Encouraging Personal Exploration Would Be More Important than Communal Uniformity

The 10 Commandments of Progressive Christianity

Does Christianity stifle free thinking? Is the church just interested in protecting its own authority? Why or why not?

Was/is Jesus in favor of “spiritual exploration” and “quite comfortable with independent thought and action”? Why or why not?

Are churches that hold firmly to certain truths mean-spirited and vindictive?

Are those who question doctrine and biblical truths heroic for fighting doctrine and church authority?

Was Jesus a doctrine fighter and biblical truth denier? Did He question church authority or teaching?

Does belief in absolute truth matter for a Christian?

“While communal uniformity might help assimilate people into a fellowship, it too often reduces people to mindless imitators, ultimately robbing the community of the intellectual vitality and diversity it needs to grow and evolve. Churches primarily concerned with communal uniformity encourage spiritual inbreeding, where theological DNA is replicated over and over, forstering spiritual deformity. This might be the greatest danger of communal uniformity - it discourages, if not outright forbides, the progression of a healthy faith.” -Philip Gulley, If the Church Were Christian, p.108

What is ‘communal uniformity’?

Do you agree with Philip Gulley’s assessment of the the Church? Why or why not?

Is the Christianity about finding God or about God who has revealed Himself? What is the difference, if any?

Do you feel being pulled between the choice of oppressive conformity and personal exploration in your life in the Church and your relationship with Christ?

“What if the church understood itself less as the conveyor of an unchangable truth and more as a community of seekers, eager to think, grow, and explore?” -Philip Gulley, Ibid, p.110-111

Do you agree with Gulley’s view? The Church should be less about absolute truth and more about personal exploration? What could Gulley’s view possibly lead to?

Do you feel that the church has imposed it’s theological worldview upon you? (Gulley, ibid, p. 112)

What is more important to teach: How to think or what to think? Why?

Should content be sacrificed for process?

Are teachers and pastors responsible for their congregations spiritual formation? Why or why not?

“Were communal uniformity a priority for Jesus, he would never have felt liberated to suggest another way of living.” -Gulley, Ibid., p.117

Did Jesus suggest a different way of living to what the Father already established?

Gulley suggests that Jesus was not keen on orthodoxy and never made “thus-sayeth-the-Lord pronouncements”, but instead used “stories, parables, and questions, letting his hearers arrive at some great truth at their own pace” (Ibid., p.117). Do you agree? Why or why not?

Does God expect His followers to “regurgitate past platitudes that have lost their meaning and vigor” or consider the reality of God in other ways (Ibid., p.118)?

When Jesus asked His disciples, “Who do you say that I am?”, was Jesus inviting them to do?

What do you think is the most important task of a pastor, or church leader, towards the Church community?

What kind of community do you believe he/she is responsible to create, if anything?

“Perhaps the most important task of a spiritual guide is to help create a community where people can safely reevaluate their beliefs.” -Gulley, Ibid., p.118

Being slavishly committed to uniformity to the expense of personal exploration is bad? Why or why not?