do you suspect your church might be becoming a progressive christian
church this is madness it's madness i tell you for the love of god
hi beautiful people today we're discussing author and apologist elisa childers you may know her as
the woman that pops up every time you search progressive christianity i am happy to report
that on that search me and my new friend colby martin come up first but we're sandwiched between
ben shapiro's site the daily wire elisa childers and ali b stuckey which are all videos or articles
vilifying the progressive movement that said i thought it was important to speak on elisa because
as people on the deconstruction or reconstruction journey i don't want you to feel afraid and all
three of these sources are attempting to bring more fear and doubt to you on this earnest journey
of discovery and i believe it's because they fear and doubt the progressive movement themselves
which does not have to be your problem so i hope this video will bring you peace as we sift
through elise's problems with progressivism and alisa i dm'd you because i'd love to talk to you
instead of about you in the future before we begin please keep pre-ordering my memoir on her knees
it comes out on april 6th and i just finished recording the audio version and please pick up
some goddess gray merch or consider joining the patreon community past two months we've
had exclusive patreon zoom parties and they've honestly been so much fun last thing i'll say
justin ko and i had a beautiful interview when i was in oregon for jacqueline glenn's wedding
if anyone is curious about my story or wants to learn how to better align their sexuality and
spirituality you will enjoy this interview which i will link below so the brief history of elisa
childers is that she was a singer in the christian band zoe girl so we toured all over the country
and i actually relate to her so deeply when she talks about her connection to divinity from a
young age i've loved the bible as early as i could read and write i would go to church and i would
do the music and worship and i'd feel the goosebumps and you know and i i associated
that with the presence of god that's what made it real to me after her tour with zoe girl it
seems that elisa dipped her toe into a progressive church after seeing the worst of evangelicalism
i kind of saw christians at their worst in the church at its worst sometimes not always but
you know we had some bad experiences and there were things about evangelical culture that were
bothering me now let's be real in many cases pain is what compels us to deconstruct or to
find progressive christianity or to even press in and seek the truth and this is the reason many of
us are generalized as butt hurt or bitter because we woke up to the toxicity of evangelicalism be it
through failed marriages failed leaders modesty culture rape culture misogyny i just don't know
why those men are you know colonization spiritual abuse and financial abuse you need to send in 35
000. if you do not write that p.o box and you do not call that toll-free number your dream will die
i don't know what elisa experienced on tour but i'm assuming it's a combination of these things
my friend lauren deliri formerly of the christian band love collide talks about being overly
sexualized judged for never being good enough pure enough modest enough and how that christian music
culture can wear you down whatever the case may be after tour elisa describes attending a church
that addressed these concerns this church that we were at was kind of addressing those same
concerns and it just felt so authentic here's where it gets sticky for lisa at a certain point
she describes being invited to a small group where she felt there was a bait and switch
the pastor invited me to be a part of a study group that was very small very exclusive and it
was in the context of this group that he revealed that he was an agnostic it almost seems deceptive
right it almost does doesn't it from here elise's journey leads her to apologetics i'm familiar with
apologetics because my dad loves it christian apologetics is rooted in the greek word meaning
verbal defense it's a branch of christian theology that defends christianity against objections
i truly believe the main distinction between apologetics and progressive christianity is
that progressive christians are simply saying hey these beliefs or positions you are defending
happen to be hurting people profoundly not all christian theology that's why we still
identify as christian but the points of contention we've been arguing over
like abortion racism and lgbtq plus issues and my greatest frustration with elisa is that she
seemed to have an experience with a pastor she deemed progressive even though he self-identified
as agnostic and is now considered an expert among conservative voices who are already determined
to debunk minimize and misunderstand the progressive christian movement like ali
b stuckey who had elisa as a guest my first issue with this interview is that neither woman
grants validity to either this movement or to our personal faith they they fancy themselves humble
when really a lot of times they're just confused and they want people to be confused along
with them i think christianity is going to give you a jesus it's going to give you a god
but it's not a jesus who can save you it's jesus christianity yes sorry progressive christianity
yeah thank you now we're back to the issue i originally had with girl defined where i tried
to express it's not our differences that hurt it's the fact that conservatives tell us we don't know
the real jesus we're not real christians and before we dive dive in let's address
the issue of being kind my interactions generally speaking with atheists and in my interactions with
progressive christians um it's it's much harder to interact with progressive christians because they
they will go so quickly to the mocking and making fun and just sort of brutal just mean
so mean i'm sorry excuse me mrs stuckey you're one of the most unkind conservative voices i know
change the world by posting a black square if you wrap something in sarcasm or condescension it is
still unkind here ali constructed a fake interview where the sole purpose seemed to be making
aoc look like an idiot do you have any knowledge whatsoever about how our political system works
yikes and ally often makes a mockery of things that she frankly doesn't understand or doesn't
want to understand an example of this is in her fake ad where she mocks progressives religious
people are idiots democrats would much rather you sacrifice yourself on the altar of progressivism
obviously people can be mean for the sake of being mean but if you are receiving a lot of cruelty
it's worth checking in and making sure you're not leading with cruelty yourself so so that's against
