Progressive

I've been a member of Crossleft for over a year now. In that span of time I've learned a lot about an alternative more progressive view of Christianity from reading the posts of the regular bloggers. During this past year, Crossleft has had insightful and sometimes heated discussions on the election season, the religious right, cultural issues, poverty issues, and the responsibility of christians to take on the social issues of this country. Every morning after preparing some oatmeal and feeding the cats, I turn on the computer and one of the first sites I start reading is Crossleft. My wife thinks I'm addicted.

My new book Since My Last Confession: A Gay Catholic Memoir is now available.  Publishers Weekly described it so: “A lighthearted memoir . . . Pomfret elucidates the eventual resolution of his spiritual crises with considerable integrity and manages to present sympathetic portraits of clergy, biting satires of church practices, and a nuanced rendering of a church and congregation considering its role in a changing world. . . . Unfailingly lively.” Set primarily in Boston during the revelations of the Scandal and the battle over same-sex marriage and gay adoptions, Confession is a funny-but-faithful account of my stalking Cardinal Sean O’Malley of the Archdiocese of Boston.  As a federal prosecutor and practicing Catholic, I was attempting to use lawyerly persuasion to change the cardinal's tune.  What I found along the way was a passionately atheist boyfriend, a host of motorcycle lesbians, gay priests, flaming friars, pious prelates, would-be Opus Dei homosexual monks, three “Hale” Marys, Harry Potter’s Satanism, and ten surefire ways to detect a fellow gay Catholic.   

In an interview with the Comics Journal in 1988, Jules Feiffer, the political satirist, said:

"I've always seen liberals as people who've taken radical ideas, whether from socialists or communists, finding ways of redefining them, relabeling them, reforming them, compromising them, and then improving the society with them. And the liberal's job generally has been to process and homogenize the more radical notions out there for some time and make them acceptable to the mass society. And to that extent, liberals have played an important part. That liberals innovate anything is questionable. But that they innovate anything worth innovating is doubtful. The innovation comes from more radical sources generally."

This is something that I've been coming across a lot lately in books and documentaries about progressives history: the interdependence between the radical and more moderate wings of a progressive movement. In the women's suffragist movement, for instance, Elizabeth Cady Stanton provided many of the arguments and radical ideas on women's equality that society later adopted, but Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone did the dirty work of building coalitions of more moderate and conservative people for the immediate goal of getting women the right to vote. In the book "Izzy: A Biography of I.F. Stone", author Robert C. Cottrell wrote of the New Deal:

This is something that I was just curious about. What are the things that influenced all of you to become Progressive? Was it books that you read, experiences that pushed you in a Progressive position, heroes that you admire? How far to the left do think you have to be to be considered Progressive? If you were influenced by the Bible to a Progressive position, what parts of the Bible played the most important role in you becoming Progressive?

I'm just wondering if this would be of interest because I'm realizing that everyone has some very individual views on being a Progressive. Donny gave his own personal definition, NYGaribaldi talked about the difference between liberalism and socialism, Bill talked about his influences from the Green Party and sources like ZMagazine. David talked about how instead of a large tent, Progressive Christians may be more like little tents that clump together and that seems appropriate to me.

I received an encouraging word today about the ongoing postings. The person reminded me that even in the OT most prophets were not welcomed either because the truth that they brought clashed with what the people wanted to hear. Sage words indeed. Perhaps I have been mis-focused. I have been concerned about sounding polite (no laughs) and how the word I bring would be received instead of being concerned about who has given me the word to bring. I will try to not make that same mistake in this thread.

I have been writing politically and Christian-based articles for several years now on opednews. I have called myself a Christian Progessive before it was mainstream. I walked to the steps of the Capital with Jim Wallis to pray for this country and sincerely believe that Mr. Wallis is a desperately needed voice in America. I was invited over here by Eileen and have enjoyed some of the exchange here, although I have not had the time i would have liked to dive in.

As a member of the TIKKUN [Hebrew for heal, mend and transform the world] community of supporters, I was encouraged to learn its founder and visionary Rabbi Lerner has visited this site.

In his honor I offer you my experience at TIKKUN'S first conference for spiritual progressives very slightly fictionalized: everything happened just as reported, but I told it through the fictional character of Jack Hunter, for I am an Irish American dissenter and story teller.

THE REVOLUTION HAS BEGUN…

“The Revolution starts now, when you rise above your

Last Sunday Christians everywhere celebrated Pentecost. As the book of the Acts of the Apostles tell us, fifty days after Easter Jews of all nationalities were gathered together in Jerusalem each speaking their own languages and suddenly the Spirit descended upon them as flames literally enlightening them (a la light bulbs flashing above their heads) and instantaneously they were able to communicate with one another and finally be able to really hear and understand each other. We often celebrate this as the birth of the church.