When I set out to put down on paper my revised beliefs about Jesus, the Bible, and religion I began with What I do not Believe.
It seems to me that the popular movement of progressive theology is at first a demolition of traditional Christian doctrine.
The Fall/Redemption, Penal Substitution, supernatural interpretation of the Bible, which has dominated Christianity since the time of Constantine, is being systematically dismantled.
The cry goes up that we are destroying people's simple faith and if we take that away there is nothing left.
First of all I would say that there is rubble. We can pick and choose what we wish to retain from the rubble.
But even without that what remains is not nothing.
What remains is unconditional love.
The teaching, the theology of unconditional love has always been the bridesmaid not only in Christianity but in all the world's religions.
I believe that what remains, when you strip away the concepts with which we clothe our religious figures, is unconditional love. This is the true religion. And it is universal.
Whether the purveyors of the old religion of fear and guilt will allow this new flower to bloom is problematical. They will not give up their power easily.
What the future holds is yet to be seen.
Photo Credit: chrisheidenreich Flickr via Compfight cc
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