Progressive Anglican Blog

Perhaps you someone who has held to the same beliefs with mostly little change, perhaps you either had a radical change where you became a Christian from another religion or no religion at all. Perhaps it is vice versa. Or perhaps you may be like me, a person who now holds to different beliefs from that which I once held to. I used to hold to highly conservative (and at times fundamentalist leaning) Christian perspectives on Christian faith and practice. Some beliefs I am not proud to have held to such as predestination and a far more judgemental attitude towards people who held to non-Christian views or views which were in strong disagreement from my own. For this I am sorry. Yes, I do apologise a lot. Indeed, I have had my beloved wife, others tell me to stop apologising since I have a habit of apologising a lot. Well, isn’t that what I do as a good Christian apologist? Bad joke. I have said that I was ‘sorry for saying sorry…about being sorry’! But seriously, a 'Christian apologist' by the way isn’t really a Christian who goes around saying sorry about everything. Instead, a Christian apologist (from the Greek word Apologia meaning defence) is someone who defends the faith and I try to make a defence (or an apology in another sense of the word) for my faith as someone who is a Christian church attendant interested in Christian ministry by the grace of God.

Overtime, I have evolved in my thinking to the point I have embraced for example evolution as the means of how the world came into being, and also different views on God's sovereignty to help address the problem of evil when a good God exists. In the future, I will post on things like that. I have been deconstructing my old faith - a bit like tearing up from the floor an old smelly nailed-in carpet - and nailing in a new carpet onto the floor - or in other words rebuilding my faith perspective. This particular crisis of faith I experienced occured after I developed married my wife who showed me a little more about life than I already knew. It challenged existing beliefs and I felt that I had to explore other ones which was a process that occured, not overnight but over a couple of years. A sense of anxiety may sometimes come upon yourself as you may worry you are sinning against God but soon it eases as you know it is the anxiety arising from previous beliefs about doctrine. What doctrine can I hold to without being judged or where is the point where I may lose my faith and become an 'unbeliever?' In my experience this is normal and I experienced this. However, the end result wasn't me abandoning faith altogether, not even partially (whatever that looks like) to go to another religion or no religion at all. Instead, I landed into a tradition of Christianity that wasn't 'evangelical', not overly dogmatic except on essentials, very open, seeking to be honest and loving as all Christians should, willing to grow and change in our faith towards being more Christ-like, and willing to listen to what others say. It is called Progressive Christianity. So yes, I am no longer 'evangelical' but am still Christian.

A Conservative Evangelical in my definition can be a subset of evangelicalism where someone who holds to a more ridged view of a particular set of traditions and doctrines that they consider to be biblical. They will defend such a doctrine from primarily Scripture and sometimes are sceptical of certain modern scientific findings - for example the evolutionary scientific consensus. They may have a view on belief in the end times which may at times be apocalyptic or dramatically pessimistic and are very conservative socially (a more exclusive stand on salvation in Christ, ridged beliefs, patriarchal, heteronormative, etc.). They do have a very high view of Scripture and generally affirm an arguably correct perspective displayed in the Apostles, Nicene, Athanasian creeds. Now, what caused me to move away from a more fundamentalist position to non-conservative and progressive positions are the following three reasons:

The first reason is how my wife and I have experienced some Conservatives preaching holiness and standards while neglecting other aspects of goodness. This is inconsistency, but I do admit that many Conservative believers would seek to be consistent. I would also extent my critique to include what zi have experienced and seen to be lack of consistency in their theological nuance and pastoral application on certain issues such as preventing known Christians who are non-Protestant from partaking in communion but allowing a stranger who has not stated they are a non-Christian to take communion for example. See the problem? I personally believe in an open table where anyone who seeks to partake in communion worthily and genuinely can take it once they are aware of the significance of communion which is expressed throughout the liturgy of the church

The second reason is through interpreting the Bible in light of church tradition, human reasoning like the use of logic and consistency, and experience such as my own life experiences of God working in my life through learning, through others, and perhaps occasionally through miracle. Experience can include what we feel is right and wrong through our own intuitions.

The third reason I left is due to trying (although many times perhaps failing as no one is perfect) to have more humility in knowledge of what is true or false rather than assuming that my interpretation is necessarily correct.

So like I said before, over time, my faith underwent a significant process of deconstruction and rebuilding (remember the pulling up the carpet analogy). This led me to embrace progressive Christianity, a path where I strive to authentically connect pastorally with people and address questions with honesty and integrity. Currently, I'm also in the process of writing a book that delves into an evolving Christian faith.