The progressive agenda

We live in a context where many people and ideas claim to be “progressive." Think about it for a moment: the essential point of claiming to be progressive is that one owns the future, that the future is progressing toward the position I hold... various positions claim to be progressive, which is another way fo saying, "I own the future on this issue."

Yet in view of changing cultures and times, one could begin to have serious doubts about whether we have any sense at all of wht it means to be progressive. My generation, Generation X, was told that the future belongs to us. Younger generations are told the same thing. But of course, that's not really true since every generation has generation following it. Things that seemed progressive to my generation are likely to seem retrograde to the next. At various points in recent history, practices like eugenics and racial segregation where championed as progressive. The fact that they no longer seem progressive to us just shows how much the future isout of our grasp.

However, the question of who owns the future is one that scripture specifically addresses. Revelation 1:8 reads, "'I am the alpha and the Omega,' says the Lord god, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty." Then in the final chapter of Revelation, Jesus Christ himself says, "'I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end'" (22:13). This statement means not just the Jesus was at the beginning and the end, but that Jesus Christ "i the origin and the goal of all history." [Bauckham] Jesus is the Lord of history throughout, even to its end, which is our future.

Thus, although we cannot state with great confidence a public policy that will be truly progressive in ten of fifty years, we can state with great confidence soething about the future: it is heading toward Jesus Christ, as Lord of all.

(pp.32-33, J Todd. Billings, Union with Christ: Reframing Theology and Ministry for the Church)