of progressive Christianity is warranted. Many American Christians are wondering if Christianity will ever try to look like the love of Jesus. We can draw inspiration from the disciples, who had their hope restored in the Gospel stories by Jesus’s appearance to them after the crucifixion.

All of Jesus’s post-resurrection visits to the disciples are strange, like the Road to Emmaus story, where his own followers don’t recognize him. But in this story, Jesus suddenly appears before his disciples, coming into a locked room and telling them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you” (John 20:21). Jesus breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven” (John 20:22–23, paraphrase).

Yes, Jesus is telling us today, it’sscary out there. But this movement is up to you! Yes, the religious and political leaders are conspiring against us because we are a threat to the empire. Yes, I was just murdered for this revolutionary work. Yes, you might suffer the same fate that I did. And yes, you still have to leave the room. This mission of the Reign of God coming to earth, of the first being last, of setting the captives free, and of calling out the hypocrisy of religious leaders is up to you now!

I’m sure the disciples were worried. And I’m sure Jesus reminded them of what he said during the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:25: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?” And in verses 33 and 34, “But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

We know Jesus reassured the disciples enough that they eventually left the room. They left the room and continued the movement that Jesus started. Jesus sent them, and they went. We’ve seen how, in just the last hundred years of this movement for love and inclusion, Jesus has sent so many people before us. And now, it’s up to all of us.

It’s time to leave the room. We can’t tolerate the mission of Jesus in our country today being associated with the forces of exclusion and bigotry. We are called to leave behind our fear at how the religious leaders and empire are conspiring and follow Jesus. We are called to resist the hijacking of Jesus’s message by conservatives and help reveal the radical nature of Jesus’s ministry and a just faith. The following chapters are about how we can do just that.

8

Consistently Progressive Christians--In Large Numbers

Loneliness plagues many progressive Christians. We feel like we’re the only ones who are trying to follow Jesus’s commandment to love and serve others in a sea of conservative Christians. There is good news on that front. And if there’s one thing you take away from this book, let it be this: We exist. You are not alone. Millions of Americans identify as progressive Christians. In partnership with the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), I have exclusive new data that estimates how many consistently progressive Christians exist in the country, published and seen here for the first time. And . . . surprise!

Measuring the Number of Progressive Christians

There are actually more consistently progressive Christians than consistently conservative Christians in the United States. Thanks to PRRI’s data resources, my estimation is there are over thirty-five million American Christian adults age eighteen and above who are consistently progressive. There are strong contingents of consistently progressive Christians across the different subsets of Christians (white mainline Protestants, black Protestants, Catholics, and white evangelical Protestants) that public opinion polling firms use to break down religious demographics.

There are actually more consistently progressive Christians than consistently conservative Christians in the United States.

What does “consistently progressive” mean? Well, it can mean something different to everyone reading this book. Can you be progressive and support American military intervention abroad or any form of public support for private K–12 education in the United States? It can be helpful for us to debate such thorny questions, but my goal with this data is rather to offer a rough approximation of the number of consistently progressive Christian adults.

One method could be using “Democrat” as a proxy for “progressive.” But that doesn’t quite get at a fuller distinction because there are moderate Democrats. And, more importantly, there’s a widespread misconception that while some portion of Christians in the United States vote for Democratic candidates for various reasons, they are conflicted about the progressive social views of the party, suggesting that “Democrat” may not be a helpful stand-in for “progressive.”

Another approach is looking at political ideology and worship attendance. One recent study broke down the share of American adults using this approach and found that 6% of American adults self-identify as liberal or very liberal and self-report that they attend religious services several times a month or more often. There are shortcomings to this approach as well. There are progressive people of faith who value their religious tradition but don’t attend services regularly for a variety of reasons. Six percent of the adult population is small, but still represents more than millions of Americans across all across the country.^[1]

Estimating the size of a political and social constituency takes a different kind of test, so I set out to develop one for this book. Alongside the faith element, this test combines three issues to determine “progressive” status: women’s reproductive health care, same-sex marriage, and immigration. This doesn’t imply that these three issues are more important politically or morally than others but that abortion and same-sex marriage are issues around which conservative Christians draw their sharp lines. And one other factor has become increasingly determinative of a progressive direction in our political climate: the issue of immigration. It has been the defining issue of Trumpism and consistently cited as one of the most important issues to progressive Christians.

The survey resulted in an intentional approximation of the number of consistently progressive Christians in the United States. Here are several characteristics I believe we all share:

• Thirty-five million American adults who have practically no voice in the mainstream media.
• Thirty-five million American adults who hear public discussion of Christianity and don’t want anything to do with what’s being described.
• Thirty-five million American adults who are ready for change.
• And thirty-five million American adults who likely don’t know there are thirty-five million American adults who share similar religious and political beliefs.

The Public Religion Research Institute provided the following chart based on a survey they conducted in 2018. PRRI polled a random sample of 2,020 adults eighteen years of age or older living in the United States. Among other questions, respondents were asked:

• Do you strongly favor, favor, oppose, or strongly oppose allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry?
• Do you think abortion should be legal in all cases, legal in most cases, illegal in most cases, or illegal in all cases?
• Do you strongly favor, favor, oppose, or strongly oppose allowing immigrants brought illegally to the US as children to gain legal-resident status?

In the exclusive analysis provided here, “consistently liberal” is defined as someone who favors or strongly favors same-sex marriage, says immigrants brought illegally to the US as children should be able to gain legal-resident status, and reports that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.

Percent of Americans Who Are Consistently Liberal by Religious Affiliation
	Percent Consistently Liberal*	Percent of Population	N=
All Americans	32	100	2,020
All Religiously Affiliated	26	74	1,541
White Evangelical Protestant	9	17	364
White Mainline Protestant	31	13	311
Black Protestant	34	8	145
Catholic	30	19	422
Non-Christian Religious**	33	13	221
Unaffiliated	51	24	433
Source: PRRI March 2018 Survey.
* “Consistently liberal” is defined as someone who favors or strongly favors same-sex marriage, says immigrants brought illegally to the US as children should be able to gain legal status, and reports that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. ** Includes Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Unitarians, and adherents of other non-Christian religious traditions.

There were more than 253.79 million adults age eighteen or over living in the US as of 2018 when this survey was conducted.^[2] Based on this poll’s findings, we can estimate there are more than thirty-five mi...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Praise for Just Faith
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• Introduction
• Our Bold Tradition
• Reclaiming Our Tradition
• Acknowledgments
• Notes