dunker686

Hi. I'm a progressive Christian minister.

What could we agree on? What type of thing could we work together on? What do you hope for from progressive religious clergy and laity?

Thanks for your thoughts. These are things that a lot of my colleagues and I do now, so we will continue. (esp. pro-socas politicians and the like. A religious government makes me quite uncomfortable.)

As for normalizing atheism, I do my best to make space for non-believers but also for doubt in the life of the faithful. I phrase questions about God not just in terms of what God might be doing but also what God might not be doing. If someone has a "weak" faith, they are just as welcome and hopefully loved as everyone else.

I'm not familiar with the cases you've mentioned, but I'll go look them up.

Edited to add:

I would also ask you to move carefully in the lawsuit re: the IRS. I'm certain you're aware that many (many, many) churches are not the enemy and are actually working hard to help people in various ways.

For example, my church is a poor, country church that supports addiction recovery (AA) groups, runs an emergency cooling center, has an emergency food pantry and things like that. We are able to do that because we keep the rest of our finances really low.

I understand that there are churches that are extremely problematic, but don't forget about the huge chunk of us that are probably in line, socially, with some of your values.

I'm sure you understand how churches, even the ones who are more allied to atheists, hesitate to get behind all of AA's causes. I will always be supportive of atheists and atheist organizations that are not trying to close my doors.