Beth Moore was in my church youth group. A couple of years younger than me. Makes you think.

pre-modern being pre-reformation. 'progressivism' is just the logical conclusion of the reformation, in my opinion: the destruction of hierarchies in favor of radical individualism, resulting in isolation and a loss of coherent identity.

it correctly frames everything from gender problems to destruction of traditional cultures to political movements to erosion of family values... all of it points back to that one commonality.

the reformation was the first move of progressivism. the formation of the USA was absolutely a link in that chain.

Zobel said:

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pre-modern being pre-reformation. 'progressivism' is just the logical conclusion of the reformation, in my opinion: the destruction of hierarchies in favor of radical individualism, resulting in isolation and a loss of coherent identity.

it correctly frames everything from gender problems to destruction of traditional cultures to political movements to erosion of family values... all of it points back to that one commonality.

the reformation was the first move of progressivism. the formation of the USA was absolutely a link in that chain.

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Ah, but doesn't that truly put it right back into a truly political context? Is it not our individualism that lies behind the truly spectacular and lower-case progressed (in the postive sense) aspects of society and potential of the present? Doesn't the even the Reformation bear some connection to the scientific renaissance and freedom of experimentation? Similar with systems of government?

CrackerJackAg said:

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Quick thoughts…

This is not terribly new. It has a ton of young single males coming in since I joined.

I think there are a few factors. I think young men tend to be searching for what makes sense in today's world.

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Sounds like a sausage fest. I'm out.

that's what the self-proclaimed geniuses of the so-called enlightenment would have you believe. in reality it is just anti-christian propaganda. you know yourself that many of the stories we tell about history are over-simplification to the point of fiction (great fun read on that point: here). the medieval period was a lively time of scientific discovery - the same people talking about how an anti-christian return to pagan works was enlightening were the ones who named it the 'dark ages'. nonsense.

there's nothing unchristian about self-governance or even small or local governance. the scriptures do speak against rebellion, schism, and disobedience, though.

This thread reminds me of one of the Screwtape Letters where wormwood talks about the more they can pit Christians against one another the less attention we will give the enemy and ultimately Jesus.

Zobel said:

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that's what the self-proclaimed geniuses of the so-called enlightenment would have you believe. in reality it is just anti-christian propaganda. you know yourself that many of the stories we tell about history are over-simplification to the point of fiction (great fun read on that point: here). the medieval period was a lively time of scientific discovery - the same people talking about how an anti-christian return to pagan works was enlightening were the ones who named it the 'dark ages'. nonsense.

there's nothing unchristian about self-governance or even small or local governance. the scriptures do speak against rebellion, schism, and disobedience, though.

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Oh I *do know* that (the italics). I was more referring to what is directly traceable to America's emphasis on individualism as far as achievements. The balance you are talking about may be a little tricky.

oh, maybe. i dunno. individual freedom - particularly economic freedom - is not necessarily the sole property of a system of individualism. i don't think the roman society fit in to the individualism mold, and they certainly had no trouble making technological advancements.

The Banned said:

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Literacy rates prior to the reformation was sub 20%. It didn't get over 50% for a couple centuries after the reformation, and even that was only in a few countries. In fact, the higher the literacy rate, the more division there becomes in denominations.

This would follow the exact arc you think it would, as the Bible is interpreted by every individual that reads it. We can claim it's super clear all we want, but if that were true, then we should all be arriving at the same place. No different than if the directions we downloaded off the internet back in the Mapquest days were clear, we'd all arrive at the same place. But for some reason we are ending up in totally different states, if not a different country like our Mormon friends.

There is a reason Jesus didn't leave a Bible for everyone to read, but left a group of men to lead the church. I think the current state of Christianity shows why He didn't do that.

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But didn't early church leaders, such as Paul, Luke, Matthew, etc write and send letters to educate, remind, and correct very early church bodies ? Letters to places such as Corinth, Philippi, Ephesus, etc. Or letters of instruction to other early younger church leaders, say Timothy, Titus, etc?

Jesus may not have specifically left a bible but he did leave Holy-Spirit inspired writers that documented his life, words, and actions, and conveyed those teachings to others. And for that reason I dont agree with that in bold.

Biblical teaching is not as easy as say using 'mapquest' given human nature. The Bible is great and the inspired word of God and vastly superior to generational 'groups of men" with word of mouth only teachings, especially given its drift over time. There is also a reason Jesus said he would be followup by the Holy Spirit upon his departure so that those reading and writing the book- aka letters and writing of the apostles, would have council and guidance.

