Jesus's spokeswoman

I gave a lecture at a conference on fundamentalism on Friday, my topic was ‘progressive christianity.’ I was scheduled for Sunday, but received a call a few hours before the conference began, asking if I could switch my time. I did and then hurriedly prepared my lecture (yes, procrastination is bad.) I spoke about Jesus’s messages of love and justice and nonviolent resistance to authority and how those are ignored and perverted by the religious right. I spoke about MLK Jr. and Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero. I don’t consider myself a believer in a divine Jesus, (although I am a fan of him as a social theorist/revolutionary, no more divine than the rest of us) so it was strange to be presenting Jesus, praising his messages to a secular audience. It went well and people had many questions, most of which I was able to answer.

One of the questions asked if there were progressive Christians in Europe. I couldn’t think of any right away – I still can’t. I said that centuries ago most European Christian dissidents – of any sort – were persecuted in their home countries and many of them emigrated to the US. It’s strange to think that centuries-old persecution has left Europe without any progressive religious voices, but that appears to be the case. All the progressive Europeans that I know are secular – all of the ones I know in Belgrade are proud nonreligious atheists.