By calling ourselves progressive, we
mean that we are Christians who:
Have found an approach to God through the life and
teachings of Jesus;
Recognize the faithfulness of other people who have
other names for the way to God's realm, and acknowledge that
their ways are true for them, as our ways are true for us;
Understand the sharing of bread and wine in Jesus's name
to be a representation of an
ancient vision of God's feast
for all peoples;
Invite all people to participate in our community and
worship life without insisting that they become like us in
order to be acceptable (including but not limited to):
believers and agnostics,
conventional Christians and questioning
skeptics,
women and men,
those of all sexual orientations and gender
identities,
those of all races and cultures,
those of all classes and abilities, and
those who hope for a better world and those who
have lost hope;
Know that the way we behave toward one another and
toward other people is the
fullest expression of what we
believe;
Find more grace in the search for understanding than we
do in dogmatic certainty--more
value in questioning than in
absolutes;
Form ourselves into communities dedicated to equipping
one another for the work we feel called to do: striving for
peace and justice among all people, protecting and restoring
the integrity of all God's creation, and bringing hope to
those Jesus called the least of his sisters and brothers;
and
Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and
entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and
renunciation of privilege.