The weak link is not the bible. Its humanity, especially when he fails to follow to God's will. He as proven to mess up about anything over time, see Old Testament. If the Bible wasn't around the church would have disappeared centuries ago. Sorry, I dont agree with your point but maybe I am misunderstanding what you are trying to convey. After all I'm only a tard.

Zobel said:

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If we understand the church as the assembly of God, then that has to extend backward into Israel. St Paul certainly understood it this way. So our collective history doesn't begin in 33 AD, but goes all the way back to the time when Elijah thought he alone remained faithful but God told him that 7,000 had not bent the knee to Ba'al.

But only 7,000 faithful left in the entire northern Kingdom!

At one point it is possible that Arianism was a majority. Certainly those in power have been heretics, resulting in the persecution of the faithful and torture of people like St Maximos the Confessor. When was the last time a Christian clergyman had his tongue ripped out by the president of the US? Or his hand cut off so he could no longer write?

The Islamic rulers of Turkey denied the ability to print or educate clergy - the first Greek printed bible by the Patriarchate of Constantinople didn't happen until the 1904!

The godless communists murdered hundreds of thousands of the faithful and clergymen in Russia a hundred years ago.

These are nothing, nothing. We shouldn't lose hope over this, no matter how insidious it appears. Cultural followers will always be here. Their falling away says nothing about the faithful.

Being counter-cultural is at the heart of Christian history. We should be much more worried if we are comfortable with the cultural zeitgeist.

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It's much easier to rally around outside persecution rather than internal subversion of an existing institution.

OT Israel itself is a good example of internal subversion destroying the religion. Most of the Ancient Israelites are likely in Hell as a result.

My whole point here is that we could rely on previous reference material for the old attacks. Cultural Marxism is brand new and its attacks are new. We have not seen Christianity attacked or subverted in this manner so we have no long theological history to counter it. We may develop one as time goes on but we have clergy in all denominations caving left and right as well as plummeting attendance and adherence rates.

titan said:

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Quote:

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No it hasn't. The church has never faced anything like this. It has never seen a decline in membership like this across the board. It has never seen subversion of this type. Gnosticism and Arianism have nothing on what we are seeing now. Those could be hashed out because the Bible was clear on a lot of those issues. The modern ones are different because these require a level of Biblical understanding no normal Christian could be expected to have to counter. So when some Marxist says you're being mean or lack compassion, many Christians, including clergy, just give in.

You misunderstand me when I say general Christendom. I don't mean some generalized garbage church. I want Catholics to remain Catholic, Baptists to remain Baptists, Lutherans to remain Lutheran, etc. We can hash out our differences later when we're not being attacked by Satanic cultural marxism and when our churches are being burned by the hundreds.

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Ah, you mean far more like the Allies in WW II. Deliberately set-aside, post-pone absolutely real differences in favor of fighting toward a common end of a declared common enemy. A situation where all that is back-burnered maybe is feasible in that style.

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Correct. There is no reason we must all join again but we must set aside our differences to fight the real enemy. We can fight each other later when we crush the modern attacks and the revival has made our nation and people 90% Christian again.

Zobel said:

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pre-modern being pre-reformation. 'progressivism' is just the logical conclusion of the reformation, in my opinion: the destruction of hierarchies in favor of radical individualism, resulting in isolation and a loss of coherent identity.

it correctly frames everything from gender problems to destruction of traditional cultures to political movements to erosion of family values... all of it points back to that one commonality.

the reformation was the first move of progressivism. the formation of the USA was absolutely a link in that chain.

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The Reformation was not the origin of Marxism, get this garbage out of here. Talmudic Judaism is the origin of Marxism. It is basically just secular Talmudic Judaism.

Your second paragraph is the point: Holy Spirit inspired "writers" or "teachers"? Were their oral teachings not inspired? And if they were inspired in their oral teachings, what evidence is there that the situation changed? The Bible certainly doesn't say that.

Which then makes us look at your first paragraph. If these inspired writings are telling these respective churches to follow the leaders that they left in their stead, when did that stop being true? When did we get to start reading it for ourselves and figuring out what we do and do not assent to? And where was it stated that is what we're supposed to do now?

You say the church would cease to exist without the Bible, and it's also true to say the Bible would never existed without the church. It was never meant to be a man and his Bible. It's a good thing when done right, but when done wrong, you get all the denominational splits.

