There is a great arrogance in Cultural Warrior arguments. One such argument is a confusion between Christian Progressivism and Christian Realism. In a recent “debate” of the Sea of Faith in Australia, my attempt to defend Christian Progressivism was meet with an arrogant dismissal. I cite Steven Higson in fairness, and hold no disregard to him personally. I just wish to kill the arrogant stupidity of cultural warfare. The dismissal was:
“There’s the prize chicken of the intellectuals, Fukuyama. His prognostications failed. So much for the value of the intellect.”
I pointed out that Fukuyama had to nothing do with the point being debated on Progressive Christianity ? It was only a ploy to distract. And an ad hominin argument where the logic fails. It was then said, Fukuyama is the arch progressive. This is where I pick up the point:
Steven Higson, Fukuyama is well known as not being a “progressive” in the sense being debated, in your attack on Steve Schuh. Fukuyama was well outside of the progressive historian grouping in the semantics of Progressive Christianity. The Progressive historians were a group of 20th century historians of the United States associated with a historiographical tradition that embraced an economic interpretation of American history.
Fukuyama alignment with this economic historiographic grouping was to do with Fukuyama arguing that the worldwide spread of liberal democracies and Western free-market capitalism may represent the final step in humanity’s sociocultural evolution and political struggle, alongside becoming the final form of human government. This is not the position of Christian Progressivism, which has more in common with its arch-binary, Christian Realism, than the school of progressive economic historiography.
Christian realism is a political theology in the Christian tradition. It is built on three biblical presumptions: the sinfulness of humanity, the freedom of humanity, and the validity and seriousness of the Great Commandment. The key political concepts of Christian realism are balance of power and political responsibility. There are no distinctions here with Christian Progressivism, except that the sinfulness of humanity is more liberal than the Niebuhr brothers would argue.
Of course, there are no entries on Christian Progressivism in Wikipedia, a strange omission, but the distinctions can be told with other entries. Progressivism generally holds universal application of reform which says to benefits ‘others’. It is evangelical, aiming to promote this concept globally as a mass movement. Economic progressivism or fiscal progressivism is a political and economic philosophy incorporating the socioeconomic principles of social democrats. The two positions are not necessarily align, even as they are not necessarily opposing. I will add one other positioning. Progressive education, or educational progressivism, is a pedagogical movement that began in the late 19th century and has persisted in various forms to the present. It includes the New Education Movement of the early and mid-twentieth century. Its common qualities are (and were):
- Emphasis on learning by doing – hands-on projects, expeditionary learning, experiential learning;
- Integrated curriculum focused on thematic units;
- Strong emphasis on problem solving and critical thinking;
- Group work and development of social skills;
- Understanding and action as the goals of learning as opposed to rote knowledge;
- Collaborative and cooperative learning projects;
- Education for social responsibility and democracy;
- Integration of community service and service-learning projects into the daily curriculum;
- Selection of subject content by looking forward to asking what skills will be needed in future society;
- De-emphasis on textbooks in favour of varied learning resources;
- Emphasis on lifelong learning and social skills;
- Assessment by evaluation of projects and productions.
Hence what educational progressivism says is we don’t open our mouth until we understand the details of what is being debated. If we open our mouth, it is to ask questions.
Featured Image: The arrogant stupidity of cultural warfare…
Neville Buch
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