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During the 1990's a reform movement began to take shape in the United States as reports showed dramatic decline in attendance at mainline churches. The vision was to create an organization that encouraged churches to focus their attention on those for whom organized religion had proven to be "ineffectual, irrelevant, or repressive."
From this beginning has grown an international network of autonomous Progressive Christianity associations that includes the United States of America, South Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Ireland, and Canada. Various Christian groups, churches and individuals join these associations while others like The Cowichan Centre for Progressive Christianity choose to borrow and share the ideas and tenets without becoming a formal part of an organization.
Organizing, leading to institutionalization has led the Christian church(s) down the path of Empire until the institution replaces the message as the primary reason for being. Inevitably it also leads to exclusivity as each institution becomes more and more sure that they are the only "True" church and the only purveyors of the "True" message.
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By calling ourselves "Progressive Christians", we mean that . . . . .
- . . . we have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
- . . . we recognize the faithfulness of other people who have other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us.
- . . . we embrace the freedom and responsibility to examine traditional Christian practices and beliefs, acknowledging the human construction of religion, to draw from diverse sources of wisdom and in the light of conscience and contemporary learning to adjust our views and practices accordingly.
- . . . we centre our faith on values that affirm the sacredness and interconnectedness of all life, the inherent and equal worth of all persons, and the supremacy of love expressed actively in our lives as compassion and social justice.
- . . . we find more meaning in searching for understanding than believing in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes.
- . . . we form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace, equality and justice for all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of God's creation, in short, building the Kingdom of God, here on Earth.
- . . . we invite all people to participate in our faith community without insisting that they become like us (including but not limited to): believers, agnostics, conventional Christians and questioning skeptics, women, men and those of all sexual orientations and gender identities, people of all races, cultures, classes and abilities, those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope.
- . . . we recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil and renunciation of privilege yet we commit to journeying together regardless. We will do our best to ensure that our ongoing growth is characterized by honesty, integrity, openness, respect, intellectual rigor, courage, creativity, and balance.
. . . . . read the Wikipedia entry about the wider world of Progressive Christianity
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The Cowichan Centre for Progressive Christianity will be running fall and winter programs to help anyone who would like to explore Progressive Christianity. A schedule of the current series of programs is available here.
Some websites and articles about Progressive Christianity:
The Canadian Centre for Progressive Christianity
This is the organization that the progressive nature of community life at CCPC draws from.
The Center for Progressive Christianity
Headquartered is the USA, this is a pioneer organization.
Anglicans look to 'emerging church' to heal wounds
A 2007 article in the Ottawa Citizen about the Anglican Church of Canada and the Emerging Church movement.
WonderCafe
A progressive approach to Christianity from The United Church of Canada.
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