Which leads us to read paragraph 3. It's not easy and it's why Jesus didn't leave it that way. He didn't send to Holy Spirit for writers and readers. Otherwise they wouldn't have taken decades for them to start writing, and even then, mostly to encourage and admonish. He sent the Holy Spirit to inspire the men that became the church. And they passed on their authority to men who passed on their authority, so on and so forth.

And no need for the self deprecating jokes. I don't think you or anyone else here is stupid. When I say unity is what I want but it's hard it's not due to incompetence. It's due to the myriad of different lenses that have been "given out" by different denominations that makes it hard to take a unified view at how we got here.

Aggie97 said:

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This article talks about men are flocking to the Orthodox Church due it be more masculine than their feminist Protestant churches. I am Greek Orthodox who attends an Antichion Church and noticed more single men joining our church.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/01/04/the-young-men-leaving-traditional-churches-for-orthodox/

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The authors do not understand the devotion to Mary mother of Jesus (a women) in both the Orthodox and Roman Cathodic churches...

Nanomachines son said:

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tk111 said:

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Nanomachines son said:

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The Banned said:

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titan said:

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Quote:

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To make it political - I think the dominant form of religion in the US is a heavily-calvinist-influenced protestantism, which has good and bad points to it. But the chief bad about it is that it is the dominant form of religion in the US and in that role it reflects US society more than it influences it. That's why as US society changes, the center of gravity of that religion changes too. Pick a topic... divorce, birth control, homosexuality, even actual politics.

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Fascinating observation. Will not contest it per-se, but you would say calvinist-influenced more than say, Baptist? But your general take especially if talking about earlier period, seems to be onto it.

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Calvinism heavily influences that Baptist church. Once saved always saved was first promulgated by Calvin. Even Luther disagreed with this. Calvinism is at the heart of the SBC, even though it's been semi-hidden. It's why the sudden rise in Reformed doctrine was inevitable.

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Baptists have always gone right up to the Calvinist double predestination line, but rarely crossed over. I consider myself mostly reformed. I flip flop regularly between believing double predestination and not.

With that said, you are 100% correct about Calvinism influencing Baptist churches. It also doesn't help that a lot of the great modern podcasters and a lot of the Christian right discussion online is dominated by reformed people.

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Huh? The Baptist denomination was essentially entirely Calvinist until well into the last century...1689 confession?

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Yes, Dispensationalism wrecked havoc upon the Baptist churches. Thank God that is largely dying out with the Boomers.

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Again, I can only respond with a big "Huh?" because I don't know what dispy has to do with the previous comment, and the overwhelming majority of "non-denominational" churches are dispensational. The old original form of dispensationalism is essentially gone though.

Here are some data about current religious trends in the United States.

https://www.prri.org/research/census-2023-american-religion/

CrackerJackAg said:

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Quick thoughts…

This is not terribly new. It has a ton of young single males coming in since I joined.

I think there are a few factors. I think young men tend to be searching for what makes sense in today's world.

I think there are a lot of young men who "think about Rome" (if you are aware of that viral meme) and come to discover the Church via way of history.

The Church is solid, true and rooted deeply in history.

Protestantism is often led by pastor couples cuddled up on billboards, modern and divisive and logically hard to swallow.

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You only think that because a small fraction of Protestant churches are mega churches and have their "pastor couple" on billboards.

Most Protestant churches are just people who love God and are trying their best to be spirit led and lead people to Christ and then to shepherd them in the path of Jesus.

Hey...so.. um said:

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CrackerJackAg said:

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Quick thoughts…

This is not terribly new. It has a ton of young single males coming in since I joined.

I think there are a few factors. I think young men tend to be searching for what makes sense in today's world.

I think there are a lot of young men who "think about Rome" (if you are aware of that viral meme) and come to discover the Church via way of history.

The Church is solid, true and rooted deeply in history.

Protestantism is often led by pastor couples cuddled up on billboards, modern and divisive and logically hard to swallow.

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You only think that because a small fraction of Protestant churches are mega churches and have their "pastor couple" on billboards.

Most Protestant churches are just people who love God and are trying their best to be spirit led and lead people to Christ and then to shepherd them in the path of Jesus.

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I get that but the mega churches are pretty damn visible. They play an out sized role in shaping American protestant perception.

