William Barber is heroic.

For a very long time, it's been apparent to me that, by and large, black leaders have to have a divinity degree to be considered credible, legitimate--to have moral authority and not appear to be bomb-throwers and white-hating revolutionaries--by masses of black people and working-class whites, many of whom are churchgoing.

I suspect getting ordained and leading a church may be political for some of them, like Obama's "Christianity." (I'm pretty sure that, as the highly rational intellectual Obama is, he does not actually subscribe to Christianity's dogma of its miracles and magical thinking.)

However, it's disappointing when someone you otherwise admire seems to actually subscribe to ridiculous religious beliefs.

I can admire the people if they do good things and work on things I agree with. I don't have to admire their religious beliefs to accomplish that.

Does a progressive Christian really exist like a progressive Muslin? Not all atheists and agnostics truly liberal or open-minded in progressive causes!

@Admin, can we insure that #athiest is eliminated in favor of #atheist? Up to this point the hashtags have been automatically produced, so I am not ascribing this typo to anyone -- most likely an early typo was picked up by an algorithm and turned into the standard spelling because the computer didn't know any better.

How can I not? My father, my late mother, and the youngest of my three elder sisters was/are all devout progressive Christians. The three of them were the most influential people in my first twenty years, shaping my values tremendously, and, of course, have remained influential to this day.

Four generations now of my family have been a blend of atheists and progressive Christians; we continue to learn from one another as people and never let our faith or unbelief get in the way of our ability to communicate. I always wanted to be the father that my father was to me, and the fact that he was a minister did not change that intent when I left the faith at 22 -- my elder brother and I turned out atheist, but that had no apparent impact upon our relationship with our parents -- and that, of course, is as it should be; ideally that should be the experience of every member here -- that isn't why I admire my parents or my sister per se -- rather, that is simply the foundation of what has made the admiration possible.

As others have said, it isn't what you believe that matters, but what you do in this life, what you convey, and how you are remembered. Yes, I consider the Christianity they sought to teach us to be a delusion, but otherwise most of my most fundamental values I learned from them.

I have never been able to comprehend how you can be a progressive. To do it there are things in the NT that are said to be sayings of Jesus that they have to ignore or take "allegorically".

I don't know anything about Progressive Christians. I dislike their system of indoctrination. However, Progressive Christians might be the only hope/key to stop this insane combination of Politics and Religion. The only way this insane Christianity can be stopped is by other Christians that speak their language and using the bible.

Absolutely! My daughters dads (plural) go weekly, I adore the minister and his wife. Reverend Shockley baptized our daughter and married her dads, his congregation are very progressive activists. For the LGBT community, immigrants (DACA), womens reproduction rights, black lives matter to name a few. The Reverend and his wife asked me to stay with them when I’m in town,and they know I’m not a Christian. Genuinely beautiful people.

We can coexist, but you have to want to.

[pilgrimucc.org]

Some of them are ok, I guess. I personally don't admire any Christian. They have their life to live and I have mine to live.

Yes and No. Yes, admire the good deeds that they do to help society. No, because in the end being a progressive christian or moderate christian only serves to provide cover for the fundamentalists and extremists to feel justified pushing their religion on the rest of us. None of the good things that christians do are based on a belief in a god. The good things they do are good because they are morally virtuous and after the good deed is done they slap the christian label on it and claim its due to their religion. So if the admiration is from judging their moral acts then ok, but if they take the next step to say they're morality comes from the great jiggly puff in space then I would find them less admirable to some degree.

Of course we can! John Shelby Spong's books really jump startedcthe end of my theistic faith.