Many of us didn’t go looking for progressive Christianity. We simply found ourselves standing in the rubble of a faith that stopped making sense.
Some of us outgrew fear-based religion while others were pushed out. Some stayed as long as we could until honesty demanded we leave.
Wherever you are in that journey, if you’re searching for something real, spacious and rooted in Love rather than fear, then you deserve a clear picture of what progressive Christianity is—not the stereotypes, not the headlines, just the heart of it.
Here’s my quick reference guide to some of its central beliefs.
- We believe God is Love, not a distant evaluator.
Many of us grew up with a God who always felt slightly disappointed in us, a God with a clipboard and conditional affection. Progressive Christianity begins elsewhere— with the conviction that God is Love.
Not a soft, sentimental love, but a fierce, healing, justice-seeking Love. The kind that leans in when the world falls apart.
Most of us didn’t leave Christianity because we stopped believing; we left because the version we were handed no longer resembled Love.
- Jesus shows us what Love looks like in human form.
Jesus matters profoundly here, not because he grants spiritual exemptions, but because he lived a life that reveals who God is.
He touched people no one else would touch. He confronted systems others feared.
He told the truth even when it cost him. And he did all of it as a fully human person—tired, hungry, grieving and hopeful.
Progressive Christians follow Jesus not to feel superior but because his way of being human leads toward wholeness.
- The Bible is a living conversation and we’re invited into it.
One grief many folks carry after leaving rigid religion is losing the Bible we once loved. We were taught to read it as if it fell from the sky, polished and perfect.
Progressive Christianity sees scripture as a sacred library full of people doing their best to name God and understand life in the world they actually inhabited. They question, argue, contradict, and that, strangely, is part of its beauty.
We don’t pretend every verse carries the same weight. We ask honest questions: Does this passage lead to compassion? To liberation? To justice? To love?
If not, then we wrestle with it, trusting that God can handle our questions far better than our silence.
- Salvation is about becoming whole, not escaping earth.
Many of us were taught that salvation was mostly about where we’d go after death. Progressive Christianity is more interested in how we live now.
The biblical word translated “saved” can also mean healed and made whole. Understood this way, salvation becomes something practiced in community rather than earned by belief.
It shows up in tending our wounds and one another’s, dismantling harmful systems and learning to live as if the world actually matters to God.
Faith isn’t about escaping this life. It’s about transforming it.
- Those pushed to the margins teach the rest of us who God is.
Progressive Christianity doesn’t treat justice as an optional cause. It’s the lens through which we understand faith.
If those most harmed by religion or society aren’t thriving, our faith isn’t thriving.
The people long excluded (LGBTQ+ siblings, disabled folks, communities of color, immigrants, women tired of being silenced) aren’t outsiders to tolerate. They are theologians of their own experience. Their wisdom reshapes our understanding of God.
Wherever Love is showing up among those shut out, that’s where we expect to meet the Divine.
- Other religions hold wisdom too and that doesn’t threaten our faith.
Many of us were raised to fear other religions. Progressive Christianity takes a different posture.
We believe God is bigger than our borders, bigger than our language, bigger than our certainty. Jesus himself pointed to outsiders (e.g. Samaritans, foreigners, people of other traditions) to teach his followers what faithfulness looks like. If he could learn from them, certainly we can too.
Curiosity about other religions isn’t unfaithful. It’s a sign that our faith is still alive.
A final word for the weary, the hopeful, and the rebuilding
Progressive Christianity isn’t a perfect tradition. It doesn’t need to be. It’s simply trying to tell the truth—about who God is, who we are, and what Love asks of us.
If your faith has been stretched thin or torn entirely, there’s room here. Room for questions, honesty, grief, wonder and more than anything, room for you.
Because progressive Christianity isn’t about having all the right beliefs. It’s about showing up, choosing Love, and joining the ongoing work of making the world (and ourselves) a little more whole.
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Rev. Dr. Mark Sandlin is a Presbyterian Church (USA) minister who currently serves at the Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Greensboro, North Carolina. He is the President and Co-Executive Director of ProgressiveChristianity.org.