TheEternalOptimist said:

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All Christians should agree that:

1. Egalitarianism is anti-Christian
2. Abortion is evil in all circumstances and is an inverted sacrament of the enemies of Christ.
3. Homosexuality should have NO QUARTER in the Church at all. Homosexuals must repent and turn away from that sin. Marriage can NEVER be accepted as anything other than one man to one woman.

Anyone who calls themself a Christian and embraces abortion or homosexuality is deceiving themselves and everyone around them.

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What about divorce, adultery and pornography? #4, #5, and #6?

mallen said:

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TheEternalOptimist said:

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All Christians should agree that:

1. Egalitarianism is anti-Christian
2. Abortion is evil in all circumstances and is an inverted sacrament of the enemies of Christ.
3. Homosexuality should have NO QUARTER in the Church at all. Homosexuals must repent and turn away from that sin. Marriage can NEVER be accepted as anything other than one man to one woman.

Anyone who calls themself a Christian and embraces abortion or homosexuality is deceiving themselves and everyone around them.

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What about divorce, adultery and pornography? #4, #5, and #6?

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titan said:

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doubledog said:

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TheEternalOptimist said:

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Aggie97 said:

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This article talks about men are flocking to the Orthodox Church due it be more masculine than their feminist Protestant churches. I am Greek Orthodox who attends an Antichion Church and noticed more single men joining our church.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/news/2025/01/04/the-young-men-leaving-traditional-churches-for-orthodox/

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I am a protestant, but a deeply conservative and liturgical protestant. I am in the CREC... same denomination as Doug Wilson and Pete Hegseth.

I think a lot of critics of Protestantism paint us all with a broad brush.

I have learned to not paint all Catholics and Orthodox with one either.

Those who call upon the name of the triune God, repent of sin, and seek to follow Christ are my brothers and sisters.

May God grow your Church and may God unite all of Christendom together in future years.

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Amen.. The unifying factor for the Christian Church is the Apostle's Creed. Which was first written in 431AD.

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Pretty sure that date is way off as in way too late, and some of the earliest forms are in the 2nd Century. Nicea itself is 325 AD. You seem to be thinking of the Council of Ephesus and the Nestorian controversy definitions.

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431 was the first written acknowledgement of the Creed at the Council of Ephesus. The last modification was about 700AD.

https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3810.htm

So what's your point?

You're conveniently leaving out that Jesus frequently quoted scripture from the Torah- which existed in written form and was part of the Jewish tradition. It's not unreasonable that exercise would continue through the Apostles.

BearJew13 said:

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So what's your point?

You're conveniently leaving out that Jesus frequently quoted scripture from the Torah- which existed in written form and was part of the Jewish tradition. It's not unreasonable that exercise would continue through the Apostles.

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Unreasonable? No. Commanded? Also no. Why should we take something that He might agree could happen over what He did command: go out and take the gospel to all nations. That the Holy Sporit would descend upon the church.

To assume that writings superseded what He actually commands is a personal opinion and not historical.

I'm still not sure what you're getting at. I fail to understand where there is conflict between what was commanded and what was written?

mallen said:

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TheEternalOptimist said:

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All Christians should agree that:

1. Egalitarianism is anti-Christian
2. Abortion is evil in all circumstances and is an inverted sacrament of the enemies of Christ.
3. Homosexuality should have NO QUARTER in the Church at all. Homosexuals must repent and turn away from that sin. Marriage can NEVER be accepted as anything other than one man to one woman.

Anyone who calls themself a Christian and embraces abortion or homosexuality is deceiving themselves and everyone around them.

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What about divorce, adultery and pornography? #4, #5, and #6?

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Agreed on the additions and the original list. Divorce should be left for the following scenarios: physical abuse, adultery. The former is an actual crime by itself and the latter should be. Porn is self explanatory.

This is what I was speaking about earlier. Churches do not take hardlines on any of these issues anymore because our clergy is weak across the board. They are afraid of leftist backlash and the media going at them.

The clergy is more worried about losing access to being called scholars than to push morality as God intended.

Imagine being a young man in most churches nowadays. Women are effectively told they can't sin and and can do as they please and still the men get told to man up and marry a single mother or former wh*re. The single women who aren't these things won't bother looking at the men because of their own pride massively inflating their self worth due to social media.

For men it's this: all of the problems must be solved by you and your only option at leadership is to be a servant leader. That is you get all of the responsibilities but no way to enforce anything while the women get all of the power but are told they have no accountability to their husband.

