-PROGRESSIVIST–A NEW LABEL?
Actually, “progressivist” is in my standard dictionary.
I’ve always been rankled by granting the label “progressive” to those who want to turn classic Christianity on its head. A strong argument can be made that true progress follows the Way of Jesus Christ as understood by orthodox Christianity.
I’m very aware that I snuck in two labels for Christianity as I and well more than a billion souls have received it. Labels are unavoidable unless you want to give tediously full descriptions every time you refer to a person’s position.
So “progressivist” looks like a good one to me. It tags the viewpoint that progress itself (as judged by some group) is the thing. It accurately marks a party in the ecclesial organization formerly known as ECUSA.
An excellent point — but “progressive” has a long, proud history as an ideological label for those whose arrogant and authoritarian social and economic views have led to disaster.
The turn-of-the-(20th)-Century Progressives brought us the income tax, which has allowed government at all levels to grow well beyond any bounds of reason; the Federal Reserve, whose manipulation of the money supply required less than two decades to produce the Great Depression; and Prohibition, which introduced organized crime to American society.
Politically, the label now has been adopted by the diehards who still maintain that Marxism is true and beautiful, and that the problem with Communism was only that its implementors were insufficiently enlightened.
So it would seem to me, since the leadership of ECUSA is (obviously) not Christians trying to do politics, but rather political activists trying to
Do Church, that this label, too, has some application in our ecclesial organization…
Comment by Craig Goodrich — July 7, 2006 @ 1:09 pm
Craig–I was away and your comment got caught in the spam filter for some reason. Thanks for the comment. I guess what I’m trying to do is challenge the legitimacy of the label “progressive.”
Comment by anthill — July 8, 2006 @ 9:35 pm