the rules and you can't sit with us any woman who disagrees with us on this is a self-hating
stupid bimbo you can't stick with us i've talked before about where i've lacked kindness in the
past i am not perfect obviously but i've learned that cruelty shame and mocking drive more division
and hate whereas education and listening to each other is key it's golden it's beautiful and here
comes the hot debate who knows the real jesus i myself have never felt more aligned with jesus
more alive more joyful than i do now as a progressive christian but unlike these
women i will not accuse them of not knowing the same jesus as me i will however accuse lisa of
not really knowing about progressive christianity the first major thing elisa gets wrong is how she
presents progressive doctrine jesus death was a sacrifice that paid the price for our sin that he
was punished in our place and these are all terms in progressive christianity that are rejected and
they'll call that cosmic child abuse lisa i'm a progressive and i do believe in jesus's death
and resurrection so your generalization is incorrect here's the thing and conservatives
may hate this progressives don't have a church or a set of doctrinal beliefs this is a movement you
may find a progressive church but i don't have one and most of the progressives i know don't have one
either we are simply a large community of people realizing the evangelical doctrine we were given
never aligned with our true faith we are the prodigal sons and daughters who had to
stay away from our church homes because when our concerns were brought up to our church families we
were dismissed i watched my lgbtq brothers and sisters get treated like second-class citizens
from whom the church would take their tithes but not allow them to teach or preach or lead or have
equal rights in general if there's one sacrament in progressive christianity it's deconstruction
you go through your deconstruction and that's part of being a progressive christian no this is wrong
elisa the sole reason i speak out is so that we can all share a faith that doesn't have to be
deconstructed for its harmful doctrines i want to restore the church as a safe place for christians
because for too long we have been harboring the abusers and abusing the seekers that said i am
one progressive christian and i can only speak for myself here because the point of progressive
christianity is that we are inclusive and that we honor people on their journeys if you're scared of
eternal damnation it may be scary to hear someone say they don't believe in christ's resurrection
but the point of the progressive space is to allow for those questions because i promise you there
are conservatives in your circle who are asking the same questions but they're not allowed to
speak them out loud and it's honestly just lazy to threaten them with hell and tell them to move on
now y'all listen to how these real life heavy concerns are minimized in this conversation
what you often find in progressive christianity is that the title or the name jesus gets slapped
on whatever cause they they as a person think is worthy environmentalism socioeconomic reform green
energy lgbt inclusion from my view biblically the burden of proof rests on elisa and ali here not me
i can show you where jesus commands us to take care of the poor and needy or what
progressives would call socioeconomic reform and universal health care at the beginning of genesis
god charges us to be good stewards of the earth aka environmentalism and green energy these
political policies are not going to be foolproof they will need to be worked out and we are not
idolizing them like jesus himself but we are reading the bible with our own eyes and seeing
dang these policies really seem to mirror and reflect things that jesus called us to be that god
called us to be in fact you'll hear progressive christians say that i couldn't believe in a god
who and then fill in the blank so essentially whatever i wouldn't do i couldn't serve a god
that would do that so god i'm more moral than god why are you vilifying us for seeing these as areas
of importance and maybe you have a different approach or a different way of getting there
but don't demonize us don't make us sound like the enemy as for lgbtq plus inclusion no we are not
saying we can't believe in a god who is not as moral as us we are reading our own bibles and
seeing that god is good god is love we are made in god's image so when elisa asks us to fill in
fill in the blank i couldn't believe in a god who claims to love us unconditionally but will force
a sexual ethic that causes people to commit that makes no sense to me your christian sister on this
and many subjects the accusation from elisa and ali is that progressive christians live in moral
relativity the whole concept of deconstruction is rooted in post-modern relativism so it's based on
the idea that you know truth can't really be known if objective truth exists none of us have access
to it again progressive christian here and to me it's obvious that objective truth exists to me
that truth is god is divinity and ali is super anti-gray forgotten this you know you're
you're young you shouldn't be so sure of these beliefs you'll realize that the world is messy
that it's gray but if you don't concede that we live in a very complicated and nuanced world
then we might not be living on the same planet the elephant in the room of this
entire conversation is that ali and elisa simply don't like the conclusions that we are coming to
as progressive christians our main main difference is not that you are christians and we are not
the main difference is how we view inclusivity and spiritual abuse and how we are processing the
messy complicated history of our religion unfairly multiple times both women refer to
agnosticism when you deconstruct and you don't have any foundation on which to to build any
kind of faith except for moral relativism you end up in this sea of agnosticism which is the belief
that quote human reason is incapable of providing sufficient rational grounds to justify either the
belief that god exists or the belief that god does not exist which is a blatant misrepresentation of
us again not agnostic we're christian we're simply looking at the elephants of religion
from different angles perhaps i can appreciate that ali and elisa are both clearly devoted to
the faith and spreading what they believed to be the good news but we progressive christians are
asking you to stop making assumptions about us and start talking to us we could learn a lot from each
other we are asking you to listen god is great community in a future video i'd be happy to dive
further into elisa's doctrinal beliefs about progressivism and debunk them or confirm them
because she's got a lot of things right but she's got a lot of things wrong and
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