It's no surprise young men are seeking masculine guidance in the church. The words are all there in the Bible but the clergy is so weak they have abandoned the words of God for Satanic Marxism.

Interestingly enough, young men across the board are now more religious than young women.

BearJew13 said:

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I'm still not sure what you're getting at. I fail to understand where there is conflict between what was commanded and what was written?

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There should be no conflict between the command (go and make believers and to be as one body of Christ) and what was written (a portion of the teachings the apostles used to spread the word). The Bible came from the church to fulfill the mission. The Bible is not a fulfillment of the mission of the church. The church and the Bible. The Bible and the church.

So much respect is given to the Bible (and rightly so) without due respect given for the church that Christ left, and the Spirit leads, that has guided the faithful through a whole host of heresies that we just take for granted today. The Bible didn't solve Arianism, Gnosticism, or any of the others. The Bible in the hands of the Spirit protected church was able to stop each of these.

The problem with sola scriptura is that it elevates one over the other. It take a piece of the church (the Bible), separates it out and is then is told that it can be understood individually, apart from the church. There is no way division doesn't come next, and that's exactly what we've seen the last 500 years. More and more and more division with seemingly no hope of reunification. We won't untie again until if/when God chooses to work the miracles necessary to make it happen.

ETA: I don't mean to come across as hostile to scripture. I'm more than willing to go through what the Bible says, look at how the church fathers explained it, look at what the councils taught and come to an informed conclusion. But what I think it unwise is reading it for ourselves 2000 years later and assuming we can get the totality of revelation

There are some very good discussions in this thread. I am not as talented a writer as I wish I were, so many times I find someone else has already said or written what I would like to write, just better (wasn't it Solomon who said "there is nothing new under the sun?)..

Therefore, I submit the two following recitations. I believe the first (although somewhat dated), describes fairly accurately where we are as a nation and as a church (singular description of church on purpose) The second is an recitation told from the viewpoint of God and not meant to be taken literally as.the person is talking as if he were God.

There have been many points and counterpoints presented in this thread with a few promoting the idea of working against a common enemy - satan. As stated in one post, this is where we should all be able to come together and focus our energies on making sure he has as little presence in our world as possible.I believe if we focus our lives on God and educate others about Him, we would all finally see what has always been taught in the Bible, the teachings before it and the oral traditions spoken of in posts above - a people that worship God, follow his teachings and commandments and live in harmony with Him.

The Banned said:

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mallen said:

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TheEternalOptimist said:

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All Christians should agree that:

1. Egalitarianism is anti-Christian
2. Abortion is evil in all circumstances and is an inverted sacrament of the enemies of Christ.
3. Homosexuality should have NO QUARTER in the Church at all. Homosexuals must repent and turn away from that sin. Marriage can NEVER be accepted as anything other than one man to one woman.

Anyone who calls themself a Christian and embraces abortion or homosexuality is deceiving themselves and everyone around them.

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What about divorce, adultery and pornography? #4, #5, and #6?

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I don't think Optimist's point was to cover the multitude of sins that can and often do occur in the body of churches without discipline - I think he was just refuting the ones that are heavily being touted as acceptable. I dont know of many chruches shouting from the rooftops that divorce, adultery, and porn are great things that should be embraced and celebrated.

On that note, I'd add that biblical church discipline is another aspect completely unheard of by most evangelicals, and sounds horrifying to most of them at first encounter. It has sadly disappeared completely from most churches and the results are evident.

tk111 said:

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On that note, I'd add that biblical church discipline is another aspect completely unheard of by most evangelicals, and sounds horrifying to most of them at first encounter. It has sadly disappeared completely from most churches and the results are evident.

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100%. The act of submission to some other authority is completely against the American way of life.

tk111 said:

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The Banned said:

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mallen said:

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TheEternalOptimist said:

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All Christians should agree that:

1. Egalitarianism is anti-Christian
2. Abortion is evil in all circumstances and is an inverted sacrament of the enemies of Christ.
3. Homosexuality should have NO QUARTER in the Church at all. Homosexuals must repent and turn away from that sin. Marriage can NEVER be accepted as anything other than one man to one woman.

Anyone who calls themself a Christian and embraces abortion or homosexuality is deceiving themselves and everyone around them.

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What about divorce, adultery and pornography? #4, #5, and #6?

