by Simon Cross, a minister in the United Reformed Church, a writer, and the chair of the Progressive Christianity Network
[reprinted with permission from http://simonjcross.substack.com/]
Progressive Christianity has done much to reframe theology – challenging exclusion, reimagining scripture, and putting justice issues at the centre of our worship. But in the enthusiasm to move away from conservatism, we’ve often neglected to reconstruct a compelling case for why church still matters.
The consequences are striking. Churches that champion progressive theology are shrinking, not because their message lacks depth, but because their communal purpose is unclear. This has various knock-on effects: visible Christianity becomes limited to its more conservative expressions, new leaders are not nurtured, people are cut adrift from supportive communities.
For centuries now, we’ve critiqued doctrine, questioned hierarchy, and sought to dismantle harmful traditions. But we’ve not always articulated what church is for. Why gather? Why commit? Why return week after week to a community that is imperfect, slow-moving, and sometimes exhausting?
The hard truth is that if we don’t make the case for church, others will. And often, they’ll make it in ways that reinforce conformity, control, or nostalgia. If we, as progressive Christians, believe in a gospel of liberation, then we must also believe in the power of, and need for communities which embody that liberation – not just in theory, but in practice.
Church as a School of Compassion
Church, through a progressive lens, is not just a place to hear sermons, sing hymns or mumble prayers. It’s a dynamic, open space where we learn, together, to be compassionate. Not in abstract terms, but in the messy, embodied reality of shared life. It’s a place where we learn to sit with grief that isn’t ours. We learn to celebrate joy that doesn’t benefit us. We learn what it means to forgive, and to listen.
This vision of church is profoundly counter-cultural. While contemporary culture prizes individualism and efficiency, wealth and success, church offers a counter-formative rhythm. It slows us down. It asks us to notice. It invites us into relationships that aren’t transactional – or at least aren’t as transactional. Over time, it shapes us into people who can look beyond ourselves.
Church as a Place of Ritual
Progressive Christians often shy away from ritual, fearing it will become empty or oppressive. But in my own life, and my own experience of ministry, I have come to recognise that rituals are not the enemy. They are, in some ways, the scaffolding of meaning. (Don’t believe me? Read Ritual by Dimitris Xygalatas).
In church, we enact rituals of restoration and renewal: communion being the most obvious one. Moments when we stop – recentre, renew. We also enact rituals of resistance – the most notable of which is baptism. In my tradition these two rituals are called ‘sacraments’ – for good reason.
These rituals remind us who we are and who we’re becoming. They connect us to generations before us and to movements beyond us. They give shape to our longings and language to our hope.
Church as a Community of Resistance
Sometimes when I go into a church I find, in effect, a living history museum. A place where a group find comfort. But if church is only a place of comfort, it will not survive.
At its best, church becomes a community of resistance. A place where we can come together, partly for comfort perhaps, but also to find a way to fight against injustice, against despair, against isolation. The earliest Christians gathered for this reason – they shared resources, they dismantled hierarchies, they cared for each other.
Progressive churches have the theological tools to be communities of resistance. We speak of inclusion, of equity, of ecological care. But we must also embody these values in our structures, our budgets, our liturgies, and our relationships. Resistance is not just what we preach – it’s how we live together.
Making the Case
So how do we make the case for church?
Perhaps we start by telling the truth, to ourselves and to one another: church is hard. It’s slow. It’s full of people who disappoint us. But it’s also one of the few places where we commit to one another not because we agree with each other (we don’t), but because we belong.
Then maybe we tell stories – stories of meals shared, of burdens carried, of prayers whispered in hospital rooms. We name the ways that church has saved us by being present to us.
We invite people not to consume church, but to co-create it. To bring their gifts, their questions, their wounds. To help shape a community that reflects the gospel we believe in.
And we remind ourselves that church is not a building or a brand. It’s a practice. A discipline. A way of being in the world that says: we are not alone, and we are not powerless.
Mostly, though, we simply need to understand the case for church in ourselves – we need to internalise it. We need to recognise that ‘this’ is why its worth being part of.
A Progressive Future
If progressive Christianity is to thrive, it must reclaim church. It must cultivate it, and tend to it. We must actively make the case for gathering together, and we must ensure our spaces are such that genuine discipleship can happen in them. We can’t really afford to just keep going through the motions.
Church can be a place where justice is not just preached, but practised. Where compassion is not just felt, but formed. Where resistance is not just imagined, but enacted. We all know it – just as we know it can be the opposite. We need to make the case for church.
Usually things start to settle down in the week before General Synod meets. The agenda is out, Questions are submitted and the written answers awaited, and people read through the various papers and start to think about whether they have something they’d like to contribute to the debates.