By calling ourselves Progressive Christians we:
Have found an approach to God through the life and teachings of Jesus.
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.
Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus' name to be a representation of an ancient vision of God's feast for all peoples
Invite all people to participate in our community and worship life without insisting that they become like us in order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
* believers and agnostics,
* conventional Christians and questioning skeptics,
* women and men,
* those of all sexual orientations and gender identities,
* those of all races and cultures,
* those of all classes and abilities,
* those who hope for a better world and those who have lost hope;
* without imposing on them the necessity of becoming like us.
Know that the way we behave toward one another and toward other people is the fullest expression of what we believe.
Find more grace in the search for understanding than we do in dogmatic certainty - more value in questioning than in absolutes.
Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers
Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege.
Please also explore the Phoenix Affirmations
The public face of Christianity in America today bears little connection to the
historic faith of our ancestors. It represents even less our own faith as
Christians who continue to celebrate the gifts of our Creator, revealed and
embodied in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Heartened by
our experience of the transforming presence of Christ's Holy Spirit in our
world, we find ourselves in a time and place where we will be no longer silent.
We hereby mark an end to our silence by making the following affirmations:
As people who are joyfully and unapologetically Christian, we pledge ourselves
completely to the way of Love. We work to express our love, as Jesus teaches
us, in three ways: by loving God, neighbor, and self.
Click here to read the Phoenix Affirmations
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