However, over time, PCU began to recognize that reform was simply insufficient. The problems were worse than most liberal churches imagined. We wrote a great book on this dilemma, called Resistance: The New Role of Progressive Christians. What was required was not so much reform as revolution. There were several key areas where we needed more radical changes: consumerism, poisonous inequality, American imperialism, scientism, and global warming. These were (and are) problems that couldn't be tinkered with around the edges. We needed a genuine overturning of values and practices.
They noticed just one small problem: churches that care deeply about the most urgent problems of our world do not have the power to impose changes. We can't simply wait for the day of revolution, so what are we to do? Their answer: this is when resistance is most needed. We live out an alternative witness to the most critical issues of the day, even when we know that we don't have the power to stop them. When there are real opportunities for changes, push hard, but in the meantime, organize people around alternative ways of embodying Jesus' way of compassion and justice.
Some have lamented that the vast majority of Christian congregations in the United States have at least a de facto complicity or acquiescence to colonizing Empire (economically, ecologically, militarily), if not an outright celebration. It's hard finding institutional religious groups that are clearly reflecting such resistance on a daily basis.
While we got the theory right, we haven't been as successful at engaging communities to fully embody this alternative. Maybe it scares people. Maybe talk is easy and resistance is hard. But I'm proud to be part of an organization that has its values oriented in the right direction. And I intend to push for us to live this out: resisting evil, encouraging reform at opportune times, and embodying the revolution day-by-day.
Resisting in hope for something better,
Timothy Murphy
Executive Director