GOD IS PROGRESSIVE!

I just listened to a sermon by CGI's Seth Forrestier titled Progressive Christianity. The thesis of his message was that the Christian religion is inherently progressive in nature. This, of course, was juxtaposed to the reality that many Christians today consider themselves to be both politically and theologically very conservative in their opinions and beliefs. Forrestier, however, pointed out that the objective of the Christian life is improvement and moving toward perfection - that Jesus Christ has redeemed us from our sinful past. In other words, Christians definitely should NOT be averse to change or desirous of wanting to return to their previous sinful lives!

In thinking about the very logical and meaningful points that Seth was making, it occurred to me that most of us also tend to emphasize the conservative nature of God - that God: doesn't change, seeks to restore His government to this earth, and humanity to a right relationship with Himself. Nevertheless, although that view of God has obvious merit, it also ignores a great deal of the other things that both Scripture and Creation reveal about the progressive nature of God. For instance, the Bible reveals to us that God decided at some point to create the material universe and humanity - that's a major change by anyone's standard. Moreover, the entire notion of saving humanity from their sins is progressive in nature. Moreover, the fact that the material world is constantly evolving and changing is the antithesis of conservative. In other words, Scripture and nature teach us that God is always moving forward - toward the fulfillment of His plans/objectives.

Indeed, as Forrestier pointed out in his message, Christ's parables of the pounds and talents suggest that God does not want his people to tread water and just seek to conserve what has been entrusted to their care. In other words, these parables of Christ clearly imply that God expects his people to grow/add to what he has entrusted to their care! Hence, just as we can see value in seeing God's laws and purpose as immutable/unchanging/eternal, we should also be able to see the value of viewing God's nature as progressive! Unfortunately, we tend to be very dualistic or black/white in our thinking. We tend to see things in terms of either/or - conservative or progressive. We ignore shades of gray and tend to be color blind. In the language of logic, this is referred to as a FALSE DILEMMA! In other words, we tend to limit God to our own narrow understanding and views of these things. Nevertheless, as is consistent with the theme of this blog, God is NOT limited or contained by the things that limit and contain us!