Today’s Fundamentalists Were Once Yesterday’s Progressives

Last updated on: June 6, 2016 at 9:35 pm by Stephen Mattson

Today’s Fundamentalists Were Once Yesterday’s Progressives 2016-06-06T21:35:21+08:00 Stephen Mattson

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A movement is happening, and in its purest form is about one thing: following Christ. This transformation is reshaping the Christian landscape. Believers are starting to simplify their faith in order to exemplify Christ—a simple yet profound way to live out the gospel.

This has become a revolutionary concept and the “new” Christianity is sick of culture wars, political agendas, hypocrisy, and legalistic doctrines. These followers of Jesus prefer inclusion over restriction, dialogue over debate, practice over preaching, and love over judgment. Authentic communities are preferred over institutionalized organizations, and grassroots groups gain wisdom and knowledge from relational interaction, social media, the web, and an array of other sources—there is no monopoly controlling leadership or sources of information.

Previously ignored issues such as systemic injustice, corruption, racism, environmentalism, social justice, equality and human rights are back at the forefront, and the love of Christ is starting to supersede any social, political, or religious agenda.

And while many traditional Evangelicals decry this movement as being shallow, theologically weak, and even heretical, many see it as a step in the right direction—a revolution similar to that of the early church: authentically living out Christ’s model of service, sacrifice, and holistic love.

Progressive change involves excitement, energy, rebellion, and inspiration. But progressive Christianity can quickly devolve into self-righteousness, where the distinct sense of what is right and wrong—the clarity of vision—can turn into elitism and pharisaical hypocrisy.

For modern Christian progressives, it can be an easy temptation to judge Christianity’s past mistakes: They clung too tightly to political organizations, idolized their religious affiliations, publicly berated others, were violent, were bigoted, and refused to engage in meaningful conversations and routinely spewed apocalyptic judgments against those with opposing views.

We see the past and current Evangelical atmosphere as “conservative,” “old-fashioned” and “ignorant.” And while these classifications are often deserved and warranted, what we often fail to understand is that at one point in time, they were just like us—the progressives.

It was only a few decades ago, during the turbulent 60s and 70s, that a similar Christian movement was happening. House churches were forming, Christians were distancing themselves from political and traditional religious institutions, and the idea of loving people in a way that followed the example of Christ was sweeping the nation. Revival was in the air, and it was reshaping the American Christian landscape.

But then the fervor of following Christ subtly changed into distinct ideologies—each with small but nuanced theological differences—that slowly turned into idols. Factions formed based on their preferred beliefs, and these groups were formalized back into “official” churches, organizations and denominations—each seemingly holding an exclusive ownership over what was constituted as “truth.”

These groups then refused to listen to those that went in different directions, the unity was lost, and Christians began to again splinter. The simple idea of following Christ was complicated by vicious and constant infighting, debating, accusing, indoctrinating, propagating, and proselytizing. They craved power, privilege, and the desire to decide what—and who—was right and wrong.

Throughout history we can see Christian communities that were once radically progressive transform into fundamentalist religions.

The first churches to incorporate adult baptism, to change the protocol of communion, to rethink the meanings, methods, and practices of the sacraments, to change the service times, to use contemporary worship, to practice various gifts of the Spirit, to be handicap accessible, to promote women in leadership, to be culturally diverse, to fight government corruption, to champion human rights, to utilize new technology, to abandon legalism and boldly embrace a new way…may now be anti-progressive who have stopped progressing, growing, maturing, and moving towards God.

Perhaps they’re anti-trans, homophobic, anti-refugee, anti-immigrant, or legalistic, and now—for whatever reason—they think things are too “out of control” and “depraved” and want to go back to the “good old days.” So they digress, sacrificing the progressive love of Jesus for the fear of Satan.

I frequently meet people who, once upon a time, were once progressive in their faith within a particular time and place within Christian history, but as Christian understanding, practices, and beliefs continued to progress—they never did.

For current progressives, it’s almost impossible to see the “legalistic fundamentalists” of today as inspired revolutionaries who were once in our shoes—but they were.

When it comes to following Christ, it’s easy to get distracted by things that don’t matter, and Satan is always trying to divide and destroy. This is how something as simple as following Christ’s example becomes a complicated mess filled with thousands of theologies, practices, and conflicting beliefs.

The reality is that our current revolution has happened before, and is actually a movement that is recycled every couple of decades—let this be a somber warning to us. Never stop being humble, always focus on love, and constantly strive to emulate Christ.

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