Alisa Childers in her book Another Gospel?: A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity, makes a fundamental error about Progressive Christianity. It is that Progressive Christianity is one thing.
As I say in “A Progressive Christian Declaration”:
“Progressive Christianity is not a unified group, but a movement that seeks to be honest with the evidence of science, history, and modern scholarship.”
But the response to this evidence is varied, ranging from conservative adjustments to a radical abandoning of core Christian doctrines. So to paint Progressive Christianity with a broad brush as another gospel is unfair.
Unlike the pastor she uses as a representative of Progressive Christianity, I am not an agnostic. I believe in the Virgin birth of Christ. I believe in the resurrection of Christ. I believe in the atonement. And I believe the Bible is given by the inspiration of God and contains all things needed for our salvation.
That is not another gospel, that is the essential doctrines handed down by the historical church. Alisa Childers picture of Progressive Christianity is a caricature, because it is “a picture, description, or imitation of a person in which certain striking characteristics are exaggerated in order to create a comic or grotesque effect” (Oxford English Dictionary).
So to say that Progressive Christians believe this, or deny that, or the like, is simply incorrect. Rather, they should say that some Progressive Christians believe this, or deny that. Because not all do. In fact, there is a growing group of Progressive Christians who believe that the Nicene Creed should form the foundational understanding of what Christianity is.
