Progressive/Liberal Christians ... check on in.

:hi:

But I never thought of myself as particularly liberal until the Reich wing started trying to hijack Christianity.

checking in anyway. :)

BTW, Jesus was a Marxist, so fuck you Falwell. You too, Robertson.

Raised Lutheran but gradually drifted over to the Episcopal Church.

but since my recent trip to Ireland I am leaning toward Celtic Christian.

<http://anamchara.com/whatiscelticspirituality.htm>

and very happy with it.

your are allowed to disagree with your minister and fellow congregation

Thank God (literally) for this, perhaps we can have a somewhat safe place to discuss this!

I'm sick of seeing my faith trashed because of the radical exploits of a vocal minority.

:-)

Kinda have my own spin on the religion stuff.

Anyone read Katherine Norris?

interviewed on BookNotes or some such program -- good, lengthy interview with no commercial breaks. I'd like to read her book about her time as a cloistered contemplative but haven't so far. What do you recommend of hers?

P.S. Please sign in on my Catholic & Orthodox thread in this forum, too. And welcome to DU! :hi:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

:hi:

n/t

-------------------------------------
Would Jesus love a liberal? You bet!
http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

:hi:

Episcopal

Our minister is just as disgusted by bush as I am.

:hi:

Dean is a Congregationalist and the UCC put out a letter supporting him in the primaries. ;)

We sang "We Shall Overcome" in church last week and it was really meaningful.

Raised as a nominal Baptist; rarely went to church. Now I just call myself a non-denominational Christian. I don't have a church right now, but I was thinking of trying United Methodist. What does anyone know about Unitarian? Is it considered a "Christian" church?

Frogtutor

They don't believe in the Trinity or the divinity of Christ. United Methodists are much more similar to Baptists in theology, but more liturgical.

Welcome to DU! :hi: Though I was raised Presbyterian, I attended Baptist Sunday School a lot as a kid -- very good for learning the Bible! I always felt that I belonged in the Catholic faith, though, so I joined some fifteen years ago. Plenty of liturgy there!

fellowship within the denomination.
http://www.uua.org/uucf/

In addition, there is also the American Unitarian Conference - which is not a part of the UUA. These are traditional Christian Unitarians

These congregations are few and far between, and they reccomend finding a UUA congregation with a Christian fellowship or finding a Disciples of Christ Church (my denomination)if you can't find one.

I was a UU for 5 years, but the congregation we were in did not have an active Christian fellowship, and a lot of the people were pretty anti-Christian in that particular congregation. Disciples is a good fit for me.

I go to a Methodist church, but first and foremost I am a Christian. That to me matters much more than denomination.

:hi:

It is good to know that there are many others here too.

:wave:

:hi:

:hi:

which was the denomination I was raised in.

My husband and I both grew up in the UMC, but we're happy in the DoC now. Our congregation (Memorial Christian Church, DoC, in Ann Arbor) is pretty left-leaning and very active in social/justice.

:hi:

:hi:

Liberal politically and liberal theologically. ;-)

I don't feel welcome in the Christian community, though.

Christian community?

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

I'd add John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X.

:hi: to all my fellow progressive Christians!

My grandfather, father, 2 uncles and 2 cousins were all ministers (Presbyterian) so I couldn't escape it if I tried!

I'm definitely a mainliner, and sometimes have a short fuse when thinking about manipulative fundamentalist leadership in this country...

Just let me (or us) know what we can do...OK, Mz Molly?

living in a republican town going to church with lots of moderate republicans... thank God for my liberal Pastors.
One is retiring and I am a little afraid of getting a conservative associate to replace her.

with you again.

I hope we can all post stuff once in awhile because I've seen lots of good stuff from DUers who see through all the fundamentalist stuff - including those who don't claim to be Christians.

BTW, did you hear about this yet? I don't know what to think of it:

http://www.pcusa.org/pcnews/2004/04508.htm

Thanks for your reply!