---

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I don't think Optimist's point was to cover the multitude of sins that can and often do occur in the body of churches without discipline - I think he was just refuting the ones that are heavily being touted as acceptable. I dont know of many chruches shouting from the rooftops that divorce, adultery, and porn are great things that should be embraced and celebrated.

On that note, I'd add that biblical church discipline is another aspect completely unheard of by most evangelicals, and sounds horrifying to most of them at first encounter. It has sadly disappeared completely from most churches and the results are evident.

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Not sure if you mean as part of the structure of Church or from the perspective of the casual "show up on Christmas and Easter" congregate, but I can attest to that being untrue in a multitude of evangelical churches I have been a part of over a lifetime.

Again, it entirely depends on the individual gathering, no matter the denomination. How serious are the members about being Biblical rather than having their ears tickled or being part of a social club?

At some point the exception proves the rule, though. If the fruits of modern American Christianity are, in general, a lukewarm faith where the majority seem to be a certain way I don't think it's off-base to say that is an indictment of what it is, what it teaches.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If that system produces people who look and behave identically to their neighbors for the 166 hours of the week they're not in church, that's what that system is for. In this case, not being a threat to society, producing orderly people who support the government and don't object to what it does, or cause a lot of trouble about social issues, etc. That is what modern American Christianity is and does.

Zobel said:

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At some point the exception proves the rule, though. If the fruits of modern American Christianity are, in general, a lukewarm faith where the majority seem to be a certain way I don't think it's off-base to say that is an indictment of what it is, what it teaches.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If that system produces people who look and behave identically to their neighbors for the 166 hours of the week they're not in church, that's what that system is for. In this case, not being a threat to society, producing orderly people who support the government and don't object to what it does, or cause a lot of trouble about social issues, etc. That is what modern American Christianity is and does.

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You can call it Lukewarm but by every metric, every denomination in the US is doing better here than they are in any other nation. That is by daily prayer rates, attendance rates, and more the US is higher than any nation in Europe or Latin America.

Further, the lukewarm aspect is a recent thing. Prior to 1960, any person who was a Christian was much more devout than they are now. What we are seeing now is the result of long term demoralization from cultural Marxism subversion and unfortunately the effects of unfettered immigration from non-Christian nations.

It should not shock you that both of the above aspects changing Christianity for the worse here were both pushed heavily by non-Christians. The fault does not lie with the concept of America because Americans were quite devout until we allowed outsiders to change things. We were fine for 200 years.

Zobel said:

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At some point the exception proves the rule, though. If the fruits of modern American Christianity are, in general, a lukewarm faith where the majority seem to be a certain way I don't think it's off-base to say that is an indictment of what it is, what it teaches.

The purpose of a system is what it does. If that system produces people who look and behave identically to their neighbors for the 166 hours of the week they're not in church, that's what that system is for. In this case, not being a threat to society, producing orderly people who support the government and don't object to what it does, or cause a lot of trouble about social issues, etc. That is what modern American Christianity is and does.

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I would cede your point if it were specific to America. This seems to be what happens in any rich society. People allow their economic status be their religion when they have a lot and rely on themselves rather than God because they don't feel like they have to rely on God about the future. It has nothing to do with a split Church.

I'm not arguing with you that Marxism is bad or that we are seeing the results of immigration changing our population and culture. No objection here.

But I think you've misunderstood my argument about America's place in the chain of progressivism. Conservatism is it seeks to conserve what it inherits, Progressivism seeks to change to a better world (in their definition). Since progressivism always has made progress, conservatism's inheritance from generation to generation always moves with progressivism - only at a delay. Today's conservatives are yesterday's progressives.

This is as true with religion (compare a non-denom today to first generation reformers!) as it is with politics (compare today's reality of the US government with the early days of the constitution with regard to suffrage, structure of the federal government, etc) as it is with social issues (compare public opinion on divorce, gay marriage, pornography).

In this paradigm the Reformation was a progressive movement. It sought the better - in their definition - and tore down the old structures of both government and religion to get there. That train runs right through the US. The Boston mob in 1770 or 1773 was much closer to the modern BLM movement than the modern Tea Party.

Its easy for us to point to conservatives and progressives today and correctly label the progressives as bad and pushing too far. It's a bit more difficult to look back and do the same, because yesterday's progressives are much more likely to have values that align with our own.

So... who were the progressives of 1776? or 1517? That's what I'm getting at.

Ok, but to that end, Jesus was super progressive... at the time. You have just chosen a point, hundreds of years later, that is your particular point to plant the flag.