I wonder if it was sent by a pissed of Orthodox Jew, a nutcase right wing fundamentalist christian or some prankster. I am going to guess no one would take that risk to pull a prank, so I take this very seriously.

Good Kerry memories of the Democratic Convention. Sigh.

I grew up mainstream Protestant and then did a lot of spiritual exploring. I don't know what to call myself now, but I'm mixture of Unitarian, Religious Science (not to be confused with Christian Science), shaman, neopagan, Taoist, Buddhist, a touch of Hindu, with Jewish and Christian mysticism thrown in.

I no longer really call myself a Christian, but my spirituality is still all grounded in my Christian upbringing. If forced to choose one name, I pick neopagan or shamanistic.

Perhaps oddly, for over 40 years, I've studied the book of Revelation, sometimes quite intensely and sometimes dropping it for years, and I concluded that the fundies got it completely wrong. In fact, my username here "hvn_nbr_2" refers to the second, closing vision of heaven in Rev, which contrasts sharply with the opening vision of heaven. Basically, the first heaven is fundie heaven with God on a throne up in the sky, isolated from people and "watching us from a distance," sending out thunder, lightning, fear, pain, and destruction, and the second heaven is liberal-hippie-peace-love-healing heaven down here on earth. Everything in between in the story tells how religion evolves from a fear-based religion to a love-based religion. Someday I'm going to write a book about this, but so far, I've never been able to get anyone to listen to it. Fundies are set on their own view and won't listen to anything else, and non-fundies run away screaming as soon as you say the word Revelation.

That is, I aspire to be more like Jesus, who, I believe, is exactly what he described himself to be.

:7

Not to be flippant, but is Minnesota now considered the "left coast?"

;-)

I now live on the "left coast" of a lake. :-)

Raised Irish Catholic, experimented with norse heathenry, mostly unitarian now.

I actually took a break from DU because I couldn't resist responding to Christian-bashers. Somebody emailed me about this forum and I'm excited it's here!

:hi:

I'm looking for a good denomination for a liberal christian. I'm looking for denominations that encourage worldwide peace, and acceptance among all kinds of people. My current church definitely does not do that (I go to a very conservative UCC church).

my impression of the Methodist churches around here is that they seem to be fairly liberal, as well as walking the walk and talking the talk. You'll prolly get some good ideas, though, if you hang around. :)

my father is a fundamentalist protestant, and I have a secular education in philosophy and religious studies. I love religious plurality :)

a lot of variety within denominations, so it's not really an easy question to answer. Episcopal, Lutheran (some synods!), Methodist... obviously some UCC, Unitarian Universalist... the list goes on, but you'd need to check out the particular church to know.

Doesn't help much at all, does it? ;)

...are some of the more liberal Christians I know of. They are also very committed to the peace movement. Are known as pacifists - many - being conscientious objectors during wars.

Mennonites are big on peace issues also.


You may wish to check out beliefnets 20 questions:

http://www.beliefnet.com/story/76/story_7665_1.html

option for you from what you describe.

when asked about religion I like to say that I am a follower of the teachings of Jesus the master.
after all it is the teachings of Jesus that is liberal and progressive, or at least in these days it would be called that.

:hi:

Up until 2 years ago was a life long Methodist...recently switched to Disciples of Christ. A few differences, but for the most part Methodist, Presbyterian and Disciples seem very similar.

n/t

:hi:

;)

hate organized religion, currently a very liberal Presbyterian, married to an extremely liberal presby minister, grew up nominally Episcopalian. It's quite a ride being a minister's wife and disliking church! Jesus was a radical lefty, and I get disturbed with how his message has been distorted and twisted over the past 2000 years.

Glad to be here. We've started an interfaith group working toward activism on issues like the Iraq occupation, economic and social justice, election reform, etc. in our bible belt red state. The group is in its infancy but there's lots of energy and amazingly 70 people showed up for our initial meeting.

Any one with grassroots organizational experience here? This is our first foray into the adventure and advice/links would be very much appreciated. We're checking into affiliation with the national Interfaith Alliance as we like their message and inclusiveness.

:hi: